Likkutei Amarim Chapter 34 (Part 2) · 5785

00:01 Speaker 1 I need to leave in an hour.

00:03 Speaker 2 All right, she heard the introduction in the previous class. We’re up to chapter 34 now. Are you familiar with it? Are you following? Do you know what Tanya is? Where we are in Tanya? What?

00:18 Speaker 1 A little, because we started there a long time ago.

00:21 Speaker 11 But not everyone was here.

00:22 Speaker 2 Huh?

00:22 Speaker 11 I asked them if they were at the previous class. They weren’t.

00:25 Speaker 2 All right, I won’t repeat the introduction from the previous class, because that would take up the whole class again. But Tanya is a guide to serving Hashem. The Alter Rebbe wrote Tanya as a guide so that every Jew could serve Hashem. Until Tanya was written, there had never been a Jewish book that guided Jews in how to serve Hashem. There were various bits of guidance on particular matters, but no systematic guide from A to Z. Even after Tanya was written, no other book like it was written. Tanya is the only book in Judaism that simply guides Jews from A to Z in serving Hashem. We won’t go over the whole subject now, but briefly, just for what’s relevant to where we are: the beginning of Tanya deals with serving Hashem itself. Up to chapter 25, in the first twenty-five chapters, the Alter Rebbe explains what it means to serve Hashem. The general point there is that when a Jew contemplates Hashem’s greatness, or contemplates other matters discussed there, he awakens within himself a love of Hashem. Those are rather lofty words.

01:55 Speaker 1 The soul understands; it’s all right.

01:56 Speaker 2 Huh?

01:56 Speaker 1 The soul understands; it’s all right.

02:00 Speaker 2 Whenever we think about something, anything I think about arouses some kind of feeling in me. That happens naturally for everyone, right? So if I think... The Alter Rebbe says this: If I think about how great Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, how wondrous He is, how holy He is, a feeling of love will awaken in me. That’s what’s called “the mind rules over the heart.” Contemplation arouses the feeling. The Alter Rebbe says that if you contemplate in the right way, in the right order, for the right amount of time, and so on, you’ll feel love for Hashem. And once you love Hashem, you’ll naturally want to fulfill the mitzvos and won’t want to commit aveiros. That’s the point of the first twenty-five chapters: contemplation that leads a person to fulfill the mitzvos. Then, when he finishes that explanation, the Alter Rebbe moves to a new subject. He says that even a Jew who wants to serve Hashem, knows how to serve Hashem, has the tools, and has even learned Tanya and knows it all, may find it very difficult in practice. Why? Because when a person is lazy, weighed down, dejected—when the yetzer comes at him—he can’t deal with it. You have to be joyful. You can’t serve Hashem without joy. A person who isn’t joyful can’t serve Hashem. He writes that several times. Now, so that a person can follow the instructions—the recipe in the first twenty-five chapters—the Rebbe then begins to explain how a person can get out of various states of sadness and how he can become joyful. First there are six chapters, I think, in which he covers every kind

03:54 Speaker 2 of sadness: anything a person might be sad about, whether he’s lacking something materially or spiritually—anything that could make a person sad. The Rebbe explains how to get out of it. Hmm?

04:07 Speaker 1 And how to become joyful.

04:08 Speaker 2 Then, starting with chapter 31, he explains how to be joyful. Not just how not to be sad, but how to actually be happy. Broadly speaking, there are two general pieces of advice for attaining joy, each with a number of details: contemplate this, think about that, and so on. The first begins in chapter 31. That is, the first piece of advice is in chapter 31, and the second is in chapter 33. We’ll leave chapter 32 aside for now; it isn’t relevant here. In chapters 31 and 33, the Rebbe gives two approaches to this work. What are they? The first, in chapter 31, is: Imagine that you’re being held captive and someone comes to free you. A person in captivity—not in exile, in captivity—is suffering and being tortured. What does he want? Just one thing: to get out. He doesn’t think, “Once I’m out, how will I manage? What will I study? How will I earn a living? Whom will I marry?” None of that interests him. He doesn’t think about anything except how to get out of there. And the moment he gets out, he feels tremendous joy. Joy over what? You have no livelihood, you have nothing set up, you have to start your life all over again. Why are you so happy? Because I got out of captivity. The greatest joy a person can have is getting out of captivity. The Alter Rebbe says, “Your soul is in captivity. With every mitzvah you fulfill, it comes out of captivity. Think about that, and you’ll be joyful.” He explains it at length, with a number of details. He explains how it relates to the G-dly soul, how it relates to... how to contemplate it,

06:05 Speaker 2 how one gets out, and where one gets out. It’s an extended explanation. That’s the first piece of advice: to find joy by contemplating that with every mitzvah we fulfill, we bring the G-dly soul out of captivity. That’s the general idea of the first approach. It isn’t our chapter, so we won’t go into it at length now. What’s the second piece of advice, in chapter 33? Think for a moment. Suppose you live in a country with a very great king, an esteemed king—not a dictator. A king of Israel, a king everyone loves and admires. The Rebbe of Lubavitch, right? And one day the king invites you to his palace. Me? You’d be elated. Now imagine—not only does he invite you, he comes to your home. Not only does he come to your home, he stays with you. Not only does he stay with you, he lives with you permanently. When a person thinks about that... The Alter Rebbe says: Yes, that’s exactly what happens. Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills the entire world and creates the whole world anew from nothing at every moment. How does He create the world? He is present everywhere, right? Just contemplate that the whole world is created anew from nothing at every moment by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that He is here with you right now. You don’t need anything more than that. So those are two ways to attain joy. The first: through a mitzvah, we escape from evil like someone leaving captivity. And the second: to contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the whole world, so He is present everywhere and therefore close to me. And how is He close to me? In what way? Because I’m a Jew, one of “His close people,” as he explained there. It’s like the king living with a person

08:06 Speaker 2 permanently in his home. A person can contemplate this continually and at length, right? He can contemplate it and become joyful. Chapter 34 begins: “Now it is known that the Patriarchs are the chariot, for throughout their lives they never ceased, even for a single hour, to bind their minds and souls to the Master of the worlds in the self-nullification described above.” Why does he suddenly start talking about the Patriarchs? We’re discussing what a Jew needs to think about, what a person needs to contemplate, in order to feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him. That’s what the previous chapter discusses. So why does he say here, “Now you should know: it is known that the Patriarchs are the chariot”? What do you hear from that? The Patriarchs are a chariot, and who isn’t?

09:04 Speaker 12 We aren’t.

09:05 Speaker 2 We aren’t. What does that have to do with what was said in the previous chapter? How is it connected? The Patriarchs are a chariot and we aren’t. What does that have to do with what came before? Blessed are You, Hashem, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came to be.

09:34 Speaker 12 Oh, what’s this? It’s a nut with kadaif strands. It’s Dubai—this is called Dubai. Dubai, yes, it’s Dubai.

09:42 Speaker 13 Maybe it’s Mizrahi.

09:44 Speaker 12 No. A tree. It’s a tree.

09:46 Speaker 13 Oh, a tree.

09:46 Speaker 12 Yes, yes.

09:47 Speaker 13 The hills of the tree.

09:49 Speaker 12 It’s something special.

09:51 Speaker 13 Oh.

09:53 Speaker 2 I’ll go back over some of the content after all, so it will be clearer. Here’s what I mean. What does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates? It’s well known; everyone knows it. Anyone who has learned Tanya or heard Chassidus knows that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world anew from nothing at every moment. All right, yes, that’s understood. Or it seems understood. I don’t know how much we understand it, but—

10:14 Speaker 12 We know it.

10:14 Speaker 2 We know it. It’s spoken about so much that everyone knows what it means. We also always discuss two analogies, and we’ve spoken about them here many times. We’ll speak about them many more times too.

10:37 Speaker 12 Mazel tov to us! We’ve had a terrible half hour. Mazel tov!

10:46 Speaker 2 Let’s take the analogy that’s easier to understand, even though the other analogy is more precise. A person stands in front of a mirror, right? Is the image in the mirror a reality or not? So what would our first thought be?

11:06 Speaker 12 The first thought is...

11:08 Speaker 2 It is, it is a reality. Meaning, there’s something there—the image isn’t me, right? So there’s something there. I don’t know what it’s made of, but it isn’t me. It’s something, some kind of reality. The second thought is: what does that reality mean? Is it independent? It isn’t independent; it depends on me. Right? You can’t look at the image in the mirror as though there’s someone there who happens to appear when I stand here. That’s nonsense, right? Obviously. Everyone understands that it’s nonsense to think that way. It’s not that there’s some condition: there’s an image shaped like me, and when I stand in front of the mirror, suddenly you see it; when I move, it goes away too. Obviously that’s not how it works, right? Why not? Because its entire existence depends on me. Even while it exists—while it exists, it does have a reality—even then, its entire existence is only because I’m standing here. True, in practice it isn’t me, but its whole existence depends on me. So when—so... Right? Do you hear what I’m trying to say?

12:28 Speaker 12 Yes.

12:30 Speaker 2 That’s called its reality being nullified to me. Its reality isn’t a true reality, not an independent reality. Its reality is depen—it depends on me. It’s like my reflection, a radiance of me, whatever you want to call it, right? Okay? There’s another analogy that’s even more remarkable and harder to explain, so we’ll leave it for now, to have more time. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world, in a certain respect it’s the same thing. The entire existence of the—Hakadosh Boruch Hu speaks, and His speech sustains the world. The ten utterances that He says—“Let there be a firmament,” “Let there be...” and so on—sustain the firmament and the entire reality of the whole world. If He were to stop for even one moment, everything would cease to exist. Why would it cease to exist? It’s not that He would have to burn the world down. Since the world’s entire existence depends on His speech, without that speech there would be no world. Just like the person standing in front of the mirror. But it isn’t exactly the same. Why not? Because in the analogy, the image in the mirror is my reflection, right? In what it represents, the world is not a reflection of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is no connection between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the world. The way He creates the world is similar to the way the image in the mirror comes into being from the person standing before it. But what the analogy represents is very far from the analogy itself. In the analogy, the image depicts the person. In what it represents, the fact that He said there should be such a world doesn’t mean there’s any connection between the world that came into being and His own reality. It’s something entirely different, incomparably distant. Right? So if the image in the mirror is nothing compared to the person, because its entire existence is only... right? Then what is the world’s reality compared to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? It is nullified to Him incomparably more than the image in the mirror. Right?

14:47 Speaker 2 Understood? More or less. So that’s bittul—nullification. When a person contemplates how the entire world is nullified, then, essentially, if the whole world and I too are nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, then He is here with me. So I can understand that. It’s hard to understand; these ideas are a little abstract. But when you think about it, contemplate it, study it in Chassidus—they talk about it a lot—you can understand it. You can understand it to the point that it really becomes, well, I actually start to... It becomes internalized for me; at some point it becomes obvious to me. But can I feel it?

15:28 Speaker 12 Feel what? Sorry.

15:30 Speaker 2 Can a person feel that they are nullified to G-dliness?

15:34 Speaker 12 Something they feel...

15:35 Speaker 14 We feel it every day, I think.

15:36 Speaker 2 Huh?

15:37 Speaker 14 We feel it all the time.

15:38 Speaker 2 Feel it in that way?

15:42 Speaker 14 [unclear]

15:44 Speaker 2 A person can understand that the world is nullified and that I, too, am nullified. Because I’m nullified, I’ll naturally do what He wants. But do I feel nullified? I feel my own mind. There are things I want, things I understand, things I feel. Sometimes I’m hungry, sometimes I’m hot, sometimes I’m cold, sometimes I feel good, sometimes people annoy me, sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad. Me. A person feels themselves. A person can’t not feel themselves. To be nullified means to be nothing, to have no existence of one’s own. A person can’t... What does it mean that I wouldn’t feel myself? A person can’t—

16:32 Speaker 15 A tzaddik can.

16:32 Speaker 2 Wait. No, I said not to jump ahead. We need to spend a little time on this... Is the point more or less clear? So regarding this, the Alter Rebbe says: here is the point—“The Patriarchs are the chariot.” The Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, were a chariot. What does “chariot” mean? A chariot is nullified to its rider. A chariot will never tell its rider, “Go here, go there.” Right? Why won’t it? Because it has no opinion. Why doesn’t it have an opinion? Because it is nullified. The Patriarchs’ existence was like that: they had no will of their own, no sense of self at all. They were utterly nullified to G-dliness, just as a chariot is nullified to its rider. So it wasn’t just that they did what Hakadosh Boruch Hu said. Their minds understood G-dliness. It was as though they had no independent intellect of their own. G-dliness was revealed within them. Their feelings were G-dliness; so were their thoughts, their speech, their actions, their movements. And the Alter Rebbe emphasizes in two places in Tanya: throughout their lives, every day of their lives, even when they slept, they were nullified in their very existence. So the Alter Rebbe says about this: it is known that “the Patriarchs are the chariot.” What did you tell me in the previous chapter? What’s the way for me to be joyful? That I should be nullified to G-dliness, and then I’ll feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. But I can’t. It’s all very well that I believe it, but faith is something external. A person can believe one thing and do the opposite. You’re surely familiar with the saying of the Gemara, “A thief at the mouth of the tunnel calls out to the Merciful One.” Are you familiar with it?

18:38 Speaker 15 No.

18:38 Speaker 2 Huh?

18:42 Speaker 15 No.

18:42 Speaker 2 No? Never?

18:45 Speaker 15 No.

18:45 Speaker 2 It’s cited a lot. The Rebbe speaks about it and quotes it often. A thief at the mouth of the tunnel calls out to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, praying that He’ll help him.

18:56 Speaker 15 Steal?

18:57 Speaker 2 Yes. Why are you laughing?

19:03 Speaker 15 I don’t understand.

19:05 Speaker 2 If you believe, why are you stealing? If you don’t believe, why are you praying? You’ve created a contradiction. It’s contradictory. Yes, you’re contradicting your—yet you don’t feel that you’re contradicting yourself. No, you don’t feel it. Why doesn’t he feel it? He believes. Faith isn’t intellect; it isn’t internalized. Faith is makif—it remains beyond him. Faith doesn’t affect a person’s mind and feelings. He believes. There are many Jews today who believe but don’t observe mitzvos. And he’ll tell you, “I believe more than you do,” and he’s right. It’s very possible that his faith is stronger than yours. There’s no reason it couldn’t be. Faith is something very powerful, and it can reveal itself in a person with tremendous force, very strongly. That isn’t connected to observing mitzvos. It’s makif. It doesn’t act on him, doesn’t enter inside; it remains outside. Do you know people like that? Huh? One could tell lots of stories and give examples, and everyone can give examples from themselves. So Chassidus explains that the thief standing at the mouth of the tunnel, calling out to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is every one of us. Every one of us is also a thi—not such a big thief, but a bit of a thief. Anyone who thinks about it a little won’t need much time. Close your eyes for a moment, quietly, where no one can see, in the dark. Think for three minutes and you’ll find eight hundred times a day when... Yes, I know it’s forbidden, but I cut corners. I know it isn’t good, but it was hard for me. If you know, why do you do it? You’re exactly like that thief. Although you believe, it hasn’t penetrated you inwardly. So the Alter Rebbe says that everything we explained in the previous chapter—the way to attain joy—is a matter of understanding that I ought to be that way. I need to be in a state of bittul, and if I am, then I really will have joy. Thank you very much.

21:11 Speaker 2 “The Patriarchs are the chariot.” What do you want from me? My mind is so small and my soul is on such a low level, and I’m not one of the Patriarchs. I can’t feel that bittul, that self-nullification. So what kind of advice have you given me for being happy? Advice I can’t carry out? Advice that I should just fool myself into believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will save me, and then I’ll be happy? I don’t think we’re playing games here. Here I actually need to be happy. So in this chapter the Alter Rebbe comes to explain how—how we can take that theoretical, almost virtual advice and put it into practice in our own lives. All right? Let’s look inside. “It is well known that the Patriarchs are the chariot, for throughout their lives they never ceased, even for a single hour, to bind their minds and souls to the Master of the Worlds in the aforementioned bittul to His unity. And after them”—it wasn’t only the Patriarchs, but all the prophets. Not just the Patriarchs—all the prophets. Each prophet according to the level of his soul and his understanding. Those are two different things. A person might have a very, very lofty soul but a somewhat weaker intellect. So, by virtue of his soul, he belongs to very lofty matters, but he’ll find it hard to internalize them. Right? And it can be the other way around. Hakadosh Boruch Hu might have blessed someone with a very, very great intellect, so he can truly understand very lofty matters, but he has a soul on a lower level. He can’t feel them, can’t absorb them, because the root of his soul doesn’t reach that level. So, broadly speaking, all the prophets had the same bittul as the Patriarchs, but not to the same degree. There’s a chariot on a higher level and a chariot on a lower level. We’ll talk about those levels another time, not now. There’s

23:13 Speaker 2 a chariot of Beriah, and there’s a chariot of Yetzirah. Within the chariot of Beriah itself, there’s an ox, an eagle, a lion, and human beings, and so on. There’s a multitude—a vast, endless multitude—of levels, and each of the prophets was nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu according to the root of his soul and the grasp of his intellect. But what they all had in common was that they were all in the bittul of a chariot. Different degrees of that bittul, but they were all in the bittul of a chariot. And us? None of us reaches that. According to the Alter Rebbe, the understanding and level of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, surpasses them all. Moshe Rabbeinu’s level, the level of his bittul, was higher than that of all the prophets and even the Patriarchs. What’s the proof? That they said of him, “The Shechinah speaks from Moshe’s throat”? What does that prove? How does the fact that the Shechinah speaks from his throat show that he is greater than the Patriarchs and all the prophets? Just an interesting question. What is the throat’s function?

24:38 Speaker 16 To produce sound.

24:40 Speaker 2 To speak. Yes, to speak. It has several functions. To speak, to produce—what does speaking mean? Speaking means expressing what I feel. Right? Someone who’s happy says happy things. Someone who’s sad speaks—doesn’t speak at all. Someone who’s angry speaks angrily. Yes, the throat expresses what a person feels in the heart. Does the throat have some kind of—what’s the word?—an opinion of its own? “You feel this way now, but I want to say something else”? No, the throat is completely subordinate to the heart. It has no—it’s like a chariot for the heart. Right? What do they say about Moshe Rabbeinu? That his throat wasn’t a chariot for his own heart. His throat was a chariot for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Moshe Rabbeinu wasn’t speaking from feelings of his own. Or, more precisely, his feelings were joined and united with G-dliness, and what he felt was Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. When Moshe Rabbeinu spoke, it was Hakadosh Boruch Hu speaking. That’s what “The Shechinah speaks from his throat” means. Avraham Avinu—you hear that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave him instructions, and sometimes he understood and sometimes he didn’t, and he went and... Moshe Rabbeinu was one, a single entity, with G-dliness. “The Shechinah speaks from his throat.” The Alter Rebbe continues. So what? Does any of this relate to us? “Something similar was granted to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai.” At Mount Sinai, all the Jewish people in the world were granted this revelation that Moshe Rabbeinu had. “The Shechinah speaks from his throat.” Complete bittul—not because they did anything. Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed Himself and gave it to them as a gift. By the way, this relates a little to the Splitting of the Sea. You remember, we’ve just been learning about Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt. It says that when they left Egypt, they sang a song. It says there, “Then Moshe and the Children of Israel sang.” And there it says that... our Sages—

26:53 Speaker 2 Our Sages say in the Gemara that... even they sang, even they—even unborn babies in their mothers’ wombs had their mothers’ bellies become like clear glass, transparent, and they saw and sang. Even unborn babies who... How? A baby in its mother’s womb. It has no intellect, no feelings. Our Sages said elsewhere that a baby in its mother’s womb doesn’t think and has no feelings.

27:29 Speaker 16 It can’t see either, well.

27:30 Speaker 2 It can’t see, and it doesn’t eat on its own either. It eats what its mother eats and drinks what its mother drinks. It has no, no, no independent existence. What does it mean that suddenly they saw and sang? What? What happened here? When the very essence of G-dliness is revealed and unites with a person, there’s no difference. To Hakadosh Boruch Hu, existence and nonexistence are the same; light and darkness are the same; born and unborn are the same. It’s all the same. When the very essence of—when Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, in all His glory, was revealed, He was revealed to everyone. So there’s no difference.

28:08 Speaker 16 If they can learn Torah on the way, then they can also—

28:12 Speaker 2 No, that’s something else.

28:14 Speaker 16 Why?

28:16 Speaker 2 You mean what our Sages said, that a baby in its mother’s womb is taught the entire Torah. That’s not the same thing. It’s the baby’s soul. As it is inside the body, it doesn’t know anything about it.

28:30 Speaker 16 Yes.

28:32 Speaker 2 Huh? And the revelation at Mount Sinai was far loftier even than the Splitting of the Sea. So at the Splitting of the Sea they may have seen G-dliness, but they didn’t—it doesn’t say that their souls departed. At Mount Sinai, though, they couldn’t bear it. As our Sages said, at every utterance their souls departed. The soul inside the body simply couldn’t contain it. This is the aforementioned bittul of one’s very existence—quite literally. Their existence was nullified; they died.

29:11 Speaker 16 Ah.

29:11 Speaker 2 “Therefore, immediately afterward Hakadosh Boruch Hu told them, through Moshe, to make Him a Mishkan, with a Holy of Holies in it for His Shechinah to dwell there—meaning the revelation of His unity, as will be explained below.” We once studied a maamar of the Rebbe here. Do you remember? We spent a long time on it, about two months—a maamar of the Rebbe about what the Beis Hamikdash is all about. There the Rebbe explains at length those three words: that the purpose of the Beis Hamikdash is the revelation of G-dliness here in this world. Since they couldn’t contain it themselves, Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “All right, make a Mishkan. Inside the Mishkan I will reveal Myself openly.” What exactly that means isn’t important right now. And through the Mishkan, they would also receive whatever they were capable of receiving of that bittul. “And since the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, Hakadosh Boruch Hu has no dwelling place in His world for His presence—or His unity—other than the four cubits of halachah.” So even today, although we aren’t the Patriarchs, certainly aren’t Moshe Rabbeinu, and aren’t even prophets—and we’re no longer at Matan Torah, and we no longer have a Mishkan—we can still receive something of that unity, that radiance, that bittul to G-dliness. How? Through studying halachah. Why specifically halachah? “For it is His will and His wisdom clothed in the halachos set out before us.” We learned this once before, in chapter 5 of Tanya: there’s a difference between all the forms of wisdom in the world and the wisdom of the Torah. All the forms of wisdom in the world are limited, worldly wisdom. They originate in the world, deal with the world, and end within the world. The wisdom of the Torah is the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it isn’t human wisdom. Where do we see that? For example, there are laws in the Torah that it says never occurred and never will occur. There’s the rebellious son, there’s

31:40 Speaker 2 the condemned city. There are several mitzvos like that, about which our Sages said: it never happened, it cannot happen, and it never will happen. So what kind of mitzvah is that? Out of two hundred mitzvos, there are several about which you’re told explicitly: no one ever fulfilled this mitzvah, and no one ever will. Yet it’s a mitzvah in the Torah. What kind of mitzvah—“mitzvah” comes from the word “command.”

32:03 Speaker 16 Command.

32:04 Speaker 2 Right, mitzvos. Why would You command us to do something when You know in advance—and even tell us—that we won’t be able to fulfill it? What’s going on here? There’s a rule. In the siddur, before the prayers begin, some people say the thirteen principles by which the Torah is interpreted: a kal vachomer, a gezeirah shavah. Around the middle there’s a principle: “Something singled out from a general rule to teach was singled out not to teach about itself, but to teach about the entire rule.” Do you remember that saying? What does it mean? When the Torah has a general rule and an exception, the exception wasn’t singled out just to say, “Look, I’m different from everyone else.” Quite the opposite. It was singled out to teach that, although it may not look that way, everyone included in the general rule is like it. What is distinctive about it applies to the entire Torah. In our case, there are one or two or three mitzvos that we cannot fulfill. They are the exception. They weren’t singled out to teach only about themselves, but about the entire rule. What do they teach about the entire rule? Just as the whole point of those mitzvos is that they express the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so too, the whole point of all the mitzvos you think you understand and can fulfill is that they are the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There are a few other ways of showing this. So—

34:09 Speaker 2 When I learn Torah, on the one hand, I understand it. And something a person understands becomes one with him; it becomes part of who he is. We spoke about that too. We went through it briefly. Give me another minute.

34:34 Speaker 17 I have a chair.

34:37 Speaker 2 A person can say that two plus two equals twenty-five. He can even think it. He can say the words while thinking them. But he can’t understand it that way. Why can’t he understand it? Because understanding is who he is. What is understanding? It’s me. Who is a person? My personality is my intellect and my emotions. My intellect is who I am. For me to understand that two plus two equals twenty-five, something in me would have to change. Right? My understanding is part of who I am. So if I didn’t understand something before and now I do, something in me has changed. My very being has changed. How? Here is an idea, the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Before, I didn’t understand it or know about it. Now I understand it. What has become one with me? What changed in me? The wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu has become part of me. That’s what it means. When a person understands a halachah in the Torah, he becomes one with the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—with Him Himself. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is no distinction between Him, His will and His wisdom. He is utterly one. So when I understand His wisdom and His wisdom becomes part of me—my very being becomes His wisdom—I become one with Him completely. And this happens with every single halachah in the Torah that a person learns.

36:10 Speaker 17 Can you learn other things and become one with Him that way?

36:14 Speaker 2 What do you mean by other things?

36:16 Speaker 17 Reading the Torah itself. Learning it. I don’t know, isn’t that—

36:23 Speaker 2 In a general sense, this applies to the whole Torah. But specifically, it applies to halachah, because halachah expresses His will: what He wants, what He wants from us.

36:34 Speaker 17 But the Torah, too, was written in His words.

36:37 Speaker 2 Right, right. In a general sense, it applies to everything in the Torah, but when speaking specifically, the emphasis is always on halachah. Here too, the Rebbe says “halachah.” Why? Because halachah tells us what needs to be done here. What am I supposed to do? What is wanted of me? There are several maamarim that explain this. So he says the following: Can I become one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu just by thinking that He is with me? I can understand that and believe it, but I can’t necessarily even feel it. And I don’t have the Beis Hamikdash, right, and so on. Nor do I have a tzaddik or a prophet. But when I learn a halachah, I actually become one with Him. It makes no difference whether I feel it or not; I become one with Him. Do you understand the difference?

37:33 Speaker 17 Mm-hmm.

37:36 Speaker 2 There are things a person is consciously aware of and feels, and things present in a person that he doesn’t feel. For example, I don’t feel myself breathing air. If I’m not thinking about it, I go on breathing without feeling it, right? Yet it keeps me alive. Maybe that’s just my analogy. Maybe it isn’t a good one. But there are such things. So, among other things, when a person learns Torah, he becomes one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu completely. Maybe—I don’t want to say this without being sure—but perhaps even more than the Jewish people became one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu when the Torah was given at Mount Sinai, and perhaps even more than Moshe Rabbeinu became one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yet he doesn’t feel it. The fact that he doesn’t feel it doesn’t change the reality: he has become one with G-dliness. “Therefore, after a person has deeply contemplated the bittul mentioned above—that through every halachah he learns, he actually becomes one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu...” This is discussed at length in chapter 5 of Tanya, for anyone who wants to look it up. “To the extent of his ability, he should take to heart that, because his intellect is too small and the root of his soul too limited to contain and become a chariot and dwelling place for His blessed unity in absolute truth...” I can’t be like Moshe Rabbeinu. “For my thought cannot grasp or comprehend Him at all.” I don’t have a soul suited to it or enough intellect. “No understanding in the world bears even the slightest resemblance to the understanding of the Patriarchs and the prophets. Therefore, I will make Him a dwelling place and a place for Him to reside: through engaging in Torah study as my time allows, at fixed times by day and by night, as prescribed for every individual in the laws of Torah study. As our Sages said, ‘Even one chapter in the morning,’ and so on. In this his heart will rejoice and be glad, and he will give thanks for his portion, with joy and gladness of heart, for having merited to be a host...”

39:39 Speaker 2 “...to the Almighty twice each day, according to his time and availability, as much as his means permit, which Hashem has granted him.” So an ordinary person—the advice for attaining joy that the Rebbe gives here is still the same advice: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with you. But the previous chapter spoke about it as more of a matter of faith. Here he says that once you contemplate it, you’ll understand that through learning a halachah you actually become one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even more than was explained in the previous chapter. And you’ll think about it: “If I learn a halachah now, I’ll connect with Him now.” With that thought, you open a sefer and learn, and the learning itself will make you happy. You’ll be happy that you’re drawing close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, connecting with Him, becoming one with Him, uniting with Him. It’s simple advice. You have to contemplate it a little so that you truly believe it, feel it and think about it. But the advice itself is simple. Just knowing that through learning I become one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—if I understand and believe it—will make me happy. The greatest joy: Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is with me. But here the Alter Rebbe says this advice is good for being “a host to the Almighty twice each day.” What does it mean to be a host?

41:06 Speaker 18 To welcome a guest.

41:07 Speaker 2 To welcome the Almighty twice a day. In the previous chapter, he said that through contemplation you don’t merely welcome the King as a guest. The King stays with you, lives with you permanently, all the time without interruption. Here he speaks of welcoming the King twice each day, from time to time. What’s the difference? Each has its advantage, so we need both. Faith that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me isn’t limited to twice a day. A person can contemplate what was explained in the previous chapter, conclude that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is indeed with him all day, believe it and think about it all day—and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will be with him all day. He really will be with him all day. But that is only makif, an encompassing connection, not a pnimi, internal one. Here, through learning halachah, the joy is real and internal, but it can’t last all day—only while he’s learning Torah. So we need both. Then he can be happy all day that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, because he believes it, and he can also have an inner joy through learning Torah.

42:17 Speaker 18 Right.

42:21 Speaker 2 “And if Hashem grants him more time, then one who has clean hands should increase his efforts.” He should learn for more hours. If I can come closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, cleave to Him and welcome Him for longer, then every extra moment I have, I’ll learn a little more, another thing. “And a good thought...” What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu do with it?

42:45 Speaker 18 He joins it.

42:46 Speaker 2 Hakadosh Boruch Hu joins it to action, right? Why is that relevant here? What does it have to do with this?

42:54 Speaker 18 So that it won’t remain just a thought. He should actually study.

43:02 Speaker 2 I was waiting to hear that.

43:05 Speaker 18 I’m not sure, because

43:06 Speaker 3 I think she said it plainly last time.

43:09 Speaker 18 What?

43:09 Speaker 3 I think it was last time.

43:10 Speaker 2 No, no, no, no, no.

43:11 Speaker 18 No?

43:12 Speaker 2 That’s how everyone understands it. The Rebbe explains exactly the opposite.

43:19 Speaker 3 I didn’t take it for granted right away.

43:27 Speaker 2 How do people usually explain it? “A good thought—Hakadosh Boruch Hu joins it to a deed.” If I think about doing something, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will help me do it. That’s how people understand it, right? I’ll think about it, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will add a deed to it, right?

43:38 Speaker 3 An actual deed. No, not just add one.

43:40 Speaker 2 What, what?

43:41 Speaker 3 Hakadosh Boruch Hu will directly—count it as a deed.

43:44 Speaker 2 Count it as a deed, even more so, yes. I don’t even need to do it; I just think it, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu will count it as an even better deed.

43:52 Speaker 18 So I’ll just think.

43:53 Speaker 2 But that’s not what it means. That’s not what it means.

43:57 Speaker 3 An even easier way. I’ll just think.

44:06 Speaker 2 Thought... What connection is there between thought and action? Thought is intellect, right? Intellect is something spiritual, yes? Action is something physical, right? Now I’m thinking that, according to reason, this cup ought to be standing here. I have proofs, very, very strong proofs, and I can prove to you that it ought to be standing here right now. Fine. The world of intellect isn’t connected to the world of—of action. The world of thought doesn’t... They don’t speak the same... They have no common ground.

44:50 Speaker 4 But once you explained to us that it is possible.

44:53 Speaker 2 Mm?

44:54 Speaker 4 That if something exists in one place, then in the same state it can also be in another place.

45:00 Speaker 2 We once spoke about quantum theory and mentioned that in passing. We weren’t talking about things like these, but about particles of matter. All right, never mind. Intellect, the world of intellect, isn’t a world of action. Why? What can cause holiness to enter an act when a person performs a mitzvah? How, how, how? How do they connect? An act is an act. A person took a cow—I’m talking about tefillin, yes?—slaughtered it, took the hide, processed it, with all the lovely smells that involves, and... how does it suddenly become holy? What happened? “A good thought—Hakadosh Boruch Hu joins it to a deed.” In reality, thought and action have no connection. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, through His wondrous power, can connect thought with action, join them together, bring holiness into the physical. When a person thinks that he wants to—“one whose hands are clean will grow stronger”—he wants to study for more hours, but he can’t. Yes? But Hakadosh Boruch Hu can join his thought to action so that it does happen. Not through the nature of reality. In reality, if he doesn’t do it, it won’t happen. Hakadosh Boruch Hu can. “A good thought—Hakadosh Boruch Hu joins it.” This is explained at greater length in chapters 38 and 39; we’ll discuss it at length there. “And if Hashem grants him further opportunity, then ‘one whose hands are clean will grow stronger,’ and a good thought,” and so on. “And the entire rest of the day, when he is engaged in business, will be a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He, through giving charity.” And also—when the Alter Rebbe says “and also,” there’s another point. What does “and also” mean? Earlier we discussed one way to be joyful. First we discussed it theoretically, and then practically, through studying halachah. And there’s also another way to be joyful: by hosting Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bringing Him closer,

47:33 Speaker 2 yes, having Him as a guest in my home. How? “The entire rest of the day.” Being close—hosting Hakadosh Boruch Hu through Torah study. A person works, he’s busy, he raises children, he has to earn a living, he has to live. Twice a day. But what about the remaining hours, the whole rest of the day? The Alter Rebbe says yes, you can then too. How? Not through Torah study. How? Through tzedakah. What does tzedakah suddenly have to do with it? Torah study, we understood. When I study Torah, I unite with Him, with His very essence. So it’s clear that if I understand that, it will make me joyful. What does tzedakah have to do with it? Well, I fulfilled His command. Why does fulfilling His command cause Him to be with me? I picture it differently. There’s a king—a king, no, not a king. Here in our country there’s a prime minister and a government—forget the government. There’s a law. Yes? The law says that when a person reaches a stop sign on the road, he has to stop. Yes.

48:44 Speaker 5 Thank you very much. Have a good week.

48:51 Speaker 2 Let’s say there’s a king. It’s easier to understand with a king. There’s a king, and the king makes laws. One of the king’s laws concerns roads: there are signs on the road, including stop signs. When you reach one, stop. The king made a law. All right? Yes? A person is driving down the road, reaches a stop sign, and obeys the law—he stops. Yes? Has he united with the king?

49:14 Speaker 5 No. What’s the connection?

49:18 Speaker 2 What connection is there? The king doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t know the king. No connection at all. He fulfilled the command.

49:26 Speaker 5 Does Michael know it’s the king’s command?

49:28 Speaker 2 What?

49:28 Speaker 5 Does Michael know it’s the king’s command?

49:29 Speaker 2 Well, whether he does or doesn’t makes no difference. He has no connection with him at all. When a person fulfills a command—Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded us to give tzedakah, so he gives tzedakah. He said, “Fulfill My will, give tzedakah, and I’ll give you a reward.” A reward, fine? So how does that connect me to Him? That’s the question. The Alter Rebbe says that a person connects with Him through studying halachah. How does studying halachah do that? I understood how that connects me. But what’s the connection with tzedakah? “And the entire rest of the day, when he is engaged in business, will be a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He, through giving tzedakah from what he has earned.” Why? Because tzedakah is among the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “Just as He is merciful,” and so on, “so should you be.” What does “just as He is merciful” mean? What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu do? He gives tzedakah. How does Hakadosh Boruch Hu give tzedakah? Where do we see Him giving tzedakah? What is tzedakah? It’s when a person gives something he isn’t obligated to give, right? Yes? He sustains someone to whom he owes nothing. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sustains the entire world without owing it anything. The very fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu sustains the entire world means that He is merciful and gracious and gives tzedakah. So when I give tzedakah, I’m not only fulfilling His command; I’m doing what He does. As it says in the Tikkunei Zohar—we spoke about that book once—chesed is the right hand, “the right arm.” The chesed of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is compared to the right hand. The right hand is the hand that gives. So when I give tzedakah, I connect with the right hand of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now, it’s true that this isn’t as inward, genuine, and deep a connection as studying Torah, studying halachah, but since it is

51:45 Speaker 2 also one of the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, through it, too, I host Him. So a person can be joyful not only while studying Torah, but simply by giving throughout the day. That’s certainly good advice: keep lots and lots and lots of small coins in your wallet.

52:01 Speaker 5 Especially when you go shopping.

52:02 Speaker 2 What?

52:03 Speaker 5 Especially when you go shopping.

52:04 Speaker 2 No! Especially when he leaves the house.

52:07 Speaker 5 Oh, okay.

52:09 Speaker 2 And especially when he’s at home, too. It’s just that today we have a bit of a problem with this, because the value of a perutah today is only eighteen agorot. So you have to give the smallest coin worth at least a perutah. Today that’s half a shekel. I don’t know, twenty agorot each time, but...

52:25 Speaker 5 My mother once said that someone told her it was thirty agorot.

52:28 Speaker 2 Mm?

52:29 Speaker 5 My mother said someone told her it was even thirty agorot.

52:32 Speaker 2 According to the Chazon Ish, yes.

52:33 Speaker 5 How long ago did she say that?

52:35 Speaker 6 About a month ago.

52:37 Speaker 5 Ah.

52:41 Speaker 2 Today it’s very simple. You can ask GPT what a perutah is worth today according to Rabbi Chaim Naeh’s calculation, and it’ll work it out for you in three seconds.

52:50 Speaker 5 Gemini, yes. It’s better known than GPT.

52:53 Speaker 2 Well, it’s exactly the same thing.

52:54 Speaker 5 No, GPT is the... the older information, not...

52:58 Speaker 2 We’ll argue about it later.

53:01 Speaker 5 There’s nothing to argue about; it’s out in the open.

53:09 Speaker 2 I have a lot to say about this. The Rebbe asks a good question: “Although he gives only a fifth.” When a person gives tzedakah, he gives only a fifth of his earnings. Some give a little more, but nobody gives all his earnings to tzedakah. So how can I connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Okay, I give tzedakah to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and connect a fifth of my... a fifth of my possessions to Him. What about everything else? When I study Torah, I myself connect with Him, with my entire being and everything that belongs to me. When I give tzedakah, it’s only a part, not everything. The Alter Rebbe says that “the fifth brings the other four parts up with it to Hashem, to become a dwelling place for Him.” How? “As is known from our Sages’ statement that the mitzvah of tzedakah is equal to all the offerings.” Our Sages linked the mitzvah of tzedakah to offerings. What’s the connection? The Alter Rebbe explains: “With the offerings, all the animals in the world were elevated to Hashem through one animal, and all the vegetation in the world was elevated through one tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, etc.” So it’s the same thing. That’s why our Sages said tzedakah is like an offering. A person gives only a fifth of his possessions to Hashem as tzedakah, but it elevates all his possessions to Hashem.

54:59 Speaker 5 The fifth—that isn’t connected to maaser, where you give, like, more than a tenth?

55:03 Speaker 2 Yes.

55:03 Speaker 5 So tzedakah and giving a fifth aren’t the same thing, right?

55:06 Speaker 2 What?

55:07 Speaker 5 Tzedakah and giving a fifth aren’t the same... I mean, from what you’re saying, they’re not the same thing.

55:09 Speaker 2 Why not?

55:10 Speaker 5 They are the same thing? Because I don’t know about either of them.

55:14 Speaker 2 You want to give tzedakah beyond the fifth?

55:17 Speaker 5 I give maaser, say, a fixed amount every month.

55:19 Speaker 2 Yes.

55:20 Speaker 5 So if I give, say, a few shekels to tzedakah every day or something, then what does giving a fifth actually mean? I would give... Is that some kind of additional donation? I just don’t understand, because I thought tzedakah was separate from giving a fifth, from maaser. So it isn’t?

55:35 Speaker 2 Uh...

55:36 Speaker 5 It isn’t separate? It’s...

55:39 Speaker 2 The Sages obligated a person to give a tenth of his possessions—of his earnings—to tzedakah.

55:46 Speaker 5 But that’s maaser, isn’t it?

55:47 Speaker 2 Yes. With everything, there’s the letter of the law and going beyond the letter of the law. A tenth is the letter of the law. It’s the minimum required. Generally, the expectation—what our Sages said in Pirkei Avos—is that one should give a fifth, not just a tenth. It’s desirable to give a fifth. Our Sages already said that. The Alter Rebbe adds that what our Sages said about giving a fifth applies only to a person who has never sinned in his life and never will. But a person who has committed some sins and needs to atone for them, and doesn’t want to fast—the fasts required according to the tikkunim of the Arizal are, for every time a person got angry, something like three hundred days of fasting. That isn’t very practical. So redeem all the days you can’t fast by giving tzedakah. The Alter Rebbe calculates it there in Igeres Hakodesh, and very quickly gets to—I don’t know—millions of shekels. So he says that this is why it became customary—I don’t remember the exact wording—to give very, very generously to tzedakah. “Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his life.” When we talk about a fifth or a tenth, we’re talking about tzaddikim. But in our generation, for people who aren’t tzaddikim and who do sin, “skin for skin”: one needs to give all one’s possessions to tzedakah. That’s what the Alter Rebbe writes in Igeres Hakodesh.

57:18 Speaker 7 Okay, all right.

57:22 Speaker 2 To give. On the other hand, obviously, if you ask a rabbi, no rabbi will tell you to give everything you have to tzedakah. But I don’t know. You need to ask a rabbi. You need to look into it. First of all, you need to see what it says there in Igeres Hakodesh.

57:36 Speaker 7 Maaser and tzedakah are basically the same thing? They mean the same thing?

57:40 Speaker 2 Yes.

57:40 Speaker 7 Maaser, tzedakah.

57:41 Speaker 2 Yes.

57:41 Speaker 7 That’s what it means?

57:41 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

57:43 Speaker 7 Okay.

57:44 Speaker 2 There are all kinds of rules about it. What actually needs to be given, how much needs to go directly to poor people for food, and what counts? What doesn’t count?

57:55 Speaker 7 Okay.

57:55 Speaker 2 Everyone asks their rabbi exactly what is included and what isn’t.

58:00 Speaker 7 Thank you.

58:01 Speaker 2 In any case, the Alter Rebbe says the first way is through studying halachah, and the second is through tzedakah. But with tzedakah, you give only a part. So it’s like the offerings, which elevate everything else. Then the Rebbe says: “Besides this, during Torah study and prayer, everything one has eaten and drunk and enjoyed from the four elements is elevated to Hashem”—for “the health of his body, as will be explained later.” It’ll be discussed at length soon, in chapters 36 and 37. He says that even what a person didn’t give to tzedakah... We’re talking about how to connect to G-dliness the possessions I didn’t give to tzedakah. There are two things. First, when I give tzedakah, it elevates everything else. Second, when I pray, where do I get the strength to pray? From the fact that I worked, ate, and earned money, right? So by praying, I’m now using the energy from all the rest of my possessions, and that elevates everything too. So there are two ways the rest of my possessions are elevated to holiness, or that I welcome Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the rest of my possessions: either through what tzedakah elevates, or through studying and praying with the strength I get from all those other things. Why, again? Why does the Alter Rebbe need both reasons? Why isn’t one enough? Again, here it’s the same as before. It comes up in many places. Tzedakah is a mitzvah. When a person eats for the sake of Heaven, he’s eating for the sake of Heaven, but it isn’t a mitzvah. It’s so that afterward I’ll be able to do a mitzvah with that energy. Right? Is there a difference? Because when I perform a mitzvah, I’m actually performing a mitzvah right now. When I eat for the sake of Heaven or work for the sake of Heaven, that’s

1:00:22 Speaker 2 only preparing for a mitzvah right now. Right? That’s how it seems. When a person gives tzedakah, that’s an actual mitzvah. So the elevation it brings about for everything else is through an actual mitzvah. But what kind of elevation is it? The connection is rather loose, because he gives that part away. How is everything else connected to it? Hakadosh Boruch Hu connects them, but the connection is... By contrast, when a person eats, the food actually becomes part of him. When a person eats and then prays, the energy that was in the food itself is now elevated to holiness. Right? But what kind of elevation? Only the elevation of something done for the sake of a mitzvah, not the elevation of the mitzvah itself. So we need both in order to elevate—to bring everything into holiness, to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu into all my possessions. We need tzedakah, which brings about a great elevation, but only externally; and we also need to pray—to do everything for the sake of Heaven, which elevates all one’s possessions to holiness internally, but it’s a lesser elevation. So we need both. Okay, everything we’re studying in chapter 34. Can you stay a little longer?

1:01:40 Speaker 8 I need to go, okay?

1:01:41 Speaker 2 Oh, but this is the main point!

1:01:43 Speaker 8 Well, then summarize it for me. Summarize it.

1:01:45 Speaker 2 We’ve been studying chapter 34 for the sake of these last classes.

1:01:50 Speaker 8 Summarize it.

1:01:53 Speaker 2 In a certain sense, chapter 34 is the conclusion of Tanya. Tanya ends here. The Alter Rebbe wrote Tanya to guide us in serving Hashem. After explaining how to serve Hashem, how to be joyful, how not to be sad, and giving all the ways to be joyful—that’s it. We know how to serve Hashem. The book is finished. In chapter 34, as far as the practical guidance on how a Jew can observe all the mitzvos—“For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it”—the explanation ends here. We know how it is close; that takes us up to chapter 18. We know how it is very close; that takes us up to chapter 25. We know how it is close, how it is very easy to do, through all the ways of being joyful from chapter 26 through chapter 34. So we’ve finished explaining the entire verse. Tanya ends here. Before we talk about what’s in chapters 35 through the end of the book, if we’ve essentially already finished here, the Rebbe gives a summary of everything he has taught from the beginning of Tanya until now. He says: “Now, with all the various kinds of joy of the soul mentioned above”—all the details we discussed in chapters 31 and 33 and in our chapter—“none of them prevents a person from being lowly and despicable in his own eyes, with a broken heart and a humble spirit, at the very time he is joyful.” A person can be both joyful and sad at the same time. How can that be? Chapters 29 through 31 explained that a person must break himself, must feel bitterness, must feel sadness. Because when you truly think this and that about yourself, you have to feel bitterness. You have to break yourself. Without it, there’s no serving Hashem. In all the chapters before and after that, he explains that you

1:04:17 Speaker 2 A person has to be joyful. How? How can he be joyful? How, then, am I supposed to serve Hashem? The Alter Rebbe says: There is no contradiction. Not one after the other, but at the same time, you can apply all the advice for humbling yourself and feel bitterness, and also be joyful at that very same moment. Not one after the other. How? Because he is lowly in his own eyes on account of his body and animal soul, while his joy comes from his G-dly soul and the spark of G-dliness clothed within it to give it life, as explained above. And something similar is stated in the Zohar. The Zohar says explicitly: “Weeping is lodged in my heart on this side, and joy is lodged in my heart on that side.” It tells about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s son, Rabbi Elazar. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught him the secrets of the Beis Hamikdash, and he began to cry. So his father asked him, right? He asked him: “Why are you crying? These are the secrets of the Beis Hamikdash, and you’re crying? What’s going on?” He answered: “Weeping is lodged in my heart on this side, and joy is lodged in my heart on that side.” When I think about how the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, I cry. When I think about the secrets of the Torah, I rejoice. So I’m both happy and crying. Both can happen together. The Alter Rebbe explains it like this: As long as a person is at a level where he is still prone to committing transgressions—what does that mean? It means there could be a situation where he wants to eat something non-kosher and he eats it. There are people at that level, yes. Shabbos too—yes, but it’s hard for him. When a person is at that level, he is called a rasha. A rasha is someone at a spiritual level where he sometimes cannot overcome his yetzer hara. I don’t mean that he slips up—I mean that he knows something is a transgression and does it anyway. That is called a rasha. As long as a person is at that level, it is really the animal soul that controls him, and as

1:06:26 Speaker 2 long as the animal soul controls him, he truly cannot both humble himself and be joyful. How can he be joyful? The animal soul controls him. The G-dly soul cannot get out of its prison. So to such a person, the Alter Rebbe indeed says in Igeres Hateshuvah: At night, recite Tikkun Chatzos; in the morning, pray with joy. You need to separate the two. But here we’re talking about the book of the beinoni. A beinoni is a normal person who doesn’t commit transgressions. None of us do, I hope; that’s how it seems to me, too. Anything I know is forbidden, I won’t do. That’s called a beinoni. A beinoni is someone for whom it’s simple: What’s forbidden, I don’t do; what’s a mitzvah, I do. That’s a beinoni. He may have a struggle; it may be hard for him. But he knows, and he won’t do it. In practice, he won’t do it. That’s a beinoni. For such a person, it’s true that his animal soul is also very, very strong. There are all kinds of things he wants, and he craves worldly pleasures. It isn’t simple. There’s a struggle, but in the end, the G-dly soul wins. He doesn’t commit transgressions, and he does perform mitzvos. So his G-dly soul has a say in his life. For a person like that, whose G-dly soul is strong and whose animal soul is also strong, there is no problem. There should be no problem for him to feel bitterness—to be distressed and say, “Why are you getting in my way?”—and also rejoice that he is doing mitzvos and is close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The two don’t contradict each other. So the Alter Rebbe says—and this is really the summation of the whole Tanya—what is the path in serving Hashem? A person must always feel both bitterness over the animal soul and joy on account of the G-dly soul. What will he

1:08:22 Speaker 2 explain next? What are we still missing? Really, up to this point he has only answered the questions we asked in chapter 1. When we began chapter 1, we asked: How is “the matter very close to you”? Is keeping all the mitzvos close to me—to you? The whole Torah? Well, yes, it’s possible. We explained that. But something is still missing. The last word: “The matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” Many mitzvos are not specifically about action. They involve the heart, contemplation. Yes. So why the emphasis on “to do it”? Why does the Torah emphasize that it is close to you to

1:09:12 Speaker 9 Thank you very much.

1:09:37 Speaker 10 There’s something to look forward to.

1:09:48 Speaker 9 Thank you very much.

1:09:50 Speaker 10 Take a picture. Take a picture of the pages.

1:09:54 Speaker 9 But this one. That’s something to explain.