Likkutei Amarim Chapter 39 (Part 3) · 5785

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re in the middle of chapter 39, on pages 52–53, at the colon near the end of the page. As we already—

00:14 Speaker 2 “And behold, the reward of a mitzvah”?

00:16 Speaker 1 What?

00:16 Speaker 2 “And behold, the reward of a mitzvah”?

00:16 Speaker 1 “And behold, the reward of a mitzvah,” yes.

00:26 Speaker 2 53–54.

00:31 Speaker 10 No. No, the monthly bar mitzvah distribution falls on a Tuesday.

00:34 Speaker 2 Oh, did you bring them here?

00:35 Speaker 10 No, we didn’t bring them, because I didn’t know if you could.

00:37 Speaker 2 If we had—let’s tell Dad tomorrow so he knows.

00:41 Speaker 10 Yes.

00:41 Speaker 2 Now Dad should know there are some. No, no, he’ll come.

00:45 Speaker 10 Tomorrow [unclear].

00:46 Speaker 2 Yes.

00:46 Speaker 10 So that he’ll have...

00:49 Speaker 1 So we’re right in the middle of the Alter Rebbe’s explanation of the value of intent in performing mitzvos. Earlier, at the beginning, he spoke at great length over three chapters about the value of action. Action is the main thing, because it brings the world to the ultimate perfection for which it was created: turning the world into a dwelling, a vessel in which the Shechinah can be revealed. Making a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms is accomplished specifically through action. Every mitzvah we perform sanctifies some part of the world. And he explained at length how, through the service of all Jews throughout the generations, the entire world—including its most remote parts, whether on Earth, in the air, in space, or wherever—is connected. He explained how it’s all connected to Jews’ performance of mitzvos. Through our performance of mitzvos over the generations, the entire world is gradually refined and purified, becoming a vessel ready for the Shechinah to rest in it, for the revelation of G-dliness that will come in the future. But all of this raises a question: Why do we need intent at all? Why does a person need to have intent when performing mitzvos? If the refinement of the world, the drawing down of G-dliness, and the resting and revelation of G-dliness all depend on actually performing the mitzvos, then what difference does it make whether I have intent or not? Why does that matter? Whether I have love and awe or don’t have love and awe, whether I serve Hashem for His sake or not—why is that important? What do we need it for at all? So the Alter Rebbe began explaining that there is value and importance not only in the action but also in the intent. What was the basis of his explanation? What is the value of intent? He bases it on what our Sages said:

03:03 Speaker 1 A mitzvah without intent—if a person performs a mitzvah without intent—is like a body without a soul. That’s what our Sages said. Now, everyone understands that a body without a soul has no...

03:18 Speaker 2 It can’t exist.

03:20 Speaker 1 Well, that’s not what is meant here. We explained it a little differently, but it’s clear to everyone, even without going over all the details, that a body without a soul isn’t worth much. When does a body have its full value? When it has a soul. It’s true that a body without a soul is still a body, but without a soul it has very little value. So we need to understand: Since G-dliness is drawn down and revealed even without intent, and the world becomes a vessel, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed in the world even without intent, why is intent so necessary? What did our Sages mean when they said that a mitzvah without intent is as though it has no soul, as though it’s just a lifeless body? After all, the mitzvah does have its effect even without intent. So what did our Sages mean? He explained that when we perform mitzvos, a mitzvah on its own does not ascend to the higher worlds. It remains outside, in the world of separation. Only through intent—when we perform the mitzvah with intent, for its own sake—does it ascend and become united with the higher worlds. He’ll explain in detail what that means in the next chapter. But what concerns us here, in this chapter, is the line of explanation he began: There are several levels to performing a mitzvah with intent. Just as there are four kinds of created things in the world—inanimate, plant, animal, and human—and although, in terms of the revelation of G-dliness, there is no difference between the four. That is, just as you see no revelation in a stone or a tree—when you look at any of the created things in the world, you don’t see

05:54 Speaker 1 any revelation of G-dliness. It makes no difference whether you look at a stone, a tree, an animal, or a person. You don’t see Hakadosh Boruch Hu; you see the thing as it is. Although there is no difference in terms of the revelation of G-dliness, everyone understands that there is a great difference between the inanimate, plants, animals, and humans. Right? When we say there’s no difference, we mean in terms of the revelation of G-dliness. But of course there’s a difference. You can’t compare a person to a plant, or a plant to an inanimate object, or to an animal, and so on. Each is a level of its own. In other words, if the difference isn’t in the revelation of G-dliness, where is it? The difference between the four levels isn’t in concealment—not in how concealed Hakadosh Boruch Hu is. That’s the same for all of them. Rather, it’s in how much life-force is revealed and expressed: how much vitality, how much G-dly life-force, there is in each thing. A person has much more vitality, a plant has less—and, how do you say it? An animal has less than a person, a plant even less, and an inanimate object has still less, a very, very limited life-force. But even though an animal, for example, has much more vitality than a plant, in both cases you equally cannot see the source of that vitality. You can see that one has more vitality, but that doesn’t mean you can see the G-dliness in it. Do you understand what I’m getting at? There are two aspects here, when—

07:51 Speaker 11 Rabbi, what G-dliness? What G-dliness would be revealed? After all, we do see that there is G-dliness.

07:58 Speaker 1 I’ll explain—I’ll give another analogy, perhaps a simpler one. Take sunlight, for example. You can reduce the light in two different ways. You can put in a window so less light comes through, or let just a little through a hole. Right? That’s one way. Another way is to put up a curtain so that only a little light comes through. What’s the difference between the two? When light comes through a window, a smaller amount enters. But to anyone looking at the light that enters, it’s the same sunlight; only the quantity is different. When light passes through a curtain, though—whether the amount is the same or different doesn’t matter—on the other side of the curtain, we can no longer tell what kind of light it was before. Before the curtain, was it sunlight, firelight, candlelight, or light from a flashlight? The curtain dims it, changes the way the light looks, and diffuses it. Right? So the first way is called restriction, a reduction in the amount. The second is called concealment. A great deal of light might pass through, yet its source—the nature of its source—will be hidden from us. Or the reverse might happen: very little light passes through, but it’s clear to everyone what its source is. So restriction and concealment are two different things. There’s the question of how much is revealed, and the question of whether the source is hidden. The same applies to the four levels of created things in the world: inanimate, plant, animal, and human. The inanimate has little life-force, and that life-force is completely hidden. Then there are plants and animals, where the source is still completely hidden. You don’t see or sense that it’s

10:07 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu; you see a plant. Right. But an animal—its vitality is less... In other words, the difference between the four kinds of created things is in the amount of vitality they have. But when it comes to what is hidden and concealed, they’re all the same. In none of them do you see that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates them. You don’t sense Him in them; you see the animal or the plant. The Alter Rebbe says: The same applies to the intent behind mitzvos. If a person performs a mitzvah... Not “if.” Sorry. One moment, I’m confused today. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came into being.

11:00 Speaker 12 Amen.

11:06 Speaker 1 We’re talking now about a Jewish chossid, a Tamim, who fulfills mitzvos for the sake of Heaven. What does “for the sake of Heaven” mean? When he fulfills a mitzvah, why does he do it? Because he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He loves Him and stands in awe of Him. He doesn’t fulfill mitzvos because that’s what he was taught, how he was raised, what he got used to, or what he trained himself to do. And he certainly doesn’t do them for some ulterior motive. He isn’t learning Torah so people will call him a rabbi. No. He learns Torah and fulfills mitzvos because he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He wants to do what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants him to do. Hashem wants me to learn, and that will bring Him pleasure. I love Hashem; I want to do something that brings Him pleasure, right? That’s his motivation. Now, there are two kinds of love and awe. In the first, why does he love Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Because he is a Jew, and every Jew has a soul, and a Jewish soul loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So as soon as he reveals a little of his soul—clears away a little of the mud—it comes to light and loves Hashem. He fulfills mitzvos because he loves Hashem. That’s one way. The second way is entirely different. He loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu and fulfills mitzvos because of that love. But why does he love Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Not because he has a soul. No, that has nothing to do with it. He thought deeply about Hashem’s greatness and came to the conclusion that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of all life, the source of all delight. Hakadosh

12:50 Speaker 1 Boruch Hu is goodness itself. And after contemplating and understanding that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is so good, he wants to draw close to Him. What gives rise to that attraction, that love, that desire to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? His contemplation. It has nothing to do with his soul. His intellect gave rise to an emotion. He contemplated it, he thought about it—just as with anything a person thinks about: if he thinks about something upsetting, he gets upset; if he thinks about something funny, he laughs. He thought about Hashem’s greatness, and that caused him to love Hashem. This kind of love isn’t connected to the soul. It isn’t connected to his being Jewish. Broadly speaking, yes, there’s a connection, but what gives rise to it is his contemplation, his intellect. So there are two ways a Jew can love Hashem. In one, he fulfills mitzvos out of love born of contemplation. In the other, he serves Hashem out of love that comes from the nature of his divine soul. In earlier chapters, the Alter Rebbe explained at length how to attain each kind of love. What’s the difference? Bottom line, what’s the difference? He fulfills mitzvos, yes. He does so with intention, yes. He has love for Hashem, yes. Why should I care what brought about that love—whether it was contemplation or something else? What difference does it make? The Alter Rebbe answered that in the first section of our chapter, which we learned last week. What’s the difference between a human being and an animal? A human thinks; an animal feels. It’s true that a person also has emotions, and an animal also has intelligence. But a person’s emotions arise from his intellect. The intellect is primary. It

15:20 Speaker 1 starts with the intellect. An animal can’t choose whether to love something or not. It has no choice. It has feelings, and whatever intelligence it has serves those feelings. It’s very hungry, so it uses its intelligence to work out how to get food. There’s a female dog it wants to reach, so it uses its intelligence to work out how to get to her, and so on. With an animal, it’s exactly the other way around: its intelligence serves its emotions. A human being’s intellect governs emotion and gives rise to it. All right? What does this have to do with loving Hashem? The Alter Rebbe says something that sounds very harsh at first. A person whose feelings are born of contemplation is acting like a human being: his intellect gives rise to his feelings. But someone who serves Hashem only with his soul’s natural love for Hashem—well, that’s like an animal. He has intellect, but why does he serve Hashem? Because it’s in his nature to love Hashem. That’s just like an animal. So there are two levels in serving Hashem. We’re talking about a Jew who observes every mitzvah, minor and major, commits no transgressions, and loves Hashem and fulfills mitzvos because he loves Him. But there are two ways this can happen. Does he love Hashem in the way a human being should, or in the way an animal does? When you first hear that, it doesn’t sound very flattering. It doesn’t sound good to hear that my service of Hashem is like... well, at best, like some dog. That

17:33 Speaker 1 doesn’t sound very nice. So the Alter Rebbe explains in the chapter we learned last week: listen, leave aside the animals and the human being for a moment. Put aside the analogy. Let’s talk about angels and tzaddikim, including great tzaddikim. Leave that whole subject aside. Here’s how it is: angels are in the World of Yetzirah. The tzaddikim, after...

18:13 Speaker 13 Read from your notes.

18:19 Speaker 1 After 120 years, the tzaddikim receive their reward in a higher place, the World of Beriah, and the great tzaddikim, higher still. Why should we care where tzaddikim receive their reward or where angels are? What does that have to do with Tanya, with serving Hashem, or with anything that concerns us? The answer is that the difference between serving Hashem through intellect and serving Him through emotion—between these two forms of service—parallels the difference between tzaddikim and angels. Why do the tzaddikim receive their reward in the World of Beriah? Because Beriah is a world of intellect. They served Hashem through intellect; they awakened their emotions through intellect. So their reward is in a world of divine intellect. The angels’ service, by contrast, is emotional. So a person who serves Hashem only with his divine soul, only with his natural emotions, his natural love for Hashem, is like an angel. After 120 years, he receives his reward in the angels’ Gan Eden, on that same level. All right? That’s what the Alter Rebbe has explained up to this point, as an introduction. It’s meant to help us understand the service of Hashem of ordinary, simple people like us, who serve Hashem with our natural feelings—the natural feelings of the divine soul. We need to understand the virtue and importance of that service, and why we need it despite what we said at the beginning: the main thing is the deed, so why should it matter whether you have intention or not, whether you have feeling or not? Why do we need feeling, even our supposedly lowly kind of feeling? Why is it so important? The Rebbe gave this whole introduction, and now we come to the main point. Here, after the colon, where we’re up to, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain

20:26 Speaker 1 why the service of angels and tzaddikim matters to us. So let’s read it inside, on page 53, in the bottom third. It’s the line beginning, “And the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” after the colon. Let’s see: “And the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah. Meaning: from its reward we can know its nature.” We’ve said this many times already: whenever the Alter Rebbe says “meaning,” he intends to explain a verse or a teaching of our Sages differently from how we’ve understood it until now. When we usually say, “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” what do we mean? It says in Pirkei Avos, “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” right? What’s the plain meaning? I did a mitzvah. What’s the reward? Our Sages said, “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah.” I did a mitzvah. What’s my reward?

21:32 Speaker 14 To receive another mitzvah.

21:33 Speaker 1 To receive another mitzvah. You did a mitzvah, so you’ll be given the merit to do another. One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah: you’ll be given the merit to do another mitzvah. That’s the plain meaning. It’s clear from the simple words. Yes. Chassidus explains a deeper meaning of “the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah.” Not just that they’ll give you another mitzvah, but that the mitzvah itself will be your reward. What does that mean? I performed a mitzvah, and that’s the reward? What kind of reward is that? This was explained at the beginning of the chapter: when a person ascends to the higher worlds after a hundred and twenty years, what reward is he given? Every mitzvah is a revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The mitzvos he performed in this world, those very mitzvos, that revelation of G-dliness, are what he is given in the World to Come. He explained this at length. It was very moving. When we learned it inside, everyone was deeply moved. What does a revelation of G-dliness mean, and what is he given? That really is a whole subject. All right, we won’t go over the whole thing now. So that’s the second interpretation. The second interpretation of “the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” which is generally the interpretation given in Chassidus, is: what is the reward for the mitzvah? After a hundred and twenty years, you’ll be given, as your reward, the very mitzvah you performed. But here the Rebbe says no, there’s a third interpretation. “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah”—he has another interpretation of this teaching of our Sages. What does it mean here? “From its reward, we can know its essence.” The Rebbe takes the words of our Sages in the opposite direction. “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah.” You want to know what a mitzvah is? Look at its reward. From the reward, you’ll know what the mitzvah is.

23:41 Speaker 14 How do we know that?

23:44 Speaker 1 You want to know whether a certain person is a great painter? Well, paint something, and then we’ll know whether you’re a painter or not. Yes. From the result, you can tell, you can assess or estimate the greatness of the one who—of what produced that result. Yes. So if a certain person receives the reward for a mitzvah in the lower Gan Eden, from that you can understand the nature of the mitzvah he performs down here. If another person, for a particular way of performing a mitzvah, receives a reward in the higher Gan Eden, well, from that you can understand what... I perform a mitzvah and I don’t feel anything. True, you don’t feel anything when you perform a mitzvah, but that’s only because it’s hidden from you. A curtain has been put up so that you can’t feel it. But since you know that for this mitzvah you receive such-and-such a reward, it follows that your mitzvah—the one you don’t feel—isn’t really what it feels like to you. It’s something entirely different. That’s the meaning of “the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah”: from the mitzvah’s reward, we can recognize and know its essence. It’s explained here in the text. “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” meaning that from its reward we can know the essence and level of the mitzvah here. The Alter Rebbe says, “We have no dealings with hidden matters.” What are the hidden matters? They concern the great tzaddikim, whom he explained earlier, at the beginning of the chapter, are on the level of a chariot. That’s a very lofty form of serving Hashem, which we spoke about last time. The level of Avraham—of the Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who were a chariot throughout their lives. I’ll briefly go over it again, and if anyone gets bored, they’ll be a little bored. That’s all right.

25:55 Speaker 15 But—

25:55 Speaker 1 What?

25:55 Speaker 15 I have a question. Does that mean every specific mitzvah can be different? I mean, is the reward for a mitzvah the same? Of course, I’m not talking about different kinds of mitzvos, but the same mitzvah and how you performed it. Okay. So according to the world it reached, that’s its essence.

26:10 Speaker 1 It teaches us what its essence is here. And this will be much clearer if I go back over one point, but... Chassidus often brings this up—actually, not just Chassidus. Holiness: what’s the difference between something holy and something that isn’t holy? Something holy is something that is nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and what is felt in it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, not the thing itself. What’s special about a tzaddik? Why do we value a tzaddik so highly?

27:12 Speaker 15 Because he isn’t—

27:13 Speaker 1 Because he isn’t—he is nothing in himself. His entire being is devoted to doing what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. He even feels what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants him to feel and thinks what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants him to think. His intellect, his emotions, his power of action and his power of speech are all as Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants them to be. He nullifies his personal identity to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that’s why he is called holy. That’s what a tzaddik means. Yes. The more a person nullifies himself before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the more he... What is most completely nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Clearly, the greater the nullification, the greater the holiness and the greater the righteousness. More holiness rests upon him; more holiness is revealed in him. So holiness depends on bittul, self-nullification. The more something is nullified to G-dliness, the more holiness it has. What is the thing that—

28:11 Speaker 15 So, seemingly, the inanimate should be higher in holiness.

28:13 Speaker 1 What?

28:14 Speaker 15 Seemingly, the inanimate should be higher in holiness.

28:16 Speaker 1 Right. That’s exactly what we’re saying.

28:22 Speaker 15 That’s why the body is holy.

28:24 Speaker 1 Yes, a dwelling place in the lower realms, the actual performance of mitzvos—that’s exactly what he explains. Look, take a person: when is he nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? In general, he raises a family, has children and earns a living. But he has one hour a day when he davens. Now he’s saying Tehillim; now he’s nullified. The rest of the day, he isn’t. Then there’s someone who, even during the hour when he says Tehillim and is supposed to be nullified, says the words but lets his mind wander. So he’s a little less nullified. There’s someone who not only concentrates on it but does so for more hours of the day. And there’s someone to whom it matters so much that you see him occupied with it almost all the time. But he, too, has times when he needs to sleep and eat. Even a person who is completely devoted to Torah and mitzvos—completely devoted—still gets hungry after a few hours and has to eat. He gets thirsty and has to drink; he gets tired and has to sleep. He feels that he exists. Our whole existence is that of human beings of flesh and blood, who can be nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the manner of bittul hayesh: he is a separate being, an existence that becomes nullified. He nullifies himself, but he is still a being that becomes nullified. He isn’t nothing. He exists. How completely can he nullify himself? He can’t nullify his body, his intellect, his emotions. He exists. There is a much higher form of bittul. When a chariot is nullified to its rider... there isn’t something here actively nullifying itself. Yes, a car doesn’t nullify itself to the driver. It sounds funny to say that. It doesn’t do anything to become nullified, because its entire purpose is to do what it’s directed to do. Right? So a chariot is nullified to its rider far more than

30:40 Speaker 1 a human being can nullify himself. Right? But even the bittul of a chariot isn’t the greatest bittul one can imagine. There’s a much greater bittul—for example, the bittul of the body to the soul. Right? The car is entirely subject to the driver, but the driver has to tell it what to do. If he doesn’t, it won’t know where to go on its own. The limbs of the body are generally nullified to the soul. The soul doesn’t have to touch—it doesn’t have to tell the eye, “Now I want you to look over here.”

31:21 Speaker 15 The brain tells it.

31:21 Speaker 1 What?

31:22 Speaker 15 The brain tells it, but without a soul, the brain doesn’t work either.

31:24 Speaker 1 Do you want to explain how scientists try to explain what they don’t know how to explain? When a person wants to look, he looks. When he wants to speak, he speaks. He doesn’t think about how to operate his legs, how to move them. He doesn’t think about it. Whatever he wants to do, he does. The limbs—

31:46 Speaker 15 Yes, yes.

31:47 Speaker 1 All the movements we constantly make with our hands, our eyes, our heads—the soul wants to move, and the body moves. Right? That’s a much higher bittul than the bittul of a chariot. The soul doesn’t have to tell the body what to do; the body knows, it senses what the soul wants. It’s that nullified. Right? There are even higher levels of bittul than... This is why they say the Patriarchs were a chariot. Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were nullified throughout their lives. They nullified themselves to such an extent that it was beyond human. Just as a car is subject to its driver, the Patriarchs had no will of their own at all, including when it came to their bodily needs. Nothing.

32:37 Speaker 16 Wait, is the bittul of a car higher than the bittul of—

32:39 Speaker 1 He didn’t want to eat. Hakadosh Boruch Hu commanded that one eat, so you have to eat, and you eat. It’s because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted it, not because I’m hungry. There is no “I”; I don’t exist.

32:48 Speaker 16 No, yes, I’m asking whether the car’s bittul is higher than the bittul of the body to the soul. Because a moment ago it sounded like the opposite.

32:56 Speaker 1 The opposite. The body’s bittul to the soul is higher. In chapter 24, he brings additional levels.

33:01 Speaker 16 Yes. No. Then why is the example that the bittul of the Patriarchs is like a vehicle? I mean, we’re on a lower level.

33:10 Speaker 1 Right.

33:12 Speaker 16 So how is there a higher bittul here if we’re on a lower level?

33:15 Speaker 1 I was just pointing it out. I mentioned in passing that there’s even a higher bittul than that of the Patriarchs.

33:19 Speaker 16 Ah, okay, I understand.

33:22 Speaker 1 The bittul of the Patriarchs is the bittul of the great tzaddikim that he explained earlier, at the beginning of the chapter. That’s what matters for our discussion here. There is a more elevated bittul.

33:31 Speaker 16 I understand.

33:33 Speaker 1 But even within that, there are several levels. For our purposes, though, he says this. The Rebbe says: “We have no dealings with hidden matters.” What are these “hidden matters”? The great tzaddikim. I can’t even picture what bittul as a vehicle means: that I would be so completely nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so devoted to His Torah and mitzvos, that throughout my life I would never feel any need for anything physical or material. I can’t imagine that. I’m told the Patriarchs were like that. Fine; all I can do is, as they say, roll my eyes. We have no grasp of it whatsoever. We can’t even imagine such a reality. So the Rebbe says: It’s true that earlier, at the beginning of the chapter, we discussed how the great tzaddikim, the Patriarchs, receive the reward for their mitzvos in Atzilus, because they perform the mitzvos as a vehicle. So their reward is in Atzilus. Those are hidden matters. They’re not relevant to us; we’re not talking about that. What are we talking about? “The reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah”—what is relevant to us. “The revealed matters belong to us”: every person should firmly understand the nature and level of serving Hashem with fear and love revealed in the heart, arising from understanding and knowledge of the greatness of the Infinite One, blessed be He. Intellectual love and fear. Although, in general, this is the service of tzaddikim, it does apply to everyone, because ultimately everyone has an intellect somewhere within them, and the intellect governs the emotions. A person can awaken love of Hashem—not to the same extent as tzaddikim, for whom it is constant, firmly established, and intense, but it does apply to everyone. And the place of such service of Hashem is in the ten sefiros of Beriah. When is its place in the ten sefiros of Beriah?

35:37 Speaker 16 If—

35:37 Speaker 1 After the soul’s departure, or before it?

35:41 Speaker 16 After. The question is why we’re [unclear] after [unclear]...

35:48 Speaker 1 From the reward, we’ll understand its nature. What is the nature of the service now?

35:54 Speaker 16 If we don’t know the reward now, how will we know beforehand?

35:57 Speaker 1 We’re told what the reward is, and from that we understand. We need to know with certainty: since the reward for intellectual love and fear—for fulfilling mitzvos with intellectual love and fear—is in the higher Gan Eden, in the world of Beriah, that means our service of Hashem here and now rises and becomes united with the world of Beriah.

36:27 Speaker 16 So we can understand what our reward here is.

36:30 Speaker 1 How can that be? We’re here. So how can it be there now? Our mitzvah is here, while the world of Beriah is above, isn’t it?

36:37 Speaker 16 It’s a spiritual world, isn’t it?

36:38 Speaker 1 A spiritual world. The world of Beriah is here. It isn’t “there.” For us it’s there, because we have no grasp of it, but it isn’t defined by location. When a Jew serves Hashem, contemplates Hashem’s greatness, and brings love of Hashem into his heart, his fulfillment of the mitzvah is in the world of Beriah right now, at this very moment. And service with natural fear and love in his mind is in the ten sefiros of Yetzirah. What does “natural fear and love” mean? The soul’s natural love and fear. But what does “in his mind” mean? I understand love and fear, and I understand “natural.” What are natural love and fear in his mind?

37:37 Speaker 16 Contemplation that he agrees with, or doesn’t agree with.

37:41 Speaker 1 Good. I contemplated and reached the conclusion that I need to love Hashem, but it remained in my mind. There’s some Amalek along the way, in what’s called the narrow passage of the throat—a constricted place, with some Amalek at the back of the neck, or all sorts of other things getting in the way—and it doesn’t descend to the heart. Fine, but it is present in the mind. And if, following his contemplation and understanding, a person reaches a decision—this is inward, not something superficial—a firm decision. Why is it firm? Because he contemplated it, he understands it deeply, he believes it, he knows that this is how it must be, and he won’t let himself off the hook. Yes, that is called fear. And how do we put it? Fear and love “in his mind and in the hidden recesses of his heart.” It reaches the heart, but in the heart it remains hidden. It hasn’t been revealed yet. There are those who... So this kind of service is in the ten sefiros of Yetzirah. Although he is working with his mind, not his heart, what he awakens in his mind is natural love and fear. And the place of natural love and fear is Yetzirah, not Beriah. But service without an awakening of fear and love, even in his mind, in a revealed way—what does it mean that it isn’t revealed even in his mind? That is, he cannot awaken the natural love hidden in his heart and bring it out from concealment into revelation. He can’t manage that even in his mind and the hidden recesses of his heart, at least.

39:30 Speaker 16 He doesn’t even have that sense of being moved.

39:32 Speaker 1 What?

39:32 Speaker 16 He doesn’t even feel moved.

39:33 Speaker 1 He doesn’t even feel moved in a way that leads, or could lead, to a decision. He understands it on a certain level... Well, this is taking us a long time. It isn’t something... Yes, I heard a class or studied something. I looked at it, I was impressed, I saw something. Yes, and I was deeply moved. I really want to be like that—but that’s where it ends. Right.

39:51 Speaker 16 It doesn’t reach Yetzirah?

39:52 Speaker 1 Huh?

39:53 Speaker 16 It doesn’t reach Yetzirah? Which world does it reach?

39:58 Speaker 1 He’ll say in a moment where it reaches, and where it doesn’t.

40:00 Speaker 16 It doesn’t reach Yetzirah.

40:04 Speaker 1 So on the one hand, he doesn’t have love and fear, not even in his mind. Right. On the other hand, we’re talking about someone who does serve Hashem. He performs mitzvos, and he contemplates and thinks. It’s just that his contemplation hasn’t reached the stage of revelation, not even in his mind and the hidden recesses of his heart. But in practice, he does perform the mitzvos. We’re not talking about someone who doesn’t think at all. We’re talking about someone who does have intent, but that intent hasn’t succeeded. It hasn’t awakened or revealed what is in the heart at all. At any rate, the love remains hidden in his heart as it was from birth, just as it was before he began his service. He contemplated, but it wasn’t revealed, not even in his mind. “This service remains below, in the world of separation, called the external aspect of the worlds.” If it remains below, what would we say? Below means the world of Asiyah, right? But immediately he tells us what “below” means: the world of separation. What is it called? The external aspect of the... worlds. “Worlds” is plural. That would include the world of Asiyah too. So it can’t refer only to the world of Asiyah; it refers to the external aspect of the worlds. The external aspect of which worlds? Beriah and Yetzirah. Yes, Beriah and Yetzirah. It does rise to their external aspect. Exactly. We learned that the worlds, like everything else, have an inner aspect and an external aspect. It’s like a person: even the body has internal organs on which life depends—the heart, the lungs—and external limbs. The soul and the body. Everything has an inner and an external aspect. The higher spiritual worlds also have an inner aspect, which is actual G-dliness, the ten sefiros. And they have an external aspect: the levels and chambers. This isn’t the place to explain it. I don’t know how to explain much more about it either. But there is an inner aspect and an external aspect, and when

42:12 Speaker 1 A Jew may indeed be observant and keep the mitzvos for the sake of Heaven. He isn’t keeping them to make himself important, so people will call him “Rabbi,” or to make an impression. He keeps mitzvos because you have to keep mitzvos. But what? He doesn’t do it with feeling. And not only without feeling born of contemplation—sometimes a person comes to perform a mitzvah simply out of habit. That happens to us too. What does “out of habit” mean? He doesn’t think about it at all. It’s part of his daily routine, with no intention whatsoever. That isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about someone who does perform a mitzvah consciously: “Now I’m going to perform a mitzvah.” Halachah says that before performing a mitzvah, you need intention. What intention? To know that you’re performing a mitzvah. That’s the intention required for every mitzvah. Without it, it isn’t a mitzvah. A mitzvah needs intention. What does that mean? First of all, the ABCs: knowing that you’re performing a mitzvah. Yes. In davening itself, there are, say, parts like Shema Yisroel or the first blessing, where if you didn’t have intention, you haven’t fulfilled your obligation. But there are other parts where intention isn’t essential, and you have fulfilled it. You said—right, you know, that question of its ascent—we’ll get to that shortly. So there is a situation where a person performs a mitzvah with no intention at all. He doesn’t even think about the fact that he’s performing a mitzvah now. He’s used to it: in the morning you wash your hands, and so on. He doesn’t think about it at all. But there’s someone else who does think about it. He’s a Jew who serves Hashem and wants to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now he’s going to daven; now he wants to go say

44:01 Speaker 1 Tehillim, or whatever it may be. He knows he’s performing a mitzvah, but it’s without love and awe. Why is it without love and awe? He hasn’t contemplated Hashem’s greatness beforehand. He hasn’t made the effort, hasn’t worked to awaken love within himself, so he has no love. This isn’t mere habit; he isn’t just going through the motions. But there’s no love or awe here either, not even hidden in his mind and heart. Yes, that’s what we’re talking about: a person who does consciously perform a mitzvah. On the one hand, he performs the mitzvah. On the other hand, there’s no revealed feeling that could draw that mitzvah into the world of Yetzirah or Beriah—not even a hidden feeling. So what happens to it? The mitzvah itself is Hashem’s will; the Torah itself is Hashem’s wisdom. So when he does it, what is present here? Hashem’s wisdom and Hashem’s will. That is holiness. Yes. And if it’s holy, it ascends to the higher worlds. If it’s Torah, to the world of Beriah; if it’s a mitzvah, to the world of Yetzirah. It ascends there. But since it lacks intention, it doesn’t become united with the place it reaches. It remains in the external aspect of the worlds. It doesn’t unite with the sefiros. That’s what it means for it to remain below in the world of separation.

45:30 Speaker 17 And how can it, then—once more?

45:32 Speaker 1 Wait, one more line, one more line. “This service remains below, in the world of separation, called the external aspect of the worlds, and it lacks the power to ascend and be incorporated in His blessed unity,” meaning the ten holy sefiros, as he explained at the beginning of the chapter. “And as it says in the Tikkunim”—he says: it’s quite a novel thing to say that a Jew performs a mitzvah and it doesn’t ascend in the worlds. So the Alter Rebbe brings proof. It says in the Tikkunim, in Tikkunei Zohar—the Tikkunim are part of the Zohar: “Without awe and love”—this is a quotation from the Zohar—“a mitzvah without awe and love does not soar upward.” It says so explicitly in the Zohar, “and cannot ascend and stand before Hashem.” That is so “even if he is not engaged in it for an ulterior motive.” What does it mean to engage in Torah for an ulterior motive? He engages in Torah with the aim of distancing himself from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What? Is there such a thing?

46:42 Speaker 17 He does it in order to draw closer.

46:44 Speaker 1 What?

46:45 Speaker 17 Honor. For honor.

46:47 Speaker 1 Yes, for honor. Simple. Or for money. A person goes to learn Torah in kollel. Yes, he learns Torah. What do you call him? An avreich. A fine avreich learning Torah in kollel. If he goes to kollel with the aim of earning money so he’ll have something to provide for his family, then his Torah study is for an ulterior motive. He learns Torah for material reasons, not for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That doesn’t change the point. It can happen with any mitzvah, even Torah study. “If he is not engaged in it for an actual ulterior motive, for any self-serving reason, G-d forbid”—not for money or honor—“but rather, as it is written, ‘Their fear of Me was a commandment of men learned by rote.’” Meaning, it comes from a habit formed in childhood: his father and teacher accustomed him and taught him to fear Hashem and serve Him. So his father accustomed him to fear Hashem. He has fear of Hashem, but it’s fear of Hashem out of habit, not from contemplation. He isn’t engaged in it truly for its own sake. Truly for its own sake. What does “for its own sake” mean? That he performs the mitzvah for the sake of the mitzvah. That isn’t possible “without at least awakening the natural love and awe”—at least those. Why? “To bring them out of concealment in the heart into revelation in the mind and, at least, in the hidden recesses of his heart.” At least the natural love and awe. At least let them be there in the hidden recesses of his heart. At least. Why is it impossible without that? Why, without that, does it remain in the world of separation? Because “a person does not do something for his friend, to fulfill his wishes, unless he loves him or fears him.” When my friend asks me to do something, there are two possibilities. I’ll do it. Why will I do it? Perhaps because I understand it’s something that ought to be done. That isn’t for his sake. I understand it’s good, sensible, right, so I do it. I agree with him. I’m doing it for myself, not for him. To do it for his sake,

49:06 Speaker 1 I need to love him or fear him. Without feeling, I won’t do anything for his sake. I’ll do the thing, but not for his sake. The same applies to keeping mitzvos. If a person has no love or awe of Hashem, not even the tiniest minimum—just that he contemplates and wants to have love of Hashem, some minimum like that—without it, it isn’t for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He could keep every mitzvah all his life, but he isn’t doing it for Him; he’s doing it for himself. Either he’s doing it entirely for himself, to get money or honor, or for some spiritual benefit, to gain Gan Eden or something like that, or for even more refined and lofty aims. But it isn’t for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “It is impossible to act truly for His blessed sake, solely to fulfill His will, without any recollection or awakening of love and awe of Him, at least in one’s mind, thoughts, and the hidden recesses of one’s heart.” In the passage we read earlier, at the beginning of this section, it says in the Zohar that without awe and love, a mitzvah does not soar upward. Remember reading that a few lines ago? Yes? Now, everything discussed here was: why do I do something for my friend? Because I love him, right? What does that have to do with awe? That relates to love, not awe. So the Alter Rebbe adds: “Love alone, too, is not called service without at least a lower level of awe.” Why isn’t love without awe considered service? He loves—he contemplated Hashem’s greatness, and contemplation of Hashem’s greatness takes effort. He exerted himself, worked and worked until he succeeded. That isn’t simple. Not everyone succeeds, certainly not on the first few tries. You need to practice it a lot and invest effort. He worked hard. Why isn’t that called service? He worked very hard in order to

51:22 Speaker 1 To love Hashem and attain love of Hashem. Why isn’t that called avodah without fear? There is a fundamental difference in their very nature. The basis of love is “I want.” Right? The basis of fear is “I am afraid of Him.” Love begins with me. Even when I do something for Him, I do it because I’m drawn to Him, because I feel that it’s good for me. The basis of love is me; the basis of fear is Him. Right? So even if a person has a love that burns like flames, love burning in his heart, and he is entirely, how do you put it, a ball of fire, burning with love of Hashem—if he has no fear, it isn’t avodah. He loves; it feels good to him. Somewhere, he’s doing it for himself. On a very subtle level, yes, an exceedingly subtle level. If only we would reach the level of loving Hashem with such intensity! But ultimately, whatever its level, the basis of every love is “This is good for me.” So it is not fully avodah for Him. Avodah for Hakadosh Boruch Hu begins with fear. And the very, very lowest level of fear, as he will explain in another two chapters, is more avodah than even the loftiest love. That is what the Zohar says; that is what it means. This is how the Alter Rebbe explains it. That is what the Zohar means when it says, “Without fear and love, it cannot fly upward and cannot ascend and stand before Hashem.” In other words, it begins with fear, not with “love and fear.” “Without fear and love.” The foundation and root of avodah is fear. The main part of avodah, most of it, the bulk of it, is love—but it begins with fear. If there is no fear before the avodah, it will not go any further.

53:50 Speaker 3 Why do we begin with all the virtues of love?

53:52 Speaker 1 Hmm?

53:53 Speaker 3 Why do we begin with the virtues of love? Fear comes first. We really begin with the foundations.

53:59 Speaker 1 When we get to the order of avodah in chapter 41, there he will indeed say, “The beginning of avodah, and its essence and root, is fear—it is fear.” There are two chapters there explaining five levels of lower fear and the contemplation that brings one to it—in other words, the beginning of avodah. But here he isn’t talking about the beginning of avodah. Here he is talking about the nature of avodah. The nature of avodah is love. “There is no service like the service of love.” Now, what happens when someone engages in it truly not for its own sake? Here we’ve already, how do you put it, gone down and down and down. There’s someone who engages in it—and if he does it that way, then, you know, at least it rises to the worlds. To the outer aspect of the worlds, but at least it rises to the worlds. What happens if someone serves Hashem, serves Hashem, but is really serving himself? What about a person like that? This, too, is something we encounter. Hashem protect us, but a person has to be honest with himself. What about avodah like that? “When he engages in it truly not for its own sake, for some ulterior motive of personal honor, such as to become a Torah scholar and the like, then that motive, which comes from kelipas nogah, becomes invested in his Torah.” What is kelipas nogah? Kelipas nogah—we’ve spoken about it many times—is... What is a kelipah in the physical sense?

55:26 Speaker 3 A covering.

55:27 Speaker 1 A peel—

55:27 Speaker 3 Opaque.

55:29 Speaker 1 Well?

55:31 Speaker 4 It covers the fruit.

55:31 Speaker 1 It covers the fruit. Can you see the fruit? You understand, you know—you’ve opened a fruit before, so you know there’s something underneath. But if you had never seen one in your life, never opened one, you wouldn’t know. Yes, a person could reason that if there’s a peel, there’s probably a fruit inside, but he cannot see the fruit. It’s completely concealed. The nature of a kelipah—of kelipas nogah—is...

55:58 Speaker 3 Concealment—nogah.

56:00 Speaker 1 Concealment. Hiding and concealment. You can’t see anything. A person can live in this world for seventy years, or, with strength, eighty years, and not see Hakadosh Boruch Hu, not hear Him, not sense Him, not know that He exists. Is that possible? It is. Why? Kelipas nogah. You can’t see anything. If he doesn’t contemplate, he won’t know. And when a person learns Torah for what purpose? For something material. Honor is also something material. So why is he learning Torah now? For something that receives its vitality from... kelipas nogah. His Torah now plunges into kelipas nogah and becomes covered over there. And once it is covered there, descending into the kelipos, it can no longer rise even to the outer aspect of the higher worlds. Instead, the exact opposite happens: it gives strength to the kelipos, to the sitra achra. A person who learns Torah or performs a mitzvah for a material purpose adds strength to the kelipos, to the sitra achra. He is doing holy things, but for himself.

57:20 Speaker 5 In any case, the intention is for its own sake.

57:22 Speaker 1 What?

57:22 Speaker 5 In any case, the intention in performing the mitzvah is for its own sake. The point is specifically about Torah.

57:26 Speaker 1 Right, right, right, right. So, that motive which comes from kelipas nogah becomes invested in his Torah, and the Torah is, for the time being, in a state of exile within the kelipah, until he does teshuvah—for teshuvah brings healing to the world. What does teshuvah do? Teshuvah tears open the kelipas nogah there and draws the Torah back out of it. Igeres Hateshuvah will explain at length how that happens, but that’s the point. When he returns to Hashem, his Torah returns with him. And that is why our Sages said, “A person should always engage in Torah...,” for from doing so not for its own sake, he comes to do so for its own sake.

58:03 Speaker 5 But someone who always does it for an external reason hasn’t reached that level for the external reason.

58:07 Speaker 1 What, what, what, what?

58:08 Speaker 5 Someone who learns Torah for an external reason, to become a Torah scholar, also does it for an external reason [unclear].

58:12 Speaker 1 Ah. The question goes even deeper. That’s true, but it’s only part of the question. We have two people: one learns Torah in order to become a Torah scholar—really, how do you put it, not for its own sake in the fullest sense. The other just learns Torah out of habit, as we learned earlier.

58:37 Speaker 5 He learns for breadth of knowledge.

58:38 Speaker 1 Yes, he learns. Which is more—what did our Sages say? “A person should always learn,” because from learning not for its own sake, he comes to learn for its own sake. When will he come to perform mitzvos for their own sake? If he learns not for its own sake. Through learning not for its own sake, he’ll eventually get there. But if he just learns Torah, not for some ulterior motive, just out of habit, our Sages don’t say here that he’ll come to do it for its own sake. Strange, isn’t it? Huh?

59:10 Speaker 5 Very strange.

59:10 Speaker 1 Very strange, yes.

59:14 Speaker 6 Somehow that sounds a bit worse—doing it deliberately rather than without intention.

59:18 Speaker 5 No, it’s better to do it not for its own sake. Because if I just learn like that, I won’t get anywhere. But if I deliberately learn not for its own sake, then I will get somewhere.

59:28 Speaker 1 And that’s the very question. That’s what he’s saying, and that’s what they’re asking: what does it really mean?

59:39 Speaker 5 Anything that isn’t for its own sake—anything not done with that intention—is just not for its own sake.

59:45 Speaker 1 A Jew has a neshamah. Every Jew has a neshamah, and so surely, surely, in the end he will do teshuvah, in this lifetime or another. The neshamah—how does the verse put it? “Truth will sprout from the earth.” When you give it rain, water, it grows. It cannot fail to grow. It’s there inside; eventually it will break through. It cannot fail to break through. A Jew is born—and Hakadosh Boruch Hu has implanted an inheritance in each of us. We did nothing to earn it: He implanted a G-dly neshamah within us. The nature of a G-dly neshamah is to love Hashem. It can’t stop; it can’t stop. That is its essence. Its essence—what do you see when you look at a Jew’s neshamah? How do you put it, a flame of love for Hashem. That’s what it looks like. It knows nothing else, and it’s there, inside. It cannot help but burst forth. Eventually it will find a crack and come out. But the lower a person’s level, the more painful it is for the neshamah. It is in deeper exile, in a tighter prison. When does a person feel more pressure—when he’s at home and everything is fine, or when he’s in prison? Well, that’s no question. Our Sages said, “From...” So although, of course, one must certainly not set out to do this—it isn’t the right path—our Sages said that even if a person is at a level where he learns not for its own sake, and he’s learned Tanya and knows he’s learning not for its own sake, and finds it hard to stop, he should still not stop learning. Why? Because the situation you’re in will eventually awaken such a cry within you that the learning you then do for its own sake will make it all worthwhile. That doesn’t mean one should deliberately go and commit sins. No, that isn’t what it means. For no one will be cast away from Him. But when a person simply acts not for its own sake, rather than with an ulterior motive—

1:01:59 Speaker 1 the matter does not depend on teshuvah. Instead, as soon as he goes back and learns that subject for its own sake, what he learned without any particular intention also connects and joins with this learning, and flies upward. After all, what did we learn earlier? When a person learns without any particular intention, it does rise to the higher worlds, but it remains in their outer aspect. The moment he learns that same thing, that same subject, that same halachah, once again—but this time for its own sake—the earlier learning is already there.

1:02:28 Speaker 7 That’s what we learned about the prayers.

1:02:29 Speaker 1 So it attaches itself to it and enters as well.

1:02:31 Speaker 7 With the prayers, they described how they are above, and then when there is a prayer from deep within, it [unclear] and takes all the prayers with it.

1:02:37 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe also says this in Igeres Hakodesh. You learned it. Since no kelipas nogah has yet become invested in it, there is no need for teshuvah to tear away the screen.

1:02:49 Speaker 7 So what does become invested in it?

1:02:51 Speaker 1 What?

1:02:51 Speaker 7 Then what does become invested in it, if not kelipas nogah?

1:02:55 Speaker 1 Didn’t we say that it’s neither for its own sake nor not for its own sake? It rises for him, but it remains in the outer dimension of the world of separation.

1:03:00 Speaker 7 Some degree of holiness.

1:03:01 Speaker 1 It certainly is holiness, but the… isn’t revealed in it. We’ll see more later. It doesn’t unite with the inner dimension of the world.

1:03:13 Speaker 7 No, I said that if it isn’t kelipah, then it must…

1:03:15 Speaker 1 This is discussed much more fully in the next chapter. And therefore, a person should always engage in Torah study, etc. The same applies to prayer without kavanah, as it says in the Zohar.

1:03:27 Speaker 7 It’s better with no kavanah at all. Then there’s one kavanah.

1:03:29 Speaker 1 No.

1:03:30 Speaker 7 Then it goes straight to a world that you’ll probably neglect.

1:03:32 Speaker 1 No.

1:03:32 Speaker 7 That kavanah.

1:03:34 Speaker 1 No. It isn’t better, because doing teshuvah isn’t simple. A person may not be able to get out of it.

1:03:40 Speaker 7 Does it require a much greater teshuvah, or is once enough? Because that gives the heart more merit and honor.

1:03:45 Speaker 1 But, but, but that’s a big risk.

1:03:47 Speaker 7 A big risk, but the bigger risk is that I’ll break through it from the depths of my heart.

1:03:52 Speaker 1 Maybe yes, maybe no.

1:03:54 Speaker 7 That’s not possible at all. How would that fit with his avodah?

1:03:58 Speaker 1 …

1:03:59 Speaker 7 Still, somehow they reduced the impression it made.

1:04:01 Speaker 1 On this subject, after all the explanation, something is still left unresolved. It’s not something anyone would notice while learning all the details inside. You get immersed in the forest and… lose your way. You just see another tree, another tree, another tree. What? What? What? After all that, a very unclear point remains. Two points. First, at the beginning the Alter Rebbe went on at length to explain that the deed is the main thing. It’s all about the deed. Then suddenly he explains exactly the opposite. What, without kavanah, the deed is… what? How, how, how do these things fit together? That’s one thing we need to understand. The second thing we need to understand—and this is the main point—is this: Torah is the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Right? The mitzvos are the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He wanted it this way, wanted it that way. This is the wisdom of His will. If I perform a mitzvah with kavanah or without kavanah, do I change Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Do I turn His will into something that is no longer His will, or His wisdom into something that is no longer His wisdom? Why does it matter to the mitzvah, to Hashem’s wisdom, whether the person learning it has this or that intention? What difference does his intention make? I understand that there’s a connection. It sounds very nice: when he performs it with intellectually generated love and awe, he receives an intellectual reward, and so he is in the world of Beriah. That’s a very nice calculation. But when you take a step back and look for a moment, what are you talking about? You’re talking about Hashem’s wisdom. Hashem’s wisdom is already actual G-dliness, the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does it mean that it remains in His outer dimension and doesn’t enter, doesn’t unite with Him? Does it need to unite with Him at all? It’s Hashem’s wisdom, period. Completely revealed. That’s what Hakadosh

1:06:19 Speaker 1 Boruch Hu understands and wants. Why does it matter whether I have kavanah or not? Does that make it not Him? What difference does it make at all? Why does it matter? Right. So for this reason, the Alter Rebbe divided the subject of kavanah—the importance of kavanah in performing mitzvos—into three chapters, not two. In the first chapter he only explained what kavanah is. That is, kavanah is like the soul of the body. It’s its soul. Then he explained its nature and its level: one kind of kavanah belongs to the world of Beriah, another to the world of Yetzirah, and to Atzilus, and so on. If he performs it this way, where does it rise? There.

1:07:12 Speaker 7 Only there.

1:07:13 Speaker 1 But we’re missing the main point. What does kavanah accomplish? What does it do, and how does it do it? When a person performs a mitzvah with kavanah, what effect does that have? What does it add? What do we say? We say that through a mitzvah performed with kavanah, the Torah rises from here to there. Right? What exactly rises? If Torah is His wisdom anyway, what happens there? What’s the mechanism? What is going on inside? How does my kavanah cause the Torah to rise upward? What does “rise upward” mean? Right. That’s the next chapter—the third and last of the three chapters that explain kavanah. After the Alter Rebbe finishes all six of these chapters—three chapters on the advantage of the deed and three on kavanah, its advantage and its purpose—he begins to explain: All right, now that we know why we serve Hashem, how we serve Hashem, and what serving Hashem should look like, we can begin to explain how to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That starts from chapter 41 onward.

1:08:37 Speaker 8 I think teachers should teach that way too—prepare the students for the next lesson like that.

1:08:42 Speaker 1 Is this Hilchos Beis Habechirah, or have you finished?

1:08:45 Speaker 8 Oh, one more halachah.

1:08:46 Speaker 1 Huh?

1:08:47 Speaker 8 One more halachah.

1:08:48 Speaker 1 One halachah. It’s a simple halachah, easy to understand, something like that. I said all these halachos are easy to understand. Most of them, at least.

1:09:10 Speaker 8 Between a kohen and an archaeologist.

1:09:15 Speaker 1 All right, two halachos. The table. The table for the lechem hapanim takes up two halachos in the Rambam. There were several items in the Beis Hamikdash called sacred vessels: the table, the altar, the menorah.

1:09:32 Speaker 8 The Ark.

1:09:33 Speaker 1 The Ark isn’t counted as a vessel, but there was the incense altar and a few other vessels and fire pans—I don’t know. Never mind. One of the vessels of the Beis Hamikdash was the table on which they placed the lechem hapanim. What is lechem hapanim? Does everyone know? Do you know what lechem hapanim is?

1:09:48 Speaker 8 Yes, last week.

1:09:50 Speaker 1 And every week, on Shabbos, one of the services in the Beis Hamikdash involved the kohanim baking—they baked on Erev Shabbos, Friday, twelve loaves.

1:10:02 Speaker 8 So, on Shabbos.

1:10:03 Speaker 1 What?

1:10:03 Speaker 8 So, on Shabbos.

1:10:04 Speaker 1 And then on Shabbos they brought them into the Beis Hamikdash, removed the loaves from the previous week, and put the new loaves in place.

1:10:12 Speaker 8 No, that’s right.

1:10:13 Speaker 1 There was a special table for these loaves, and they had a special shape too. It was called the table of the lechem hapanim. They were called lechem hapanim because the bread was shaped something like an open box, as though it had faces on this side and that side. So they made twelve loaves and placed them in two stacks. The table was just the right size for the loaves: they put a stack of six here and another stack of six there. The table was twelve handbreadths long—that’s almost a meter—and six handbreadths wide. So it was a meter by half a meter. The table of the lechem hapanim wasn’t enormous, about a meter by half a meter. Its length was aligned with the length of the building. When you enter the Beis Hamikdash, you walk from east to west, along its length, so the table stood lengthwise, not… The menorah was across the width; the table ran across—along the length. And likewise, all the other vessels in the Beis Hamikdash were aligned lengthwise with the building, except the Ark, whose length ran across the width of the building. The lamps of the menorah were also arranged across the width of the building. The Aron Kodesh and the menorah were across the width, and all the other vessels were lengthwise. Hmm?

1:11:27 Speaker 8 I’ll say it right away.

1:11:28 Speaker 1 Right. The table had four gold supports. “Supports” means posts—not on the table itself, but like speaker stands or something like that, set on the floor beside the table. There were two posts to support the bread on this side, and two on that side. They were called supports. Their tops were forked. That is, each post had five branches, one above the other, somewhat like the menorah. The two arrangements of the showbread rested on them: two supported this arrangement and two supported that one. These are what the Torah calls “its supports.” “Its supports” refers to those posts that support the showbread. There were twenty-eight gold rods, each one like half a hollow tube. They would make a hollow gold tube and cut it in half, so it was rounded on top and open underneath. Fourteen were for this arrangement and fourteen for that one—fourteen rods for each stack of loaves. These are what the Torah calls “its rods.” So the Rambam explains that “its rods” are the rods on which the bread is placed. And the two bowls in which they placed the frankincense on the table, beside the arrangements—when the showbread was changed, there were also two bowls there for frankincense, a kind of plant. Now, you should know, the Torah says the bowls were “on the table.” Some interpret that to mean actually on the table; others interpret it to mean beside the table. There is evidence for each view. Those bowls are what the Torah calls “its spoons,” and the molds used to make the showbread are called “its dishes.” How was it all arranged? All right, we won’t read further inside or get into that.

1:13:54 Speaker 9 There’s a picture of it; I don’t remember.

1:13:55 Speaker 1 Huh?

1:13:56 Speaker 9 There’s a picture of it.

1:13:57 Speaker 1 How was it arranged? So the supports had these branches, and on each branch—the first loaf was placed on the table itself. Above it, between the two supports, they placed three rods, and the second loaf went on the rods, not directly on the loaf beneath it, so it wouldn’t crush it. And they continued like that up to the fifth level. On the sixth level—

1:14:27 Speaker 9 You don’t need them, because there’s nothing above it.

1:14:28 Speaker 1 What?

1:14:28 Speaker 9 You don’t need them, because there’s nothing above it. And it also says there that—

1:14:31 Speaker 1 So they put only two rods on the fifth level, though that isn’t so clear to me, because there wasn’t anything above the others either; each loaf was supported by rods. I don’t know—that’s what it says. Anyway, that’s more or less all the laws concerning the table. Yes, it’s depicted in various ways.

1:14:53 Speaker 9 Yasher koach, thank you very much.