Likkutei Amarim Chapter 21 · 5781

00:00 Speaker 1 Ah, the coffee is ready—that’s important. Today we’ll learn chapter 21. We said—we began discussing how, in order to serve Hashem and make it easier for us to keep all the mitzvos, we need to develop a feeling of love for Hashem. If we love Hakadosh Boruch Hu, we’ll want to do everything He says, and we’ll naturally keep all the mitzvos. If we stand in awe of Him, if we feel fear, we naturally won’t commit any transgressions. So the simple, easy, direct way to do this is for the mind to rule the heart. A Jew—a person—contemplates Hashem’s greatness, and as the Rambam writes, he is immediately filled with love and awe. Through contemplating Hashem’s greatness, he’ll naturally begin to love Hashem and stand in awe of Him, and he’ll keep all the mitzvos. That’s what the Alter Rebbe explained in chapters 16 and 17. But we were left with a question: What does that mean for me if I don’t know what to contemplate? My understanding is limited; I haven’t had the opportunity. I wasn’t born into a religious home, or they didn’t teach me in school how to contemplate. I don’t know what to contemplate, how to contemplate, what to think about, or how long to think about it. And even when I try to think about something, my mind doesn’t hold on to it. Even when I do understand something, my heart—I also live in the seventh generation, in the generation of ikvesa d’Meshicha—and my heart is more like the sole of a shoe than a heart of flesh. It doesn’t feel anything. It has no love or awe, so all that contemplation doesn’t help. The Alter Rebbe says: That’s true.

01:52 Speaker 1 There is such a situation, where a Jew cannot serve Hashem in the usual way, through the mind ruling the heart. For someone whose understanding is limited, the simple, easy, direct way really isn’t available to him. He can’t do it; it isn’t realistic for him. Therefore, the Alter Rebbe says, since the Torah nevertheless says, “The matter is very close to you,” and the Torah says this to every Jew, there must be another way to serve Hashem. There must be another way to awaken love and awe in the heart—not through contemplation, not through the mind ruling the heart. How do we do it? The Alter Rebbe says: Let’s explain that now. He devotes eight chapters to it, from chapter 18 through chapter 25: how even a Jew whose understanding is limited can serve Hashem with love and awe. What is the central idea? He begins in the first two chapters, 18 and 19, by explaining that, since we are Jews, every Jew is born with a soul. What is a soul? A soul is a kind of being that loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He explained this at great length. What is a soul? You look at a soul and you see someone who loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You see a candle flame constantly flickering, yearning and seeking only to shine and cleave to its source. The entire essence of the soul is love of Hashem. If that soul becomes revealed within me, I won’t need to contemplate anything or stir up any love or awe in myself. The moment the soul shines and becomes revealed within me, I naturally love Hashem and stand in awe of Him. I’ll keep all the mitzvos, and nothing else will interest me. So how do we bring that hidden love to light? How

03:53 Speaker 1 do we reveal it in the soul? First, we need to get to know it, to know what we’re looking for. So he devoted chapters 18 and 19 to introducing us to the G-dly soul, the one that loves Hashem. Now that we’ve met it, we need to find out how to make it shine, how to stir it, how to reveal it, how to draw it into the body so that I feel it in my mind and in my emotions. Just having a soul without being aware of it at all doesn’t help me. I need it to reveal itself within me. How do I reveal it? The Alter Rebbe says: I’ll explain later how to reveal the soul, but first we need to understand what Hashem’s oneness is, and what idolatry is. It comes as a bit of a bombshell. He doesn’t explain why. Let’s set aside for a moment the subject of the soul, love of Hashem, and how to serve Hashem. Let’s explain Hashem’s oneness and idolatry. Once we’ve explained those two subjects, we’ll come back to how we use the concepts of Hashem’s oneness and idolatry to reveal that hidden love, that G-dly soul within me. So in the previous chapter, we began to understand what Hashem’s oneness means. Hashem’s oneness is the first part. The Alter Rebbe explains it over two chapters. In the first chapter, which we learned last week, he explained what Hashem’s oneness means. What was the central point? Hashem’s oneness is not what everyone mistakenly thinks it is. People think the mitzvah to believe that Hashem is one means that the nations of the world believe in various gods—they have, I don’t know, a sea god and a water god and so on. Christianity has the father, the son, and the spirit. Different nations have various gods. But not us. We know there is

06:03 Speaker 1 only one G-d in heaven. That’s what people think. The Alter Rebbe says in the chapter we learned last week that this is not correct. It’s a mistake—a major, serious mistake. When a Jew is commanded to believe that Hashem is one, the mitzvah is not to believe that there is no other G-d. That’s not the mitzvah. The mitzvah is to believe that “there is nothing besides Him”—there is no existence apart from Him. What does that mean? Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu was alone before He created the world, so too, after He created the world, He is still alone; there is still nothing else. That is the meaning of “Hashem is one.” It doesn’t mean that there is no other G-d. “Hashem is one” means there is nothing else. There is no existence apart from Him. What does that mean? What do you mean there is no existence apart from Him? I see a world. I see people, elephants, the sun and stars. I see a world. What do you mean there is no other existence? So he explained that the entire existence of all created beings, physical and spiritual, is Hashem’s word. The existence of all the beings in the world is not something in addition to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Rather, the world is created—it comes into existence in practice—solely through Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech, compared to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, is utterly insignificant. He explained this at length. With us, a single word we say is utterly insignificant compared to the whole soul that speaks. The soul’s power of speech is utterly insignificant compared to thought; thought is utterly insignificant compared to the emotions; and they are utterly insignificant compared to the soul’s faculty of intellect itself, and so on and so forth. So if, in a human being, one word I say is utterly insignificant compared to something that is itself insignificant compared to something else, and so on, relative to the soul itself, then how much more so

08:20 Speaker 1 regarding Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Torah tells us that He created the entire world through speech. That means the world has no standing, no significance; it is simply nothing compared to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So even after He created it, what did He create? He created something that is nothing. He created something with no standing, something with no significance. Therefore, after it was created, things are as they were before it was created. That is the meaning of Hashem’s oneness: “There is nothing besides Him.” That’s what he explains in the first chapter, and at the end of last week’s class we asked: Wait a moment—what sort of answer is that? Something is missing from this answer. We explain that Hashem is one because the world is utterly insignificant compared to Him. Fine, compared to Him it’s insignificant. But if, for a moment, I’m not looking at Hakadosh Boruch Hu—I don’t see Hakadosh Boruch Hu, I don’t feel G-dliness. Let’s be honest: none of us here has seen Hakadosh Boruch Hu, spoken with Him, smelled Him, or knows what that would be like. We don’t feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So we’re utterly insignificant compared to Him—well, good for Him. But I do see the world. To me, the world is real. What sort of answer is it to tell me that “Hashem is one” means “there is nothing besides Him,” because the world is utterly insignificant compared to Him? Who’s talking about compared to Him? Do I feel Him? I feel myself. I don’t feel utterly insignificant. I very much feel that I exist. I want things, I think, and I understand. And if someone says something to me, I get insulted and hurt, I want respect, and I’m short of money.

10:16 Speaker 1 I want children, and I want this and I want that. So you ask: What does it mean to say that I am nothing at all? I don’t feel like nothing at all. I feel very real. I weigh so many kilos, I’m a mixture of things, and so on. The Rebbe comes to answer that question in the second chapter on the oneness of Hashem, chapter 21. He explains that the world not only has no importance or significance in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it has no existence of its own. It isn’t a true existence either. Let’s look inside. Chapter 21, down there on line seventeen: “The way of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not like the way of flesh and blood.” In general, it’s true that “from my flesh I behold G-d.” When we want to understand how things work above, in the higher worlds, we take an analogy from the physical body, and there’s a good reason for that too, but this isn’t the place for it. Still, it’s clear that it’s only an analogy, only a likeness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not a human being; He has no body. When we speak about Hakadosh Boruch Hu in terms of an analogy—“Hashem’s nose,” “Hashem’s anger flared”—what, does Hakadosh Boruch Hu have a nose? Does He get angry? There’s a verse, “The eyes of Hashem range to and fro.” Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu have eyes? Do they come out of their sockets and wander around the worlds? And how does the verse go? “The hand of Hashem prevailed.” Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu have hands? Does He throw swords? Clearly, these are all only analogies. The way of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not like the way of flesh and blood. It’s only an analogy, and there must be an enormous difference between the analogy and what it represents. In the previous chapter, how did we explain that Hashem is one? We took an analogy from speech. Right? So why did we have a question at the end? Because although the world has no value

12:22 Speaker 1 or significance, it still exists. Where did that question come from? From the analogy. Yes. We said that speech has no significance compared to the person, but he does speak. Speech does exist. That’s where the question came from. Hold on—you’re forgetting that it’s only an analogy. It isn’t the thing itself. There’s a big difference between the analogy and what it represents. What is the difference? When a person speaks—says a word, a sentence—the breath of speech in his mouth is perceptible. A person senses the speech, that there’s something physical here, “and it appears to be something in its own right, separate from its source, which is the ten faculties of the soul itself.” I want to spend a little more time on this, because it’s a fundamental point, one we need to understand. Chassidus explains in many places that speech, compared to the soul, is actually inanimate. It isn’t just physical; it’s inanimate. What does inanimate mean? I’m speaking, so I’m alive. I myself am there within it... All my intellect, thought, and emotion are in the speech. Why do you say it’s separate? I’m speaking, and I’m the one who said it. Right? Why say that speech is a separate thing? This is explained in a number of ways, with various analogies. For example, there’s an idea, an intellectual concept, that one person explains to a friend. If someone else were to explain that very same idea, he’d explain it in completely different words. Right? Two people will each explain the same idea in different words and in a different style, but it’s the same idea. That means the speech isn’t inherent to the idea, to the intellect. The fact that there’s a particular idea or concept doesn’t require it to be expressed in precisely these words. It can also be expressed in other words. More than that, the very same idea can be said in a different language altogether. So speech itself has no connection to the intellect and emotion.

14:55 Speaker 1 More than that, if a person... None of us would think of explaining something to an elephant, because I know it won’t understand. Why would I speak to... There’s a saying, “Speak to the trees and the stones.” Why would you speak to trees? You know they don’t understand a thing. Why speak to them? Right? What’s the difference? If intellect—let me put it this way—if speech comes from intellect and is connected to intellect, then anyone who hears the speech should receive the idea. That’s how it ought to work. Right? Again, if intellect and speech are two stages of the same thing, then I take an idea and put it into speech, and then I take that speech and bring it to someone else who hears it. So the idea should enter along with the speech, right? Then what difference does it make whether the listener is a person, an adult, or an elephant? If it heard the words, why doesn’t it understand? After all, my idea is inside the letters of the speech. Why doesn’t it understand? The reason is that speech really is completely separate. Speech in itself is inanimate. Speech isn’t part of the soul; it’s a garment, completely separate. We’re trying to explain this now, but really everyone knows it even without thinking it through and defining it so neatly. Everyone knows that speech... Everyone feels that speech isn’t part of them. When I want to speak, I myself want to explain something, to talk. So I say the same thing one way at one time and another way at another time. The speech isn’t me. I express myself... Speech is a kind of tool through which I express

17:05 Speaker 1 my intellect, emotion, and thought. But the speech itself isn’t me; speech in itself is completely separate. Is that clear? And what about the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? This is where he says the difference lies between human speech and Hashem’s speech: “But Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech is not separate from Him, heaven forbid, for there is nothing outside of Him, and ‘there is no place devoid of Him.’ Therefore His speech is not like our speech, heaven forbid.” So what does it mean when our Sages said that His speech is not like our speech and His thoughts are not like our thoughts? Why... Sorry, we’ll get to the why later. There’s an enormous difference between human speech and the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When a person speaks, the speech isn’t him at all. True, the speech contains his intellect and emotion, but the speech itself isn’t me. It’s something else; it’s only a tool, only a garment. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it isn’t like that. The speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is He Himself. We said in the previous lesson that it’s almost funny to call the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu “speech.” It’s a flow of G-dly energy that we call speech. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has no mouth, no vocal cords. We call that G-dly energy which creates the world “speech.” So wait a moment. If that G-dly energy which creates the world is not actually separate from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but is truly united with Him—it is He Himself—then why do you call it speech? Why use speech as the analogy? Call it thought. A person’s thought is united with the person. As long as he’s alive, he can’t stop thinking. So call that G-dly power which creates the world, which brings the world into existence from nothing, “thought.”

19:33 Speaker 1 Then the Torah would say, instead of “The world was created through ten utterances,” “The world was created through ten thoughts.” Why does the Torah call it speech at all? It isn’t speech. The nature of speech is that it is separate. The Divine power that brings the world into being is not separate; it is one with Him. Is the question clear? He says in parentheses: “Just as His thought is not like our thought, as it is written, ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts,’ and it is written, ‘For My ways are higher than your ways.’” Those are two adjacent verses in the book of Yeshayahu. So why call it speech at all? He answers: His speech is called “speech” only by way of analogy. Just as a person’s speech reveals to listeners what was hidden and concealed in his thoughts. In other words, our speech has two aspects. When a person says something, on the one hand it is separate from the person; on the other hand, through speech we reveal to someone else what we think and feel. Right? Yes or no? So when we speak, there are two aspects here, two details. One: speech reveals my thoughts to listeners. Two: it is separate from me. The author of the Tanya says: Why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech called speech? Not because it is separate, but because of the other aspect of speech. Why is the Divine power that creates the world called speech? Because it is the power that reveals G-dliness. Our speech also has another aspect: it is separate. That does not apply here; this is only an analogy. The Divine power is not separate. All right, a person’s speech reveals to listeners what was hidden and concealed in his thoughts. Similarly, Above, with the Ein Sof, blessed be He, the emergence of light and life-force from Him, from concealment into revelation, to create worlds and give them life, is called speech. It reveals G-dliness in order to create, to create beings. These are the ten utterances through which the world was created. And it is not only the Divine power that brings the worlds

22:02 Speaker 1 from nothing into existence, but also all the rest of the Torah, Nevi’im and Kesuvim. After all, at the beginning of the Torah, in Parshas Bereishis, there are ten utterances—“Let there be light,” “Let there be a firmament,” and so on—with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world. That is the Divine speech that creates the world. What about all the rest of the Torah, Nevi’im and Kesuvim? Didn’t Hakadosh Boruch Hu say that too? Clearly, that is Divine speech as well. So what kind of Divine speech is it if it doesn’t create the world? If it is a Divine power that reveals G-dliness to create the world, I understand why it is called speech. But why are the rest of the Torah, Nevi’im and Kesuvim called speech? Why are they called the words of Hashem? Because they too reveal G-dliness. It is not revealed by creating something; it reveals Hashem’s secrets to the prophets. So the entire Torah—Torah, Nevi’im and Kesuvim, with the books of the prophets containing their prophecies—is the word of Hashem. Within the word of Hashem itself there are several forms, several kinds. There is a word of Hashem that only reveals higher secrets. There is a word of Hashem that reveals Hashem’s will—the mitzvos. And there is a word of Hashem that actually creates the worlds. So the entire Torah consists of the words of Hashem. The Divine power that reveals G-dliness in the world therefore takes many forms. All of it is called speech, even though it is not separate and is completely united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Good. Up to this point he has explained the difference between human speech, which both separates and reveals, and Divine speech, which only reveals and is not separate. What does it mean that it is not separate? Then what exactly does it reveal, and to whom? We will see that in the next section. “For the speech and thought, so to speak, of Hakadosh Boruch

24:11 Speaker 1 Hu are united with Him in absolute unity.” By way of analogy. How? For this too he brings an analogy, and here too the analogy comes from speech. “Like a person’s speech and thought while they are still latent in the potential of his wisdom and intellect, or in the desire and longing in his heart, before they rise from the heart to the mind to be contemplated in the form of letters.” In the previous chapter we learned the order in which this happens in a person: when thinking in letters, thinking in words, first comes into being. We said that there is something a person knows to be good or not good; he knows what it is. But right now he is not thinking about it. It is not in his mind. Last week we discussed the sequence: when does thought arise in our minds? When does the process begin—the process of thinking with words, with speech, as though we were talking to ourselves? When does that begin? We said there is something our soul recognizes as good or not good, but in practice I am not contemplating it or thinking about it. Let’s go over it again briefly. Then there is the stage when something draws my attention to it. I saw it; I heard about it. Suddenly that thing enters my mind. If it is something I already know to be good, the moment it enters my awareness it immediately goes straight down to the heart. I don’t need to contemplate it for that to happen. It is something my soul has always known. It was born with the disposition to love that thing. So the moment it enters my mind, it goes straight down to the heart without any hindrance or delay, and the heart begins to want it, to desire that thing. Once the heart desires it, we said that all the organs are connected to one another. So

26:15 Speaker 1 the heart—how is it going to get what it wants? The heart knows that to get something, you have to plan how to do it. Planning is not its department. So the heart starts sending messages again. They rise from the heart to the mind: “There’s something we need to get together, and you need to help me do it.” Then the mind starts: “Oh! Yes, that really is something good. It’s excellent. I know it’s good; now we really want it.” And it begins to think about how to get that thing; thoughts start arising in it. Only at this stage does orderly thought, with words, letters and speech, first arise in a person. Before that, he simply knows that thing, has a basic awareness that it is good, or feels a desire for it in his heart. But letters in the form of speech appear only at the very last stage, right at the end. How does it work with Hakadosh Boruch Hu? With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Alter Rebbe says here in the two or three lines we read, it is completely different. The speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, so to speak, like our speech before we have even begun to think about thinking. Before desire has arisen in the heart, even before we have seen the thing. Speech as it exists at its source, as it exists for us at its very first source: I have the ability to speak, the ability to think. The actual speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is like a person’s speech while it is still latent in the potential of his wisdom, or in the desire in his heart before he has begun to think. It is united with Him in absolute unity. Like right now, I am thinking about how to explain the Tanya. Yes. Before the class, I thought about how I would explain it, how we would arrange the ideas. And before that, yesterday or the day before, or a week ago, although I had learned the subject and knew it in general, but

28:24 Speaker 1 All these thoughts, words, and reflections that I’m expressing now—where were they a week ago? If I’m saying them now, they’re coming out of me, so they must have been somewhere. Where were they before? They were included somewhere, united completely with the essence of the soul, and had no independent existence at all. That’s what Hashem’s speech, with which He creates the worlds, is like. It isn’t like our speech, which becomes separate from the soul. It’s like our speech before it had any existence as speech at all. In line eighteen: “From there, they are drawn into desire and longing in the heart, and there they are united in absolute unity with their source, which is the wisdom and intellect in the mind and the desire and longing in the heart.” In exactly the same way, by analogy, Hashem’s speech and thought are united in absolute unity with His essence and being, even after His speech has actually come forth in the creation of the worlds, just as it was united with Him before the creation of the worlds. It is truly wondrous. Hashem—that very Divine power that is now actually creating us, bringing us into being, giving us life and sustaining us, that is revealed to the prophets in their prophetic visions, and that is the delight of the tzaddikim in Gan Eden, and so on. Even after all the worlds have actually been created, that power is still united with its source and root, like a person’s words before he has even thought that he would ever speak about this. So there’s an enormous difference between—well, a difference: it isn’t the same kind of speech. And there, in line five: “And there is no change at all before Him, may He be blessed.” Before He spoke and after He spoke—what’s the difference? Think about the difference for us, just with the words I’m speaking now. Yes. What’s the difference between not speaking and speaking—as we’re speaking about this subject here and now? Yes, these words were included in thought, in the essence of the soul, a week ago. What’s the difference between a week ago and two weeks ago? There’s

31:05 Speaker 1 no difference at all. Just as they were included in the essence of the soul a week ago, they were included in the essence of the soul two weeks ago. No difference at all. So for Hashem, after He created the world is like before He created the world. There really is no difference. It’s not just that there’s “no difference” in the sense we meant in the previous chapter. What did we say in the previous chapter? That the worlds have no significance, no importance. Why? Because they’re only speech. All right, but speech is still a reality; it becomes separate. No, no, no, no, no. Hashem’s speech isn’t like ours. It doesn’t become separate even after He has created the world, after He has actually spoken. It’s exactly like before He spoke. Why? Because His actual speech is included in His very essence and being. That’s why “You are He before the world was created”—and also after the world was created, there is no difference at all. So if that’s the true reality, what conclusion should everyone be shouting? And when you explain this point, suddenly everyone protests: “Wait, so is everything imaginary?” Right? If there’s no difference between before the world was created and after the world was created—if in truth there’s no difference—then, then, then there is no world.

32:42 Speaker 2 It was revealed.

32:44 Speaker 1 So what’s really going on here? On the one hand, I feel that I exist. And it’s not just that I feel it: Hashem has given me instructions; He has commanded me. This you may do, and this you may not do. In other words, Hashem relates to what’s here... This isn’t a game. There is a reality here. On the other hand, there is no reality here and no difference. How do these fit together? “There is no change at all before Him, may He be blessed.” So where is there a change? For the created beings—the recipients who receive their life from His speech, from the stage at which it has already come forth in the creation of the worlds and is enclothed in them to give them life. And how does that speech become enclothed in created beings to give them life? Through hishtalshelus, a chain of descent. What does that mean? From cause to effect. What does that mean? Something like cause and effect. Right.

33:47 Speaker 2 A cause.

33:48 Speaker 1 Yes. This kind of cause and effect is more direct than what we usually mean by “cause and effect.” An ordinary cause doesn’t necessarily produce the result, right? I submitted a request to the mayor to approve a new kindergarten, and as a result he either approved it or didn’t. My request was a cause, but it didn’t make the outcome inevitable. With this more direct kind of cause and effect, you turn over an hourglass and the sand starts falling. Yes, that’s cause and effect, but the effect follows necessarily. They’re more closely connected. Besides that, there is also a descent through levels, with many different kinds of tzimtzumim. Broadly speaking, there are several kinds of tzimtzum. There’s one where you want to grasp something big, but you can’t understand the whole subject. All right, let’s learn at least part of it. That’s one kind of tzimtzum. I really don’t know the rest; I’ve understood only that one point. There’s another kind of tzimtzum: you know, this subject is too complicated, too deep. Let’s make a summary. I can understand the summary, the essence, the point. Right? That too is a kind of descent. And there’s a way of summarizing that’s just the opposite: Listen, understanding this subject in depth is beyond me. Let’s break it down into small sections: this, this, and this. I really can’t grasp the whole subject, its central point, what’s going on here. But each detail on its own—I can understand that. And so on. There are many kinds of tzimtzumim and different forms of drawing down within the intellect, and likewise with emotions, with spirituality, and with G-dliness. The Divine light descends through cause and effect, through many tzimtzumim—and not only many, but of many different kinds—until created beings can receive their life and existence from it without losing their sense of independent existence. Because if the Divine light were revealed as it is, there really would be no

36:11 Speaker 1 world. We wouldn’t experience ourselves as existing. Hashem wanted to create the world. I think we’ve already spoken about this: He desired a dwelling in the lower realms. He wanted to make Himself a home. He wanted there to be the Jewish people, who would serve Him, observe Torah and mitzvos, and reveal Him in the world. And for them to reveal Him in the world, there has to be a world. For there to be Torah and mitzvos, there has to be someone to observe them, and there has to be a yetzer hara. So Hashem created tzimtzumim, concealments, and veils so that there would be created beings and worlds, and so on, and He could fulfill His desire for Torah and mitzvos and revelation. And what is the purpose of that? It’s explained elsewhere, not here. But this matter includes two extremes, two sides that contradict each other to some extent. On the one hand, the Divine light itself is included in its source. It has no independent existence; it isn’t separate. It isn’t like a person’s speech, which becomes separate from him. On the other hand, what does it mean that the tzimtzumim and concealments work, so that we don’t sense Him? The fact that we don’t sense G-dliness is real. Why is it real? Hashem made it so. Who made the tzimtzumim? Who concealed? Who created the concealment? The same Hashem who created the power of revelation also made the power of concealment. The One who reveals is also the One who conceals. So just as the power of revelation is real—and it is He Himself—the power that conceals is also He Himself. So both sides are present. On the one hand, Divine speech reveals G-dliness; on the other hand, we don’t sense it. So both are true. In the last section of the chapter, he goes on to explain what we’ve just discussed a little in words: what the purpose of the tzimtzumim is. Let’s

38:25 Speaker 1 Let’s look inside. “All the tzimtzumim are a form of hiding the face, concealing and obscuring the light and life-force that flows from His speech, so that it will not be revealed.” Not that it won’t be there—that it won’t be revealed. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere. What do the tzimtzumim do? They keep us from sensing Him. Otherwise, those below could not receive the light. It’s like in the physical world: if the sun were revealed here, there would be no world. “And therefore it also seems to them”—because of all those concealments and tzimtzumim—“it seems to the created beings that the light and life-force of the speech of the Omnipresent, blessed be He, which is clothed within them, is something separate from His essence and being.” So to us it seems separate. When we experience some sense of G-dliness, when Torah and mitzvos are revealed to us, we can’t see the connection between tefillin or Shabbos candles or, I don’t know, the mitzvah of fasting on Tisha B’Av. We can’t see how that is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To us it looks separate. Why does it look separate? Because we don’t see the—the power of tzimtzum. It’s been hidden from us. “As though it were something separate from His essence and being, merely drawn from Him, like a person’s speech from his soul.” That’s how it looks to us. “But with respect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, no tzimtzum, concealment, or obscuring hides anything from Him.” After all, He is the revelation and He is the tzimtzum. They aren’t two things; it’s Him Himself. It’s like—just as an example, this is my own analogy, I don’t know—when someone wants to explain something to a friend and suddenly decides, “No, I won’t explain this part to him.” The other person really doesn’t know it. How would he know if nobody explained it to him? But for the person who chooses not to speak, nothing is hidden. For him, it’s the same. The concealment is only for those receiving it. “And before Him, darkness is like light.” Are you familiar with the precise wording

40:50 Speaker 1 “like light”? Seemingly, it should have said that for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, darkness is like light: just as everything is revealed in the light, everything is revealed in the dark. So it should have said, “darkness like light.” But the verse says, “Like darkness, like light.” Why “like”? Why is it there twice? Because for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, just as darkness is like light, light is also like darkness. He created light just as He created darkness. He created the power of revelation and He created the power of tzimtzum. For Him, one does not reveal and the other does not conceal. “You are He before the world was created; You are He after the world was created”—for Him, all the changes and differences are only from our perspective. To us it looks like speech because we don’t sense Him; things are concealed from us. But from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, there really is no difference at all. It’s not that there’s some tiny difference you’d need a microscope to see, as we discussed in the previous chapter. From the perspective of His very essence and being, there truly is no difference at all. As it is written, “Even darkness”—as it is written, “Even darkness does not darken for You,” and so on—because the tzimtzumim and garments are not something separate from Him. It’s not that someone else is hiding Him. Rather, it is “like that creature whose covering is part of itself,” like a turtle, or I don’t know what kind of animal. Nobody ever seems able to explain what that creature is. No, really, people go over this endlessly. What is that creature? What are we talking about? There are all sorts of suggestions. Okay, so it’s like a turtle whose covering is part of it; it is the turtle itself. As it is written, “Havayah is Elokim.” Havayah, the name spelled yud, hei, vav, hei, the power of revelation, is Elokim. Elokim is the power of tzimtzum, concealment and hiding, the attribute of judgment, while Havayah

42:50 Speaker 1 is the attribute of kindness, the power of revelation. So to us, this looks like revelation and that looks like tzimtzum. We call this kindness, and that looks to us like judgment and justice. But for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Havayah is Elokim. From His perspective there is no difference at all. The entire difference is only from our perspective, as explained elsewhere, and therefore “before Him, everything is literally considered as nothing.” So the chapter itself is very clear, very understandable—the answer. What does the second chapter add to the first? Chapter 20 said that the worlds have no value or significance. Wait, but they still exist. The second chapter says, no, not at all: they have no existence whatsoever. Even existence they don’t have. So that’s very understandable. The question is the other way around: what are chapters 20 and 21 coming to explain? “There is nothing besides Him.” “You are He before the world was created; You are He after the world was created.” That’s the point. If you have such a wonderful explanation—that the entire world is only speech as it is included in its source and root before it was ever spoken, that the whole existence of the world is He Himself, and Havayah is Elokim—that’s what you’re explaining to me, right? So why do you need the first chapter, explaining that the world is like speech that has no value or significance? You’re explaining that the world has no existence. Why do you need to tell me that it has no value or significance? It has no existence at all. So obviously it has no value or significance. Right? Seemingly. So the Rebbe says we must conclude that each chapter contains something that the other chapter does not. Otherwise, the Alter Rebbe would not have written two chapters here. That must be the point. So what’s the explanation? There are apparently several explanations. One explanation I saw was specifically from Rabbi Yoel Kahn,

44:46 Speaker 1 not from the Rebbe, and I think I even saw it printed in Sefer HaArachim. He says that something can truly not exist. There is no such reality; it has no existence, it isn’t there—but in terms of significance, it is very important. I’ll try to give a few examples, though he doesn’t give examples there. Moshiach—Moshiach is something very important, but the Geulah is not yet a reality in practice. It will come one day, with Hashem’s help, and it certainly will come immediately, right now. But at present the Beis Hamikdash is destroyed, the Jewish people are scattered throughout the world, and here in the Holy Land Jews are being murdered. Right now, that is the reality. Yes. It can also be something very important in a person’s private life. I would very much like things to be a certain way, but in practice, that isn’t the situation. Someone has a terminal illness and would very much like to be healthy. Health is tremendously important, but it isn’t his present reality. Yes. Something can have significance even though it does not actually exist. I would want it to exist. So the Alter Rebbe says, “Listen, the worlds have no significance.” You might say, “But they exist?” No, they have no existence. Fine, you might say, perhaps they have no existence, but do they have some significance? No. That’s what we learned from the first chapter: they don’t even have significance. In these two chapters, 20 and 21, the Rebbe has actually given us two analogies—interestingly, both involving speech—to explain what it means that Havayah is Elokim, that there is nothing besides Him, that “You are He after the world was created” and “You are He before the world was created,” and that “Havayah is one and His name is one.” What does the unity of Hashem mean? In order to illuminate the G-dly soul—which is really our overall goal in these chapters—we need to understand one more thing besides the unity of Hashem: what idol worship is.

47:05 Speaker 1 So what is idol worship? That’s in the next chapter. And the Rebbe will also explain what idol worship is through another analogy involving speech. We’ll see it, with Hashem’s help, in the next chapter.