Likkutei Amarim Chapter 29 · 5781

00:17 Speaker 1 Okay, so we’re up to chapter 29 today. At the end of the previous class, we said that once we’ve become beinonim, we no longer commit aveiros. We’re happy and in good spirits, because the Rebbe has explained to us how it’s possible to be joyful in every situation, how nothing in the world has to cause sadness. So a person is always energetic and happy, with an open and pure heart. But there’s one problem we haven’t dealt with yet. There’s something called timtum halev, a blocked heart. “Timtum” means being sealed shut. A person thinks and reflects. He understands perfectly well, but it doesn’t affect his feelings. When it comes to worldly matters, he understands them, and as soon as he understands that something is good, it immediately affects his feelings. He’s drawn to it, desires it, wants it. But when it comes to spiritual matters, he understands, and for some reason it gets stuck. It doesn’t reach or penetrate the heart; it doesn’t affect his heart. That’s a spiritual condition called timtum halev. In this chapter, chapter 29, the Alter Rebbe explains how to cure it. “Yet one more thing: counsel must be offered for the souls of beinonim.” So here we’re explicitly talking about someone who is already a beinoni, someone who no longer commits aveiros, who has done teshuvah for all his aveiros and is now clean. Even though he has done teshuvah, follows Hashem’s ways, and in practice does not commit aveiros, nevertheless, sometimes—and often—they still experience timtum halev: the heart becomes like stone, and they cannot open it in any way to “the service of the heart,” meaning prayer. He understands, but his contemplation of Hashem’s greatness or other subjects before prayer and during prayer does not affect his heart.

02:45 Speaker 2 It could be

02:50 Speaker 1 It could also be timtum hamoach, a blocked mind, but the two go together. It depends on the person’s level. If someone is on the level of a rasha, he has timtum hamoach as well, not only timtum halev. He can’t even manage to understand. He thinks and tries hard, but it doesn’t sink in; he can’t grasp it. But a beinoni, who has already refined himself somewhat and is no longer completely bound up in desires, has reached a level where he can stop himself, restrain himself. A normal person is always in a state of “the mind rules over the heart.” That means the mind is in charge. If I think something, it should follow as a matter of course. If it doesn’t, something is getting in the way. In the natural order, when a person understands something, it should reach his heart. The human soul is built so that the mind rules over the heart. If nothing is impaired, if there’s no problem, what he understands should descend into the heart. If it doesn’t, something here is out of order. So we said that for an ordinary beinoni—not a beinoni at his highest level or his lowest level, but an ordinary beinoni—there’s a difference between the time of prayer and the rest of the day. We discussed this in chapters 12, 13, and also 11. During prayer, when he studies Chassidus or thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he is with Hakadosh Boruch Hu right now. At that moment he has no desires, and the yetzer hara has no place. For a beinoni, it isn’t possible that while he’s praying and contemplating, some improper thought or desire will suddenly occur to him. His heart is now burning with love for Hashem, because right now he is

05:00 Speaker 1 in a state, in a place, where he’s contemplating G-dliness. But during the day, when he’s occupied with worldly matters, that love for Hashem no longer burns within him, and all kinds of thoughts of aveiros, distracting thoughts, and other things—things that aren’t good—can occur to him. During prayer, that doesn’t happen. So the Alter Rebbe says: What does timtum halev do to a beinoni? During prayer, “his heart becomes like stone, and he cannot open his heart in any way to the service of the heart, meaning prayer”; and during the day, “at times he cannot fight the yetzer hara to sanctify himself in what is permitted to him.” In other words, during prayer, love for Hashem does not awaken in him, and during the day he can’t manage to overcome the yetzer hara because of the heaviness in his heart. Yes. An ordinary beinoni does not commit aveiros. But “sanctify yourself in what is permitted to you”—that’s something he needs to do all day long. If a beinoni has a desire for something permitted, he knows that every such desire comes from the sitra achra. Even though it isn’t an aveirah, he won’t indulge it. But if he has timtum halev, then while he won’t actually commit an aveirah, something like this happens to every one of us in day-to-day life: I might have a thought about something I want to do, something I know is forbidden. It wouldn’t occur to me to actually do it, G-d forbid. But I might play with the thought of imagining what it would be like if I did. Right? That’s what it means for a desire to arise. Even though actually doing it is out of the question for me, it’s not a possibility. I know that even if I kept thinking about doing it, I wouldn’t do it. It’s forbidden, and I won’t do it. Right? I’m certain I won’t actually do it,

07:14 Speaker 1 but I am drawn to it. Right? And the beinoni’s task is no longer simply not to commit aveiros. He won’t commit aveiros. That’s not where he is. His task is to sanctify himself in what is permitted to him—to push away such thoughts when they arise during the day. But because he has timtum halev, he cannot push away those thoughts and desires for permitted things. Why? Because he has timtum halev. What’s the remedy? It’s advice given in the holy Zohar. So this is an old problem, already described in the Zohar, and the solution—what to do about it—is also in the Zohar. Rav Mesivta in Gan Eden, the head of the academy in Gan Eden, said: “A log that does not catch fire must be struck; a body in which the light of the soul does not shine must be struck.” He gives an analogy. The head of the academy in Gan Eden says in the Zohar that if you have a big log, a thick log, and the fire won’t catch on it, how can you get it to catch fire? There are two methods. One is to make the fire bigger. Keep making it bigger, and eventually the log will catch, but that’s difficult. The simpler method is to take the log aside, bring an axe down on it, turn it into matchsticks, and throw them into the fire. They’ll ignite in a second. You don’t have to make the fire so much bigger. The holy Zohar says it’s the same with the body: if the light of the soul doesn’t shine in it, break down the body, and the light of the soul will shine in it. The Alter Rebbe explains what the light of the soul is and what the body’s physical coarseness is. “The meaning of ‘the light of the soul’ is that the light of the soul and the intellect do not shine strongly enough to rule over the body’s physical coarseness.” That’s what it means. The light of the soul. Although he understands and contemplates Hashem’s greatness with his mind—he contemplates and understands—it doesn’t take hold and become firmly rooted enough

09:33 Speaker 1 for him to rule over the body’s physical coarseness. He understands, but he can’t manage to rule over the body’s coarseness, to control his desires, despite his understanding, because it hasn’t taken hold strongly enough in his mind, “due to their coarseness and crudeness.” So that’s the light of the soul. And why doesn’t it take hold? Why doesn’t it take hold in the heart, even though he does contemplate and understand? The reason is the coarseness of the kelipah. Just as the fire doesn’t catch on the log because the log is thick and large while the fire is delicate, so too, the reason his contemplation doesn’t take hold in the heart is that the heart is coarse. It is “the coarseness of the kelipah, which exalts itself over the light of the holiness of the G-dly soul, concealing and darkening its light.” What does that coarseness do? It’s like a shell, something that, so to speak, covers the G-dly soul. The G-dly soul is inside, within the heart, with the covering of the kelipah—the coarseness of the animal soul—around it, while the mind’s contemplation is outside. So between the contemplation in the mind and the G-dly soul within the heart, there’s this shell separating them. What needs to be done? Break the shell. “Therefore it must be struck and brought low to the dust.” So it’s clear that once we strike the kelipah, the light—the holiness of the G-dly soul within the heart—will be revealed. How do we do that? How do we strike the animal soul? “That is, to set aside times to humble oneself, to become lowly in one’s own eyes,” to the point that he finds himself repulsive. Repulsive to himself. As it is written, “A broken heart, a broken spirit.” When a person breaks his heart, the verse tells us, it breaks his spirit. What are his heart and his spirit? His heart is his contemplation: he looks down on himself, finds himself repulsive, humbles himself. That’s called breaking his heart. What does it accomplish? When he breaks his

12:21 Speaker 1 His heart, making himself repulsive in his own eyes—through this, the spirit of the sitra achra is broken. What’s the connection? What’s the connection? If I humble myself, why should the animal soul be broken, crushed and nullified? Why? What does one have to do with the other? That’s what anyone would immediately ask, right? It’s an understandable question. Why should they be connected? I have a G-dly soul and an animal soul. Something covers the G-dly soul—the animal soul covers it. If I break my heart, the animal soul will be nullified and crushed. Why? Why would that happen? So he explains: the sitra achra is the spirit—the animal soul is the sitra achra. The sitra achra, which is the animal soul, is the person himself in a beinoni. Who am I? In a beinoni, I am the animal soul. And here the Alter Rebbe briefly explains the difference between a beinoni and a tzaddik. In a beinoni, the vital soul that gives life to the body retains the full strength it had from birth in his heart, and so it is the person himself. Good evening. I’m doing a very quick recap. Sorry, I—so that she can join us. We’re discussing a chapter after talking about how we need to be joyful and how we can overcome every kind of sadness in the world. Now we’re discussing the need to heal timtum halev, a blocked heart. This is a situation where, throughout the day, we’re already beinonim: we no longer commit aveiros, we do only mitzvos, but we still find it hard to overcome desires and improper thoughts. In practice, I don’t commit aveiros. I’ve passed that stage. But thoughts and desires for aveiros—or even desires for permissible things that aren’t good desires—those can still be there. Right? I wouldn’t dream of committing an aveirah, but I can certainly think about how much

15:28 Speaker 1 I would enjoy it. Right? So why is that? Why can I control my actions but not my heart? I think, I understand, I know it’s forbidden, I understand it isn’t good—and when it comes to action, I have no problem. I know it’s forbidden, so I don’t do it. But my heart keeps producing desires and thoughts about these things all the time. Why? After all, the mind rules the heart. I understand, so that understanding should affect my heart. It’s because there’s an illness here, an illness called timtum halev. The animal soul—the yetzer hara, the sitra achra, whatever you call it—envelops the G-dly heart, the G-dly soul in the right chamber of the heart, and doesn’t let my understanding penetrate the heart. What’s the solution? Crush it. Crush the covering, and what’s inside will be revealed. The G-dly fire will take hold in the heart. How do we do that? To understand how, he has begun explaining in these two short passages the difference between a beinoni and a tzaddik. We started explaining the nature of a beinoni; we’re at the end of line five. The nature of a beinoni is the sitra achra. That is what this person is. What is the “person” within him? The sitra achra. The animal soul is what gives him life and acts within him. It’s what he feels. When he thinks, who’s thinking? The animal soul. When he wants something, who wants it? The animal soul. The nature of a beinoni is the animal soul, and the animal soul is the sitra achra. That is his entire nature. But everyone has a G-dly soul. Of the G-dly soul within a beinoni, it says, “The soul You gave within me is pure.” How do we

17:41 Speaker 1 say it? Specifically, “the soul You gave within me.” That implies that the person himself is not the pure soul. I was a person already, and then You gave me, placed within me, a soul. So I am not the soul. The soul is the G-dly soul. Who am I? I am the animal soul. For whom is the G-dly soul the person himself? For tzaddikim. With tzaddikim, it’s exactly the opposite.

18:17 Speaker 4 What does that mean? From their perspective, it is his true essence.

18:27 Speaker 1 It is his true, essential nature. But that is only his true, essential nature. It isn’t necessarily what he lives with in practice, day to day. It is genuine, eternal and the truth within him, but it isn’t what I live with day to day.

18:44 Speaker 4 A beinoni does.

18:46 Speaker 1 A beinoni doesn’t. A beinoni—during davening, the G-dly soul is the one in control.

18:51 Speaker 4 If his thoughts, speech and actions are all with that holiness, then why—how can you say that...

18:57 Speaker 1 It isn’t in control. There’s a battle within him, and the G-dly soul manages to overcome the animal soul so that the animal soul cannot put its desires into practice.

19:06 Speaker 4 But he strengthens the...

19:08 Speaker 1 Huh?

19:08 Speaker 4 The G-dly soul. He strengthens the G-dly soul over the animal soul.

19:11 Speaker 1 Yes, but he has to fight it constantly. He himself has not nullified the animal soul. His nature is the animal soul. Through working on himself and so on, he has managed to reach a point where he can constantly restrain it. He can control it. But who is “he”? Naturally speaking, who is he? If for just one moment he stops—lets go of the rope—what remains? His essential nature, the nature that is...

19:52 Speaker 4 Revealed.

19:53 Speaker 1 Who is he? Who am I? I am the animal soul. I am a body. I live in this world. What is my natural desire? What is his nature, without—on his own, without thinking or planning? The moment he starts thinking, “Wait, this isn’t good. All right, then I need to change this,” he needs to change himself. So what is that “self”? That self is the animal soul. It’s what I really want. In terms of what I feel and live with, it’s the animal soul. Those are its desires. And with tzaddikim, he says on line eight, it’s exactly the opposite: the pure soul, which is the G-dly soul, is the person, while their bodies are called “the flesh of man.” In other words, who is the person in a beinoni? The animal soul. The G-dly soul has been placed inside the person, but the person is the animal soul. With tzaddikim it’s exactly the reverse. Who is the person in a tzaddik? The G-dly soul is the person. As the Alter Rebbe says in Igeres Hakodesh, which we learned, I think, in recent weeks—in two letters of condolence, one following the passing of Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok and the other following the passing of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev’s son—he says in both letters that “the life of a tzaddik is not physical life, but faith, awe and love.” A tzaddik lives and moves about in this world. He’s here for seventy years, or, with strength, eighty years, even to a hundred and twenty years. His entire being is faith, love of Hashem and awe of Hashem. He has no—he doesn’t want this world. This world doesn’t speak to him, attract him or interest him. He lives here, so he has to manage. In other words, just as for a beinoni the main thing is the animal nature, the world, and the G-dly soul is something added on and planted within him, for a tzaddik

22:08 Speaker 1 it’s exactly the opposite. His nature is the G-dly soul—faith, awe and love. He’s been placed inside a sack of flesh and bones. What can you do? You have to take care of it. You have to give it food, poor thing. But he isn’t there; that isn’t where he lives. The nature of a tzaddik is the exact opposite of the nature of a beinoni. For one, the animal soul is the person; for the other, the G-dly soul is the person. All right? And because this is genuinely a little difficult to grasp, difficult to say, the Alter Rebbe brings a story from the Gemara in the next passage to demonstrate it: “As Hillel the Elder said to his students, when he was going to eat, he would say that he was going to do a kindness for the lowly and poor one”—his body—“for it was considered a stranger to him.” His body isn’t just—this isn’t a play on words. To him, there’s this poor fellow here. According to the Torah, you have to give him tzedakah. You have to make sure he doesn’t die, poor thing. You have to give him something to eat. So once a day, twice a day. According to the Torah, you have to feed an animal at least twice a day, so he goes to eat because he has to. What?

23:26 Speaker 5 [unclear] is a law today, and—

23:27 Speaker 1 Because for us, we don’t do it as an act of charity. We want it—I want to eat. I’m not going to eat because I’m now going to fulfill a mitzvah by giving my body food. I’m hungry, right? “And therefore he said that he was doing kindness with him by feeding him, for he himself, Hillel, was nothing but a G-dly soul alone, because it alone gave life to his body and flesh—the G-dly soul. The evil in the vital soul clothed in his blood and flesh had been transformed into good and actually incorporated into the holiness of the G-dly soul, as is the case with tzaddikim. But with a beinoni, since the essence and substance of the animal vital soul, which comes from the sitra achra and is clothed in his blood and flesh, has not been transformed into good, it is the person himself.” So what do we understand from this? All of this answers the question we asked earlier. We asked: If a person breaks his heart, puts himself down and finds himself repulsive, why should that break the sitra achra? What’s the connection? I have an animal soul. If I break myself, does that mean the sitra achra will break? How are the two connected? But now it makes sense. For a beinoni, I am the sitra achra. If I break myself, whom am I breaking? I’m breaking the sitra achra, the animal soul. Right? So what’s the approach? If I see that the animal soul is covering over the G-dly soul and not letting it penetrate the heart, and I now want to crush it so that the G-dly soul can take hold of it, the way you split wood so that fire can catch in it—whom do I need to crush? Myself. I am that log of wood. Me myself.

25:26 Speaker 6 But the Chabad approach isn’t... isn’t...

25:34 Speaker 1 So, yes, exactly. That’s why, in all fifty-three chapters of Tanya, only two chapters are devoted to this, and even those are presented as a last resort. After you’ve thought and contemplated, tried two approaches, learned, understood things here and there, been joyful, been... Well, there’s no choice; we have to talk about this too. And immediately after those two chapters, right at the beginning of chapter 31—chapters 29 and 30 discuss these matters—he asks your question: But didn’t we say we have to be joyful? If I keep thinking about these things, how can I be joyful? Then chapters 31, 32, 33 and 34 explain why this very contemplation leads to joy. But we’re not there yet. This is also for a situation described in the words of our Sages as “It is a time to act for Hashem; they have set aside Your Torah.” True, it isn’t the normal way, but there are situations where there’s no choice. This is what has to be done now.

26:47 Speaker 6 Wait, so we’re not supposed to take this as something...

26:51 Speaker 1 Someone who sees that he no longer commits aveiros—he doesn’t actually commit aveiros. Someone says to him, “Come smoke a cigarette on Shabbos,” I don’t know. I’m deliberately choosing an example that’s a little far-fetched for everyone here. They say, “Come commit an aveirah.” And he says, “That’s not... I’m not there.” Right? I’m not. I’m a beinoni. I’ve decided I don’t commit aveiros, and I don’t. Right? And not only that: I’ve learned Tanya, and I try to contemplate G-dliness, the greatness of Hashem, the G-dly life-force that gives life to the worlds, the avodah of the angels, the source of the animal soul. I contemplate and I try. I also see that some things make me sad, and I understand that isn’t good. I try to be joyful. I’ve learned chapters 26, 27 and 28. I understand that I need to be joyful. I don’t know how to do it, but I’m working on it. After all that, I go out into the world, right? During the day, thoughts come. I can control my actions, but my heart still feels drawn to things that I know I can’t even do. Yet they enter my mind; they’re there in my heart. Why? Listen, says the Alter Rebbe, you’re in a state of timtum halev, a dulled heart. Your heart is blocked. What’s blocking it? The animal soul. How do you get through its shell? You have to crush it. How do you crush it? Know that you still aren’t a tzaddik. You’re a beinoni. That’s a high level, a great thing, but you’re still not a tzaddik. And the substance of a beinoni is sitra achra. Crush yourself, and it will be crushed. We’re on page 70, then. So the reality is—now I’ve understood that I’m actually...

28:57 Speaker 1 In the language of chassidim, a lump of sitra achra. Elsewhere it says, just a sack of flesh and bones. So he—this is me—is utterly distant from Hashem, since the power of desire in his animal soul can also desire forbidden things that are against His will. Even though he doesn’t desire to actually do them, G-d forbid—he’s a beinoni; he doesn’t... Even when he thinks about them with desire and pleasure, he doesn’t really intend to do them. It doesn’t go that far. But those things are not truly repulsive to him as they are to tzaddikim, as explained above in chapter 12. And in this—the very fact that his soul is capable of desiring such things—he is worse, more loathsome and more repulsive than unclean animals, vermin and creeping creatures, as above. As we also saw in chapter 24. As it is written, “I am a worm and not a man,” and so on. He adds in parentheses, “even when his G-dly soul gains strength within him.” In other words, there’s a beinoni who, during the day, really has no desires left. He’s passed that stage too. He no longer has desires. More than that, his G-dly soul gains strength in love of Hashem, at least during davening. That isn’t real. The fact that love of Hashem was aroused in you during davening—true, we said... That was in chapter 13. For a beinoni, it is real. Remember that we discussed this then? We asked: What is the value of a beinoni’s avodah during davening, when he has complete love and awe during davening, like a tzaddik? Afterward it ends. After davening it passes. So what is it worth? It starts fading, starts fading. It isn’t real. If it isn’t real, it’s a stream that runs dry. It’s false. And if it’s false, what is it worth? So the Alter Rebbe says there: No.

31:49 Speaker 1 For a beinoni, it is real. On his level, it is real. True, for a tzaddik it’s nothing. For a tzaddik, something like that would almost be considered an aveirah. But for a beinoni, that’s his nature. From where he stands, it is real. During davening it awakens, and during the day it sleeps; it’s hidden. That’s his level. For him, it is real. So when we were talking about how a person needs to know that he can do it, that he’s capable of it, and that his avodah is genuine, that’s how we spoke then. But now we’re not speaking in order to encourage ourselves. The purpose of this contemplation is precisely the opposite: to humble ourselves. So now we have to look at our level not in relation to ourselves, but in comparison with the true level of a tzaddik. I’m very far from a tzaddik. So even when his G-dly soul gains strength and he experiences a great love for Hashem during davening, that isn’t completely genuine in the fullest sense. It’s genuine for a beinoni, but not completely genuine in the fullest sense. Compared with a tzaddik, it’s nothing, since it fades and passes after davening, as explained at the end of chapter 13. There’s a person who, right now, doesn’t actually commit aveiros. But before he did teshuvah, he did commit aveiros. So it’s true that we now call him a beinoni, because he did teshuvah and rectified the past. Teshuvah rectifies the past, but there was a past. He was forgiven; you did teshuvah and were welcomed with open arms. But that doesn’t erase the previous reality; it remains. There’s a sicha of the Rebbe, specifically an edited one in Likkutei Sichos, a sicha that people don’t usually study, which says that the sin always remains. When a person commits an aveirah, his soul is damaged. Where is it damaged? The soul itself is damaged. It’s like the example of a person who trips over a stone, stumbles over some stone and falls. So you can’t ask what...

34:42 Speaker 1 Is the head to blame because the finger struck a stone? They’re all connected. The finger struck a stone, so the whole body fell, and the head fell too. It’s not that anyone here is to blame. He fell, so all of him fell. When a person commits a transgression, it says in Igeres Hateshuvah that it’s as though he takes the king’s head and brings it down, and so on. When he falls, he falls from top to bottom. Later, when he does teshuvah and the sin is erased, where is it erased? It’s erased up to the level he reached in his teshuvah. But a day later he’s refined himself a little, and now he stands on a higher level. There, the sin still exists. He needs to do teshuvah for that same sin again, to erase it on that level too. And two days later he reaches an even higher level, where he encounters that same old sin again. Up there, it still exists. And so it goes, higher and higher. “My sin is before me always.” So yes, where you did teshuvah, it’s no longer there. At that level, everything is clear; everything is fine. But when a person rises higher, the sin and the blemish are still there. So what good does it do me to be a beinoni? It helps me as long as I’m at my present level. At my level right now, I don’t stumble into transgressions, I perform mitzvos, I have no thoughts of sin—everything is fine. But then a person feels that something has suddenly appeared in him that wasn’t there yesterday. Yesterday I didn’t have a dullness of the heart; today, suddenly, I do. Apparently you’ve risen to a slightly higher level, and you need to do teshuvah a little more deeply. In particular—we’re on line twelve: “And especially when he remembers the defilement of his soul through the sins of his youth and the blemish he caused in the higher realms. There, it is above time, and it is as though he caused the blemish and became defiled today, G-d forbid, in the most literal sense.” That

37:00 Speaker 1 means the blemish has been erased for him, but above, it remains. “And although he has already done proper teshuvah, the essence of teshuvah is in the heart, and the heart has many aspects and levels, all according to the person and according to the time and place, as is known to those who know.” Yes, now he is at a more opportune time, in a higher place, at a higher point in his life. So for that same thing, the teshuvah that was enough before is no longer enough. “Therefore, now, at this moment, when he sees within his soul, sees in himself, that the light of his soul does not shine within him”—and we said that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand. He understands what he’s learning perfectly well, but he feels that his contemplation doesn’t penetrate his heart. “It follows that today, at the level he is on right now, his teshuvah has not been accepted, and his sins still stand as a barrier. Or, alternatively, they want to raise him to a higher teshuvah, from a deeper place in the heart, and so this is hinted to him. Therefore David said, ‘My sin is before me always.’” So the example he brings is—you always bring the extreme examples—King David, peace be upon him, of whom our Sages said, “Anyone who says David sinned is simply mistaken.” David, the sweet singer of Israel, to whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised that the kingship would belong to him and his descendants forever, through the coming of Moshiach and beyond. What does King David say? “My sin is before me always.” What sin? What did he do? Nothing. What? As we said, a “sin” for a tzaddik isn’t a transgression; it’s some shortcoming. It could have been better; it could have been more complete.

38:53 Speaker 7 Yes, but

38:56 Speaker 1 he had already corrected that. Even so, when he wants to rise to a higher level, although he is King David, “My sin is before me always.” How much more so for us. In other words, if I have dullness of the heart—I contemplate but can’t get it to penetrate my heart—that’s all right. There’s no need to be alarmed. It happens to everyone, even tzaddikim. What should we learn from it? Now we need to do teshuvah. “And even one who is free of the serious sins of youth.” Okay, now we’re talking about a Jew on an even higher level, who has never sinned. There’s a story they tell about Reb Shmuel Gronem Esterman, if I’m not mistaken. You’ve heard the name, right? He was the first mashpia at Tomchei Temimim. All the Chabad Chassidus taught by chassidim, as opposed to the Rebbeim, comes from Shmuel Gronem Esterman. Everything that Shmuel—

40:08 Speaker 7 What’s his name?

40:09 Speaker 1 Esterman. All the explanations of Chassidus that chassidim have came from what they received from him—all of it. When the Rebbe Rashab established the Tomchei Temimim yeshivah, he chose him to be its mashpia. For many years, decades, he taught the students Chassidus. Then his students, the young men of Tomchei Temimim, became rabbis in yeshivos and opened new yeshivos, and they taught what they had learned from him, and so on to this very day. All the explanations of Chabad Chassidus passed down among chassidim, all those explanations of the Chassidus texts—it all comes from him. Whether it’s what Yoel Kahn and Ginsburgh and I, and whoever else, draw on—all those explanations of Chassidus come from him. They tell a story about when he was still a young man and came to the Rebbe Rashab. The Rebbe Rashab demanded of him—if you want to... to be a mashpia, or I don’t remember exactly what the Rebbe Rashab wanted of him—then you need to do teshuvah. You need to do teshuvah. He was very startled. He was in yechidus, and he said to the Rebbe, “Rebbe, I’m clean.” A young man standing before the Rebbe, saying wholeheartedly, “Rebbe, I have never committed a transgression in my life.” Shmuel Gronem. The Rebbe smiled. The Rebbe Rashab smiled broadly and said to him, “What makes you think I meant in the physical sense?” As for Shmuel Gronem, I’ve never heard anyone say he was a beinoni. A simple Jew, a sincere Jew, sharp and very intelligent. But, I don’t know, people didn’t regard him as someone extraordinary. He was a genuine, simple Jew. “Rebbe, that’s not where I am—I have never committed a transgression.” Such a thing exists. A Jew can enter yechidus with a Rebbe. The Rebbe asks him, “Have you committed a transgression?” He says, “No, I haven’t.” And the Rebbe accepts it. And what happens

42:53 Speaker 1 if there’s a beinoni like that, who knows that he has never committed a transgression, yet has dullness of the heart? After all, what did we say causes dullness of the heart? There’s something from the sitra achra, some kelipah, covering it. Why is it covering it? Not just that I certainly have no transgressions now; this person knows he has never committed any, ever. And such a person does exist. Why does he have dullness of the heart? The Alter Rebbe continues on line five: “Even one who is free of the serious sins of youth should take to heart the teaching of the holy Zohar, to be among those who make an accounting.” Why? “That is, to take stock of his soul regarding all the thoughts, words, and deeds that have come and gone from the day he came into being until today: whether they were all from the side of holiness or from the side of impurity, G-d save us.” Fine, you haven’t committed transgressions. But all the words you’ve spoken, all the thoughts you’ve thought, all the things you’ve done from the day you were born until today—were they all, every single one, holy? That is the meaning of the term sitra achra, as explained above in chapter six: we saw that anything that isn’t a mitzvah is sitra achra. Not just transgressions. Anything that isn’t a mitzvah is sitra achra. So it isn’t one of the three completely impure kelipos; it’s kelipas nogah. Kelipas nogah is sitra achra. It isn’t holiness, it isn’t G-dliness; it’s a kelipah. And if you’ve had deeds or words, or even just thoughts, that weren’t holy, then you too are a beinoni, and you too have a kelipah covering your heart, and you too need to do teshuvah, to crush it. “And it is known that whenever a person thinks holy thoughts, he becomes at that moment a vehicle for the chambers of holiness from which those thoughts flow. And conversely, at that moment he becomes an impure vehicle for the chambers of impurity from which all evil thoughts flow. And likewise with speech”

45:15 Speaker 1 And action. So if you know that you’ve had thoughts and spoken words and all sorts of things that weren’t good, even if you’ve never actually committed a sin, then during all those times you received your life from the sitra achra. So why are you complaining that your heart is dull? You need to do teshuvah; you need to break yourself down. Then there’s a Jew on an even higher level, who is still a beinoni. This beinoni can attest that throughout his life he has been careful not only in action but also in speech and thought. He’s a beinoni, but a very refined one. He’s very firm with himself, watches himself like a hawk, doesn’t think bad thoughts and doesn’t entertain improper thoughts; if one comes up, he immediately pushes it away with both hands. And yet his heart is dull. Where does that come from? So the Alter Rebbe simply addresses everyone, from the bottom up. “He should also take to heart that most of his dreams are vanity and vexation of spirit.” Vexation of spirit means they trouble the spirit; they cause it pain. Why are our dreams like that? Because his soul does not ascend on high, as it says, “Who shall ascend the mountain of Hashem?” Whose soul goes up at night to Hashem’s mountain to receive life? “One with clean hands and a pure heart.” If at night your soul reaches a place where they show it all the things you see in your dreams, then apparently it didn’t reach Hashem’s mountain. It apparently reached other places. And why did it reach other places? Because you don’t have clean hands and a pure heart. “And those evil forces come and attach themselves to him in a dream, and tell him worldly matters in his dream,” and so on. What does it mean that they tell him worldly matters in his dream? They tell him things about the world. What’s wrong with being given a prophecy in a dream? What’s the problem?

47:57 Speaker 8 I don’t understand.

47:58 Speaker 1 Huh?

47:58 Speaker 8 I understand that.

47:59 Speaker 1 Of course you understand. They’re making fun of him. Huh? You’re such a tzaddik. They want—the evil angels of the sitra achra sometimes want to make a laughingstock of a person. We’re talking about a Jew who really is on such a high level, right? Someone who really is careful in thought, speech, and action. So ordinary troubling thoughts won’t bring him down in a dream. They can’t really do that, but they make fun of him another way. They show him in a dream, you know, some sort of prophecy: tomorrow it’ll rain, the day after tomorrow a cat will cross the road, I don’t know what. They show him something in a dream that’s going to happen, and then it happens. What does the person think? Wow, secrets are being revealed to me in a dream—secrets of Torah. I’ve reached the level of a prophet! So the angels really enjoy laughing at someone who starts thinking he’s about a hundred times greater than he really is. So they show him worldly matters in a dream, and “at times they laugh at him”—they make fun of him—“and show him false things.” They simply show him things that aren’t true to make fun of him. Worse still, sometimes they distress a person in his dream, and so on, as it says in the Zohar, Vayikra, page 25a and 25b; see there at length. So very often, you could say, whenever a person is awake he can deceive himself. When he’s awake, he can say, “Look, all in all I’m fine. Broadly speaking, my situation isn’t so bad. I’m careful with mitzvos, I daven, I try, I make an effort, I don’t speak lashon hara, I don’t entertain improper thoughts, I don’t let my eyes wander. Basically, I’m fine.” But he can only tell himself that when he’s awake. When a person dreams, his mind isn’t in control. What he sees in a dream is what he really is. Our Sages said that if

50:22 Speaker 1 a person goes three consecutive days without dreaming a dream of holiness, he’s no longer a beinoni. A normal person, a normal person who lives with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—he lives with Hakadosh Boruch Hu during the day, and that doesn’t stop when night comes. He lives with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If at night his dreams are like this and that, then apparently during the day, too, he isn’t living with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Does he imagine he’s such-and-such a tzaddik? Apparently that isn’t the case. So when a person wants to break himself down because he sees that his heart is dull, and he contemplates and thinks but it has no effect on his heart—if everything he has contemplated hasn’t helped him break himself down, and he still hasn’t grasped, hasn’t internalized, that his situation is not all that good—then think for a moment about the dreams you had this past week, and you’ll understand exactly where you stand. What? You’re saying it’s lucky we don’t remember.

51:35 Speaker 9 Lucky.

51:38 Speaker 1 “And the more he dwells on these matters in his thoughts”—yes, that he committed sins, that he has bad thoughts, that even the enthusiasm he has during davening doesn’t last long afterward, and that his dreams are like that. All these matters—“the more he dwells on these matters in his thoughts, and also studies them in books.” If it’s a little hard for him to think without a book, he should take chapter 29 when saying the bedtime Shema—by the way, setting fixed times means setting aside a time. It doesn’t mean I decided today that I want to do teshuvah, so I’ll do teshuvah when I go to bed. It doesn’t work that way. If I know I want to go to sleep at ten because tomorrow I have to get up at who knows what time, and today I’ve decided I need to contemplate this, and I know saying the Shema takes me five or ten minutes, whatever it is, then I need to start in a planned way five minutes earlier. If I want to go to sleep at ten, then at a quarter to ten I should take chapter 29 and go through it, thinking about myself as I read, and afterward say the Shema. I think that Shema will be a little different. That’s called setting fixed times. “And the more he dwells on these matters in his thoughts, and also studies them in books, so that his heart is broken within him and he is despised and loathsome in his own eyes, as it is written, to the utmost degree of loathing, and he truly loathes his life—through this he loathes and despises the sitra achra.” Because we said that the person himself is the sitra achra. If he loathes and despises himself, he loathes and despises the sitra achra. “He lowers it to the dust, bringing it down from its sense of greatness, its haughtiness and pride, with which it exalts itself over the light of the holiness of the G-dly soul to darken its light.” A Jew comes to the Alter Rebbe and says, “Rebbe, I did everything and it didn’t help. I contemplated, I thought

54:00 Speaker 1 about how bad I am, about how... Rebbe, I’m telling you the truth: it made no difference at all. I understand that my situation isn’t good. But to tell you that I’m crying? The truth is, it doesn’t hurt me. It doesn’t hurt. I understand that things aren’t as they should be. I tried thinking about it; I tried contemplating it. I tried thinking about it while studying books. No, I don’t feel my heart breaking, or that I could wash my face with tears. No, that’s not where I am. I understand it isn’t good, and that’s as far as it goes.” So obviously, that kind of teshuvah isn’t exactly teshuvah. A person shouldn’t deceive himself, after all. And a Jew comes to the Alter Rebbe and asks, “All right, what next? I did it; I tried seriously.” First of all, you do have to try. “But I tried and it didn’t succeed. It didn’t work. What do I do now?” The Alter Rebbe says, “There is another approach: he should also thunder against it with a voice of commotion and anger.” What have we discussed until now? That a person needs to humble himself. That doesn’t help? Thunder against it—against the sitra achra—to bring it low. “As our Sages said: A person should always rouse his good inclination against his evil inclination, as it says, ‘Be angry,’ and so on. That is, he should rage against the animal soul, which is his evil inclination, with a voice of commotion and anger in his thoughts, saying to it: ‘You are evil and wicked, abominable, detestable and vile,’ and so on”—all the names our Sages truly called it. “How long will you conceal from me the light of the blessed Ein Sof, which fills all worlds, for which past, present and future are equal? In this very place where I stand, the light of the Ein Sof is present, just as the blessed light of the Ein Sof alone was present before the world was created. It is here now, too, without any change. As it is written, ‘I, Hashem, have not changed,’ for He, Hashem, is above time. The light of the Ein Sof is above time, and because it is above time, it is here”

56:14 Speaker 1 Now, just as it was before the world was created and before I was created, and so on. And you are vile, loathsome and despicable, and all the other names, and so on, denying the truth that is plain to see. The truth that is plain to see is that everything before Him is truly as nothing, something one can see with one’s own eyes. And you put up a screen so I won’t see something that everyone can see, something clear, understandable and obvious. You hide it from me. Through this, he will help his G-dly soul by opening its eyes to the truth of the oneness of the light of Ein Sof, with a perception as vivid as sight, not just something heard and understood, as explained elsewhere. This is the root of all avodah. What is the root of all avodah? That a person shouldn’t just understand that the Torah is true, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is true, that the mitzvos are true. He shouldn’t just understand it; he should feel it. He should recognize it as vividly as something he sees. It should be something he actually feels. There’s a big difference between what we understand and what we feel, right? What time is it now?

57:47 Speaker 10 Twenty to...

57:49 Speaker 1 It’s already late. Huh? I thought I’d fit in another story. Two stories. All right, let’s finish the chapter, and then we’ll see if we have time to... This is the root of all avodah. The reason is that, in truth, the sitra achra has no substance at all. That’s the truth. What is the sitra achra? The “other side.” Other than what? Other than Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Where does it come from? What is it, anyway? Darkness? What is darkness? What is darkness? Nothing. An absence. It isn’t there. It’s a reality of nothingness. It’s a reality that isn’t a reality.

58:45 Speaker 10 There is darkness of holiness.

58:47 Speaker 1 We’re not talking here about darkness of holiness. We’re talking about the darkness of the sitra achra. All right? That’s why it’s compared to darkness. What is darkness? Darkness has no substance at all, so it gives way to light on its own. The same is true of the sitra achra. Even though it has plenty of vitality to give life to all the non-kosher animals, to the souls of the idolatrous nations, and also to the animal soul in a Jew, as mentioned above—as we discussed in chapter 6—it has plenty of vitality. So how can you tell me it’s nothing, that it doesn’t exist? Nevertheless, all their vitality, all the life that the sitra achra gives them, doesn’t come from the sitra achra itself, G-d forbid. It comes from the holiness clothed within it, as mentioned above. And so, since the entire reality of the sitra achra is only darkness, darkness gives way on its own. When you turn on a light, you don’t have to work to drive out the darkness. You turn on the light and it’s gone. It’s no longer there. Therefore, the sitra achra is completely nullified before holiness, just as darkness is nullified before physical light. So what’s happening here? If the sitra achra is compared to darkness, and we know that when you turn on a light there’s no darkness, then what’s happening here? I turn on the light, I contemplate G-dliness, and the darkness remains. What’s going on? How can that be? It goes against nature. It shouldn’t be that way. The moment I—after all, the mind rules the heart; that’s the natural order. The mind thinks, and the heart should understand. You turn on a flashlight, turn on a light, the sun rises, and that’s it—there’s no more darkness. It’s gone. What’s happening here? When I contemplate G-dliness, I understand what I’m contemplating. My mind grasps it. Why doesn’t it reach my heart? What’s going on here? Only with regard to the holiness of a person’s G-dly soul did Hakadosh Boruch Hu give the sitra achra permission and power to raise

1:00:43 Speaker 1 itself against it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu performed a miracle. He gave the darkness of the animal soul the power, so to speak, to darken the light. It isn’t something real; it isn’t a screen that actually blocks the light. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave it permission, as it were, to conceal. Why? So that a person will be stirred to overcome it and bring it low. How? By humbling himself and becoming lowly in spirit, seeing himself as despicable and repugnant. And when there is an awakening from below, there is an awakening from above, fulfilling the verse, “From there I will bring you down, declares Hashem”—meaning that He removes the sitra achra from its position of power and takes away its ability. The sitra achra can cover the G-dly soul only because, so to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives darkness permission to remain dark even when the sun rises. That’s miraculous. It isn’t the nature of darkness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the animal soul a special ability, an unnatural ability that isn’t inherently its own. So as soon as a person scorns it and does his avodah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes that permission away. And once He takes it away, what becomes clear? That it’s simply nothing, and that it doesn’t conceal anything at all. Then it is automatically nullified and pushed aside, just as darkness gives way to light. Once its permission to conceal is taken away, it has no ability to conceal on its own. And the Rebbe brings an example of this from an account stated explicitly in the Torah. This is the end of the chapter. “We find this stated explicitly in the Torah concerning the spies.” At first, the spies said, “We don’t want to enter the land, because ‘he is stronger than us.’” Don’t read it as “than us,” and so on. They said—right? The spies said, “He is stronger than us.” Not “they are stronger than us.” It isn’t that the people living in the land are stronger than us; “He is stronger than Him.” That’s how Rashi explains it. They didn’t believe in Hashem’s ability. What happened next? After they had shown that lack of faith, they suddenly turned around and said, “Here we are, and we will go up,” and so on.

1:03:14 Speaker 1 A moment ago you said Hakadosh Boruch Hu couldn’t do it, that He didn’t have the power to bring you into the land. What happened that made you change your minds and suddenly believe that Hakadosh Boruch Hu could bring you in? What changed your minds all of a sudden? Where did this faith in Hashem’s ability come from? Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, hadn’t shown them any sign or wonder in the meantime. What had happened in between? Moshe told them that Hashem was angry with them and had sworn not to bring them into the land. How did that help, if they didn’t believe in Hashem’s ability, G-d forbid? Listen, I’m threatening you: if you don’t... I won’t bring you into the land. But they didn’t believe He could bring them in anyway. How does that help? You follow? If they didn’t believe that Hashem had the ability, G-d forbid, to conquer the 31 kings, and that was why they didn’t want to enter the land at all, then what good does it do to shout at them, “I won’t bring you in”? They didn’t think He could bring them in anyway. Rather, it must be that the Jewish people themselves are believers, the children of believers. It’s only that the sitra achra clothed in their bodies raises itself above the light of their G-dly souls in its arrogance, haughtiness and brazenness, without any reason or sense, as he explained earlier. Therefore, as soon as Hashem grew angry with them and thundered at them in a voice full of fury and wrath—“How long must I put up with this evil congregation?” and so on; “In this wilderness your bodies will fall,” and so on; “I, Hashem, have spoken: surely this is what I will do to this entire evil congregation,” and so on—when they heard these harsh words, their hearts were humbled and broken within them, as it says, “The people mourned greatly.” And the sitra achra automatically fell from its position of power, its haughtiness and its arrogance. Yes, exactly what... So that’s the final piece of advice. If someone sees that, despite all the advice, he isn’t succeeding in breaking his heart,

1:05:15 Speaker 1 he should shout at it in his thoughts. Don’t be embarrassed; no one can hear you. It’s inside your mind. And the Jewish people themselves are believers, the children of believers. From this, anyone who has doubts about faith enter his mind can learn that these are merely the words of the spirit of the sitra achra, which raises itself above his soul. The Jewish people themselves are believers, and so on. Even the sitra achra itself has no doubts about faith at all; it has merely been given permission to confuse a person with lies and deceit, so that his reward will be greater—like the woman who tries to entice the king’s son with lies and deceit, with the king’s permission, as it says in the holy Zohar. There are a few more things we need to explain, but we’ll stop here. There’s a very well-known story, but I’ll tell it anyway. I’ll tell it briefly. There was a Jew who lived in Crown Heights and needed to go out on mivtzoim in Manhattan. I don’t remember where in New York. He took a taxi to get there. The driver asked him, “Are you Jewish?” He said, “Yes.” So the driver asked, “Do you put on tefillin?” He said, “Yes.” The driver puts on tefillin—a New York taxi driver who looked like a New York taxi driver, putting on tefillin. The passenger assumed he was an Israeli trying to brush him off—just brush him off. So this fellow—he was a young married man, not a bochur—was a bit persistent. He made it clear that he didn’t believe him. The driver was very offended. “You don’t believe I put on tefillin? Come on, I’ll show you.” He insisted on taking the young man along, made a detour, drove to some neighborhood there and took him to his home, up to some floor—I don’t know which—a high floor in a building. He brought him inside, opened a drawer and showed him a beautiful pair of Chabad tefillin, four-by-four. “I don’t leave for work until I’ve put them on.” He asked

1:07:21 Speaker 1 To tell him what—how did you get here? He says, “Listen, when I was young, I studied here at the yeshiva in Tzfas. I was a yeshiva student there,” and he wasn’t one of the top students. He was one of the... less successful ones. In the Frierdiker Rebbe’s words, “D equals D.” The yeshiva administration wanted to... They spoke to him several times, but nothing helped. The administration wanted to remove him from the yeshiva and reported it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe said—he didn’t ask to see the student, but said they should tell him—should they say it in the Rebbe’s name? Not in the Rebbe’s name. The Rebbe said they should tell him—oh, and the student did want to stay. He wanted to stay, but he wasn’t suited to it. So the Rebbe told him through the administration that if he was willing to take upon himself to learn chapter 29 by heart—a long chapter, one of the longest in Tanya—then they should let him stay. He was a talented student; that wasn’t his problem. He had other problems, but he wanted to stay. He decided to learn it, and he did. He was tested on the chapter and somehow survived, finished the year or two years, and completed the program. But afterward... He found work, then couldn’t find work, drifted from place to place, and had a hard time. One day he slipped a little here. In short, he sank lower and lower until, at a certain point—it’s quite a long story; he tells the whole thing—one morning he woke up and said, “Why am I putting on tefillin? I stopped keeping mitzvos a long time ago. Not Shabbos, not prayer, nothing at all. I go around committing every sin imaginable. So why tefillin? That’s it. I’m done.” He left for work. Half an hour, two hours later, it starts pounding in his head: “You are evil and wicked, loathsome and despicable.” In short, before sunset he rushes

1:10:06 Speaker 1 home and puts on tefillin. But after another while he decided, “That’s it. I’m done. No more tefillin.” The same thing happened again. After once, twice, three times, he realized he had no chance of getting rid of the Chabadniks, and that was that. He would not leave for work without putting on tefillin every day. So that’s chapter 29. Chapter 29 isn’t an uplifting chapter. When you learn it, it... puts you in your place. On the other hand, it’s a chapter that touches everyone. It’s a chapter about us: who am I really? When a person grasps the inner truth, what my real condition is, then he is truly connected to G-dliness. It doesn’t leave your mind; it doesn’t leave your heart. So that’s chapter 29. And even that isn’t enough. We’ll see in the next chapter. I don’t want to get into it now; time is short. There’s also chapter 30, which speaks about a similar matter of breaking oneself, also connected to dullness of the heart, but from a completely different angle. After that we get back on track and begin the real ascent.

1:11:30 Speaker 11 Can I just ask a question? You said earlier that a person sins all day, and at night he transgresses every prohibition in the Torah. If, like, all day I really try, I do everything, I’d say, even in my thoughts, and only at night everything—

1:11:49 Speaker 1 No, it doesn’t cancel any of that out. It just shows my true inner nature. That I, that I—

1:11:57 Speaker 11 You’re saying that’s who you really are.

1:11:58 Speaker 1 It doesn’t cancel anything out. It shows me who I really am, so I won’t think I’ve already become a tzaddik. A tzaddik doesn’t have things like that. Even a beinoni is supposed to have things like that. It shows what my real desire is, the... who’s living here, who—who am I? What is a person, apart from the flesh? What do I feel? What do I think? What do I understand? What do I want? That’s a person’s essence, right?

1:12:34 Speaker 3 But that’s already out of your control—what’s out of your control. The heart.

1:12:39 Speaker 1 Right, but if—

1:12:40 Speaker 3 During the day he’s doing worse to himself, when during the day it’s not like that.

1:12:47 Speaker 1 That’s true. True.

1:12:51 Speaker 3 Who someone really is is who they are during the day, not who they are at night. I mean, that’s right, but—but in order to—

1:13:02 Speaker 1 There’s... Let’s put it another way. Science talks about this today too—psychology, medical science, and neurology—that a person’s behavior is a thi—it’s a thin outer layer. A person’s inner essence is subconscious. Most—

1:13:40 Speaker 3 Right.

1:13:43 Speaker 1 What I understand and feel is a very thin outer layer, but to us it feels like that’s everything. My service of Hashem, the part that depends on me, really does take place in that thin layer of intellect and emotion. Those are the tools I have. I don’t have any others. That’s what’s asked of me. But I need some measure to know: Did I succeed or not? How much did I succeed? The Rebbe—the Alter Rebbe—tells you, “Listen, you want to know how far you’ve really succeeded in changing your inner essence? Here’s a measure.” All right?

1:15:25 Speaker 3 Rabbi, Rabbi.