Likkutei Amarim Chapter 42 · 5781

00:07 Speaker 1 Ah, exactly. Good evening. All right, today we’ll study chapter 42. It’s been... over a month since we were here, right? Something like that.

00:22 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s been

00:24 Speaker 1 a month and a half, a month and a half already. Well, I feel I should apologize—why not? No, no, no, it wasn’t my choice. All right, before we begin chapter 42: lower-level fear. The Alter Rebbe devotes two chapters to it, 41 and 42. We studied the first one, chapter 41, last time. Why does lower-level fear need two chapters of explanation? What’s so... You need kabbolas ol. Contemplate that you are standing before the King, and you need to have kabbolas ol. That’s the general idea. Why two chapters? What is there to explain at such length? So before we look inside, this is the approach throughout the Tanya. The Alter Rebbe follows this approach all through the Tanya, and it’s quite different from his maamarim. Throughout the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe goes from the difficult to the easy. First he presents you with the ideal, the way things should be, until you think, “Wait, wow, how can anyone reach that? That’s something...” And then he brings it down, and down, and down. In the end, he shows that it’s relevant to everyone, in a straightforward way. You see this in the Tanya as a whole and also in each subject individually. The first subject in Tanya is: Who is a beinoni? That takes up the first twelve chapters. When you’re at chapter 1, you think... you want to put the Tanya aside, because it isn’t for you. It doesn’t... it sounds like something, I don’t know, something completely out of reach. After you study the twelve chapters, little by little, what do you get in the end, in chapter 12? What is a beinoni? A beinoni is simply this kind of Jew. What’s required? Don’t commit transgressions. You aren’t being asked to transform your character traits. True, a beinoni... Then in chapter 13 he says, true,

02:48 Speaker 1 there are many levels of beinoni, higher and higher and higher. But what is a beinoni? A beinoni is a normal Jew, a Jew who keeps mitzvos and doesn’t commit transgressions. That’s all that... that’s the entire requirement. Then, when he begins explaining the beinoni’s avodah—where he starts—the first form of avodah he presents to us is that the mind rules over the heart. Contemplate until you develop love for Hashem. You start thinking, “Wait, where am I, and where is love for Hashem? I don’t exactly feel it burning inside me. I...” After two chapters, he says, “All right, listen, I have another way. Even someone whose capacity for understanding is limited can serve Hashem. He too can be a beinoni, and he too can serve Hashem, and it’s all right.” That level I explained to you in the first two chapters about serving Hashem—arousing love through intellectual contemplation—is really only for beinonim on a very high level. Most people don’t actually need it. It’s enough to arouse fear and natural love. How do you do that? He explains it there over about eight chapters. Then, if it’s still hard for you—you tried and didn’t succeed, you had difficulty with this and difficulty with that and difficulty with something else—here’s a solution for this, a solution for that, another solution. He brings it down, down, down. And so it continues. With our subject, lower-level fear, it’s the same point again. In the first of the two chapters, chapter 41, he explained what lower-level fear is. In the chapter we’re about to study, the general point is this: although in the previous chapter I told you that this is hard work, that it takes effort, that you have to exert yourself every day and it doesn’t come on its own,

04:46 Speaker 1 and he spoke about that at length—and in this chapter he’ll go on to explain that it’s actually even harder than we thought from the previous chapter—nevertheless, since we’re talking about a Jew, “it is a small thing.” For a Jew, this very thing we call lower-level fear, which we studied in the previous chapter and which still sounds so... True, these aren’t lofty things, but they seem to demand this constant, painstaking work: always thinking, having kabbolas ol, contemplating before he prays, before he studies, before a mitzvah. All the time... all the time you have to think about it and keep it in mind. It sounds very difficult. So he says: Listen, since you’re a Jew, for you it’s a small thing. Don’t think it’s so difficult. Here too, he brings it down from above to below. The truth is that in the previous chapter, chapter 41, the main subject was lower-level fear. If you remember, he said that within it there are several levels. There is lower-level fear that is only kabbolas ol. He doesn’t actually feel fear in his heart. He understands that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King and that he must submit to Him, so he bows before Him and does what He wants, what he needs to do, even though he doesn’t feel it. Like a servant who does what his master says. With a master, it’s enough that he knows this is the master and he is the servant; then he does what he has to, what he’s told to do. He doesn’t do it because he loves the master. He does it because he knows he’s a servant, that this is his role, and that he has no choice. So that’s kabbolas ol. Then he explains later that there are higher levels of lower-level fear, where it becomes manifest in his thoughts and even in his heart. Afterward he said

06:33 Speaker 1 that there’s more, and so on. So that’s one part of the chapter, dealing with the levels of lower-level fear. In the second part of the chapter, he reminds us—chapter 41 begins, “The beginning of avodah, and its core and root: although fear is the root of ‘turn away from evil,’ and love is the root of ‘do good,’ nevertheless there must be fear.” Then he explains what fear is. In the second part of the chapter he says: Although we’ve explained the great importance of fear—that it’s the beginning, core, and root of avodah, that it’s essential and you can’t do without it, and that even love cannot exist without fear—you can’t serve Hashem with fear alone. There must also be love, and then he explains love as well. So what do we have? All of chapter 41 discusses three general matters: kabbolas ol; lower-level fear, or natural fear; and lower-level love, or natural love. In our chapter, he brings the chapter’s central subject—lower-level fear—down to explain how it relates to everyone. It’s not only that I understand intellectually that I need to have fear; a Jew can feel it. There’s a big difference between understanding something intellectually and feeling it, right? The Alter Rebbe says that feeling fear is within everyone’s reach—quite simply, every Jew. So let’s look inside. Chapter 42: “And from what was explained above,” in the previous chapter, regarding lower-level fear, “we can well understand what the Gemara says about the verse, ‘And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you except to fear Hashem your G-d?’” That’s the verse. The wording of the verse is, “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you except to fear Him?” What does “except” mean? Only that. What

08:49 Speaker 1 does Hakadosh Boruch Hu require of you? Only to fear Him. That’s all. The Gemara asks: Is that all? “Is fear such a small thing?” The verse says, “Only this.” That’s all. It isn’t a small thing; it’s very hard to attain. How can you... how can the verse say, “Only this,” as though that’s it? It isn’t “only”—it’s difficult. The Gemara answers: “Yes, for Moshe it is a small thing,” and so on. So the Gemara gives a very simple answer. Who says this verse to the Jewish people? Moshe Rabbeinu, right? Moshe Rabbeinu says to the Jewish people, “What am I asking of you, after all? That you have fear of Hashem.” Come on. Yes: for Moshe Rabbeinu it’s a small thing. Moshe Rabbeinu is the one asking the Jewish people to have fear. He’s the one speaking. For Moshe Rabbeinu, fear really is a small thing, so he speaks of it as “only”—that’s all. That’s the Gemara’s answer. A nice answer, isn’t it? But the Alter Rebbe takes the Gemara’s answer one step deeper. “At first glance, the answer is not understood.” On a straightforward... on an inner, deeper level, the Gemara’s answer is hard to understand. “For it is written, ‘asks of you.’” Moshe Rabbeinu asks, requests, requires fear of you, not of himself. Doesn’t Moshe Rabbeinu know that for the Jewish people, fear is no small thing? Moshe Rabbeinu isn’t someone who misspeaks. He feels it’s a small thing, so he says “except”—that’s it, that’s all. If Moshe Rabbeinu says “except,” that means he intends that fear really is a small thing, not only for himself but for every Jew. And that needs to be understood. In other words, on the surface the Gemara’s answer looks very good, but when you think about it for a moment, it can’t be right.

11:09 Speaker 1 The plain meaning of the Gemara can’t be right; it can’t be understood literally. We have to say there’s some deeper meaning here in Moshe’s intention—that he really meant that fear of Hashem is a small thing for each and every person. And the Rebbe comes to explain it. “The point is that every single soul of the House of Israel contains something of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him.” Every Jewish man and woman has, in their soul, some part that comes directly from Moshe Rabbeinu. Reading it like that sounds—I don’t know. But stop and think about it for a moment. Each of us has a part of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul within us. And because each of us has a part of Moshe Rabbeinu, and for Moshe Rabbeinu fear of Hashem really is a small thing, then it’s a small thing for us too. And this isn’t just some abstract spiritual idea. The Rebbe will break it down into small pieces and show us that this is something real and alive. You can’t deny it; everyone can see it with their own eyes. So first of all, what is my connection to Moshe Rabbeinu? Avraham Avinu is everyone’s father. Somehow, you know, through the generations, son after son, I too received something from Avraham Avinu, from my father. But Moshe Rabbeinu? If I’m not from the tribe of Levi, how do I have—what connection do I have to Moshe Rabbeinu? Because he is one of the seven shepherds. Have you ever heard the verse in the Book of Michah, “And we will raise up against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men”? Have you heard that verse? It’s a verse in the prophet Michah, if I’m not mistaken. Hakadosh Boruch Hu established for the Jewish people, or perhaps for the world in general, eight people called princes of men and seven people called shepherds. What’s the difference between a prince and a shepherd? Both have an influence; everyone receives from both. But a shepherd is someone who feeds you. He takes the sheep out to pasture

13:57 Speaker 1 and looks for the right food for each one and gives it to them. The food goes inside, and each one feels what it’s eating. It tastes it, feels its substance. It lives from it. A shepherd gives something internal. A prince, like a king, is the life of the whole country—that’s the king. Yes. How do you put it? Today, over there in Ukraine, there’s this Zelensky sitting at the top, and because he doesn’t want to surrender to Russia, well, five million people have nowhere to live, places have been bombed, and some two million people have died. Why? Because he’s sitting in Kyiv and has decided he won’t surrender. Now, I’m not getting into whether that’s good or bad; I really don’t know. But it’s clear that if you asked a great many people there, “Do you want the war to end, with Ukraine surrendering to Russia, or do you want it to continue?” it’s fairly obvious that people would say, “Leave me alone. Let me live, let me have my home, even if I’m under Russia.” But he’s the prince, he’s the king. He decides what will happen, even though he doesn’t actually feed me or give me life in an internal way. That’s the general difference between a prince and a shepherd. The seven shepherds are the same ushpizin who come on Sukkos: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Moshe and Aharon, Yosef and David. And Moshe is one of the seven shepherds. What do the shepherds do? They draw down life and G-dliness for the souls of the Jewish people as a whole. So first of all, what is my personal connection—the connection of every soul, every Jew—to Moshe Rabbeinu? Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the shepherds. The whole point of the shepherds, of each one of them, is that he gives. So Moshe Rabbeinu draws down the faculty of daas to every Jew. Avraham draws down love of Hashem to every Jew, Yitzchak draws down fear of Hashem, and so

16:13 Speaker 1 on. So I too have a part that I receive. The reason my soul can love Hakadosh Boruch Hu is that I have within me a part of Avraham Avinu’s soul. The reason I can have fear of Hashem is that my soul has a part of Yitzchak. And the reason I can know Hashem, recognize Him and feel Him, is that my soul has a part of Moshe Rabbeinu. This is called an internal flow of influence. This is what a shepherd is: he himself becomes invested within us, and from him we have the strength to live. Now, just as an interesting aside, an anecdote, I’ll mention this. I’m sure everyone knows the story about the Alter Rebbe, that when he wrote the Tanya, he spent many weeks deliberating over whether to write a single letter vav. Do you know the story? Yes? No? Well, this is that vav.

17:12 Speaker 3 Isn’t it in “in its essence and root”?

17:14 Speaker 1 What?

17:14 Speaker 3 Isn’t it in “in its essence and root”?

17:16 Speaker 1 No. It’s this vav: “For he is one of the seven shepherds, who draw down life and G-dliness.” The Alter Rebbe deliberated over whether to write “life, G-dliness” or “life and G-dliness.” What’s the difference? If he had written “life, G-dliness,” it would mean that the seven shepherds draw down a life that is G-dliness—G-dliness in the form of life. Since he wrote—in the end he decided to write “life and G-dliness.” That means each of the shepherds draws down two things for us. Not life that is G-dliness, but two separate things: both life in the love of Hashem, love and fear, feeling and intention, and also G-dliness. A sense of bittul within us, a feeling of G-dliness. But that’s in parentheses, just an aside. The point is that each of us has a spark or a part or something—a dimension that comes, not merely through a chain of descent, but comes from Moshe Rabbeinu and is within us. And that is why they are called shepherds. So first, Moshe is one of the seven shepherds. There’s a second point: Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, is not only one of the seven shepherds; he encompasses them all. I think we learned this, or mentioned it a few times, that daas is “the key that includes six.” Have we mentioned that saying once or twice already? It says in the holy Zohar that daas, the faculty of daas, is the key to all the other six middos. Why? Because—anyone who remembers, we learned in chapter 3—that when a person fixes his mind firmly and persistently on the greatness of Hashem, fear and love and tiferes and all the other middos are awakened. In other words, what illuminates the middos, reveals them, brings the G-dly middos into being, is daas. If a person doesn’t contemplate with his daas, all he’ll have are empty imaginings. Maybe I’ll put it a little differently, to make it clearer. Say there’s a concept about the greatness of Hashem. I learned in chapter 21 of Tanya, or at the beginning

20:00 Speaker 1 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, that for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, past, present and future are one. Right? It’s a concept in G-dliness, an intellectual concept. So if I learned it and understood it, well, that won’t awaken any feeling or any middah. I understood it; I learned it. It’s very interesting and very beautiful. You may even be impressed by it, but once you stop, it doesn’t arouse a feeling of love for Hashem. But if a person fixes his daas on it and connects himself to the idea, thinks about it, pictures it to himself, and tries to consider what it means that within—I don’t know—whatever he sees right in front of his eyes, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is there, and its true reality is nothing at all; if he holds that idea in his thoughts for some time, then some feeling will develop. So daas doesn’t mean knowing something intellectually. Daas means connecting yourself to something you already understand. That’s why daas is called “the key that includes six”: it’s the key that opens the door, illuminates, reveals and awakens the middos. And since Moshe Rabbeinu represents daas, while each of the other six shepherds represents a particular middah, it follows that Moshe Rabbeinu encompasses all the shepherds. For a Jew, the whole matter of G-dliness begins with Moshe Rabbeinu. And where is that found? In me, in each of us. “He encompasses them all and is called the faithful shepherd, for he draws down the faculty of daas to the Jewish people as a whole, so that each one may know Hashem according to the capacity of his soul and its root above, and according to what it draws from the root of the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, which is rooted in the supernal daas of the ten sefiros of Atzilus.” So the soul of each of us draws directly from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu. Where in Atzilus is Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul? In which part of Atzilus? In the daas of Atzilus. And so, for each and every one of us, his entire soul,

22:15 Speaker 1 What does it receive from? Where does it draw its nourishment? Where does its life come from? From the daas of Atzilus. It is connected to G-dliness. And those nine sefiros of Atzilus are united with their Emanator, blessed be He, for He and His knowledge are one: He is the knowledge and He is the Knower. The daas of Atzilus is itself G-dliness. That is one point. Furthermore, it is not just that my soul, somewhere, whether I want it or not, whether I think about it or not, is rooted in and receives from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu. That can remain hidden. There are many Jews who were born Jewish and feel—they themselves don’t feel that they are Jewish. It’s there, but it doesn’t find expression in practice. Every one of us really does receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. But it isn’t only this spiritual connection, that our souls receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. There is much more. What more? Furthermore, in every generation, sparks from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, descend and become vested in the body and soul of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the community, to teach the people knowledge of Hashem, to know Hashem’s greatness and serve Him with heart and soul. What my soul receives from Moshe Rabbeinu is a ray. It draws nourishment from him, something like that. Yes, it receives, but it is very, very slight. It doesn’t necessarily have an effect. It doesn’t necessarily make a real difference. But what the great leaders of the generation receive from Moshe Rabbeinu isn’t merely a ray; it is a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu himself. You know, when a spark flies from a bonfire, the spark isn’t light. The fire is burning over there, and its light reaches this wall too. But a spark isn’t light; it is part of the fire itself. It is the very substance of fire. Right? And that very essence of the soul, that spark from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu, which is not merely

24:36 Speaker 1 a ray but the very essence of his soul, becomes vested in the shepherd of the Jewish people in every generation. Where does it become vested in them? Pay attention—this is wonderful. By the way, what does it say? It becomes vested in the soul and the body, right? What does the Rebbe say? In the body and also in the soul. In the body... and afterward in the soul too. It simply becomes vested in the body.

25:08 Speaker 4 How is that expressed—its becoming vested in the body?

25:11 Speaker 1 One explanation given for this is that when a person... This isn’t our generation. Chassidim in earlier generations explained it this way. I don’t know how much of this you experienced, but when you were at a farbrengen where the Rebbe was speaking, thousands of chassidim would be looking at the Rebbe. Many of them didn’t understand a word of Yiddish. I know this firsthand. Not one word. You sat there and couldn’t hear; there was noise, people were pushing, and it was hard to stand. So what? You stood there on a bench for four, five, six, seven hours, transfixed, unable to take your eyes off him. Fine, the farbrengen ended. What did the Rebbe say? I didn’t understand a word. What drew Jews so strongly to gaze at—at what? At the Rebbe’s body. A spark from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu becomes vested in the physical bodies of the sages of the generation, and a Jew feels it. He feels it. He is drawn to it. He cannot ignore it. To illustrate this further, Chassidus gives a wonderful analogy. There is a beautiful picture, a very, very... Someone drew a very beautiful picture. Two people look at it. Both are impressed. What a picture—wow, what a painting. I want to draw like that too. So do I. And both take paper, pencils and paints and try to copy the picture. But one of them is himself an artist, with an eye and a talent for it, while the other is just impressed by it. He doesn’t have that ability. So what’s the difference? The one without an artist’s eye wants to have a picture like that at home too, right? He doesn’t have a camera—this was before cameras were invented. He sees a person drawn there, so: eyes. Eyes are two circles. He draws two circles. Then there are some lines above them for eyelashes. Fine, lines—he makes a few lines. Eventually he finishes

27:33 Speaker 1 his drawing. Every detail in the original picture is in his drawing too. Everything. He didn’t leave out a single detail. What does his drawing look like? Awful. Everything is there, but what does it look like? It doesn’t look real. It looks like—it doesn’t even look like a copy. It’s something else altogether. By contrast, the artist who has an eye for painting looks at the picture and grasps its inner character, its message, its beauty—I don’t know how to put it. Then he goes over to a canvas, or a sheet of paper, and paints.

28:16 Speaker 4 I don’t know much about this, right?

28:18 Speaker 1 He paints it. He isn’t copying the lines; he paints what he saw. His picture might even be more beautiful than the original. It’s possible. Right. What is the difference? What did the artist without that eye take in from the picture? Only its outer appearance. He lacks the ability to sense what is inside it. He doesn’t have it. He is impressed when he sees the picture, but he himself doesn’t have that ability. He doesn’t know how to get at it. He took in only the execution, only the outside. The artist, on the other hand, has the ability to grasp what is inside. The Rebbe says—Chassidus explains—that this is the difference between someone who has knowledge of Hashem, which is revealed in the eyes of the community and hidden within every Jew, and someone who doesn’t have a Jewish soul, who doesn’t have a spark from that soul, who doesn’t draw nourishment from Moshe Rabbeinu. Someone who draws nourishment from Moshe Rabbeinu has that sensitivity. When he is shown the picture—when he is shown Hakadosh Boruch Hu—he grasps the truth within it. He feels it. The difference is that for the true great leaders of the Jewish people, this becomes vested even in their physical senses. They actually feel it. That is why they can convey it to us openly—not just the... not just the lines, not just the intellectual explanation, but also the feeling within it. Or, to put it another way, there are many stories of a Jew approaching the Rebbe, and the Rebbe saying a word to him, and his life immediately changing from one extreme to the other because of a sentence or two the Rebbe said. There are many stories like that. What did the Rebbe say to them? Were these extraordinary things? I could have said the same thing. But when one of us says it, what is he conveying? He conveys the intellectual idea to another person, and that person is also a Jew. He grasps it,

30:43 Speaker 1 he understands the idea. Fine. When the Rebbe tells him the same idea, the idea the Rebbe conveys has G-dly vitality vested within it, knowledge of Hashem. So they are the same words. They could be the very same words, phrased exactly the same, word for word. But here there is knowledge of Hashem; here there is that sensitivity; here there is G-dliness within the words. And this knowledge of G-dliness, this feeling of G-dliness, every single person receives from Moshe Rabbeinu in two ways. First, his soul draws nourishment from Moshe Rabbeinu. Second, he receives it directly through the explanations he hears when chassidim and tzaddikim speak. He receives it inwardly and directly. “In the body and soul of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the community, to teach the people knowledge of Hashem, to know Hashem’s greatness and serve Him with heart and soul”—because service of the heart depends on daas, as it is written, “Know the G-d of your father.” Know, and you will connect. Feel—not merely understand—the G-d of your father. Learn, know, and then “serve Him with a whole heart.” Serving Him with a whole heart comes only through daas, through connection, through feeling. “And a willing soul.” That is why, in the future, it says: “They will no longer teach”—“No man will teach his fellow, saying, ‘Know Hashem.’” It is speaking about the future: no one will need the great leaders of the Jewish people to explain what G-dliness is and, through that, instill in him a feeling for G-dliness. That will no longer be necessary. It will be, “I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh”; it will be, “Your sons and daughters will prophesy”; it will be, “Your Teacher will no longer hide Himself”; it will be that people will go into the clefts of the rocks out of fear of Hashem, and so on. Then G-dliness will be revealed. No one will need to show anyone else how to know Hashem. “For they will all know Me”; “The earth will be filled with knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” Knowledge, knowledge of Hashem, will increase,

33:08 Speaker 1 It will grow until, just as the waters of the sea cover everything, so in the time to come G-dliness will cover everything and be revealed in everything. “That they may know the greatness...” Yes, that is in the time to come. But for now, we receive daas from Moshe Rabbeinu in two ways: either through the root of our souls or through the great leaders of the Jewish people, or through both together. But the main thing about daas for us as individuals is not intellectual knowledge alone—knowing Hashem’s greatness from what scholars say or from books. Going to hear a rabbi share novel insights is not the point. The main thing is to deepen one’s own daas and fix one’s thoughts on Hashem with strength and resolve of heart and mind, until one’s thoughts are bound to Hashem with a firm, strong bond, just as they are bound to a physical thing one sees with one’s own eyes. A Jew needs to—if you have daas, then yes, you have the capacity for this, because you have such a soul and it is given to you as a gift. But to bring it from potential into practice, you have to connect yourself to it. You have to... We had a story about this today. Ilana told a story from school today about a girl who was trying to understand something. The assignment was to understand what was written. She saw what was written, but she was missing reading comprehension. When they asked her the question, she didn’t understand. She could read all the words, but she couldn’t say what was hidden inside those words, what those words held within them. So the main thing is not just knowledge or intellectual understanding, but recognizing and sensing what is inside. A Jew needs to bind his daas to G-dliness until it is clear to him in everything he sees. As he will go on to explain—necessarily, at the end of the chapter—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is a reality. He will be connected to that as surely as he sees a physical thing. That is what is required. When I see a physical thing, I don’t

35:32 Speaker 1 need any proof of it. You don’t need to prove to me that the sun is shining or that the plate is on the table. I see it; it is clear to me. “And he delves deeply into it in his thoughts, as is known, daas denotes connection, as in ‘And Adam knew...’” And this capacity, this faculty of binding one’s daas to Hashem until I feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is alive and exists—yes, just as I am alive and exist—exists in every Jewish soul. How? Through its drawing sustenance from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu, of blessed memory. But since Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul, as it is within us, has become clothed in a body, tremendous effort, doubled and redoubled, is needed to bring it from potential into practice. It is there. Daas of Hashem is present in everyone. But I don’t feel it. True: our soul is clothed in a body. We have to bring it from potential into practice, and that takes effort. Why doubled effort? He says this: “The first”—there are two kinds of effort, yes. The effort of the flesh: to break the body and subdue it so that it does not darken the soul’s light. As explained earlier in the name of the Zohar, “A body in which the light of the soul does not shine must be broken,” meaning through thoughts of teshuvah from the depths of the heart, as explained there. Remember when we learned that? About two chapters—29 and 30, yes, both chapters 29 and 30 deal with breaking the body. That is the first side, the first effort. You want to have daas, for daas of Hashem to be revealed in you? Then there are two kinds of effort. The first is breaking the body. As long as your body is conscious of itself and drawn to worldly desires, daas of Hashem cannot be revealed in it. So first you have to break the body. And the second—we said the effort is doubled, an effort of the body and an effort of the soul. What is the effort of the soul? “The second is the effort of

38:04 Speaker 1 the soul, not to let the work feel burdensome.” What work? The service of Hashem, observing Torah and mitzvos. “To exert one’s mind, to delve deeply and contemplate the greatness of Hashem for a long, uninterrupted period.” That is hard work. Every day. Every day, a long period. There are two ways to understand this. One is a lot of time, and the other is every day: ten minutes today, another ten minutes tomorrow, another ten minutes the next day—that adds up to a long period. And it has to be uninterrupted. Right now he disconnects from the world; right now he is there. He is thinking about Hashem’s greatness. He is not trying to understand what Hashem’s greatness means. He already learned that long ago, in chapters 21 and 22. He doesn’t need to learn it now. He has already understood it. He already knows what Hashem’s greatness means; he understands it very well. Now he exerts his mind to contemplate it. You can do that with a book open. “For the length of this period is not the same for every soul. There is a soul naturally refined, which, as soon as it contemplates Hashem’s greatness, is filled with awe and fear of Hashem, as stated in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, section 1.” Right at the very beginning of the Shulchan Aruch. How does the Shulchan Aruch open, on its first page? “When a person contemplates that the great King, the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, whose glory fills the whole earth, stands over him and watches his actions, he will immediately be filled with awe,” and so on. How many women do you know who, as soon as they contemplate that the King stands over them and watches their actions, are immediately filled with awe? We don’t know many people like that, right? Or perhaps you do. I don’t know so many, but when the Shulchan Aruch was written, this was still so straightforward among the Jewish people that it was included in halachah—and not somewhere at the end, after you finish learning the Shulchan Aruch. On the first page, the first halachah: Contemplate Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and immediately

40:46 Speaker 1 awe and fear will come over you. There has been a bit of a decline over the last six hundred years. So that is a soul naturally refined. “And there is a soul that is lowly by nature and by its origin, having come from the lower levels of the ten sefiros of Asiyah.” Remember how we said that there is a soul from here, and there is even a nefesh of a nefesh that comes from—where was it?—malchus of the nefesh of the nefesh of malchus. Remember when we talked about that? There is a soul that is naturally refined; the person contemplates, and immediately it shines within him. Then there is someone who needs to work harder. So if you need to work harder, does that mean you don’t have it within you? It just means you need to work harder. That’s all. The same kind of soul the Alter Rebbe had is within you too. “And it cannot find G-dliness in its thoughts except with difficulty and force, particularly if it has been defiled by the sins of youth and thoughts of wrongdoing, for sins create a separation,” and so on, as written in—where is it?—Sefer Charedim, section 34. “Nevertheless, through difficulty and force, by applying his thoughts with great resolve, tremendous effort and profound depth to contemplate Hashem’s greatness for a long period, he will certainly attain, at the very least, the fear of Hashem mentioned above.” So I don’t know—we’ll talk about higher-level awe next week, with Hashem’s help—but what is required of you in terms of fear of Hashem? To feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands before you and examines your thoughts. That’s all. Each of us can do that in the simplest possible way, really in the most straightforward way. A person knows that if someone else, another human being, were standing there watching him, he would refrain from all sorts of things that he doesn’t do in public but allows himself to do when he is alone. So he can picture to himself that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is there with him. After all, he has learned that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere and gives life to everything, and he can hold such a thought in his mind. There is no one who cannot. And as our Sages said, “If you have labored and found, believe it.” As it is written, “If you seek it like silver”

43:16 Speaker 1 “And as for hidden treasures”—“If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures.” So there are two ideas here, but I want to apply this to two different things. “Then you will understand the fear of Hashem.” Meaning: Just as a person searching for a treasure buried deep in the ground digs for it with tremendous effort. This is really like the analogy we know, which the Rebbe often gives about Moshiach. People ask: How can it be that for thirty years, fifty years, the Rebbe has been saying Moshiach will come? Well, he hasn’t come yet. So what are we supposed to do? He said it, he said it—fine, but he hasn’t come. It’s exactly the opposite. It’s like a person who knows he lost something, a very important note, inside a big box full of papers. He takes one out: it’s some invoice. The next one is something else, right? He keeps taking them out. Every paper he takes out isn’t the one, but he doesn’t give up. Wait—now there are fewer papers left in the box. The next paper is sure to be it. If a person knows it’s in there, that the treasure is there, his whole approach to the search is different. If he’s just looking for something—you know, searching for gold in the Sahara Desert—he keeps looking and looking. But if he knows there’s a treasure right here, he puts in a completely different kind of effort. So the Alter Rebbe says, “If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures”: you have a treasure in your own home, and you dig for it with tremendous effort. In the same way, one must dig with tremendous effort to uncover the treasure of yiras Shamayim hidden and concealed in the understanding of the heart of every Jew. It is a level that transcends time. Because it transcends time, it doesn’t depend on time; it doesn’t matter where a person is, or what his standing or situation is. Even a person who has committed transgressions, whose sins

45:29 Speaker 1 create a separation—the treasure of yiras Shamayim is still there. It transcends time; it’s there inside. This is the natural, hidden fear mentioned above. But for it to lead to action, to actual fear of sin—not just some fear buried in the hidden depths of his heart, but for him actually to fear sin and turn away from evil in action, speech, and thought—he has to uncover it from the hidden recesses of his heart’s understanding. It doesn’t help me that it’s there. I know it’s there, and that’s wonderful, but for it to stop me from committing transgressions, I need to bring it out, so that it becomes revealed in my heart, or at least in my mind. To uncover it from the hidden recesses of the heart’s understanding, which transcends time, and bring it into actual thought in the mind. How do I bring it from concealment into revelation in my thoughts? By dwelling on it in his mind for a real stretch of time, until its effect passes from potential into actuality. Very simple. It’s there. If he thinks about it, then gradually it will awaken, be drawn out, and become revealed in his thoughts. Thinking about that fear of Hashem, thinking about the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, that the King is standing before him—this is already there within him. If he thinks about it intellectually, then the faith deep within the hidden recesses of his heart will be drawn out and clothed in his thoughts. Then it will be like the painter: it won’t be just letters of thought, of understanding, but letters of understanding that contain that feeling, that awareness. So it simply depends on thinking about it. Not just understanding it, but holding it in his mind a little longer, and a little longer, and a little longer, until suddenly he begins to feel that yes, he really does sense the King. That is, to turn away from evil and do good in thought, speech, and action, because Hashem watches and sees, listens and hears

47:51 Speaker 1 everything he does, and examines his innermost thoughts and his heart. For our Sages said, “Consider three things: an eye that sees and an ear that hears,” and so on. Now the next section is in parentheses. This whole section, what’s written here under Tuesday, 22 Nissan. The Alter Rebbe didn’t put parentheses around it, but it’s a parenthetical section. A wonderful one. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came to be.

48:35 Speaker 5 Amen.

48:35 Speaker 1 What does he keep telling us through the analogy, again and again, from the beginning of chapter 41? That a person needs to think of the King standing over him, looking at him and seeing what he does. Right? That’s the point of the lower level of fear. Excuse me. But once he’s finished explaining it, the analogy doesn’t seem to match what it represents. Wait a minute. A king has ears; he hears what I say. He has eyes; he sees what I do. But of Hakadosh Boruch Hu it says that He has no body or bodily form. So fine, He can do anything, and He knows what I do. Broadly speaking, I understand that; I believe it. But it’s not like a king who actually sees me, looks at me, and hears me. He has no ears or eyes. Is the question clear? Yes. So what’s the answer? The answer is that this isn’t true. It’s exactly the opposite. That’s what this section of Tanya says: “And although He has no bodily form, no eyes or ears, on the contrary, everything is revealed and known before Him infinitely more clearly than through sight and hearing, for example.” How? How does He know without senses or instruments? Today they build computers, right? Computers. A computer can’t do anything unless it has sensors of some kind. A self-driving car needs radar to tell it whether there’s a tree here, or a traffic light, or people. It needs some kind of radar, a camera, something to tell it what’s happening, right? So if He doesn’t have those sensors, how does He know? It explains it like this: “Rather, by way of analogy, He is like a person who knows and senses within himself everything that happens and takes place in any one of his 248 limbs.” And there are three aspects to this. “Such as cold or heat—even heat in his toenails,

50:53 Speaker 1 for example, if he is burned by fire”—he feels it immediately. So first of all, how does a person sense his limbs? There are three things. First, how does he sense them? He feels them. He knows what’s happening to them. If a limb gets hit, pinched, cut, or burned, or if it’s cold, he feels it. He feels that the limb is cold or hot, or that it was hit. Right? He feels what happened to it. Second, “and their very nature and essence.” When a person knows what’s happening with his limbs, he doesn’t only know what’s happening to them; he senses the limbs themselves. Right? That’s much more. And beyond that, “and everything that affects them, he knows and senses.” Look, the Rebbe makes a correction here, changing “in them” to “from them.” “He knows and senses in his mind.” So there are three things. A person has limbs, and he knows them in three ways. At the simplest level, he knows what’s happening to him, what he’s doing, what he’s feeling. Second, he senses the limb itself. Third, the person is affected; he feels what happens. When a limb gets burned, he doesn’t just know that his finger was burned—he himself is in pain. Right? It’s not just that he knows what’s happening there. It’s him, and he’s in pain. So when Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows created beings, it’s not like a person knowing something outside himself. A person needs eyes and ears and sensors to register what’s happening there. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created everything; everything comes from Him, and everything is Him. He knows created beings through knowing Himself. He doesn’t need eyes or ears. And of course, when a person knows what’s happening with his limbs, that knowledge

53:00 Speaker 1 Much more complete and real than what he knows about what is happening to someone else or something else. Yes, he sees it. Say he sees a wall fall. Or something happens—he sees a collision, or sees the traffic light come on. So yes, it is very tangible and very real to him. He knows because he saw it. But however tangible sight is, it cannot compare to the way a person knows the limbs of his own body. That is far greater. And in this way, by way of analogy, Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows everything that occurs among all created beings, above and below, since all of them receive their existence from Him, blessed be He, as it is written, “For everything comes from You.” And this is also what is meant by “No creature is hidden from You.” As the Rambam wrote, and the sages of Kabbalah agreed, by knowing Himself, so to speak, He knows all created beings. In the language of halachah: “All created beings exist from the truth of His existence,” and so on. But this analogy is only to make the matter accessible to us. Why? Because in truth—really—the analogy does not resemble what it illustrates at all. A person’s soul, even its intellectual and G-dly aspects, is affected by what happens to the body, because it is actually invested in the vital soul that is invested in the body. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not affected, G-d forbid, by events in the world or its changes, nor by the world itself. None of these brings about any change in Him, G-d forbid. So it goes much further. First, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not need eyes and ears, because He knows all created beings through knowing Himself. That knowledge is infinitely stronger, truer and more complete than seeing with eyes or hearing with ears. Second, even the way a person knows himself is only an analogy, because the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows created beings

54:54 Speaker 1 is far greater than the way a person knows himself. Now, to grasp this properly with our minds, the sages of truth have already written at length in their books. There are many accounts, proofs and explanations of exactly how Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows. But for our purposes, all Jews are believers, children of believers, without any investigation by the human intellect. They say, “You were the same before the world was created,” and so on. These are things that are utterly beyond the grasp of a Jewish mind. It says, “You were the same before the world was created; You are the same since the world was created.” Well, then it must be true. He does not ask how that can be; he does not ask questions. That is what it says, so he says it. He says it the same way every morning. It does not astonish him. What, isn’t that so? To a Jew, it is simple. A Jew believes—every Jew is a believer, the child of believers. So don’t say that you—

55:46 Speaker 6 Things like that, with people who become baalei teshuvah, whose faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu [unclear], and the sense of wonder is there right from the beginning.

55:53 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. But he specifically wants to emphasize the opposite side: an ordinary person says these things, and then for a moment thinks, “How can it be that before the world was created He was alone, and after the world was created He is still alone?” Excuse me.

56:10 Speaker 6 Don’t get tangled up in that.

56:10 Speaker 1 What?

56:11 Speaker 6 I mean, don’t get tangled up in that.

56:13 Speaker 1 So this is something we can learn through emunah. We will deal with it at length, with Hashem’s help, when I get there. But even before all the depth and explanations and so on, think for a moment: this runs counter to reason. How can the world both have been created and not have been created? How can Hakadosh Boruch Hu be alone, and there also be a world? If there is a world, how is He alone? If He is alone, how can there also be a world and created beings? How do those two things go together? It does not make sense. Yes, the sages of truth wrote about it at length in their books, and there are explanations. But an ordinary Jew is not looking for explanations. He is told that Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists, that He was, He is and He will be—and he believes it. That settles it. So obviously, all of this was, was

56:56 Speaker 6 a long time ago.

56:57 Speaker 1 How can you say that the King stands before you and sees you? How can you tell me—hold on, Alter Rebbe—how can you tell me that the King stands before me, looks at me, and examines my heart and innermost thoughts? This King has no eyes, no ears, no nose. How does He see at all? What? Not only does He know; He knows better. He knows the way you know yourself, and better than that. You want an explanation? You are a Jew too; you believe this too. After all, you yourself say every day, “Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being.” That is the point of this whole passage in Tanya. All right, so after that digression—it is truly wonderful. No, I can already see it; I am struck by it all over again. Ilan, Ilan, Ilan, Ilan, [unclear]. Last night I prepared the lesson. You have to read it. I teach in public, so it would be embarrassing to say nonsense or suddenly get stuck in the middle. So I looked at it again. I was stuck on this for three hours; I could not get through the chapter.

58:00 Speaker 6 Wow. On the passage in parentheses?

58:02 Speaker 1 No, not on the passage in parentheses—on the chapter.

58:03 Speaker 6 Wow.

58:10 Speaker 1 Well, as they say, let’s return to our original subject. The Rebbe returns to the point he began discussing earlier. What was he talking about before this passage? That it is very easy for anyone to awaken the lower level of fear of Hashem, because it is hidden in the depths of his heart’s understanding. I don’t remember the exact wording there. All he needs to do is bring it from potential into practice. Right, we are not saying it takes no effort. It takes tremendous effort and a substantial amount of time every day. That is true. But because he knows it is there, that itself gives him the strength to bring it out—to contemplate it and think about it—until it comes from potential into practice. “And every Jew, whoever he may be, when he contemplates for a substantial time every day how Hakadosh Boruch Hu truly fills the upper and lower realms, the heavens and the earth—‘the whole earth is truly filled with His glory’...” How many times does it say “truly” here? “And He watches, looks on and examines his heart and innermost thoughts, and all his deeds and words, and counts his every step.” If he contemplates this every day, then fear of Hashem will be firmly established in his heart for the entire day. There is no doubt about it. It is certain, as he said earlier. When he recalls it and reflects on it, even briefly, at any time and at any hour, he will turn away from evil and do good in thought, speech and action, so as not to rebel, G-d forbid, before His glory, which fills the whole earth. So now it makes sense: if every morning he contemplates this for a substantial time—whatever constitutes a substantial time for him. For one person, it happens immediately; for another, it may take five or ten minutes, or more. There is someone who needs to spend three minutes on it every day, until after a month it suddenly clicks.

1:00:13 Speaker 1 But everyone should contemplate it for a substantial time, until he feels G-dliness. Once, on that day, he feels he has reached that sense of awe—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu really is standing there and looking at him—he has felt it in the morning. Afterward, throughout that day, he does not need to contemplate it all over again or strain himself. It is enough to recall it. Yesterday’s contemplation will not help for today, just as what I ate yesterday will not stop me from being hungry today. It is exactly the same. I did not mean that as a joke. I was not trying to be funny.

1:00:53 Speaker 7 No, that’s fine.

1:00:55 Speaker 1 That’s exactly how it is. At night, when a person sleeps in bed, the break is complete. He wakes up a new person. What does “new” mean? You have to start from the beginning. Yesterday’s contemplation may have raised him to a higher level; yesterday he was more refined. But yesterday’s contemplation won’t help for today. If, this morning, he reached that feeling—he made a little effort when he got up, before the morning blessings or after them... Today, of course, we don’t do anything before the morning blessings. But after the morning blessings, or before davening, he devoted a few moments to it, and he really... And it gets easier. The more you practice it, the easier it gets. Then, during the day, it’s enough just to remember it. Nothing more is needed. He remembers, gives it a little thought, and it immediately falls into place. It’s already there within him. It’s in his subconscious, but it goes with him all day, and so he won’t stumble in thought, speech, or action. And that is what he meant, as in the statement of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai to his students, mentioned above, which we learned in the previous chapter: a person should have the fear of Heaven upon him like the fear of a human being. And this is what the verse says: “For only...” Now that we understand which kind of fear the verse means, Moshe Rabbeinu asks: “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you, but only to fear...” Moshe Rabbeinu isn’t talking about some kind of fear—I don’t know, the fear of shame, the higher fear. I don’t know. He’s speaking simply about fear that comes from standing before the King, from feeling that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him. That is a small thing. It’s a small thing not only for Moshe Rabbeinu, who lived and gave the Torah at Mount Sinai. It’s a small thing for each and every one of us, because each of us has an aspect of Moshe within us.

1:02:58 Speaker 1 That’s why it says “but only”—that’s all; it’s just a small thing. “To fear Hashem your G-d, to walk in all His ways”: fear brings a person to fulfill His mitzvos, to turn from evil and do good. That’s a small thing. Higher fear really isn’t a small thing, but this kind of fear is a small thing. It is the lower fear mentioned above. “And for Moshe—that is, the faculty of daas in every Jewish divine soul—it is a small thing,” as explained above, “for daas connects what is hidden in the understanding of the heart with actual revelation in thought.” Through this—and everyone has daas from the aspect of Moshe in his soul—everyone can, through his daas, bring that fear out from where it is hidden in the understanding of the heart into conscious thought. Good. After all that explanation—and it really is a beautiful explanation—in the end, it’s an intellectual explanation. An intellectual explanation. I understand it perfectly, and it sounds good, but it isn’t like seeing something with my own eyes. The analogy still doesn’t match what it illustrates. When a king stands before me, a flesh-and-blood king, and I know that if I don’t behave as I should, he can sentence me, then I tremble with fear because I can see him with my own eyes. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with all due respect, I can’t see Him with my own eyes. It’s as though I see Him with my own eyes. What does “as though” mean? I don’t see Him. Right? How can you ask me to have the fear of someone standing before the King? Actually, actually—and even more actually. In other words, he keeps saying “actually, actually, actually,” when it isn’t actual. I see the king with my own eyes; I don’t see Hakadosh Boruch Hu with my own eyes. I understand. So what is all my fear based on? Not on something tangible. On faith: I have daas, I have faith, I have what is hidden in the understanding of the heart, and I’m a Jew. It all rests on faith and intellectual understanding. It isn’t based on something I see with my own eyes. Right? So it’s a very beautiful explanation, but how can you tell me that it’s very close and that it’s tangible? It isn’t tangible. It’s like other things that rest on an intellectual basis, on faith—on an intellectual and spiritual basis. The Rebbe says: No. The analogy is exact. So exact that you see Hakadosh Boruch Hu with your physical eyes. That’s what it means. What does that mean? He gives a wonderful analogy. I’ll say it first, and then we’ll see it in the Rebbe’s words. Here it is. Let’s break down what happens when a person stands before a king—a physical king. Who is the person afraid of? Is he afraid of the king’s body or the king’s soul?

1:05:19 Speaker 1 I have faith, I have my conscience and the understanding of my heart, and I’m a Jew. All of this rests on faith and intellectual understanding; it doesn’t rest on something I can see with my eyes. Right? So that’s a very nice explanation, but how can you tell me that it’s very close and that it’s tangible? It isn’t tangible. It’s like other things that rest on an intellectual basis, on faith, on an intellectual and spiritual basis. The Rebbe says: No. The analogy is precise—so precise that you see Hakadosh Boruch Hu with your physical eyes. That’s the plain meaning. What does that mean? He gives a wonderful analogy. I’ll say it first, and then we’ll look at it in the Rebbe’s words. Here it is. Let’s break down the reality of a person standing before a king—a physical king. Whom is the person afraid of? Is he afraid of the king’s body or the king’s soul?

1:06:30 Speaker 8 The king.

1:06:31 Speaker 1 What? He’s afraid of the body? Well, what if the king is asleep? Then he’s afraid the king will wake up. But he knows the king has been given an anesthetic and won’t wake up. He’s still afraid. He’s afraid of the inner life within the king—of what the king thinks, what the king understands, what the king might say. Yes, he’s afraid of the king’s life, the king’s soul. That’s what he’s afraid of, not the body. Can he see the king’s soul? He can’t. Right? So something strange is happening here. A person lives in the king’s country. He’s the king’s subject, a loyal servant, and he follows the laws. He’s a citizen, a good citizen. He has—how do you say it?—citizenship. What’s the expression? A loyal citizen. Never mind. It’s clear. Right. He isn’t afraid of the king. And I mean a real king, not the kings we have here now in the State of Israel. That’s not what we’re talking about. A king who is a king—like Putin, for example.

1:07:51 Speaker 8 Who else do we have to choose from?

1:07:51 Speaker 1 That’s a king. Look, for all the... all of that, if he wants to, he gives an order, does this, and a person stops living that very moment. No questions asked, no ministers, no advisers. That’s a king. He isn’t a king of holiness. Right, that’s not what we’re talking about. But he is a king. No one can say to him, “What are you doing?” He’s at the top, and he decides what will happen. Nobody tells him anything. He’s the one who decides. So when a person is in his own city, his own town, going about his business, he isn’t afraid of the king. When is he afraid of the king? When he stands before him. But he knows he’s loyal. He pays his taxes; he has never committed any offense. He’s going to see the king because he respects the king, because he loves the king, and still he’s afraid. What makes him afraid? It’s the same king, and he’s a good king. Not a wicked king—a good king, a king of Israel—and this is a loyal man. What does he have to fear? Yet when he sees the king, he begins to be afraid. But it’s the same king. After all, you’re afraid of the king’s soul, not the king’s body. Right? So what difference does it make whether you’re standing beside him now or you’re in your own city? You’re afraid only of his soul either way. You can’t see his soul even when you’re beside him. So why are you afraid now, when you weren’t afraid before? What’s the difference? What changed? That’s the question. That’s what he wants to say. What’s the explanation? The explanation is that our souls are clothed in our bodies. For us, body and soul are together. What the body sees, the soul feels. Our soul is affected by what happens to the body. When a person sees the king,

1:09:41 Speaker 1 he isn’t relating to the body at all. He sees the body, but he immediately understands. It’s an automatic process. He doesn’t stop and think, “Wait, inside this body there’s a soul, and therefore I should be afraid.” No. Automatically, in the way the mind works, in the way people function when the soul is clothed in the body, the moment he sees the king, the very fact that he knows there is a king within that body, that there is a king’s soul there, makes him afraid. Because sight is connected to the soul. Right? It’s exactly the same thing. After all, our Sages said: Just as the soul fills the body, Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills the world. When you look at a king, you see his body and are afraid of his soul. When you look at the world, that is the body of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You should be afraid of the soul within it. If it is clear to you that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the soul of the world, just as it is clear to you that the king’s body cannot live without a soul, then the moment your physical eyes see the world, you will feel the fear of Hashem. Is that clear now? Now let’s see it in the Rebbe’s own words: “And he should remember this as well,” to make it more tangible: “Just as with a flesh-and-blood king, the principal fear is of his inner being and life, not of his body—for when he is asleep, there is no fear of him. Now, his inner being and life are not visible to physical eyes, but only to the mind’s eye, through the physical eyes seeing his body and garments and knowing that his life is clothed within them. If so, in just the same way, he should fear Hashem through his physical eyes seeing the heavens and the earth and all their hosts, in which the light of the blessed Ein Sof is clothed to give them life.” That’s everything we said—the long explanation in five lines. Right? That’s what it says. Now, in the note, the Rebbe adds even more than that: one more step in this tangible seeing. “And it is also seen...”

1:11:56 Speaker 1 With their own eyes, they see that they are nullified before His blessed light. It’s not just that when you look at the world, you know intellectually that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it life. You can actually see that they are nullified to G-dliness. Where do you see it? In the way they bow westward every day as they set, as our Sages said about the verse, “And the host of heaven bow down to You.” Our Sages said that the Shechinah is in the west. Yes, we’ve moved on to the next page.

1:12:36 Speaker 9 I remember.

1:12:38 Speaker 1 Huh?

1:12:39 Speaker 9 Yes, that’s—

1:12:39 Speaker 1 Ah, there are gray letters there too. Okay, it continues on the other side. I couldn’t understand why no one had turned the page. That’s Feld’s innovation—he laid it out very, very nicely. “The Shechinah is in the west, and so their movement westward throughout the day is a form of bowing and self-nullification. And even…” So a person doesn’t only have to believe that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world the way the soul gives life to the body. He can also see it with his own eyes: all the stars move. Every one of them. Have you ever seen a star move in the opposite direction? They all move westward; not a single star moves the other way. They all move in the same… It’s astonishing. How many stars are there? In our galaxy alone there are billions upon billions. I don’t know, a hundred billion? I don’t know how many; I once saw a figure. And there are billions upon billions of galaxies, each with countless stars. Not one star among them moves in the opposite direction. They all move the same way. It’s astonishing. “Their movement westward throughout the day is a form of bowing and self-nullification. And even someone who has never seen the king and doesn’t know him at all—when he enters the king’s courtyard and sees many distinguished ministers bowing to one man, awe and fear will fall upon him,” even if he doesn’t know that the man is the king. How much more so here. Yes. Someone could still say, “No, no, no. That isn’t tangible enough for me. When I see a king, I see a king. When I see what Hakadosh Boruch Hu created—the world—I see a world. I don’t yet see a king here.” It isn’t tangible enough. So the Alter Rebbe takes it

1:14:31 Speaker 1 one step further down. Let’s do what we did before: explain the idea and then look at it inside. I’ll explain it much more briefly here. When someone sees the king, he doesn’t see the king without clothes; he sees him dressed, right? And still he is afraid. He isn’t afraid of the king’s body, either, but of his soul. He doesn’t even see the king’s body. What is he afraid of? Not the clothes and not the body, but the soul somewhere inside. It’s the same here. True, the world is only clothing; it isn’t even a body. Fine—but when you see the king, all you see is his clothing, too. So what’s the difference? Let’s look inside. “Although He is clothed in many garments, there is no difference at all in one’s fear of a flesh-and-blood king, whether he is unclothed, dressed in one garment, or dressed in many garments.” The same applies to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So why isn’t a person afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu when he sees the world? Because it isn’t clear to him that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives the world life. If every morning you spent a minute, two minutes, five minutes, half a minute—I don’t know—thinking about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world, brings the world and all its creatures into being, it would become clear to you. You would bring it back to mind: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is to the world like your soul is to your body. When you looked at the world, awe and fear would fall upon you, just as when you see the king. Exactly the same. Why doesn’t it happen? Because you haven’t trained yourself. That’s the problem—not with the idea, but with you, because you haven’t worked on yourself. The faith is within you. The King is there,

1:16:15 Speaker 1 present in a tangible, revealed way. If you don’t see Him, open your eyes and you will. “The main thing is the habit: to train one’s mind and thoughts so that it is always fixed in one’s heart and mind that everything one sees—the heavens, the earth, and all they contain—is the outer garments of the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Through this, one will always remember what is within them, their life-force: Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself.” This habit, this training a person has to give himself, is also included in the word emunah, faith, which has the sense of training—like a craftsman training his hands, and so on. We’re returning here to the first analogy in Chassidus. Do you remember the analogy of the painter? If a person has an aptitude for painting, and he goes to a course, to a university—I don’t know where they teach painting—and studies, he’ll become a painter. He’ll train his hands until he becomes a wonderful painter. But if someone has no aptitude, studying won’t help him. Nothing will come of it. You are a painter. You are a Jew. You have a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. Your soul draws from Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. Moshe Rabbeinu himself is within you. Where? In the hidden depths of your heart’s understanding. You are a craftsman. All you lack is practice, habit. Practice thinking about it, and it will come out. There’s no such thing as someone with the potential to paint who practices and doesn’t produce a beautiful painting. It can’t be. If he has the aptitude and the talent and he practices, the painting will come out beautifully. It can’t fail to happen. It’s something tangible; you can see it. All right, we’ve reached the last page, and in its final section the Rebbe

1:18:39 Speaker 1 reminds us of something from earlier. If you remember, at the beginning of our study of chapter 41, at the start of the previous class, it says, “The beginning of divine service, and its core and root.” Even though there is love and fear, before we even speak about fear, the first thing is kabbolas ol. Later he speaks about contemplation that leads to fear, then a greater degree of fear and a greater revelation. But “the beginning of divine service, and its core and root” is kabbolas ol. Whether you understand or don’t understand, whether you feel it or don’t feel it—first comes kabbolas ol. That’s the first thing. It’s the ABCs, the foundation; everything rests on it. A foundation isn’t—I think we mentioned this in the previous class. The foundation of a house isn’t beautiful. It’s concrete and steel, ugly, and no one thinks of painting it. It has no shape, nothing. Just an ugly column. They don’t even make a frame for it; they push it or pour it into a hole they’ve dug in the ground. But it’s strong. No one is looking for it to be beautiful. Everything rests on it, and no one even sees it. No one sees kabbolas ol. There’s no sparkle or beauty to it, nothing at all. But everything rests on it. So at the end of the chapter, the Rebbe sums up: we spoke about the need for kabbolas ol, several levels of fear, and love, and about fear needing to be tangible, and so on. I’ve finished learning it all. I tried; I made an effort—or perhaps I didn’t—and I didn’t succeed. What do I do? Nothing awakened in me. Fine, I thought about the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

1:20:39 Speaker 1 I didn’t have time; I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I didn’t really understand it. A person has to be honest with himself. It didn’t work. What can you do? Yesterday I felt it; today I don’t. The Rebbe promised that if I contemplate it properly in the morning, then during the day, with just a little contemplation, the feeling will come back. I did feel it in the morning, but during the day all sorts of things happened... Listen, if what happened to me had happened to you, you wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind either. No, a person—things change all the time, right? Ultimately, a person can’t feel awe of Hashem constantly, without a break. The Rebbe concludes: “And one should always remember the expression of our Sages, ‘accepting the yoke of Heaven.’” Awe is good. It’s all good; all of it is necessary. But remember that there’s also such a thing as kabbolas ol. You didn’t feel it? Then you didn’t feel it. So what? Does that mean you’re allowed to stop keeping mitzvos and start committing sins? G-d forbid. What does one have to do with the other? Kabbolas ol has to be your steadfast quality. Whether you understand or not, whether you feel it or not. It didn’t work for you today? So it didn’t work today. You plant your feet firmly and keep going. You don’t retreat. This is like “You shall surely set a king over yourself,” as explained elsewhere: a person must take the yoke upon himself, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu sets aside the upper and lower realms and makes His kingship rest upon us, and so on. And we accept it—He makes His kingship rest upon us, and we accept His kingship, and so on, as he said at the very beginning of chapter 41. This is the idea of bowing in Shemoneh Esrei, after accepting the yoke of Heaven verbally in Shema. The substance of Shema is accepting the yoke of Heaven. When a person accepts the King’s sovereignty upon himself, how does that find expression?

1:22:55 Speaker 1 By bowing to the King. Right? So first comes Shema, and afterward we bow in Shemoneh Esrei. First we accept the yoke spiritually; afterward a person actually bows. He returns to accepting it in actual practice, and so on, as explained elsewhere. Good. So those are the two chapters on lower-level awe. The main focus of chapters 41 and 42 is lower-level awe, and from here we begin to climb through the levels of love, which we’ll start to see in the next chapter.