Likkutei Amarim Chapter 33 · 5781

00:16 Speaker 1 Don’t cheat; I haven’t taken the test yet.

00:17 Speaker 2 I understand. Why did I cheat?

00:21 Speaker 1 Well, let’s have a test in Oral Torah.

00:26 Speaker 2 Poor thing, she studies for five hours.

00:29 Speaker 13 Yes, leave one for me.

00:31 Speaker 2 What did we remember? There’s one left. Let’s take it. I can’t talk in class anymore.

00:40 Speaker 1 He can just come and talk. He can [unclear] all that.

00:47 Speaker 2 I don’t know if I went through all the questions the whole time. But I remember getting home and thinking, “What’s all this shouting?” [unclear]. Oh, and also the... You just don’t... nothing about Hagashash.

01:17 Speaker 1 I didn’t have to take responsibility.

01:21 Speaker 13 All right, we’ll get started, yes? Tonight we’re learning chapter 33. Chapter 33 continues chapter 31. I think we spoke about this last week—even at length—or two weeks ago. After the Alter Rebbe gave advice on how... In chapter 26, the Alter Rebbe said that a person has to be joyful, and someone who doesn’t act with energy and joy cannot overcome the yetzer hara. So he gave us a series of suggestions for how, whatever might make a person sad, he can avoid falling into sadness. After that, he devoted another two chapters to a dulled heart: how a person has to humble himself in order to break the animal soul, the sitra achra within him. And in chapter 31 he said that although the advice in chapters 29 and 30—looking at oneself and humbling oneself—brings a person to sadness, don’t worry. It’s all right if you’re a little sad, even though you’re supposed to be joyful. Why? Because precisely this kind of sadness, genuine sadness, as he calls it there, isn’t really sadness; it’s bitterness. Precisely when a person feels bitter about his situation, when he recognizes his low spiritual state and it pains him, that can bring him to genuine joy. In other words, there are two kinds of joy a person can have: joy that isn’t genuine and joy that is. What’s the difference between ordinary joy and genuine joy? When a person is happy about material things in this world, that isn’t called genuine joy. It’s fleeting joy; it passes and comes to an end. Genuine joy, lasting joy, pure joy, is specifically joy connected with Torah and mitzvos. In other words, what makes him happy? What makes a person happy?

03:48 Speaker 13 Closeness to Hashem makes him happy. Being able to keep mitzvos makes him happy. He enjoys keeping mitzvos; he takes pleasure in observing them and studying Torah. Those are the things that make him happy. Only that is called genuine joy, and only that is something true. That truth endures forever. Something connected with falsehood—falsehood has no legs to stand on. It may be pleasant for a moment, but it doesn’t... Thank you very much. But falsehood doesn’t last. Genuine joy is lasting joy, joy that never stops. Joy connected with eternity is only joy that comes from keeping Torah and mitzvos, from closeness to Hashem. And in chapter 31 he said that the only way to have genuine joy is for a person to give importance to his soul rather than his body. If the body is what matters most to a person, then, from the body’s perspective, his joy will never be complete. All sorts of things in this world interfere with joy that comes from the body. But if his joy comes from the soul, from his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that is genuine joy. That was the general idea. More specifically, he said that the greatest joy of all is when a person has been in a place of darkness, imprisoned, G-d forbid, and now comes out of prison. When a person reflects that through keeping Torah and mitzvos, saying Tehillim and davening, he is now emerging from the darkness he was in and drawing closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that brings him the greatest joy—the joy of a mitzvah. That’s chapter 31. That’s not enough. Did you want to say something? So continuing from there, the Alter Rebbe begins—yes, chapter 33. We said chapter 32 was a parenthetical chapter.

06:27 Speaker 13 We spoke about that then. “This, too, will be the soul’s genuine joy, especially when a person sees in his soul, at appropriate times, that he needs to refine and illuminate it with heartfelt joy.” So one way to achieve genuine joy of the soul is by leaving the material behind and drawing close to the spiritual, by giving the soul precedence over the body. That was chapter 31. Here he says there is another kind of genuine joy. What is the additional genuine joy a person should cultivate within himself? “He should delve deeply into it and picture in his mind and understanding the true oneness of the Blessed One.” What brings a person the greatest joy? Contemplating Hashem’s oneness. What’s the connection? How would contemplating Hashem’s oneness bring a person joy? A little strange, isn’t it? It would make him... Yes, exactly. That’s the point of this entire chapter. When a person contemplates the oneness of... What does Hashem’s oneness mean? We learned chapter 21. What is oneness? Hashem’s oneness means “there is nothing else besides Him.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere. If He is everywhere, He is with me. When a person contemplates Hashem’s oneness until he internalizes it, until he feels it—he has thought about it so deeply that it becomes as vivid in his mind as a picture he is looking at, so clear to him that he actually lives with it as though he sees it—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, that is the greatest joy there can be. So that’s what he says here, and he begins to explain it: “He should delve deeply into it and picture in his mind,” as though he were looking at a picture, “and in his understanding, the true oneness of the Blessed One: how He fills all the worlds, upper and lower; and even this entire earth is filled with His glory; and everything before Him is truly considered as nothing.”

08:54 Speaker 13 So he mentions three ideas here. What should a person think about? How Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all the worlds, upper and lower. The second idea is that even this earth is filled with His glory—that His glory is present even... First, He fills all the worlds. Second, His glory is present even on earth. Third, “everything before Him is truly considered as nothing.” What are these three ideas? I think we’ve mentioned this more than once already, but broadly speaking, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world and gives it life, there are two general aspects: His giving the world life and His creating it. The easiest analogy is the soul and the body. The soul gives life to the body. A body without a soul cannot live or exist; the body has no existence without the soul. But does the soul make the body? Certainly not. Did the body develop from the soul? Certainly not. Was the body formed from the soul? Certainly not. The soul gives it life, but didn’t make it. Similarly, in the world as a whole, there is the Divine power through which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world, brings it into being and sustains its existence. This is called the light of sovev kol almin: on the one hand, it creates the world, acts within it and brings its entire reality into being. On the other hand, no one senses it. We see the result; we don’t see the cause. The second aspect is the Divine light that fills the world and gives it life, entering each created being according to its nature. What is the third aspect, “everything before Him is considered as nothing”? Everything before Him—

11:30 Speaker 13 “is considered as nothing” means that for Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, His essence and being, there is no difference between memalei and sovev. The light that fills the worlds and the light that surrounds the worlds are only light. They are not Him; they are merely a radiance from Him. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu descended to create the worlds, the expression is that in His great humility He contracted Himself so that a radiance from Him could descend and create the worlds. This is what our Sages meant when they said, “Where you find His greatness, there you find His humility.” What is the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? That He creates the worlds. What to us is the greatest thing we can... A person tries to imagine the Creator’s greatness. What can Hakadosh Boruch Hu do that no one else can? Hakadosh Boruch Hu can create something from nothing. Our Sages said: what we call the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not His greatness—it is His humility. What to us is the greatest thing our minds can grasp, His greatness in creating something from nothing, is humility for Him. It is not Him at all. It is utterly insignificant compared to Him. “Everything before Him”—all the worlds, including the power to create the worlds—is utterly insignificant compared to Him. So...

13:06 Speaker 14 But wasn’t that verse said about the Torah?

13:08 Speaker 13 Hmm?

13:08 Speaker 14 About the Torah.

13:10 Speaker 13 Listen, which verse?

13:10 Speaker 14 That it’s—

13:11 Speaker 13 Listen.

13:11 Speaker 14 In the place you’re quoting there.

13:15 Speaker 13 What is the plain meaning of the verse? I don’t know right now. It’s quoted throughout Chassidus.

13:20 Speaker 14 In Tanna D’vei Eliyahu, no?

13:21 Speaker 13 Tanna D’vei Eliyahu is always quoted in this context, throughout Chassidus.

13:26 Speaker 14 Yes. The idea that the Torah descended from a high place to a low place.

13:32 Speaker 13 Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

13:34 Speaker 14 So is it talking there about the creation of the worlds?

13:37 Speaker 13 That the Torah descended to create the worlds?

13:40 Speaker 14 Right.

13:43 Speaker 13 Yes. That was just in the Tanya we learned these past few days. Yes, exactly the same idea. So I’m talking here about three levels. A person needs to... What will bring a person joy? Contemplating the oneness of Hashem. What does contemplating the oneness of Hashem mean? Contemplating three things: that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to all the worlds. That’s what a person can relate to most easily, what’s easiest for him to understand; he has some grasp of it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life... Everything in the world, all the life in the world—the fact that the world is alive, that it turns, that it functions and runs, that there are days and nights and everything else in the world—this is an immense good that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does. Who does it? Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Where does He do it? Right here with me. He is actually here together with me. A higher level of contemplation is when a person considers not only that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world, but that the entire existence of the world is Him. And then he contemplates more deeply still that, relative to His Essence and Being, all the worlds are truly like nothing at all.

15:03 Speaker 14 Which is a higher level: giving it life, giving it life, or creating its existence?

15:08 Speaker 13 Creating its existence. Creating its existence means creating something from nothing. Giving it life means that once it already exists, well, we breathe the breath of life into it. Creating something from nothing is certainly a higher thing, and it is within the power of the Creator alone. There is... I think it’s an expression of the Tzemach Tzedek: If all the scientists were to gather... Well, he doesn’t use the word “scientists”; he has another word. If all the scientists in the world gathered, they could not create even a... What? I don’t remember. That’s the gist of it. If all the scientists in the world gathered, they could never create even the wing of a fly. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can create something from nothing. Giving it life is also a great thing, but it isn’t like creating it. So when a person contemplates that He alone exists in the upper and lower realms, just as He alone existed before the Six Days of Creation, and that in this very place where this world—with the heavens and earth and all their hosts—was created, He alone filled that place... So before the world was created... Let’s start with the question. This still doesn’t state the question. The fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to all the worlds, fills all the worlds, and is here with me—clearly, that brings me great joy. The fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the entire existence of the world—well, if I manage to grasp that, it certainly brings great joy. But that all the worlds are of no account compared to Him—what does that have to do with me? Why should that bring me joy? So he explains. What does it mean that “all is of no account before Him”? That He alone exists in the upper and lower realms, just as He alone existed before the Six Days of Creation. At first glance, that’s a contradiction. If we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds, that the worlds matter to Him,

17:42 Speaker 13 He made... He created the world. If He created the world, He wanted to create it, right? So the world matters to Him. If it matters to Him, then the world does count for something. Right? But if we’re talking about the level that is completely beyond any connection to the worlds, where “all is of no account before Him,” all the worlds are like nothing at all compared to Him—then what does “world” mean? There is no world; only He Himself exists. For a world to exist, there has to be a place for it to stand. If Hakadosh Boruch Hu is infinite, where will He put the world? The world is something finite. Where will He put it? So for a world to be able to exist, there has to be tzimtzum. Once we speak of tzimtzum, of an empty space and a place—hmm?

18:45 Speaker 15 [unclear]

18:52 Speaker 13 A world means concealment; it means a limit. Infinity is without limit. If there is an infinite reality, there is no limit here. If you say there is a limit, then it isn’t infinite. You can’t have both together.

19:16 Speaker 15 But how exactly? How do we say that the infinite, the quality of being without limit, enters into a limit?

19:24 Speaker 13 That’s the answer.

19:27 Speaker 15 What do you mean? No, it’s just that I don’t understand what the problem is with having a limit within infinity. It’s as if there’s—

19:37 Speaker 13 It spreads through the entire world. Okay?

19:39 Speaker 15 For something finite, that isn’t possible. Without limit is [unclear].

19:46 Speaker 13 Well, but that isn’t a contradiction.

19:47 Speaker 15 They don’t contradict each other, but [unclear]. So it can’t be that—

19:50 Speaker 13 If we say that within the sea of infinity there’s a point here that has a limit inside it—okay? At this point here, I’ve put a limit; I’ve put a world here—then here it isn’t infinite. Here there’s a limit.

20:12 Speaker 15 It depends on what the limit is and what infinity is.

20:16 Speaker 13 Where there’s a limit, there’s no absence of limit. There’s a limit here. Here—here it isn’t infinite. At this point here, it isn’t infinite. Okay? You’re trying to describe a situation where there’s a vast sea and an island in the sea—an island of limitation. That isn’t right. Or, if you want to use the analogy, where there’s an island, there’s no sea.

20:50 Speaker 15 But if it’s the sea—if it’s the air, then there’s air both over the sea and over the... island. No, the air would be the world of infinity.

21:02 Speaker 16 Right, but here, these [unclear] in the middle are numbers. There are no numbers. The numbers aren’t... What matters is that they... They’re saying there’s no end to the numbers at all.

21:10 Speaker 15 No.

21:11 Speaker 16 There’s no end to it.

21:12 Speaker 15 No end. That’s not—

21:13 Speaker 16 Why? You can always go on to one more.

21:15 Speaker 15 And the fact that you can go on to one more doesn’t mean there’s no limit here. I have no idea. I can’t go on to one more. Really, there isn’t. There isn’t.

21:22 Speaker 13 Blessed are You, Hashem.

21:28 Speaker 15 There’s no limit in the world. But what bothers me is that the numbers seem to have a limit. So how can there be— It isn’t a pair of... It’s either yes or no. It isn’t a pair of... We don’t see it.

21:38 Speaker 13 All right, we’ll skip ahead. This takes some contemplation and thought. It’s true that it’s an abstract idea. It’s true that there’s no literal physical analogy for it, because there can’t be a physical analogy: everything physical has a limit. But if you contemplate it, you can understand it. In any case, the point is—well, you have to think about it and contemplate it.

22:04 Speaker 15 Like light and darkness? Like light and darkness.

22:09 Speaker 13 Light and darkness could be an example, yes. Where there’s light, there isn’t darkness. If there’s—

22:15 Speaker 15 So why doesn’t that give an example of darkness? It seems—

22:18 Speaker 13 What?

22:19 Speaker 17 Like here, there’s some... there’s darkness here.

22:22 Speaker 13 Yes, but when—

22:23 Speaker 15 No, but that’s already part of the definition of a limit; it’s—

22:25 Speaker 13 There’s no place, no place, no place where there can be both light and darkness. Either there’s light; you can’t have both together.

22:35 Speaker 15 I understood the idea. That’s why I said I sort of understand the idea; I just don’t know how to explain it. It doesn’t bother me.

22:42 Speaker 13 It’s something that... Right, it’s a subtle, abstract point that you have to think about. All right, in any case, what the Rebbe says is this: For there to be a place where the worlds could exist, some of the infinite light had to be cleared away, so there would be a place here that wasn’t infinite light. That is called tzimtzum—the first tzimtzum. What’s the novel point? What’s the novel point? This is an even harder point to understand. One second. What’s the novel point? This is the point that’s even harder to understand. After Hakadosh Boruch Hu made an empty space, He... I don’t know how He did it. He has infinite power. He can do anything. What did He do? What did He do? He concealed Himself. He concealed Himself. He made it possible for there to be... He made there be such a thing as a place, an island of sorts where there’s a limit. Okay. So here there’s no limit, and here there’s an island of sorts within which there is a limit: a hollow space, an empty place in which there is room for a world to be created. Fine. What does the Alter Rebbe say? After Hakadosh Boruch Hu made this thing called an empty space, He is present within that empty space just as He was before it was empty. Seeing but unseen. No, not “seeing but unseen.” He is present in the empty space in exactly the same way, in exactly the same form, with exactly the same force as before He did this. So what difference does it make that... in the mind’s eye. Hmm? So what difference does it make that, from His perspective, nothing changes? From His perspective, nothing... It’s more than that. It isn’t just that, from His perspective, nothing changed. It’s that, from His perspective, nothing changed even after something did change. Yes. What do you mean, from the perspective of the light? He controls the light. He decides that the light won’t change. The point the Rebbe wants... We’re... we’re looking for how the idea of “all is of no account before Him” relates—

25:33 Speaker 13 “As if it were nothing.” Why should that make me happy? What do I care, sitting here in Afula, that “everything before Him is considered as nothing”? Why is that supposed to make me happy? Why? What the Rebbe explains is that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world—what does it mean that He created the world? He made an island, set a boundary, brought about a tzimtzum, concealed Himself, created an empty space. Right? After He did that, He remained—after Hakadosh Boruch Hu did that, He remained in that empty space just as He had been before He created it. What does that mean? That what is here with me is not just the Divine light that fills the worlds, and not just the light that encompasses them. His very Essence and Being is here with me, just as before the world was created. Again, we’ll soon see why this matters to us. But the point is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here with me—not just His light, not just the power that creates something from nothing, the encompassing light, but His very Essence and Being is right here with me. That is what it says in line ten: “And even now, He alone remains so, without any change whatsoever, because all created beings are utterly nullified in His presence, like the nullification of the letters of speech and thought in their source and root, in the being and essence of the soul—its ten faculties, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and so on—where the letters do not yet exist, before they are clothed in the garment of thought, as explained at length in chapters 20 and 21. See there.” Those are the two chapters in which we studied the unity of Hashem at length. He brought several analogies there—three analogies involving speech. Let’s review them very briefly. What does it mean that thought—and speech and thought—are nullified in relation to the person himself? In other words, the things a person says—he gave several levels there. Let’s start from the bottom. Well, that’s really distracting. It’s making it hard for me to think. When a person

28:13 Speaker 13 speaks, what is he saying? He says what he thinks. What is the relationship between what he says and what he thinks? A person can think very deep thoughts, but sometimes it is very hard to explain to someone else what he thinks and feels, because speech is so insignificant compared with thought; it is nullified in relation to thought. And thought itself is completely nullified in relation to intellect and emotion.

28:49 Speaker 18 Why, like that? Hello?

28:53 Speaker 13 Naama, what about over here?

28:56 Speaker 18 It’s not cold.

28:56 Speaker 13 It’s not cold.

28:56 Speaker 18 Yes.

28:57 Speaker 13 Hello.

28:58 Speaker 18 It’s not cold. Until—

29:04 Speaker 13 Let’s—let’s do a... what’s it called? A thought experiment. A thought experiment. We now understand—or we’ve understood—the idea that “everything before Him is considered as nothing.” We understood it, thought about it, talked about it. Let’s assume we managed to understand it.

29:19 Speaker 18 Let’s assume.

29:24 Speaker 13 Now imagine Jews who don’t know Hebrew. They’re studying Tanya in translation in some other country. They study the same chapter and the same idea. Do they understand what we understood? Presumably, yes. What we understood, they’ll understand; what we didn’t understand, they won’t understand either, right? They understand the same idea. Do they understand it in the language we speak? They understand it in their own language. They speak a different language, think in a different language, and the letters of their speech and thought are different. Do they understand something different? They understand exactly the same thing. That means that in the intellect there is the understanding itself, the intellectual idea itself, and then there is the thought in which it is expressed, and the speech used to express it—the garments in which the intellect is clothed.

30:24 Speaker 18 Thought isn’t the same thing.

30:25 Speaker 13 Right.

30:26 Speaker 18 You think—then you don’t know it. The word that gets expressed.

30:30 Speaker 19 Understanding and thought aren’t the same thing.

30:31 Speaker 18 You’re thinking right now, exactly.

30:33 Speaker 13 Understanding is not thought.

30:37 Speaker 18 You said understanding is the soul.

30:39 Speaker 13 Right.

30:40 Speaker 18 Why?

30:41 Speaker 13 Because understanding is the essence of the soul.

30:44 Speaker 18 It doesn’t reach the intellect, the thought.

30:44 Speaker 19 No, he’s talking about the letters of thought, not thought itself.

30:47 Speaker 13 No.

30:47 Speaker 19 What are the letters of thought? In what language...

30:48 Speaker 13 Understanding doesn’t come after thought. Under—again.

30:55 Speaker 18 Understanding is only... You—you—you write down what you’re saying. All right, let’s assume we understand it: the content will be the same, and each person will read it in a different language.

31:05 Speaker 19 Okay.

31:05 Speaker 18 She thinks in a language—

31:07 Speaker 19 I understood that. I understood that. What’s so hard about saying that—

31:12 Speaker 13 Again. It’s not—and it’s not the way it seems. It seems to us... First I’ll explain why it seems that way to us, and then it will be easier to understand the point itself. When I think, my tool for thinking is thought. I have no other tool for thinking. Thought is close to me, and it’s what I work with, what I feel. When I understand something, it isn’t that thought now climbs upward until it reaches understanding. It’s exactly the opposite. Understanding—the essence of the soul, which is an intellectual soul, a soul that understands—descends and clothes itself in the letters of thought. Then thought descends and clothes itself in the letters of speech. It’s just that, because I speak Hebrew, that same idea, that same intellectual concept, descends for me into letters of thought in Hebrew. And if one of you speaks English or Scandinavian or I don’t know what language, it makes no difference. The same understanding, the same idea, the same concept descends for that person and clothes itself in different letters. And it differs not only from language to language but from person to person. Each person’s way of thinking and feeling is different, and the same idea descends and clothes itself in different letters for each one. We can see this in practice. Take two people who sat and learned together as chavrusas. They learned the same thing and understood the same idea in the same way. Ask each of them afterward to write a summary, and each will write it in different letters, even if they understood the same thing. The content they write will be exactly the same; the letters will be different. It will never be in exactly the same—why? Because thought is only a garment; it is not the essence of the soul. It is not part of the soul. All right? The Alter Rebbe brings this as an analogy for the creation of the world. Just as thought has no value, no proportion, no significance

33:54 Speaker 13 in relation to understanding itself, so too, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world with letters, the letters with which He created the world—“Let us make man,” “And G-d said, ‘Let there be light,’” or all the other letters of the Torah, even the Ten Commandments—are as nothing compared with His Essence, just as a person’s letters of thought and speech are as nothing compared with the person himself.

34:29 Speaker 20 What is?

34:29 Speaker 13 The letters of thought and speech. More than that, he says there, in chapters 20 and 21, that the letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world are not like the letters of thought and speech. Why? When a person speaks, the moment he says something, the word has gone out. We say you can’t take back a word you’ve said. It has already gone out; it’s already separate from the person. It’s already with someone else. The letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world are like the letters of thought before He—before they were thought. Remember we talked about this?

35:25 Speaker 20 About what?

35:26 Speaker 13 Remember we talked about this?

35:27 Speaker 20 Thought.

35:29 Speaker 13 What? What? Then I’ll go over it briefly. It’s a—this is a point... Hmm?

35:36 Speaker 20 No, why is it as if... Did you understand what he said?

35:53 Speaker 13 The letters I spea—think: where did they come from? The letters I speak—where did they come from? From the letters I think. The letters I think—where did they come from? From understanding. And where does understanding come from? It is the essence of the soul. Hmm?

36:14 Speaker 20 I didn’t understand. I understood that there is thought. It’s sort of like that too.

36:18 Speaker 13 It wouldn’t be right to say—they are garments, but it wouldn’t be right to say there is no connection at all. The letters of the soul’s garments are also radiations from the soul. We spoke about this briefly at the time. They too are a radiation from the soul. It’s true that they’re like—the analogy given is that they’re like clothing. A person can take off one garment and put on another, but they... the soul’s garments—thought, speech, and action—are considered garments only in relation to the essence of the soul. Because they can be changed, they’re seemingly something separate. But the truth is that they aren’t completely separate. You could say they are a radiation. What does that mean? A lamp gives light. What does it mean that a lamp gives light? The light isn’t the lamp. There’s a lamp, with oil, a wick, a flame. This is only its light. Yes, but the light comes from the lamp. It is something separate, with no comparison to it and so on, but it comes from there. That’s its source. The moment you put up some sort of barrier, the lamp’s light is no longer there; it stops. So too, the soul’s garments—thought, speech, and action—are radiations from the soul. They aren’t actually part of the soul; they are garments, they can be changed, and so on. But they are a radiation from the soul. Where is thou—since, in the end, thought came from the essence of the soul, where was it before I thought it? That’s where it came from. Where was it before I thought it?

38:06 Speaker 20 Before that, in [unclear].

38:08 Speaker 13 And before I thought of that idea? It wasn’t there. It simply wasn’t there. It was included in the essence of the soul. It had no separate existence. When does the light of a candle have an existence of its own? The moment it shines. When it’s inside the candle, or before the candle has been lit, where is it? There’s no light there. Cut the candle open—will you see light inside? It’s included there; that’s called being included in its source. It has no existence of its own. It isn’t really there. It comes from there, but within its source it doesn’t exist as something separate. The Alter Rebbe gives an analogy: the letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world are not like a person’s spoken letters, which are separate, but like the letters of thought. And not just the letters of thought, but the letters of thought before they’ve been thought. In other words, the existence of the entire world is included within His Essence, His Being and His Essence. That means His Essence, His Being, is here. This is explained there in chapters 20 and 21. That’s one analogy. He gives another analogy. The first analogy is about the nullification of the worlds through thought—thought that is nullified to the soul. “And as explained elsewhere as well, a physical analogy for this matter.” He gives an additional analogy, one that’s easier to understand. The analogy from thought is a little abstract. He gives a more physical analogy. What is it?

39:56 Speaker 20 More than a little abstract.

39:57 Speaker 13 More than a little abstract. So he gives another analogy, and there are two other reasons why he gives two analogies. We won’t go into that now. “The nullification of the sun’s radiance and light in its source, the body of the sun in the sky.” We got so tangled up in the analogy of thought that we needed an analogy for the nullification of light in its luminary. Why? Because it really is an easier analogy to understand. “And as there, too…” “A physical analogy for this is the nullification of the sun’s radiance and light in its source, the body of the sun in the sky.” What’s the analogy? “For there, too, within the body of the sun itself…” Oh, what—did something spill here?

41:01 Speaker 3 Couldn’t, couldn’t.

41:19 Speaker 13 Should we continue or wait? Let’s continue. Okay. The first analogy was the nullification of thought—we’re trying to understand how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here with me. So he began with the lower levels. The light that fills all worlds, memale kol almin—we understood that. The light that encompasses all worlds, sovev kol almin, creates the worlds—we understood that. Then, to understand why His Essence and Being are also here, he gives two analogies. Meaning that His Being and Essence, before Whom everything is considered as nothing, is also here with us. The first analogy is the letters of thought, which are nullified to the essence of the soul. The second is a physical analogy: the nullification of the sun’s radiance and light in its source, the body of the sun in the sky. What’s the analogy? “For there, too”—when you look at the sun, when you think about the sun—“its radiance and light certainly shine and spread within the sun itself with even greater intensity than when they spread and shine through the space of the world.” If the light reaches Earth, millions and millions and millions of kilometers from the sun, then surely the closer you get to the sun, the stronger and brighter it is. Right? That makes sense. So clearly, within the body of the sun itself, it’s even stronger and brighter. If it shines so intensely when it spreads outward, and the closer you get, the more intensely it shines, then it’s obvious, all the more so, that within the body of the sun it shines even more intensely—incomparably more intensely. But what happens there? There you don’t see it; there it has no existence of its own.

43:09 Speaker 3 What do you see, then?

43:10 Speaker 13 Why doesn’t it have an existence of its own? First of all, there’s the simple analogy the Sages already gave: “What use is a lamp in broad daylight?” What good is a candle in daylight? It’s not that it doesn’t shine. Does a candle shine less during the day? It shines the same, but it serves no purpose. Why not? Because it’s nullified in the great light all around it. That’s easy to understand. What’s the next step in the analogy? If you can no longer see a candle merely because it’s near a great light, what happens when the light is within its own source and root? All the more so, it has no existence of its own at all.

44:20 Speaker 3 What does that mean? In the sun itself, what does that mean?

44:25 Speaker 13 He wasn’t talking about the candle; he’s talking about sunlight. Sunlight in its source and root, within the body of the sun.

44:32 Speaker 3 That’s exactly what I don’t understand.

44:34 Speaker 13 There is the luminary; there is the body of the sun itself. The light—even though it shines more intensely there—has no existence of its own at all.

44:44 Speaker 3 What does that mean?

44:46 Speaker 13 Where does the light shine? Where the body of the sun isn’t present.

44:52 Speaker 3 But the sun itself.

44:54 Speaker 13 Yes, we see the light of the sun.

44:58 Speaker 3 But that is the light.

44:58 Speaker 4 It’s like…

45:00 Speaker 3 That’s the light itself. We see it.

45:04 Speaker 13 We see only the light.

45:06 Speaker 3 So how can you say it isn’t there?

45:09 Speaker 13 We see it afterward, after it has come out. You can’t see it while it’s inside the sun.

45:17 Speaker 3 What, can you see the sun? The sunlight inside the sun?

45:20 Speaker 13 The sunlight inside the sun.

45:22 Speaker 3 We see it from outside it; it’s the same thing. It’s a cellphone.

45:25 Speaker 13 Yes.

45:25 Speaker 3 It’s the outside, but it’s a cellphone. It’s the same thing. You haven’t seen the computer.

45:30 Speaker 4 You see the computer itself, the cellphone.

45:32 Speaker 3 But this is a cellphone, you know? It’s the same with the sun. You see its outside—that’s the sun.

45:36 Speaker 4 But he’s talking about the light as it is inside the sun.

45:38 Speaker 3 The light outside is the light itself. Isn’t that the light?

45:41 Speaker 4 That’s fine, but that’s how it is for you. You sense it outside.

45:46 Speaker 13 The point is that it is indeed the same light, but there you don’t sense it.

45:53 Speaker 3 It’s like the sun and the moon: as the moon gets closer to the sun, it appears to merge with it. There is light.

46:08 Speaker 13 It’s a similar analogy. Yes.

46:12 Speaker 3 It grows; I understand.

46:13 Speaker 4 Okay, yes. There are seven…

46:20 Speaker 13 We can see the light afterward, when it—when the luminary isn’t there, when the body—when its source is there, then the light isn’t there as something separate; its source is there. All right, this analogy… We’ll look at this analogy again, actually twice more, at great length in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, chapter 3, and then again there in chapter 10, with small differences between the two analogies. In any case, what we’ve seen so far is that the Alter Rebbe gives two analogies to explain how not only the light that fills the worlds, and not only the light that encompasses the worlds, but His Essence and Being are also right here with us. Why? Because all the light, that radiance with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds, has not separated or left its source and root. Even after Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates it, it remains within Him. It is within His Essence. “And exactly so, by way of analogy”—line five—“is the nullification of the world and all it contains with respect to its source, the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, as explained there at length in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, chapter 3.” There. Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe still hasn’t said the point that we mentioned right at the beginning: Why should this make us happy? To have true joy in Hashem, it isn’t only a matter of making the soul primary and the body secondary—of setting aside your animal soul, directing all your attention to your G-dly soul, to Torah and mitzvos, taking your soul out of exile, and being truly happy. That isn’t the only way to find joy. A Jew has another way to find joy. What is it? By contemplating the oneness of Hashem. Contemplating the oneness of Hashem involves four—three aspects: Hashem’s oneness as it relates to memale kol almin, to…

48:28 Speaker 13 Sovev kol almin, and to “everything before Him is considered as nothing.” “And when he reflects deeply on this, his heart will rejoice and his soul will exult; he will rejoice and sing with all his heart, soul, and might in this faith, for it is great.” The greatest joy a person can have is feeling that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, that he isn’t alone. The very Creator of the world, Who gives life to all the worlds and sustains them all, and before Whom everything is considered as nothing, is here with me. Not with me in some general sense—with me right now. When is He with me? When I think about it. When I think about it and contemplate it, when I study this subject—or, as elsewhere, where further analogies are given and the oneness and unity of Hashem are explained at much greater length. When a Jew contemplates this and thinks deeply about it until he feels it, until he believes that this is really so, it begins… It can bring him both fear of Hashem and love of Hashem. There’s no sadness in the world for him. What could make him sad? The Creator of all the worlds is actually with me right now. So what—what is missing? He lacks nothing. That is true joy. “In this faith, for it is great.” There can be no greater joy in the world than closeness to Hashem. There simply can’t be.

50:21 Speaker 5 Lacking something?

50:22 Speaker 13 What?

50:22 Speaker 5 Is sadness basically a sense that something is missing?

50:24 Speaker 13 Sadness? In simple terms. What is sadness? When a person lacks something, materially or spiritually. There is sadness that isn’t genuine, and sadness that is genuine. It depends on what he’s lacking. We saw that. For it is actual closeness to G-d. And this is the whole purpose of man, and the purpose of his creation and of the creation of all the higher and lower worlds. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create all the worlds? To have a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms, as will be explained at length later. That begins in chapter 36 and onward.

51:03 Speaker 5 I have a question about—

51:19 Speaker 13 I think—I think it’s explained in chapter 36. We’d have to look there; I think so. Have a look at chapter 36 afterward.

51:29 Speaker 5 What—what’s the source of the idea that says—

51:39 Speaker 13 I don’t know right now. But the point is very clear. The purpose of the world’s creation is for Him to have a dwelling place in the lower realms. Who are the lower realms? I am one of the lower realms; He created me. When am I a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He? When I think about it, contemplate it deeply, internalize it, and feel that there is nothing besides Him, that He is here with me. The moment I feel that He is with me, He is with me. In fact, He is here all the time. So what difference does it make whether I feel it or not? The moment I contemplate it, feel it, and live with it, that is the purpose of the world’s creation. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create the world? So that I would contemplate His oneness and unity and feel that He is with me. And when I feel it, that is what the world was created for. Could there be any greater joy? And now, even more than that. Oh, sorry. How great is the joy of a common, lowly person when a human king comes close to him and stays and lives with him in his home. Imagine a great king coming to—to my house. He stays with me for one night. I’ll remember it all my life. Among the Chabad chassidim in Afula, they still point it out today. Once, when the Frierdiker Rebbe was in Israel, he passed through and… What?

53:27 Speaker 6 A sign.

53:27 Speaker 13 A sign, yes. And one night—

53:34 Speaker 6 The train.

53:34 Speaker 13 No, no, on the boulevard, on the boulevard.

53:36 Speaker 6 Wow.

53:37 Speaker 13 Yes.

53:38 Speaker 6 You have to pay attention.

53:41 Speaker 7 Isn’t it at the train station complex?

53:44 Speaker 13 No, no, no, no, no.

53:45 Speaker 6 Across from the shul.

53:47 Speaker 13 The sign was—uh—Asaf. Avi Asaf made the sign; he took care of it.

53:53 Speaker 6 The late—

53:55 Speaker 13 A city council member, a good fellow.

53:57 Speaker 6 Oh, first of all, [unclear].

54:01 Speaker 13 So what are we talking about? For, I don’t know, sixty years, fifty years already, people have been mentioning it. He didn’t speak to anyone here. He didn’t… He needed to get from the north to the south. It was a long journey, so they stopped here in Afula at night. The train stopped here. He slept here for two or three hours that night and then continued on. And they remember it for generations: the Frierdiker Rebbe was in Afula. He slept here one night. When a Jew contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me—not the Frierdiker Rebbe, but His very Essence, blessed be He, is here with me in my dwelling. He… What does “in my dwelling” mean? Inside my heart, inside my mind, inside my body. He is with me, truly united with me. How infinitely more so when the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, comes close and dwells with him, as it is written: “For who is this who has dared to approach Me, says Hashem?” And when I believe with complete faith that He is with me—and that faith is true—then He is with me. That is why they instituted giving praise and thanks to His blessed Name every morning and saying, “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion,” and so on, “and how beautiful is our inheritance.” What are this “portion” and “inheritance”? It’s somewhat connected to Chanukah. They wrote on the horn of an ox, “You have no portion in the G-d of Israel.” How can someone have a portion in G-dliness?

55:48 Speaker 6 How can there be a portion?

55:50 Speaker 13 How can there be? So it’s the same question.

55:56 Speaker 6 How does that work?

55:56 Speaker 13 There’s a passage in Igeres Hakodesh—I don’t remember which letter; I think it’s 10. I’m not sure. It begins, “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion, how pleasant is our lot.” It sets out to explain the idea of a portion and a lot in G-dliness. That’s how the letter in Tanya begins. The explanation there is that some things are the same for all Jews: mitzvos, Torah, study—they apply equally to everyone. But each person has some particular mitzvah, some particular area, that he is more drawn to, or, alternatively, that is harder for him to do. Why is one person more drawn to studying Chassidus, and another to studying nigleh? And within nigleh itself, one prefers studying Shulchan Aruch, while another’s heart draws him to Gemara, and in Gemara one person is more drawn to Bava Metzia. Each person… There’s endless variety, because each person has his own portion within the general mission of the Jewish people to bring G-dliness into the world—the portion his soul needs to bring into the world. His mission in the world. This is called a personal mission and a general mission. So this portion that each person has—his personal connection to Torah and mitzvos, not just a general connection—comes as an inheritance. What is an inheritance? It falls into a person’s hands; he didn’t work for it. His parents worked hard. His parents worked hard, and he receives it. Who are our parents who worked hard?

57:54 Speaker 8 Avraham.

57:55 Speaker 13 Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. And what do we receive from them?

58:00 Speaker 8 Gifts.

58:00 Speaker 13 What gifts?

58:06 Speaker 8 This faith, for it is great.

58:09 Speaker 13 This faith, for it is great. The Alter Rebbe is saying something remarkable here, tucked into these words. Go to a non-Jew and explain to him all the analogies we explained in this chapter. Even if he understands them, he won’t feel closeness to G-d. He won’t feel it. He didn’t inherit it. He doesn’t have it. He has intellect; he didn’t inherit faith. What? Those are exceptions. There are individual cases, all kinds of things, but what makes a Jew a Jew is that when I contemplate Hashem’s greatness, when I contemplate Hashem’s oneness, it touches me. I feel it. I feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. That is what we received as an inheritance. And it also obligates us. It obligates us; it isn’t just a privilege. Since we received it as an inheritance, everyone has it, so everyone can feel G-dliness. It’s an inheritance.

59:17 Speaker 8 Is he obligated to feel it?

59:18 Speaker 13 So he—so he is obligated. Why? Because that is the purpose of the creation of all the worlds. We can go a little further. What? I can’t tell you about this particular non-Jew or that particular non-Jew, or exactly what the difference will be in the first Geulah, as we left it earlier regarding the nations of the world. I don’t know all the distinctions. Generally speaking, a Jew received an inheritance; every Jew received an inheritance. And the meaning of that inheritance is that when he contemplates Hashem’s oneness, he will feel it.

59:54 Speaker 8 Well, that’s something you can work on, isn’t it?

59:57 Speaker 13 You can work on it, and you have to work on it. It doesn’t come without effort. On the contrary, we said earlier that it’s hard. You have to contemplate it at length; it takes great effort—

1:00:03 Speaker 8 No.

1:00:03 Speaker 13 But at the same time, it’s possible.

1:00:05 Speaker 8 What I inherited is the ability to work at it and attain it.

1:00:08 Speaker 13 The ability to feel it.

1:00:10 Speaker 8 Me? No. For example, when you [unclear] 15000, you inherit one shekel. Someone else can work and earn two hundred thousand shekels.

1:00:17 Speaker 13 Yes.

1:00:18 Speaker 8 So if I inherited the ability to believe, someone else can work and acquire the ability to believe, can’t they?

1:00:25 Speaker 13 Up until the Tower of Babel, yes. After that, I don’t think so.

1:00:28 Speaker 8 Why?

1:00:31 Speaker 13 Because it says in—It says in Parshas Haazinu, “He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel,” that at the Tower of Babel, the… What do the commentators write there?

1:00:42 Speaker 8 I know.

1:00:43 Speaker 13 That then it came down—then it was determined that only the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov would have a G-dly soul. That is—it didn’t actually come into effect in the world until a few generations later, with Yaakov and his sons. But at the Tower of Babel the decision was made, so to speak; the ruling was issued.

1:01:04 Speaker 8 Why does that prevent them from believing?

1:01:07 Speaker 9 They can work at it.

1:01:08 Speaker 8 The ability to feel, to believe.

1:01:11 Speaker 13 Because they don’t have it.

1:01:11 Speaker 8 Let them work at it and pray. We inherit this faith, and that’s why we pray. They can work and attain it, can’t they? They can’t work and come to feel it?

1:01:23 Speaker 13 For exactly the same reason that a goat, no matter how hard it tries, can’t start speaking. It has no faculty of speech. How could it speak?

1:01:34 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:01:38 Speaker 8 I prayed.

1:01:40 Speaker 9 Earlier.

1:01:41 Speaker 8 What? What treatment?

1:01:44 Speaker 9 There is.

1:01:44 Speaker 13 All right. So here: How great is the joy of a common, lowly person when a human king comes close to him and stays and lives with him in his home. How infinitely more so when the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, comes close and dwells with him, as it is written: “For who is this who has dared to approach Me, says Hashem?” For this they instituted saying Shema Yisroel every morning: “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion,” and so on, “and how beautiful is our inheritance.” So you need to think about it. When you say in the morning, “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion, and how beautiful is our inheritance,” a Jew needs to think about it during davening. That is contemplation during davening. During davening is not the time for extended contemplation. You need to contemplate it before davening, and when you reach those words in davening, think about the idea and recall it.

1:02:35 Speaker 8 Why?

1:02:38 Speaker 13 In other words, just as a person rejoices over an inheritance that has fallen to him, a vast fortune he did not labor for, so we should rejoice infinitely more over the inheritance our forefathers bequeathed us. It is the true unity of Hashem: even on the earth below, there is nothing besides Him, and everything before Him is considered as nothing. This is His dwelling in the lower realms. When I feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me—and what does that depend on? On my contemplation. This is what our Sages said: 613 mitzvos were given to the Jewish people; Chavakuk came and established them on one, as it says, “The righteous person shall live by his faith.” In other words, as though there were only one mitz— the entire Torah and all the mitzvos are just one mitzvah. What is it? Faith alone. Why? Because faith alone will lead to the fulfillment of all 613 mitzvos. If a Jew feels that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, gives him life, creates him, dwells with him, unites with him, is with him every single moment, it brings him such tremendous joy that the only thing he looks for in the world is how, how to do mitzvos. That’s all. Nothing else interests him. Faith alone will lead to the fulfillment of all 613 mitzvos: his heart will rejoice and be glad in his faith, in the unity of Hashem, with utter joy, as though this were the only mitzvah incumbent upon him, and it alone were the purpose of his creation and the creation of all the worlds. With the strength and vitality his soul draws from this great joy, his soul will rise far above every obstacle to fulfilling all 613 mitzvos, from within and without. Nothing in the world will stop him from doing mitzvos. So here we’ve closed the circle that began at the start of chapter 26. How did we feel at the start of chapter 26? I want to keep mitzvos. I’m trying, I’m making an effort, I’m contemplating and thinking, with an intellectual love and a hidden love. But I’m not succeeding. It isn’t working for me. Why isn’t it working? Because you aren’t joyful. What do you mean, you’re

1:04:40 Speaker 13 not—how can I be joyful? I have this problem and that problem. You don’t need to be sad about that. Not about that either. Or that. Or that. Fine, okay, you’re all right. Everything’s fine, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Everything’s fine, Alter Rebbe. I understand you. I’m not sad anymore, not sad, not sad. I’m—everything’s fine. No. You need to be joyful. How am I supposed to be joyful? First of all, get out of that mindset. What matters most is the soul, not the body. That’s chapter 31. Second, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with you. How can you be sad? It doesn’t make sense. And this is why it says “shall live by his faith”—“live” specifically—because, like the resurrection of the dead, by way of analogy, his soul will come alive with great joy. It’s like the resurrection of the dead. A Jew contemplates Hashem’s unity until he feels that Hashem is with him—it’s like the resurrection of the dead. His soul comes alive with—he has a G-dly soul. Before he contemplated, he was dead. That’s what it says here. “And this joy is double and redoubled.” What does “double” mean? Two joys. What does “redoubled” mean? That each of those two joys is itself doubled as well. Four—what are these four joys? We’ve spoken about one joy, haven’t we? His joy at being close to Hashem. Right?

1:06:15 Speaker 10 From the love that fills—love—no, not the love.

1:06:18 Speaker 13 Very good, yes. That’s right, and that’s right too.

1:06:25 Speaker 10 Wait, two.

1:06:29 Speaker 13 That’s two, and this is two. So far we’ve discussed the first two: joy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all worlds, and joy that He encompasses all worlds. Now there’s the other side. So far we’ve spoken about what makes me happy. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy too. Why did He create the world? So that I would believe in Him, right? If I believe in Him now, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy, so I should be happy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy. What makes Hakadosh Boruch Hu happy? Here too there are two aspects, the natural soul. “For besides the joy of the understanding soul in the closeness of Hashem and His dwelling with it”—that’s what we’ve discussed until now—“it will rejoice doubly in Hashem’s joy and the great satisfaction before Him, blessed be He, in this faith, through which the sitra achra is subdued.” When a Jew believes that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, he thereby subdues the sitra achra, and that is Hashem’s joy. “And darkness is transformed into light”—the darkness of the kelipos in this material world, which darken and conceal His light until the end of days, as it says, “He has set an end to darkness.” That is, the end of days, when He will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth, and Hashem’s glory will be revealed and all flesh will see it together, as will be explained below. I think that’s also in these seven chapters. Chapters 30 to 38, yes. “And especially in the lands of idol worshipers, whose air is impure and full of kelipos and sitra achra. There is no joy before Him, blessed be He, like the light and joy that come from the superiority of light emerging specifically from darkness.” So the lower a Jew’s situation, the worse his state—as we discussed there in chapters 29–30, where he talks about a person who isn’t doing well, who has transgressions and sins and troubling thoughts. He can’t overcome them, and so on and so on. The worse his state, the moment he begins

1:08:43 Speaker 13 to contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, that very contemplation takes him out of his situation, brings him tremendous joy, and that joy turns his darkness into light.

1:09:03 Speaker 11 When he’s in a low state.

1:09:03 Speaker 13 We discussed this: real joy begins only when a person has a longing, a longing to get out of his situation. As long as he doesn’t contemplate how bad his situation is, he’ll never have that longing.

1:09:27 Speaker 11 So—

1:09:28 Speaker 13 That’s where it starts. What? I didn’t emphasize it because it’s less pronounced for us, but most Jews don’t live in the Holy Land, and there the air is impure—

1:09:41 Speaker 11 More so.

1:09:42 Speaker 13 It’s harder. Yes. “And this is what is meant by ‘Let Israel rejoice in its Makers’: everyone of the seed of Israel should rejoice in Hashem’s joy, for He rejoices and is glad in His dwelling in the lower realms.” Why does the verse say, “Let Israel rejoice in its Makers”? “Let Israel rejoice in its Makers.” Every Jew, all Israel, should rejoice in whom? In the One who made him, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Right? So why “its Makers”? Why the plural? Huh? I didn’t understand. What does “Let Israel rejoice in its Makers” mean? In whom are they rejoicing? In its Makers.

1:10:42 Speaker 11 Who survives the year?

1:10:42 Speaker 13 Who survives the year?

1:10:44 Speaker 11 That he rejoices because Hashem—

1:10:55 Speaker 13 What does “His deeds” mean? Whose deeds? Who is doing these deeds?

1:11:00 Speaker 11 Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

1:11:02 Speaker 13 So there were two interpretations on the table. Some said “his deeds,” meaning the person’s deeds. Others said “His deeds,” meaning the deeds of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

1:11:09 Speaker 11 Both.

1:11:10 Speaker 13 Huh?

1:11:10 Speaker 11 The person.

1:11:20 Speaker 13 That’s similar, that’s similar. All right, well, you’re on the right track.

1:11:22 Speaker 11 On the right track, more or less. There’s—

1:11:33 Speaker 13 This whole passage we’re dealing with, the entire end of the chapter, talks about what makes me happy, what makes a Jew happy, and what makes Hakadosh Boruch Hu happy. I rejoice in His joy, right? That’s what we’re discussing; that’s the subject.

1:11:47 Speaker 11 Right.

1:11:49 Speaker 13 What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu do? Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu make only me?

1:11:51 Speaker 11 No.

1:11:52 Speaker 13 He makes the entire world—His works. So I rejoice when I rejoice in Hashem’s joy. I’m not rejoicing merely because Hakadosh Boruch Hu made me. I rejoice because Hakadosh Boruch Hu made all His works, made the entire world. Why? Because when I contemplate and feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me, I bring all of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s works to their ultimate perfection. When I feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me and I rejoice in closeness to Hashem, I bring about the fulfillment of the purpose of creation. That’s why He created all His works. That’s why He created the entire world. “Let Israel rejoice in its Makers”—“everyone of the seed of...” That’s exactly the question the Alter Rebbe answers. What does everyone of the seed of Israel rejoice in? In Hashem’s joy, not my own joy. What is Hashem’s joy? That He rejoices and is glad in His dwelling in the lower realms. Who made Him a dwelling in the lower realms? I did. How did I make Him a dwelling in the lower realms? By believing that He is right here with me. Through that, I bring the entire world, all of Hashem’s works, to their perfection and the purpose of their creation, for they are actual physical creations. “This is why it says ‘its Makers’ in the plural, for this physical world is full of kelipos and sitra achra, and in itself it is called a public domain and mountains of separation. And they”—the entire world—“are transformed into light and become a private domain for His unity, blessed be He, through this faith.” When I believe that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me, I thereby turn all the darkness of the world into Hashem’s light. I reveal it; I make a dwelling for Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the lower realms. Well, what greater joy could there be? Why do we need chapter 34?

1:13:59 Speaker 12 Oh, chapter 34 is a chapter about joy?

1:14:01 Speaker 13 Chapter 34 continues the subject of joy. We said up to chapter 34, from—

1:14:10 Speaker 12 Oh.

1:14:10 Speaker 13 Right. Chapter 34 doesn’t add a new idea. Its purpose is to help it really sink in. Why? As we saw several times while learning this chapter today... it’s very spiritual. It’s true that every Jew has a soul, and through the soul, everyone can feel that closeness to G-d. And not just feel it, but feel it in a way that truly brings joy and really lifts them out of a low mood—but ultimately, even with faith and understanding and genuine joy, it isn’t something you can readily connect with. It isn’t something you can fully absorb and become one with, because ultimately it’s something very... it’s a very lofty matter. So first of all, it takes a lot of contemplation, a lot of effort, a lot of time, and thinking about it again and again. And yes, it’s possible. Why is it possible? Because we have a soul, inherited from our forefathers. It’s our portion and our inheritance—how fortunate we are—and it is possible. But for it to be fully and truly felt by every single person is still a little out of reach. Chapter 34 comes along and shows how to bring it down to earth for everyone, in a straightforward way. Long live our master, our teacher and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever. Long live our master, our teacher and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever. Long live our master, our teacher and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.