Likkutei Amarim Chapter 43 · 5781

00:12 Speaker 1 Good evening. Today we’ll study chapter 43. Chapter 43 is a general chapter. It doesn’t really explain—or doesn’t explain at all—how to serve Hashem. Rather, it introduces us to the types of love and fear. In chapter 43, the Alter Rebbe will tell us that, broadly speaking, there are two types of love of Hashem and two types of fear of Hashem. That will give us a starting point for understanding, in the following chapters, what he wants from us, what to contemplate, and what he’s talking about. So in this chapter he introduces the types of love and fear. This chapter no longer belongs to “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root,” which we studied in the previous two chapters, but it doesn’t yet really deal with serving Hashem either. It’s something of an introductory chapter. The previous chapters, the last two we studied, 41 and 42, had as their overarching heading—as the Alter Rebbe himself said at the start—“the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root.” I think it’s important to review what we learned there, because the Alter Rebbe presents the beginning of divine service by moving from one subject to another. So I thought we’d review it. We’ll look at the three or four general points he discussed, and then at the order in which the Alter Rebbe presented them. That will make it much easier to remember what was discussed there, and then we can begin. We’ll briefly review those two chapters. Broadly speaking, the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root, is fear of Hashem that leads to observing the mitzvos. For us to keep mitzvos and avoid transgressions, for there to be something that keeps us from them, we need fear of Hashem. Someone who has fear is afraid, and won’t transgress. That was the foundation, the root. When the Alter Rebbe spoke about the fear of Hashem

02:25 Speaker 1 needed to bring us to observe mitzvos, he explained that it has three levels, broadly speaking. The simplest, most basic level is kabbolas ol. Kabbolas ol isn’t fear. In Chassidus, a distinction is sometimes made between awe and fear: awe is primarily in the mind—a person understands and senses awe in his mind—while fear is usually more in the heart, when speaking of them specifically. But kabbolas ol isn’t either of those. He feels nothing, not in his mind and not anywhere else. What does he have? He has made a decision. He understands that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King and I am His servant, and if I’m a servant, I must do what I’m told. Kabbolas ol is a matter of deciding. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t feel anything, but he understands that he’s a Jew. He knows that this obligates him. The contemplation that brings a person to kabbolas ol is simply to contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King. Once I impress upon myself that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King, I know that I must do what He says. That’s the first stage. Then there’s a higher stage, which Chassidus already calls fear, but it still isn’t called fear of Hashem. It’s called fear of sin. A person with fear of sin isn’t afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He knows that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is watching him and examining all his deeds, his innermost thoughts and his heart, and he knows that in the end there is also punishment for someone who doesn’t do what he should. So he is afraid, but he isn’t afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He fears sin; he fears committing a sin; he fears being punished. So that is the contemplation that brings a person to fear of sin. With fear of sin, he already feels fear, but the fear he feels in his heart is still

04:16 Speaker 1 not fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; he fears the sin. The Alter Rebbe explained that the contemplation that brings this about is to consider that Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t merely a king. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is there with him, in the same room, examining his innermost thoughts and his heart to see whether he serves Him properly. When a person contemplates and thinks at every moment that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not only present, He is right here—and not only is He here, He also knows what I’m thinking; He knows how I serve Him and exactly what I feel—that already produces fear in him, a feeling of fear that brings him to fear of sin. So that’s the second level: first kabbolas ol, and then fear of sin. Later, the Alter Rebbe says that this still isn’t called fear of G-d. To be afraid of committing transgressions, it’s enough to realize, to think about this; you don’t have to be afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu for that. After all, if a person knew that another human being knew what he felt and thought, he would also be afraid to sin. That isn’t specifically about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Fear of G-d, fear of Hashem, is something else entirely. It’s when he contemplates Hashem’s greatness. He contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King, King over all the worlds, that His kingship is so great that He determines what everyone must do, and that all the hosts of heaven bow before Him. When he contemplates the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that is already fear of Hashem. Now he feels awe. He isn’t thinking about sins at all; he isn’t thinking about the mitzvos at all. He’s thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, about the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So here his fear is awe of Hashem’s kingship, awe of the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That

06:07 Speaker 1 is already called fear of Hashem, fear of G-d. Good evening. Clearly, when a person fears G-d, he thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu and is aware of His greatness and His kingship, and of how that applies to him personally as well. Clearly, in that state he won’t transgress. He fears G-d, so he won’t transgress. Those, then, are the three levels he explained there: kabbolas ol, fear of sin, and fear of G-d. In that context, he said that part of “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root” is that fear alone isn’t enough. Someone who only has fear doesn’t love, and someone who doesn’t love won’t run to do something. Fear primarily keeps a person from committing transgressions. But for a person to want to fulfill the mitzvos and run to fulfill them—to the point of having mesirus nefesh for them—he needs love. If he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu to the point of mesirus nefesh, then he’ll also run to fulfill the mitzvos. So both are needed: two wings, two hands. You need both the right hand and the left; you need both fear and love. That is what he explained in those two chapters. Now, the order in which the Alter Rebbe presented these three matters—the three levels of fear and love of Hashem—isn’t the order we might expect. The logical order would be what we just said: kabbolas ol is the lowest level, just a decision; fear of sin is higher than that; and fear of G-d is higher still. The Alter Rebbe did something else there, and that’s what makes these two chapters a little confusing to study. He presented them in a completely different order. He began with fear of sin: a person contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands over him and examines his innermost thoughts and his heart

08:29 Speaker 1 to see whether he serves Him properly. That is the contemplation associated with fear of sin. Why did he begin with it? Simply put, that is the essence of the work. Kabbolas ol isn’t really fear, and kabbolas ol isn’t enough. I’ll give an example. Ordinarily, if a person has kabbolas ol, he won’t transgress. But what will he do when it’s difficult for him? Today, for some particular reason, a problem has arisen, and it’s very, very hard for him to keep a mitzvah or avoid a transgression. Kabbolas ol won’t hold him back. If a person has fear of sin, then even when things get a little harder, he won’t commit the transgression. But if all that keeps a person observing mitzvos is kabbolas ol, he might decide, “Well, I made that decision, but today it’s hard for me, so today I’ll decide otherwise.” Kabbolas ol, then, isn’t enough. The real root, the essence of this, is fear of sin. That’s why the Alter Rebbe begins with it. Later he says that even if you contemplated, looked, and thought, but didn’t manage to awaken fear of sin within yourself, kabbolas ol is also good. So he explains kabbolas ol second. Then he says: Wait, all right, now we have fear that leads to observing the mitzvos, but what about love? There must also be love. So he explains the contemplation that leads to love, to mesirus nefesh. That’s the first chapter: it begins with fear of sin, continues with kabbolas ol, and ends with love, because those really are the three elements of “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root.” The main thing is fear of sin. If you don’t succeed in reaching it, kabbolas ol is also good, and there must also be love. That’s where he ends—right, so that’s where he ends the

10:27 Speaker 1 The idea of, uh, fear of sin. Chapter 42 adds something new. What is new about it? It begins with fear of G-d. Why? Fear of G-d is no longer quite the beginning of the service of Hashem. It already requires contemplation. It goes beyond fear of sin: a person contemplates Hashem’s kingship, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Chapter 42 adds a higher level of fear of Hashem, fear of G-d. Later on, he says that, yes, fear of G-d really is a higher level, but the main thing is what we explained at the beginning of the previous chapter: fear of sin. And after saying that fear of sin is the main thing, he explains at length how to attain it, until it becomes truly tangible, as we discussed. You surely remember from the previous chapter: a person contemplates that just as the soul fills the body, so Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills the world. So the very fact that I see the world means that, in a sense, I see the body of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Contemplating that the world is, so to speak, the body of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that I physically see Him, makes His constant presence very real to a person. So he starts with fear of G-d, and then says that the main thing is not fear of G-d but fear of sin, because that is a fear a person can acquire and accustom himself to in a straightforward, easy way, so that it becomes part of him twenty-four hours a day. He carries it with him all the time. At the very end, he returns once again to kabbolas ol. Listen, after all the virtues

12:15 Speaker 1 we discussed—fear of sin, fear of G-d—you have to begin with kabbolas ol. Why? Not all times are alike. Sometimes a person cannot manage to contemplate; sometimes it is difficult, sometimes he does not feel anything. He is in one mood or another. A person needs kabbolas ol all the time. So those are the two chapters, 41 and 42: kabbolas ol, fear of sin, fear of G-d. Following on from that, he begins our chapter, chapter 43: “Now, regarding this lower fear,” discussed in the previous chapters, “which serves to fulfill His commandments in the manner of ‘turn away from evil and do good’”—the whole purpose of this fear is to bring us to actually observe the mitzvos. About this fear they said, “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.” The wisdom referred to here is Torah and mitzvos. If you have no fear, you will not observe Torah and mitzvos. No fear, no wisdom. “And within it,” within that lower fear we discussed, “there is a lesser aspect and a greater aspect.” The lesser aspect is what we discussed in the previous chapters. Even with fear of G-d, when a person contemplates the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kingship, ultimately the contemplation is general. What is he thinking about and contemplating? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King over the world, that He governs the world, that He determines matters of individual Divine providence. Hakadosh Boruch Hu decides every moment who will live and who will die, who will be wealthy, who will be brought low and who will be raised up. It is an awareness that Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world. That is called the lesser aspect. So what is the greater aspect, still within lower fear? “And a greater aspect”—something not yet discussed in the previous chapters. This no longer belongs to the beginning of one’s service at all. This is really a matter of fear. That is, when this fear is drawn forth—which fear? Still lower fear. But what is it drawn from? Contemplation of the greatness of Hashem. He

14:36 Speaker 1 is no longer contemplating the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He is not contemplating, so to speak, how He acts, but Him Himself. How is Hashem’s greatness expressed? “For He fills all worlds.” He does not merely govern our world and determine what each person’s life will be like, whether he will be rich or poor, healthy or, G-d forbid, the opposite of healthy. Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all the worlds. And worlds are something immense. From the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years. We once discussed this; I think we mentioned it in one of the recent classes. Our Sages said in the Midrash that there are seven heavens and an earth. Did we mention that? Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world with seven heavens, and besides those seven heavens there is also an earth. Between one heaven and another there is also a layer of air, so to speak—I do not know, spiritual air, physical air. There is some kind of air whose thickness is also equal to the thickness of a heaven. So altogether we have seven heavens and seven layers of air between the heavens. Right? How many is that altogether?

16:00 Speaker 2 Fourteen.

16:01 Speaker 1 Fourteen. And the earth, so altogether that makes?

16:04 Speaker 2 Fifteen.

16:04 Speaker 1 Fifteen. And the thickness of each one is five hundred years. So when a person contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all the worlds, and contemplates what each of the heavens is, as mentioned elsewhere—what is a heaven? The firmament and Aravos. What is each of the heavens? And each heaven is five hundred years, as mentioned elsewhere. What are these levels? What is this thickness of the heavens? What does it mean?

16:31 Speaker 2 What does five hundred years mean? That it exists for five hundred years? That it took five hundred years to make?

16:36 Speaker 1 No. In simple terms, a journey of five hundred years refers to a distance, a size. But what does it mean—since when do we measure distance in years? Years measure time. Distance is measured in kilometers, not in time. What does “five hundred years” mean? It is an analogy our Sages gave. An average person, as it says in the Gemara, walks forty kilometers in a day. A journey—

17:12 Speaker 2 What?

17:12 Speaker 1 An average person walks forty parsaos in a day. Forty—

17:16 Speaker 2 Two thousand years ago.

17:18 Speaker 1 No. Why?

17:20 Speaker 2 Forty kilometers? In a day.

17:24 Speaker 1 A person walks an average of four kilometers an hour. That is a slow walk. He walks for several hours.

17:31 Speaker 2 That is not an average person.

17:32 Speaker 1 What?

17:33 Speaker 2 I think he means the total—

17:35 Speaker 1 A person who is used to walking, an ordinary person, not like...

17:41 Speaker 2 So the figure we have here is forty.

17:45 Speaker 1 An average person who is walking—he wants to, he needs to walk, and he has no car, right? He goes from one town to another on foot. So he gets up in the morning and starts walking, and he walks all day. He does not walk fast, but he walks without stopping. He walks all day. So our Sages said that the distance an average person walks in a day is forty kilometers.

18:02 Speaker 2 Ah, I see.

18:03 Speaker 1 Yes. So how far can he walk in a year? Forty kilometers times three hundred and however many days—take out Shabbosos; never mind. Right? That is quite a long distance. What does five hundred years mean? It means the distance he would walk in five hundred years. It is, so to speak, an enormous distance. Right? So the thickness of each heaven is a journey of five hundred years. Of course, we are not talking here about physical distances; this is a spiritual matter. The word for “year,” shanah, comes from the word for “changes,” shinuyim. After all, a year is made up of twelve—four seasons, and each season has several months, and each month has weeks and days. The change from one day to another is reflected in the weather and all sorts of other things. So five hundred years means five hundred kinds of spiritual changes, five hundred levels. Right? And each of the heavens, and the layers of air between the heavens, and the earth has five hundred general levels of change, and so on. There are many explanations. So a person contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not only this physical world, where He determines what will happen to each person. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created seven heavens and an earth, and each of the heavens and layers of air and so on has a thickness of five hundred years. Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all of this and governs it all. And he further contemplates the idea that the feet of the chayos are equal to all of them. There is also a passage in the Gemara saying that one is above the other, and that one above another, and so on. Each level of angels is higher than the level before it, to the point that even the lowest part is higher than all those that... Right?

19:54 Speaker 2 Bigger.

19:56 Speaker 1 Yes, bigger.

19:56 Speaker 2 No, is the lowest level the biggest, or the highest level?

19:58 Speaker 1 The feet of each higher level are equal to everything in the worlds below it. The chayos are the holy chayos. They are in the world of—I do not know—Yetzirah; I do not know where. Right? So their feet, their hooves, are bigger than all the worlds below.

20:20 Speaker 3 Got it.

20:23 Speaker 1 In other words, like this: When we climb stairs, you can climb even half a step, right? Because you’re taller than one step. But suppose the stairs are so high that even the bottom of the next step is beyond your reach. The bottom of the step above is incomparably higher than anything below it. That, so to speak, is the analogy. And so it is with the progression of all the worlds, higher and higher, to the loftiest heights: an immense, extraordinary multitude of worlds, each containing a multitude of created beings, and so on. A person contemplates this—the Divine light that fills all the worlds. He contemplates it. Even so, he is contemplating Hashem’s greatness. He says, “And what am I?” Until now, if I thought about Hakadosh Boruch Hu at all, I wasn’t thinking about His greatness; I may have thought about how He governs the world. Fine—then my fear is a fear of what His governance might bring upon me. But once I contemplate His greatness, how He creates and governs all the worlds, and how I, quite plainly, am nothing, utterly insignificant, that arouses in me an immense fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Right? This is called the higher level within lower fear. There are two forms, two levels, of lower fear. What we discussed in the previous chapters was fear… So again, lower fear has two levels. In the previous chapters, the fear was of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as He governs the world, governs me, and determines what I will and won’t do and what my life will be like. Here we’re talking about lower fear on the level of greatness. From that perspective, a person contemplates how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs

22:43 Speaker 1 all the worlds, and how I am nothing in comparison. [unclear] So why did he explain this kind of fear at all? He says as follows. Although… No, not why he explained it. Why did he explain this kind of fear in this chapter rather than the previous one? Because of the next sentence: “Even so.” Although he contemplates Hashem’s greatness—and I would have thought that if the fear now comes from contemplating Hashem’s greatness, it should be a lofty fear, right? I’m contemplating greatness, not something small. Right? He says that even so, although this fear comes from contemplating Hashem’s greatness, “this fear is nevertheless called external and lower fear.” It is certainly far greater than the fear discussed in the previous chapter, but compared with what will be discussed here in our chapter, it is still called lower fear. Why? Because this fear comes from the aspect of greatness; it comes from the worlds. What is he contemplating? He isn’t contemplating Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. He’s contemplating how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the worlds. What will he sense? Hashem’s greatness as it is expressed in creation. That is the greatness he senses. Later, in Igeres Hakodesh, the final part of Tanya, there’s a long letter by the Alter Rebbe that begins, “David, you called them songs.” Have you heard of it? The Gemara tells… After the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant—this is how the story begins—the Philistines captured the Ark, and the Ark wreaked havoc among them; many Philistines died. Eventually, the Philistines realized it was too dangerous for them. After five months, or three months, I don’t remember, they put the Ark on a wagon, hitched cows to it, and said, “Let’s see

25:37 Speaker 1 what happens.” Without hesitation, the cows set out along the road. With no one driving them, they pulled the wagon carrying the Ark, and as they went, the cows began to sing. “Give thanks to Hashem, for He is good, for His kindness is everlasting”—the whole passage of “Hodu” that we say at the beginning of davening. That is the passage associated with “and the cows sang.” As they walked along carrying the Ark, the cows sang the “Hodu” that we say at the beginning of davening.

26:14 Speaker 4 Why did they sing a cows’ song?

26:16 Speaker 1 Huh? That’s what they saw fit to sing at that moment.

26:21 Speaker 4 Yes.

26:23 Speaker 1 And they went with the Ark as far as Kiryas Yearim, I think, and stopped there. The Ark remained there for fifty-two—I don’t remember how many years, several decades—until King David came and said, “It’s time to bring the Ark to the Beis Hamikdash, to the Mishkan.” The Ark wasn’t in the Mishkan; there was a Mishkan, and the Ark was somewhere else. So King David said it was time to bring the Ark to the Mishkan. On the way, something went wrong, and the holy Ark wasn’t treated with proper respect. Something was overlooked—there’s a whole story there—and as a result, many people were killed. A great many people died because the Ark’s honor had been slighted. So King David decided the time had not yet come, and he was punished. The Gemara says he was punished. Does it say what his punishment was? That isn’t relevant here. So why, the Gemara asks, was King David punished? “David, you called them songs.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to David, “You call the words of Torah ‘songs’? The words of Torah are songs?” Why? What’s wrong with calling the words of Torah songs? King David was deeply impressed that the Torah is G-dliness that creates the world, brings it into being, and gives it life. He began praising the Torah for the fact that a single detail of its laws gives life to all the worlds. Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “Is that how you regard My Torah? That My Torah can create the worlds? For that, you deserve to be punished.” What? The Alter Rebbe asked: Why does he deserve to be punished? He praised the Torah for creating the worlds. Why should he be punished for that? The explanation is that this is not really the Torah’s greatness. The Torah is not there for the sake of the worlds. Is creating the world the sum of the Torah’s greatness? The Torah has an intrinsic quality: it is the wisdom of Hakadosh

28:41 Speaker 1 Boruch Hu and the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed in it. The fact that it creates—fine, it also creates the worlds. It’s like a man who is wealthy, a great and immensely wealthy king, and you praise him for knowing how to build things in a sandbox. “You called them songs?” Is that the Torah’s praise—that it can create the world? So King David was punished. In other words, why is this relevant here? Because the… What? Why is it relevant here? Because of the fear we were discussing. True, it is fear on the level of greatness. But greatness of what? The greatness of how Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds. Is that greatness for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Is that the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? He is infinite. There is nothing besides Him. “You are the same before the world was created; You are the same after the world was created.” He can create something from nothing, and far more than that. You praise Him for governing the worlds? So when a person contemplates this and feels fear, it is genuine fear of Hashem, fear arising from contemplation of Hashem’s greatness. But how is Hashem’s greatness expressed in his contemplation? In His governing the worlds? That is called the lower level. What is the higher level? When a person doesn’t contemplate how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the worlds, but instead looks to and thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. That is already called higher fear, as we’ll now see in the text. “Even so, this fear is called external and lower fear, since it comes from the worlds.” What is he thinking about? The worlds, which are only garments of the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It’s like someone standing before a king who, instead of fearing the king, fears the king’s garments, his clothes. For the King, Hakadosh…

30:34 Speaker 1 He conceals Himself and is exalted, yet clothes Himself in them, in the worlds, to give them life and sustain them, bringing them into being from nothing, and so on. So if this is such a low level of fear, and it is not even fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, only of His garments, why do we need it at all? So he says: it is the gate and the entrance to observing Torah and mitzvos. Right. The importance of yirah tata’ah, lower-level fear, is not that it brings a person to fear Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Even at its higher level, yirah tata’ah does not do that. It brings a person to fear the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs this world and the spiritual worlds. But that is only fear of His governance, of His kingship. Why do we need it? Because although it is yirah tata’ah, it is the gate and the entrance that leads a person to observe mitzvos. Once a person fears the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—or, at a higher level, fears the way He governs the worlds—he will not commit transgressions. So it is the gate and the entrance to observing Torah and mitzvos. This is what is meant by “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.” Fear brings a person to wisdom, to Torah and mitzvos. But yirah ila’ah, higher-level fear—the fear of shame, an inner fear—is something else entirely. It is drawn from the inner dimension of G-dliness within the worlds. Here a person is no longer contemplating how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs, creates, gives life and brings things into being. No. He contemplates Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, before Whom all the worlds are nothing and naught. And if they are nothing and naught, you do not praise someone for being able to do something with nothing and naught. That is no great feat. I know how to move my hand through the air. We have never heard someone praise his friend for being so clever that he can even move his hand through the air. It is no great feat. All the worlds are nothing and naught

32:56 Speaker 1 before Him. When a person contemplates G-dliness itself, what he suddenly feels is not that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is so great that He can govern a world so vast, complex and profound, and so on. Rather, all the worlds are nothing and naught. “Kula kamei k’lo chashiv”—before Him, everything is considered as nothing. All the worlds are considered nothing and naught before Him. So clearly this is an entirely different kind of fear. Here he is not thinking about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs; he is thinking about Him Himself. And when a person thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, the fear awakened in him is of another kind, another nature. It is not that fear arises in his heart. A person contemplates how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King. A king can harm me. People are afraid of a king. But when a person contemplates His greatness, what is there to be afraid of? The worlds are nothing and naught. Fear, reward and punishment—all of that loses its meaning. The person simply feels ashamed. On this, the Alter Rebbe brings something in a book called Siddur im Dach.

34:17 Speaker 5 Listen.

34:18 Speaker 1 Huh? Where?

34:22 Speaker 5 What do you mean, “for the whole year”?

34:24 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. Are you all familiar with the book?

34:27 Speaker 5 Which book?

34:28 Speaker 1 Siddur im Dach.

34:30 Speaker 5 No.

34:30 Speaker 1 Chani, do you have the book here?

34:32 Speaker 5 There’s—

34:33 Speaker 1 Siddur im Dach. The order of prayers for the entire year.

34:37 Speaker 5 Yes. But up here. This one.

34:44 Speaker 1 It would be nice if we could find it.

34:46 Speaker 5 Today’s class is in the Tanya, Chaya. To the right.

34:50 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, the two large volumes. Bring one of them.

34:53 Speaker 5 To the right. To the right. Yes. Whatever you say.

34:59 Speaker 1 It’s just that this is the new printing, and I’m not familiar with it either.

35:03 Speaker 5 I didn’t understand what...

35:06 Speaker 1 This is the siddur we pray from, the Tehillat Hashem siddur arranged by the Alter Rebbe. After the Alter Rebbe’s passing, the Mitteler Rebbe collected maamarim of the Alter Rebbe that discuss various passages in the prayers, and published a siddur in which, for each passage or each place in the prayers, there is a maamar of Chassidus explaining it. You see? Here are a few words from the prayers, and then there is a maamar of Chassidus in which the Alter Rebbe discusses those words. That is what this siddur is. Most of it is simply maamarim of the Alter Rebbe. Usually, the maamarim—

35:53 Speaker 5 Two volumes.

35:54 Speaker 1 Huh? Now I see that in the new edition they split it into two volumes, yes. In the old one, it was printed in those tiny, square Rashi letters that you could barely read.

36:05 Speaker 5 I have the old one too, but it has the—

36:08 Speaker 1 All right, I just wanted you to see that such a book exists. So in this book, Siddur im Dach, there is Tikkun Chatzos. In a note there, there is a maamar of Chassidus that begins with the words, “An addition to what I wrote in Tanya, chapter 43.” That is how the maamar begins. The Alter Rebbe writes that it is an addition to what he wrote in Tanya, chapter 43, on this subject. There he explains that the difference between yirah tata’ah at its higher level and yirah ila’ah is like the difference between fear of a king and fear of a tzaddik. With a king, you are afraid of him. With a tzaddik, you are not afraid of him; you lose your sense of self in his presence. You feel that you are nothing and naught. With a king, it is more a matter of fear. Even if you are not afraid that the king will do anything to you, you still feel afraid. You know that the king is very powerful, that he has tremendous power. You are afraid of the king’s power even if you know he is not going to do anything to you. But the very knowledge that the king has such tremendous power naturally makes a person afraid when he is near him.

37:33 Speaker 5 Is that yirah tata’ah?

37:33 Speaker 1 That is yirah tata’ah. Within it there is a lower level and a higher level, depending on whether you contemplate how the King governs this world or how He governs all the worlds, gives them life and brings them into being. But it is still about His kingship, not about Him Himself. It is about His garments—how He gives the world life, governs it and brings it into being. When a person stands near a tzaddik, he is not afraid of him at all. He loses his sense of self. He does not know what to do; he almost wishes the ground would swallow him up. He feels he is not there at all. That is called bittul b’metzius, a loss of one’s sense of self. This is the difference between bittul hayesh and bittul b’metzius: between fear of something and shame. Yirah ila’ah is shame. A person senses the true greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and then feels that he himself is nothing, that he is zero. If all the worlds are nothing, then what am I? I am nothing upon nothing. That is yirah ila’ah.

38:33 Speaker 5 When a servant nullifies himself before his king, is that also called bittul b’metzius?

38:37 Speaker 1 No, that is bittul hayesh. “A servant prefers to be free of restraint.” A servant is comfortable when his master does not tell him what to do; now he has freedom. The servant still feels his own self. The whole nature of a servant... A servant is not a son. A son is devoted to his father; he loves his father. A servant submits to his master because he is a servant and the other is his master; he is separate from him. So he subdues himself. He remains an independent being who bends and subdues himself. There can be—and these are already very lofty levels—a faithful servant. That can be a very, very lofty level too. But he is still a servant, still a distinct being. With bittul b’metzius, he has lost his sense of self; he does not feel himself there at all. He thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, senses Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and his own sense of self disappears. This is called yirah ila’ah and the fear of shame. Yes, again, on line nine: “But yirah ila’ah, the fear of shame and an inner fear, is drawn from the inner dimension of G-dliness within the worlds. Of this they said: ‘If there is no wisdom, there is no fear.’” So there are two statements. Sorry, in Pirkei Avos it says: “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom. If there is no wisdom, there is no fear.” The first fear is yirah tata’ah, which leads to wisdom; it is the gate and the entrance to observing Torah and mitzvos. When a person observes Torah and mitzvos—carries out what wisdom teaches—with a sense of self-nullification, because he already has yirah tata’ah and observes them with bittul, then the Torah and mitzvos give him the ability to sense the inner dimension of G-dliness within the worlds. All right? So the order is fear, wisdom, fear. Don’t mix it up. You have probably often heard that the order in serving Hashem is fear, love, love, fear. Right? You’ve heard... Surely you’ve all heard

40:37 Speaker 1 that... Have you heard it or not?

40:39 Speaker 6 No.

40:40 Speaker 1 All right, so no... Whoever heard that, that isn’t what it says in this chapter. That’s another subject. Here, the sequence has nothing to do with love. There are two levels of fear of Hashem: lower fear and higher fear. Lower fear is the gateway and entrance to observing Torah and mitzvos. Torah and mitzvos are wisdom that brings a person to a feeling of G-dliness—higher fear, a sense of awe and shame. About this they said, “If there is no wisdom, there is no fear,” because chochmah, wisdom, is koach mah—the capacity to ask, “What am I?” And “From where is wisdom found?” Wisdom is Torah and mitzvos. The very nature of Torah is bittul, self-nullification: chochmah is made up of the letters koach mah. What does that mean? It has no independent existence. Why? Because it isn’t separate. It is G-dliness itself; Torah and mitzvos aren’t separate from G-dliness. That is why wisdom is found “from nothingness”: the source and root of the wisdom of Torah and mitzvos is nothingness, complete bittul to G-dliness. And who is wise? “One who sees what is coming into being.” Meaning, he sees how everything is born and brought into being from nothing into existence through the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, as it says, “And by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts.” So what is wisdom? Torah and mitzvos. What is a wise person? Someone who sees, in everything in the world, in all of reality... He looks at the world, but he doesn’t see the world; he sees the One Who spoke and the world came into being. He isn’t looking at how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the world. Rather, he contemplates the fact that the world is nothing at all. If Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the entire world, took nothing and made something out of it, then at that very moment, the whole reality of the world is that nothingness we’ve spoken about several times. As it says, “And by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all the hosts of heaven and the hosts of earth with the breath of His mouth, with speech alone. That means... And when a person contemplates this, the heavens and the earth and all

42:54 Speaker 1 the hosts of heaven, which truly exist through the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, are considered as absolutely nothing. They have no independent existence. Their existence is nothing at all, just like the light and radiance of the sun are nullified within the sun itself. We’ve discussed this analogy several times already, right? Yes. The analogy of how all the worlds are nothing at all. We discussed two analogies for this. One is speech: a single word a person utters is nothing compared with his power of speech, which can produce an endless number of words over his lifetime. And the power of speech as a whole is nothing compared with the power of thought. Thought is nothing compared with the emotion it expresses. Emotion is nothing compared with wisdom, and wisdom is nothing compared with... and so on and on. In the end, what significance does one word a person says have compared with the soul itself? Nothing upon nothing upon nothing. So too, all the worlds... Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all the worlds with a single utterance. “In the beginning, G-d created”—with one word, with one utterance, with one letter, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all the worlds. So all the worlds are nothing compared with G-dliness. A person contemplates how the whole world is nothing—and would he exclude himself? His body and his soul, his spirit and his neshamah, are all nullified in their very existence. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created me too? Then I too am nothing. “Through the word of Hashem and His utterance... through the word of Hashem and the utterance of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with which He created me too, which is united with His thought, etc., as explained above...” As he explained at length in chapters 20 and 21. “As explained above at length by way of the analogy of the human soul, where a single word of a person’s speech and thought is considered as nothing at all, etc.” This is what the verse means: “Behold, the fear of Hashem is wisdom.” We said earlier that wisdom is Torah and mitzvos. Why does

45:08 Speaker 1 the verse say, “The fear of Hashem is wisdom”? Because when a person observes Torah and mitzvos, after he already has lower fear... What brought him to observe Torah and mitzvos? Some people observe them because that’s what they’re used to. They were brought up that way. They do what they saw at home—“the commandments of people performed by rote.” They don’t know anything else. They’re used to washing their hands every morning and brushing their teeth. So as far as they’re concerned, washing their hands and brushing their teeth are the same thing. They do both because they have to. They don’t distinguish between an act connected with G-dliness and an act of, I don’t know, taking care of... To them it’s the same thing. It’s a habit, part of their daily routine. But when a person observes Torah and mitzvos not because that’s what he’s used to, but because he has contemplated that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu examines his thoughts, and so on, then the Torah and mitzvos he observes are permeated with fear. About this, our Sages said—where’s the wording? About this the verse says, “The fear of Hashem is wisdom.” Observing Torah and mitzvos with a sense of bittul is called fear of Hashem. But it is impossible to attain this higher fear and wisdom, higher fear, except by observing Torah and mitzvos through the external, lower fear. A person might say: If I have the possibility of fearing Hashem, of arousing fear within myself—not just fear of how He governs the world—I want to be completely nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I’m an ordinary Jew. I love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I want to behave as I should, as befits a Jew. There’s such a lofty, wonderful level of fear, and I want it too. So instead of... Why waste time? Instead of contemplating how

47:11 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs and creates the worlds, I’ll contemplate how “everything before Him is considered as nothing.” I’ll contemplate how all the worlds are nothing at all. I’ll contemplate how the only true reality is His very Essence and Being, and that will arouse higher fear in my heart. What do I need lower fear for at all? I’ll have a sense of awe and shame, and naturally I’ll observe Torah and mitzvos like a tzaddik. Why should I observe Torah and mitzvos like a beinoni? I want to observe Torah and mitzvos like a tzaddik, right? The line of thinking is very clear. The Alter Rebbe says: It won’t work. It’s impossible. Only a person who observes Torah and mitzvos with lower fear can feel higher fear in his soul. There can be no higher fear without lower fear first. That is the order within a person’s soul. Why? It’s very simple. He doesn’t explain it here. As long as I feel myself to be a separate entity, how can there be higher fear? I’m separate. I have desires, thoughts, longings, all sorts of things I’m planning, things I’ve thought of doing. There are things that excite me, things that interest me. How can Hakadosh Boruch Hu interest you? As long as a person has his own sense of self, his personality, his feelings, his plans—as long as he feels himself, he cannot feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And to have the ability not merely to understand intellectually that the world is nothing, but to feel that the world is nothing, one must observe Torah and mitzvos. Torah and mitzvos are the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch

49:20 Speaker 1 Hu. When I observe them out of lower fear, that gives my mind, my feelings and my soul the ability to feel the G-dliness that is present. But if I observe Torah and mitzvos merely as “the commandments of people performed by rote,” I won’t feel G-dliness, no matter how much I contemplate it. So the sequence begins with lower fear: “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.” When a person observes Torah and mitzvos as he should, and then contemplates how all the worlds are nothing at all, he can also feel higher fear, a sense of awe and shame. That is the sequence. So, as he sums it up: “But it is impossible to attain this fear and wisdom except by observing Torah and mitzvos through external, lower fear. This is the meaning of the statement, ‘If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.’” There can be no higher fear without wisdom, without Torah and mitzvos that a person observes with bittul. Up to this point, at the beginning of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe explained lower and higher fear. Now, love also has two levels: great love and eternal love. It’s true that Chassidus explains a vast number of levels and kinds of love of Hashem. That isn’t what we’re discussing here. The Alter Rebbe isn’t addressing that here. Well, maybe I’ll say more about it in a moment. Hmm? No, I don’t want to cause unnecessary confusion.

51:15 Speaker 7 Here it’s clear.

51:16 Speaker 1 What?

51:16 Speaker 7 Here it’s clear.

51:19 Speaker 1 I don’t want to confuse things for no reason. Just as there are two levels of fear, lower fear and higher fear, there are also two levels of love: ahavah rabbah and ahavas olam. Let’s look at it this way. What’s the difference between them? Ahavah rabbah is a love of delight. When a person loves something, there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of love. There’s love—but what does it mean to love? He loves the thing, he wants it, he wants to have it with him, he wants to connect with it, to be united with it. He wants to have that thing, whether it’s an object or whatever it may be. There’s a love where a person doesn’t have the thing, so he wants it and is drawn toward it. Every love has something it seeks. What is that love seeking? What does it want? What is it striving for? That’s one kind of love. The second kind is a love of delight. A love of delight is when a person has attained what they wanted. She really wanted a dress—some particular kind, I don’t know—and she found exactly what she wanted. Exactly right. What a pleasure it is to put it on and look in the mirror. Here it is; I have it. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Look at a child who asks his mother for ice cream, before he gets it and after he gets it. Beforehand, he’s all worked up: “Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me!” And afterward he’s quiet, calm, licking his ice cream. Everything’s fine. He’s enjoying it. That’s the difference between the lower love, ahavas olam, in which he wants to attain something, and a love of delight, in which he delights in what he has already attained. So he begins specifically with the higher love. Ahavah rabbah is a love of delight. Now notice: we’re talking about a love in which he delights in what he has attained. It’s a love of delight—he enjoys what he already has. He feels good with it.

53:41 Speaker 1 What has he attained? He has attained G-dliness. He feels the G-dliness. He isn’t longing for G-dliness or striving toward it. He has it. The G-dly light shines within him in a way that gives him such pleasure that he melts. He can’t leave it. It feels good to be there. It is “a flame that rises of its own accord,” and it comes from Above as a gift to someone whose fear is complete. As is known from the statement of the Zohar, “It is the way of a man to pursue a woman.” Love is called a man, a male, as it is written—where is love called a man? The verse says, “He remembered His kindness.” Kindness is the source, the root, of love, and the verse says zachar, a word that also means “male.” It doesn’t say “female”; it says zachar. And of a woman it says, “A woman who fears Hashem.” So you see that the verse calls fear a woman, while love, kindness, is called male. Just as, in the physical world, it is the way of a man to pursue a woman, so too in spiritual matters, with love and fear, love—the man—pursues the woman, fear. That is why it comes only to someone whose fear is complete. Now there is a woman, so love, the male, can come; he will want to come here. In other words, this love is the very essence of the G-dly soul. Not an expression of it, not a revelation of it, not its faculties, not its will or its wisdom. The soul itself. When does the G-dly soul—? It says that the soul of every Jew is “literally a part of G-d Above.” Usually I don’t feel that, but the soul itself is G-dliness. And when the soul is revealed, when the essence of the soul is revealed within a person, what is revealed in his mind and his feelings? G-dliness itself is revealed. He simply enjoys—he enjoys himself, no, not himself—he enjoys the essence of holiness; he enjoys being with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

56:13 Speaker 1 It is a goodness, a pleasure and a delight beyond compare. There is nothing you can compare to it. When is it revealed? When his fear is complete. What does complete fear mean? It means higher fear, as we discussed earlier. Only someone who merits higher fear can have that essence of the soul revealed within him at all—that love of delight, as is known. Without fear coming first, that complete higher fear, one cannot reach this ahavah rabbah. So everything we have discussed until now—lower fear with all its levels, the lower love that we’ll discuss shortly, higher fear—all of it comes through contemplation. But with a love of delight, there is no contemplation that can bring it about. What would you contemplate? It isn’t part of the world. It is the Essence and Being revealed in the soul. How is that going to be revealed within you? You have no thread to grasp, no way to draw it down. There is nothing in this world equal to it or resembling it. There is no parallel, nothing corresponding to it. There isn’t. It’s impossible. The only way to attain ahavah rabbah, a love of delight, is for a person to reach completeness in fear. If he reaches completeness in fear, then, since it is the way of a man to pursue a woman, he will have love as well. It will come on its own. It comes as a gift from Above. “And without fear coming first, one cannot attain this ahavah rabbah, for this love is from the level of Atzilus, and in the world of Atzilus there is no severance or separation, G-d forbid.” In the world of Atzilus, nothing is separate from G-dliness. The world of Atzilus is G-dliness openly revealed, and as long as a person has a sense of himself as an independent existence, the G-dliness of Atzilus cannot be revealed within him. The essence of the soul cannot be revealed within him. That is true of what? Of ahavah rabbah. But ahavas olam, which we haven’t discussed yet, the lower level of love, comes from contemplation and awareness of the greatness of Hashem, the blessed Ein Sof, Who fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds.

58:57 Speaker 1 Remarkable. Just a few lines ago—I don’t know if you remember or noticed—look at page 60. Turn back one page for a moment. Page 60, at the top, the first line.

59:12 Speaker 8 The seventh page, at the top.

59:14 Speaker 1 “This level of fear comes from contemplating the greatness of Hashem, Who fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds.” And here it says that this love comes from the greatness of Hashem, Who encompasses... He’s contemplating the same thing. Why does it bring him to fear one time and love another time? What changed on the page we just turned?

59:34 Speaker 8 Wow, how nice, with a good mood.

59:35 Speaker 1 Huh? A good mood... Exactly.

59:37 Speaker 8 Two and one.

59:49 Speaker 1 The feeling that awakens in a person doesn’t depend only on what he looks at and thinks about. It also depends on how he relates to it, on the angle from which he looks at it. If I look at the greatness of Hashem and at who I am in relation to His greatness, I feel so small. But if I contemplate Hashem’s greatness—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of all life, the source of all goodness and all pleasures, that He gives life to everything—and I don’t look at or measure myself against His greatness, but look only at Him, what will I feel? I’ll feel that He is good, that He is the source of goodness. If I look at myself in relation to Him, what do I feel? I feel my own insignificance. If I look only at Him, without looking at myself or bringing myself into it, what will I feel? I’ll feel the greatness and abundance of His goodness. So when we look at Hashem’s greatness, it depends on how we look. When I look at Hashem’s greatness in relation to myself, it leads to lower fear. But when I look at Him in His own right, it leads me to love, to ahavas olam. “Ahavas olam comes from contemplation and awareness of the greatness of Hashem, the blessed Ein Sof, Who fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and before Whom everything is considered literally nothing—like the nullification of a single word within the thinking soul while it is still in its thought or in the desire of the heart, as explained above. Through this contemplation”—this very same contemplation, yes?—“the attribute of love in the soul will emerge from its garments.” What garments does the love in the soul have? Usually, most people—no, not most, everyone—if a person hasn’t contemplated, hasn’t studied Chassidus or contemplated these ideas, he doesn’t direct his love thoughtfully. He just lives in the world and goes along with it. Goes along. He gets up

1:02:02 Speaker 1 In the morning, he gets up and does all kinds of things in order to live, gets married, has children, earns a living. He is caught up in the needs of the world. He has a mind and he has feelings. Every person has feelings; that’s natural. What kind of person has no feelings? What feelings does he have? He has the capacity to love. What is his capacity for love invested in? The things of this world. He pursues them and is drawn to them. So we need to distinguish between two things: the capacity for love and the thing in which that love is invested. A person has the capacity to love. Why, in practice, does he love the world? Because that’s what he sees before his eyes. Inside him is a capacity looking for something to love. And what does he see before his eyes? All kinds of things that are good and that he can love. So his capacity for love becomes invested in worldly things, and that’s where he is drawn; that’s what he loves. What does contemplation of Hashem’s greatness do? It makes his capacity for love shed those garments. He stops loving—stops investing his love in the garments of this world—and now invests it in G-dliness. Instead of loving the world, he begins to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what contemplation of Hashem’s greatness accomplishes: the love in his soul sheds its garments, the garments of this world, and becomes invested in an understanding of G-dliness. Then he thinks about, knows, understands, and sees G-dliness before his eyes. That is what he will want. That is where his love will be invested. Through contemplation... Line six: “Through this contemplation, the attribute of love in the soul will naturally shed its garments—that is, it will not become invested in anything pleasurable or delightful, neither physical nor even spiritual.” What is spiritual pleasure?

1:04:09 Speaker 9 Intellectual pleasure.

1:04:10 Speaker 1 Hmm?

1:04:10 Speaker 9 Intellectual pleasure.

1:04:10 Speaker 1 Intellectual? Yes, certainly. There is also a spiritual pleasure beyond... that too. Sometimes a person simply enjoys talking. Two people sit together and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. They haven’t said anything. They’re just talking. He enjoys talking; he takes pleasure in it. He is exercising his power of speech. Some people enjoy exercising. They don’t enjoy the exertion, but the feeling that they’re doing something. There’s something called the driving experience. He drives and feels like... he feels like the boss of the road. That’s the experience. That’s the experience. It’s a spiritual pleasure, a spiritual pleasure within this physical world. A person enjoys hearing a song, enjoys hearing a niggun. That’s a spiritual pleasure, a spiritual pleasure from physical things in the physical world. So when a person contemplates Hashem’s greatness, his capacity for love sheds both the physical pleasures and the spiritual pleasures of this world. In other words, his capacity for love will not become invested in anything pleasurable or delightful, neither physical nor spiritual, to love it or desire anything in the world at all. From now on, the only One he will be drawn to is Hashem alone. Why? Because Hashem is the source of life for every pleasure. Suddenly he realizes that all the things I enjoy so much in this world—talking and eating and singing and whatever else, everything, learning and understanding—suddenly he understands that even the spiritual things he enjoys in this world have a source and a root, and the source and root of every pleasure is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And clearly, since Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source and root of all pleasures, if I connect with Him, my pleasure will be a thousand or a million times greater than the pleasure I get from all these physical things. What do I need them for? So contemplation of Hashem’s

1:06:25 Speaker 1 greatness brings a person to recognize that the greatest good for him, his greatest enjoyment and pleasure, will come from knowing Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He suddenly understands that if he learns Torah, if he learns Chassidus, if he thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, his enjoyment will be a thousand or a million times greater than what he gets from anything physical in the world. So he will stop wanting those things. Contemplation causes love to shed its physical garments and become invested in G-dliness, in spirituality. Because he suddenly realizes that all the pleasures he has known until now are utterly nullified. “And all before Him are truly considered as nothing”; there is no comparison or likeness between them at all, G-d forbid—between physical pleasure and pleasure in G-dliness. So what does he need all those physical pleasures for? Just as... He gives an analogy, a wonderful analogy. Just as absolute nothingness cannot be compared to eternal life. There’s a little insight tucked away in here. We talked about it on Monday, or I don’t remember when. In numbers, in number theory, there is the finite compared to the infinite. One compared to a million is finite. What is one out of a million? It’s nothing. But, huh? One out of a million. Add another one and I’ve come a little closer to a million.

1:08:01 Speaker 9 Thank you very much.

1:08:03 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:08:03 Speaker 9 Tell me, tell me, tell me.

1:08:05 Speaker 1 What?

1:08:05 Speaker 9 It wasn’t a little.

1:08:07 Speaker 1 I didn’t get stuck.

1:08:11 Speaker 9 What?

1:08:11 Speaker 1 One compared to a very large number... But one compared to infinity—is there a difference between one compared to infinity and a million compared to infinity? It’s the same thing. There’s no difference. Right? The finite compared to the infinite. Clear?

1:08:28 Speaker 9 Yes.

1:08:28 Speaker 1 Very clear. Good. And there’s another kind of non-comparison. There’s no comparison between zero and one. Right? If we multiply zero by ten, have we come closer to one? Take a million zeros. Have we come closer? We haven’t. This is zero and this is one. It’s a difference beyond comparison. Right? So there’s no comparison between zero and one, and there’s no comparison between the finite and the infinite. The difference between physical pleasures—even spiritual ones—and pleasure in G-dliness is like the difference between zero and infinity. It’s like... two leaps.

1:09:17 Speaker 9 I have to ask Dvir so I can understand.

1:09:19 Speaker 1 We said there’s no comparison between zero and one, and no comparison between the finite and the infinite.

1:09:26 Speaker 9 Right.

1:09:27 Speaker 1 The difference between pleasures, even the spiritual pleasures of this world, and pleasure in G-dliness is like the difference between zero and infinity. The Rebbe says it here in just a few words. “As it is written: ‘Whom have I in heaven? And with You, I desire nothing.’” Even the loftiest things—since they are only “with You” and not You Yourself—I do not desire them; I don’t want them. “‘On earth, my flesh and my heart yearn; the Rock of my heart,’ and so on,” as will be explained below. “And even one who does not have this aspect of love in his soul invested in any physical pleasure at all.” Now that’s already a problem. What did we say? Through contemplation of G-dliness, love sheds its physical garments and becomes invested in spiritual pleasure, pleasure in G-dliness. Right? Well? This person is cold; he doesn’t... He has no feelings. He doesn’t love anything; he isn’t drawn to anything. Love... He has no capacity for love at all. So how can he awaken love? There’s nothing there to shed its garments. The Alter Rebbe says: That’s not the issue. Even someone whose love is not invested in physical or spiritual pleasures can “set his soul aflame like fiery sparks and a fierce flame, and kindle the fire of love through the above contemplation, as will be explained below.” The Alter Rebbe says it makes no difference. A person cannot come along and say: What do you want from me? I’m a cold person; I’m not emotional. The pleasures of this world don’t speak to me, so pleasure in G-dliness won’t speak to me either. There’s no such thing. Contemplate G-dliness, and you will have love. When it comes to the things of this world, there are people who aren’t drawn to them; we know that. It’s possible for someone not to be drawn to the pleasures of the world. But a person who isn’t drawn to G-dliness—we haven’t heard of that. The Alter Rebbe says that a person may not be drawn to material things; yes, I know people like that. But a person who contemplates Hashem’s greatness and doesn’t...

1:11:37 Speaker 1 To go beyond himself and begin to feel drawn to G-dliness? I’ve never heard of such a thing. It doesn’t happen. If you contemplate the greatness of Hashem, you’ll come to love Hashem. And about this he says—if we remember, we spoke about two kinds of love: love that comes on its own, and love that comes through contemplation. Right? About love that comes on its own, we said there’s no way to bring it about. It comes by itself when a person has fear of Hashem. As for love that comes through contemplation, he says: “This kind of love”—the love that depends on us—“sometimes precedes fear.” The order is that the beginning, mainstay, and root of the service of Hashem is fear, and afterward comes love. But when we’re speaking of ahavas olam, it can sometimes happen that a person loves Hashem before he fears Hashem. He has no kabbolas ol, certainly no fear of sin, not even fear of G-d, and beyond that, he commits sins. He’s disconnected; he’s completely secular, doesn’t keep mitzvos, and doesn’t see himself as connected to Torah and mitzvos, and certainly not to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—to anything. Even in such a person, genuine love of Hashem can sometimes awaken. Real love. “This kind of love sometimes precedes fear.” Why? “According to the faculty of daas that gives rise to it.” As we know, emotions are aroused through daas. A person focuses his mind and contemplates deeply and persistently, as we said in chapter 3. And since daas includes chassadim and gevuros, he says in parentheses that daas includes chassadim and gevuros, which are love and fear, and sometimes the chassadim are the first to descend and become revealed. So it’s possible for a wicked person who commits sins to do teshuvah out of love without first having fear. This love is “born in his heart when he remembers Hashem his G-d.” Suddenly something happens and reminds him that Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists in the world, and in an instant he is transformed, filled entirely with longing and a burning fire of love for Hashem, without first having fear. Nevertheless, fear is also

1:14:12 Speaker 1 included in that love, but only in a small and hidden way. What does that mean? It means a fear of sinning by rebelling against Him. Since he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he doesn’t want to rebel against Him. The love, though, is revealed in his heart and mind. But love preceding fear is not the usual thing. It happens only as an exception, a special occurrence through Divine Providence from Hashem for the need of the moment, as in the story of Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya. The Gemara tells us that he committed every sin in the world. The Gemara goes into detail about the sins he pursued: he searched even across the seas for places where he could commit sins. He actually looked for a sin he hadn’t yet committed, and rushed to commit it. In the end, someone said something to him, and suddenly, in an instant, he came to his senses. He went and sat between two mountains, put his head between his knees, and wept until his soul departed. The love of Hashem that awoke within him was so great that he began to cry. He couldn’t contain the love in his heart, and he passed away. His soul left his body. His soul became so attached to G-dliness that it left his body and never returned. And we’re talking about someone who had committed the gravest sins imaginable. But that is called an exception for the need of the moment. In other words, sometimes Hakadosh Boruch Hu—Hakadosh Boruch Hu is a compassionate and merciful Father, and He wants what is good for every Jew. When He sees that a person is in a place where... there’s no chance, there’s nothing to be done, he’s not going to do teshuvah. Right? He’s not going to contemplate. Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, okay, no problem. You won’t come through fear? He awakens you through love. So that is an exception. But in the regular order of serving Hashem, which depends on a person’s own choice, there must first be the observance of Torah and mitzvos through fear—

1:16:17 Speaker 1 lower-level fear, at least in its lesser form. In other words, at least kabbolas ol; at least fear of sin, if not fear of G-d. He must turn from evil and do good. Then Torah and mitzvos will illuminate his G-dly soul with the light of Torah and its mitzvos, and afterward the light of love will shine upon it. For the numerical value of “Ve’ahavta” is twice that of “or,” meaning “light,” as those familiar with the mystical teachings know: one light is the light of Torah, and the second is the light of love. So “You shall love Hashem your G-d”—by observing Torah and mitzvos, he brings the light of Torah into his soul, and the light of G-dliness, the light of love, will shine there. That’s the end of our chapter. So in this chapter, the Rebbe explained that there are... He didn’t say exactly how. He didn’t really explain how to reach love of Hashem, or so much how to reach fear of Hashem. He explained in general that there are two levels of fear and two levels of love. He explained that a person cannot attain ahavah rabbah, love of delights, through his own efforts, and that the usual order of serving Hashem is lower-level fear, followed by observing Torah and mitzvos with love—with ahavas olam. If he continues to contemplate, he can also reach higher-level fear, and afterward perhaps even love of delights. That is what this chapter explained. The next chapter begins to connect these ideas to us. When a person thinks about this—after all, we are beinonim. When you tell a beinoni, “Contemplate the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof, Who created the worlds,” that can work. It’s beautiful; a person can get himself inspired when he’s at a class or when he’s... But we don’t live with that. The Rebbe wants this to be like the fear of sin we discussed: something tangible that I can live with day to day. All the levels of love and fear discussed here also need to be practical for us. The Rebbe doesn’t leave us up in the air. So after explaining in this chapter what love is, and the two levels of love

1:18:44 Speaker 1 and fear, he’ll explain in the following chapters how I can contemplate, and what I should contemplate, so that this becomes something practical and tangible that I can live with day to day, and so that this love awakens within me—all of it, love and fear at all their levels. And we’ll see that it’s possible to reach even further through the simplest contemplation.