Likkutei Amarim Chapter 43 (Part 1) · 5785

00:00 Speaker 1 Mine, actually, is the second one.

00:01 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. I know. The second one.

00:05 Speaker 1 Mine.

00:06 Speaker 13 We’re up to chapter 43. Last time, for example, we started a few lines, but it was right at the end of the class. In the previous two chapters, chapters 41 and 42, the Alter Rebbe began discussing serving Hashem—serving Hashem inwardly. What kind of contemplation should a person develop in order to serve Hashem with love and fear, so that his observance of mitzvos is permeated with love and fear of Hashem? He began those two chapters by saying that the root, the main thing, the foundation of all service of Hashem, is fear. Because if a person—

00:50 Speaker 2 Love and fear, no?

00:51 Speaker 13 The foundation, the beginning of the service, its essence and its root, is fear. After that, the service itself is love, but the beginning, the root, the foundation, is fear. So he explained why. If a person serves Hashem only out of love, then he isn’t serving Hashem. In general, love means a person does something because it feels good to him. It feels good to me. So if he serves Hashem only out of love, he isn’t serving Hashem; he’s serving himself. That’s why, even when a person serves Hashem and observes mitzvos out of love, the love itself has to be permeated with fear. Otherwise, it isn’t service of Hashem. He’s working hard, but he isn’t serving Hashem; he’s serving himself. So the beginning, the root, the foundation, is fear. And within fear itself, he spoke about and explained, in general terms, three levels of fear, all three of which are the foundation, the beginning of the service. First of all, he said a person needs simply to have kabbolas ol. Kabbolas ol isn’t fear; it isn’t an emotion. He takes it upon himself. There’s someone worthy of being a flesh-and-blood king, right? And I understand that he’s worthy. I accept in advance that I’ll do whatever he says. It’s more a matter of a decision than—how does a person reach such a... What contemplation brings a person to such a firm decision? He thinks about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King, King of the entire world. He created the entire world. He is worthy of being King, and I am worthy of being His servant. So I take it upon myself... That isn’t enough. Why isn’t it enough? First of all,

02:43 Speaker 13 It isn’t fear; it isn’t an emotion. It’s kabbolas ol, more of an intellectual decision. A decision isn’t an emotion. In other words, for the service to be inward and personal, there has to be an emotion. And more importantly, if a person has only kabbolas ol, fine, then he won’t commit transgressions. This is permitted, that’s forbidden, and he won’t do what’s forbidden. But when won’t he commit transgressions? As long as he isn’t faced with some special temptation, some... When a person is in a difficult situation, facing a real test, when something is hard for him to observe, kabbolas ol isn’t always enough. True, I made a decision, but for a person to withstand harder tests as well, a decision isn’t enough; accepting it upon oneself isn’t enough. There also has to be an emotion of fear. So he said that kabbolas ol alone isn’t enough; there also needs to be some kind of fear. What is the basic fear, the minimum fear required of everyone? He said it’s fear of sin. Even within fear of sin, he explained, there are several levels. It’s like a person saying, “As long as no one sees me.” Right? A person commits a transgression only if no one sees him. Right? That’s already close to kabbolas ol. It’s something... No, it isn’t fear of punishment.

04:22 Speaker 2 Really?

04:22 Speaker 13 It isn’t fear of punishment.

04:23 Speaker 2 Fear of what people will think.

04:24 Speaker 13 It isn’t fear of punishment. When a person does things he knows aren’t socially acceptable, he thinks, “As long as no one sees.” Why do you care? Why do you care if they see you? You aren’t committing a transgression. No, it’s uncomfortable. Right? There are things a person wouldn’t do in public because people would see him. Right?

04:40 Speaker 2 So that’s one level. But another level of fear is fear of punishment.

04:46 Speaker 13 Fear of punishment isn’t fear at all.

04:48 Speaker 2 It isn’t fear?

04:49 Speaker 13 He isn’t afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu at all; he’s afraid for himself.

04:53 Speaker 2 Yes, he’s afraid of sin, because he’ll be punished if he isn’t afraid.

04:55 Speaker 13 No, no. He isn’t afraid of sin at all; he’s afraid of the punishment. It has nothing to do with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It has nothing to do with G-dliness, nothing to do with holiness. He’s simply afraid of getting hurt.

05:08 Speaker 2 Yes, but who is it that punishes him in the end?

05:11 Speaker 13 Fear of punishment isn’t a level in serving Hashem.

05:15 Speaker 2 It isn’t?

05:16 Speaker 13 It isn’t even kabbolas ol. It’s nothing.

05:20 Speaker 2 That’s strange, because I know I’m violating a mitzvah that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave, and I know there’s reward and punishment in the world, so what does that mean?

05:31 Speaker 13 If a person fears the punishment, he doesn’t care at all who gives it. What do I care who gives the punishment? I know He gives punishment, fine, but I don’t care about Him. I care about the punishment. I care about myself.

05:44 Speaker 2 It’s not the punishment itself. It’s like when a child does something at home.

05:51 Speaker 13 Yes.

05:51 Speaker 2 And he says, “Oh no, my father and mother will be angry with me.”

05:53 Speaker 13 Yes.

05:54 Speaker 2 Right?

05:54 Speaker 13 Yes.

05:54 Speaker 2 They’ll be angry with me. I don’t know what punishment they’ll give me, but I also know they’ll be angry.

06:00 Speaker 13 So what hurts him? Does it hurt him that his father and mother are upset, or is it the punishment that hurts?

06:07 Speaker 2 What hurts?

06:07 Speaker 14 His father and mother.

06:08 Speaker 2 But he doesn’t, he isn’t hurt—

06:10 Speaker 14 He feels bad for his parents.

06:11 Speaker 2 Yes, he does feel bad. That comes with it too. Well, not every child.

06:16 Speaker 13 So that’s—

06:17 Speaker 2 Not in every case.

06:18 Speaker 13 Fair enough, these things get mixed together. True. But if a person’s fear is the reason he doesn’t commit transgressions—because he’s afraid he’ll go to Gehinnom—he simply isn’t serving Hashem.

06:30 Speaker 14 He’s afraid of the punishment.

06:31 Speaker 13 Huh?

06:32 Speaker 2 Really?

06:32 Speaker 13 Really, really.

06:33 Speaker 2 People today who do mitzvos because they say, “Oh, there’s reward and punishment,” mean—

06:38 Speaker 13 He isn’t serving Hashem. No.

06:40 Speaker 2 So how should he serve Hashem?

06:41 Speaker 13 That’s what we’re discussing. That’s what we’re talking about.

06:43 Speaker 14 With love and fear.

06:44 Speaker 2 With love and fear.

06:45 Speaker 13 Yes.

06:45 Speaker 2 And aren’t there levels to this, to fear? Aren’t there levels?

06:48 Speaker 13 There are, there are, and that’s what we’re discussing. But fear of punishment has no connection at all to serving Hashem.

06:54 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:56 Speaker 13 It has no connection. With kabbolas ol, he accepts the yoke of the King. At least he relates to the King. He doesn’t feel anything, but at least he relates to the King. It’s because of Him that he doesn’t do it. There’s some kind of service of Him here, so that’s already something.

07:15 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:15 Speaker 13 With fear of punishment, he doesn’t relate to Him at all. The King isn’t in the picture.

07:19 Speaker 2 Where did we put that?

07:20 Speaker 15 Okay.

07:26 Speaker 2 That’s an inverter, right? Is that an inverter?

07:28 Speaker 15 Yes.

07:29 Speaker 13 An inverter. I don’t know; you can’t tell from the outside.

07:32 Speaker 15 All right, it’s fine like this.

07:33 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. No, because it reminds me of ours—it looks like our air conditioner, and...

07:38 Speaker 15 We did twenty-one.

07:39 Speaker 13 So we said that the basic thing is kabbolas ol, which isn’t connected to an emotion in the heart. It comes from recognizing that Hashem is King, King of the world, and that He created the world. Then, beyond that, there’s the fear Rabbi Yochanan spoke of when he told his students: Understand that when a person commits a transgression, he says, “May no one see me.” He relates to Hakadosh Boruch Hu as though someone is watching him. Right? It isn’t that he’s afraid He’ll punish him. It’s uncomfortable for people to know I’m doing something wrong; it’s uncomfortable. But that still isn’t fear; it’s still just... It may be more than kabbolas ol, because there is already a little emotion here, but he still isn’t afraid of the sin. He’s uncomfortable about the other person seeing him, but the sin itself doesn’t bother him yet. Right? So beyond that, there’s also what’s called fear of sin. Now he’s afraid of sin. He understands that sin is something bad. He’s afraid to commit transgressions. He isn’t afraid that people will see him, or of what they’ll say. He doesn’t want to do it. He knows Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want it done. It isn’t good; he doesn’t want to do it. So how can I do something Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want? Again, it isn’t that he’s concerned about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s not the point here. He isn’t thinking about the G-dliness in it. He isn’t thinking about the One Who commands, only about the thing itself. We often see people among us say to someone—or hear one person say about another—“How can you do that? It says so in Shulchan Aruch! How can you do such a thing?” “Oh, it says so in Shulchan Aruch? Oh!” Right? What does it mean that it says so in Shulchan Aruch?

09:16 Speaker 13 When you tell someone something like that, or he hears it from others, he doesn’t think, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu said so.” He thinks about the sin. He talks about the sin. That’s what troubles him. So how do you reach that kind of fear? In the analogy, it’s not just that there’s a king in the world. It’s not just kabbolas ol—there’s a king—but that the king has commanded people to conduct themselves in a certain way. There’s a king who gave orders to the people of his country, and I’m one of them, and I can’t do something that goes against what the king commanded. So a person reflects on that. It’s already like someone standing in the king’s courtyard or in the king’s country. He still isn’t afraid of the king himself, but he is afraid of the king’s actions, of how the king governs. How do you reach that kind of fear? This is already fear; it’s already called fear of sin, a level of fear. He explained that you reflect on how Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the entire world and watches over it. You think about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives you life, brings you into being, and directs you at every moment. Just as the king governs the country, and therefore I fear the king and his commands, so too, if a person gets used to thinking that Hakadosh Boruch Hu governs the entire world, gives it life, and brings it into being, he’ll get used to fearing sin. But that still isn’t enough. Why not? Because even fear of sin is, in the end, fear. What is he afraid of? He’s afraid of transgressing a commandment. That won’t bring him to fulfill the positive mitzvos. Why? Because he doesn’t

11:17 Speaker 13 feel the king. He feels only how the king governs; he doesn’t yet feel the king himself. So when does that happen? The Alter Rebbe explains there that there’s another level—we’re still talking entirely about the lower fear. Within that lower fear there are several levels. After kabbolas ol and fear of sin, each of which has several levels of its own, he says there is something higher than fear of sin, called fear of G-d. With fear of G-d, he no longer fears the sin; he fears G-d, the king. It’s like someone who isn’t merely in the king’s country. He’s in a room with the king. He fears the king. And again, we’re not talking about being afraid that the king will do something to him. No. The very fact that a person is in the presence of a great king inspires fear. What kind of reflection will bring a person to this fear of G-d? Reflecting that Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t merely govern the world: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the soul of the world, and the whole world is only His garments and His body. When a person gets used to seeing the world not merely as a country governed by the king, but as the king’s body, then, just as someone who sees a physical king isn’t afraid of the king’s flesh—he fears the king’s soul, the king’s personality—so when he gets used to seeing the world as the body of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he’ll come to fear the soul, so to speak: Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself.

13:00 Speaker 16 He sees the body? What does that mean?

13:02 Speaker 13 He gave an analogy earlier. We actually talked about this.

13:04 Speaker 16 Oh, last week?

13:06 Speaker 13 Yes. See, you weren’t here. He gave the analogy of a person standing before a king. What is he afraid of? He feels fear. He fears the king, right?

13:16 Speaker 16 Yes, I understood that. But you said he sees the king’s body.

13:19 Speaker 13 Yes. When a person sees the king, he doesn’t see the king’s mind and feelings, his soul. He sees his body. The king’s body is no different from anyone else’s. Why is he afraid of this person and not that one? He doesn’t see the soul; he doesn’t see the difference. So why is he afraid of this one?

13:35 Speaker 16 I don’t know.

13:36 Speaker 13 Because he knows that within the king, within that body, there’s a soul that’s something special, unlike everyone else’s. He fears the soul, though he can’t see it. So what are you afraid of—something you can’t see? The point is that when he sees the body, he knows there’s a soul there. Nobody has to explain it to him. He sees the body and knows it. He explains this at length. Similarly, if it’s clear to a person—he has to train himself. It has to be like a craftsman. Emunah comes from the word—

14:06 Speaker 16 Emunah.

14:06 Speaker 13 Emunah comes from the word for craftsmanship. He constantly trains himself to reflect, to think about the world as the body. Our Sages said that just as the soul fills the body, so Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills the world. The world is like one great body. So when a person gets used to thinking of the world as the body of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak—just as with a king he fears the soul and not the body, the same applies here. He explained it at length, with two analogies and many details, why this will also bring a person to...

14:46 Speaker 16 It isn’t easy.

14:47 Speaker 13 So—

14:48 Speaker 17 Pleasant.

14:49 Speaker 13 So again, there’s the basic fear, called kabbolas ol: there’s a king, and I accept his kingship. Beyond that, there’s fear arising from how the king governs the country. Then the fear is of sin; it’s called fear of sin. And there’s a deeper fear called fear of G-d. With fear of G-d, he fears the king himself. All right?

15:18 Speaker 16 Yes.

15:19 Speaker 13 There were five or six levels there, and other points as well. He also spoke about love of Hashem in the middle, but broadly speaking, those two chapters discussed these three levels of fear. The Alter Rebbe called all three together “the beginning of avodah, and its essence and root,” and you need all three. You need kabbolas ol, because without it there’s nothing. You need fear of sin, because without it you won’t manage to withstand difficult tests. And you also need fear of G-d, because without it, fear might help you turn away from evil, but it won’t help you do good. When a person feels the king himself, that will also motivate him to do good. That’s how he explained it. Now he begins chapter 43: “And concerning this lower fear.” Which lower fear? The last fear we discussed, fear of G-d. We called it lower fear: it’s the highest level within lower fear, but it’s still lower fear. “Concerning this lower fear, which leads to the fulfillment of His mitzvos, both in turning away from evil and doing good”—because this is a fear that also leads to doing good, primarily fear of G-d. It’s about this fear that they said, “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.” Our Sages said, “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, there is no fear.” Where is that written?

16:59 Speaker 18 Where?

16:59 Speaker 13 Pirkei Avos. Right. So where do you start?

17:05 Speaker 18 What do you mean?

17:07 Speaker 13 Our Sages said—

17:07 Speaker 18 Just for a person down here?

17:09 Speaker 13 Yes. What is a person supposed to—Our Sages said that if there’s no fear, a person without fear cannot have wisdom. If there’s no wisdom, he cannot have fear.

17:18 Speaker 18 So you’re asking which comes first?

17:19 Speaker 13 No, what does he start with? He can’t have wisdom because he has no fear, and he can’t have fear because he has no wisdom.

17:25 Speaker 18 He’ll start with fear.

17:26 Speaker 13 Ah, but he can’t start with fear because he has no wisdom.

17:29 Speaker 18 Once he has fear, he’ll have wisdom.

17:31 Speaker 13 But it says, “If there is no wisdom, there is no fear.”

17:34 Speaker 19 One helps the other. So which one comes first? That’s...

17:38 Speaker 13 One of them, if one can’t exist without the other.

17:41 Speaker 18 That means he has to start by acquiring—

17:42 Speaker 19 Both at the same time, like that.

17:44 Speaker 13 No.

17:45 Speaker 18 No?

17:46 Speaker 13 Absolutely not.

17:46 Speaker 19 Maybe wisdom comes before fear?

17:48 Speaker 13 Certainly not. How can there be wisdom if there’s no fear?

17:51 Speaker 18 Let’s hear what you have to say.

17:55 Speaker 13 At least you understand the question. That’s something.

17:57 Speaker 18 Yes, of course. At least we understand the question.

18:01 Speaker 13 I have a rather long story, but now...

18:05 Speaker 19 You can, you can.

18:05 Speaker 18 Then don’t say that—you’ve made us curious.

18:07 Speaker 19 Can I tell it now? I have to get there. I already told you, it’s already [unclear]. I still have [unclear].

18:13 Speaker 18 Tell the story. Make it a long story.

18:15 Speaker 19 No, I want to give you the phone number I asked you about yesterday.

18:19 Speaker 18 Oh yes, because they didn’t, didn’t—

18:22 Speaker 13 When the Rebbe accepted the nesius, in his first maamar of Chassidus he told a story about each of the Rebbeim. A story about each one—the whole maamar is—

18:32 Speaker 19 Who told it?

18:32 Speaker 13 The Rebbe.

18:33 Speaker 19 Oh. No, I didn’t hear.

18:34 Speaker 13 So each story is about a line, a line to a line and a half. Each story. Now, the stories originally are stories told by the Frierdiker Rebbe. They’re stories, actual stories. He tells six—seven—six stories, one about each of the Rebbes. Each story tells... Well, you can tell stories briefly, too. So the point of one story was about a chossid whose way, when someone asked him a question, was first to explain the question. And if, by the end, they understood the question, then he would also explain the main point. The main thing was to understand the question. So they say that once—the Frierdiker Rebbe relates that once people came to ask him something. It was already afternoon; he had finished davening, and he had been up since Tikkun Chatzos. He had already had a very, very long day and wanted to go home for a break before Mincha. He was the sort of person who just sat and learned and davened all day. In the afternoon, he wanted to take a short break, eat something, and return to the beis midrash. Then a group of bochurim and young married men approached him and stopped him to ask about something they hadn’t understood in the maamar the Rebbe had said the previous Shabbos. He said, “Your question is a deep question, and we need to understand the question. Come, let’s go out.” They started walking, walking out of town. Another hour passed, and another, and another. As they walked, he explained their question to them, and kept explaining it, until evening came and then night. It was time to daven Maariv, so they returned. They... I don’t remember in the end whether he finished explaining the question to them or not, but the Frierdiker Rebbe... Look.

20:18 Speaker 13 Among chassidim they say—well, you know, some people like to ask a challenging question. “I have a question.” He has one, yes, he does. He wants to show that he has one, that he knows how to learn, that he knows how to find a difficulty. Among chassidim they say: when you come to ask a question about Torah, it has to be a good question. You’re about to challenge the authority of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The question had better be good. Whether you get an answer or not is less important. The Torah is certainly right, but make sure you establish your question properly. All right, we’ve gone on at length where we should have been brief. So where did we start? We understood the question, yes.

21:10 Speaker 20 If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.

21:10 Speaker 13 If there is no fear, there is no wisdom. No fear. So what do we start with? The Alter Rebbe says as follows. Regarding that fear which we called fear of G-d, which leads to observing His mitzvos by turning away from evil and doing good, and which precedes the observance of Torah and mitzvos, it was said: “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.” Wisdom means Hashem’s wisdom, Torah and mitzvos. You can’t truly observe Torah and mitzvos without fear, so fear of G-d, fear of Hashem, is the gateway to observing the Torah. That is what “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom” means. Before he goes further, the Rebbe adds in parentheses: “And within it there is a lesser level and a greater level.” Within what are there lesser and greater levels? Within that third level of fear that we called fear of G-d. It itself has a lesser and a greater level. In other words, the Rebbe is telling us that there is a fourth level within the lower fear. Besides kabbolas ol and fear of sin, there is fear of G-d. And fear of G-d has two levels. Its lesser level is what he discussed in the previous chapter. Its greater level is when this fear comes from contemplating Hashem’s greatness—how He fills all worlds, and the distance from earth to the firmament, and so on. Here’s what he means. What did we say fear of G-d is? A person looks at the world and contemplates how the entire world is the King’s body. That is fear of G-d. He feels himself to be in the King’s presence. What did he contemplate in the previous chapter? Who was the King, and what was the King’s body? The world. Yes. But until now you were contemplating the physical world. And who was the King you contemplated as present within that world? The G-dly life-force that gives life to the physical world. Yes. If you contemplate that the King’s body is not the physical world but the spiritual worlds, and you grasp in your mind the vastness, the power of the spiritual worlds, and understand that the King gives life to those worlds, your fear will be

23:42 Speaker 13 much greater. Why? Which king do you fear more? What determines how much a person fears a king?

23:55 Speaker 20 The greatness of the king?

23:56 Speaker 13 The greatness of the king. The greater the king, the more a person naturally fears him, right? How is a king’s greatness expressed?

24:05 Speaker 20 In the territory he rules over?

24:08 Speaker 13 The more people he has in his country. A great king has many people; a small king is king over some town or other. It says that when Yehoshua conquered the land, there were thirty-one kings. There’s an opinion—Rashi cites it—that the kings didn’t all live in the land. And there’s an opinion that all thirty-one kings were in the land. So what did “king” mean? There was a town here, and a town there, and another town there.

24:39 Speaker 20 Every mayor.

24:40 Speaker 13 Yes, every... How many towns were there here, how many people? Each town had maybe thirty houses. Is that a king? He’s a king too, but not like someone who... Yes. So it’s the same idea. If the king a person contemplates is the King of this physical world, that’s already fear of G-d. He fears the King. But what sort of king? If he contemplates how all the worlds are His body, as he’ll explain shortly, then the greater the world—the body—the greater the King, and that will bring him to much deeper fear. So he gives some detail about what the greater level is. Again, the greater level of fear of G-d. We’re still talking about the lower fear, yes? We’re not talking about the higher fear yet. This is only a fourth level within the lower fear. “That is, when this fear comes from contemplating Hashem’s greatness, how He fills all worlds.” What does it mean that He fills all worlds? That He gives life not only to this world but to all the worlds. What are all the worlds? He says: first, let’s look just at our own world. Our Sages said that from the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years. What does that number mean?

25:58 Speaker 20 Five hundred.

25:59 Speaker 13 Five hundred. Yes. And what does “and so on” refer to? The distances between one firmament and the next, and so on. From the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years. What distance is a five-hundred-year journey in physical terms? Well, how far does an average person walk in a day? Our Sages said that, on average, a person walks ten parsaos in a day—forty kilometers. Say a person gets up and has to reach somewhere, I don’t know where.

26:31 Speaker 20 Work.

26:32 Speaker 13 Not work. He needs to get somewhere. He’s going up to Jerusalem for the festival, and he lives in Bavel. Yes, he lives far away, and he has no wagon and no money. He has to walk; there’s no choice. He knows the distance and works it out.

26:45 Speaker 20 Today they have that thing there, the...

26:47 Speaker 13 Huh?

26:47 Speaker 20 Today they have that thing that counts steps.

26:49 Speaker 13 Yes, yes. So our Sages made the calculation: an average person gets up at dawn, davens, and starts walking until sunset. He walks slowly; he doesn’t run. An average person, on an ordinary day, walks at a normal, slow pace of four kilometers an hour, perhaps with a donkey or something. He walks for ten hours: forty kilometers. That’s forty kilometers a day, ten parsaos. Now, if he walks every day for a whole year, that’s quite a distance. He could circle the whole earth. And if he does that for five hundred years, that’s a distance. So our Sages said that the distance from the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years. Then the thickness of the firmament is also a five-hundred-year journey.

27:42 Speaker 20 Oh, so it’s not a distance? Five hundred, you mean.

27:45 Speaker 13 A five-hundred-year journey. Yes.

27:48 Speaker 20 No, what you’re saying is a journey of five hundred years.

27:51 Speaker 13 Right?

27:51 Speaker 20 Not, like, five hundred kilometers.

27:54 Speaker 13 Not five hundred kilometers.

27:55 Speaker 20 No, no.

27:55 Speaker 13 The distance a person walks in five hundred years...

27:59 Speaker 20 He worked it out: if it’s forty kilometers a day...

28:03 Speaker 13 That’s also more than five hundred thousand kilometers. Now work it out. Do forty—forty kilo... No, let’s say three hundred and fifty walking days a year. So that’s forty times three hundred and fifty.

28:17 Speaker 20 Well, even just three hundred, allowing for festivals.

28:20 Speaker 13 Forty times three—forty times three hundred times five hundred. What does that come to? That’s what they call a journey.

28:28 Speaker 20 Try walking—try walking half of that.

28:32 Speaker 13 That’s, that’s...

28:33 Speaker 20 I understood it differently.

28:36 Speaker 13 That’s, that’s the plain meaning. That’s the plain meaning of what our Sages said.

28:40 Speaker 20 Yes, it’s not...

28:40 Speaker 13 So the journey from the earth to the firmament is five hundred years. The entire thickness of the firmament is also five hundred years. The firmament has... Now—

28:49 Speaker 20 Endless.

28:51 Speaker 13 Now, there are seven firmaments, so each firmament is also five hundred years, and between each firmament and the next there’s also a gap of five hundred years, just like from the earth to the firmament. Yes?

29:06 Speaker 20 I wonder whether, if they’d had the concept of a spaceship back then, it would have been included.

29:08 Speaker 13 Wait, we haven’t finished yet.

29:12 Speaker 20 Well, I think you read that quickly.

29:13 Speaker 13 It’ll be even, it’ll be even. So how many stretches of five hundred years do we have altogether? We have seven heavens and seven spaces, plus the distance from the earth to the first heaven. So how many altogether?

29:31 Speaker 20 Between seven heavens there are six spaces.

29:34 Speaker 13 What? Right.

29:35 Speaker 20 And from the earth...

29:36 Speaker 13 Yes, and the thickness—yes, the thickness of the earth itself is also five hundred. We forgot that.

29:41 Speaker 20 So eight. So fifteen.

29:43 Speaker 13 Fifteen.

29:44 Speaker 20 Fifteen times five hundred.

29:45 Speaker 13 Yes? What is it? What does that remind you of? Who’s the first to come up with it?

29:50 Speaker 20 What? The number fifteen?

29:53 Speaker 13 Yes. I’ll give you a hint. The connection between five hundred and fifteen—what does it remind you of?

30:02 Speaker 20 Hashem’s name? Ah, too bad.

30:05 Speaker 13 You’ve never heard of 515?

30:08 Speaker 20 Oh, no. Yes.

30:10 Speaker 13 Oh, yes. Ah, ah, ah, come on, come on.

30:11 Speaker 20 You see?

30:13 Speaker 13 Yes, yes.

30:14 Speaker 20 Va’eschanan—what?

30:15 Speaker 13 Exactly. When Moshe Rabbeinu... Hakadosh Boruch Hu decreed that he would not enter the Land. So it says, “And I pleaded with Hashem at that time.” Chazal said that the numerical value of “va’eschanan” is 515: he pleaded with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, praying 515 prayers. But Chazal didn’t say that he prayed five hundred and fifteen prayers. Chazal said he prayed 515. One of the explanations in Chassidus is that he prayed fifteen times five hundred prayers. Meaning, his prayer reached above the source of all the worlds.

31:01 Speaker 20 In the end, he didn’t enter.

31:01 Speaker 3 Another year, another month, and you’re in the Land.

31:03 Speaker 20 He prayed and prayed, and nothing happened.

31:07 Speaker 13 Now, we see only this world. And when we’re told that there’s such-and-such a world, and a spiritual world, and more and more and more—all of that, all seven heavens, the five-hundred-year stretches, the fifteen times five hundred—that’s only the physical world.

31:23 Speaker 20 What?

31:23 Speaker 13 That’s only the physical world.

31:26 Speaker 20 I didn’t understand.

31:26 Speaker 13 It isn’t a spiritual world.

31:28 Speaker 20 Where?

31:29 Speaker 3 I thought the heavens were...

31:30 Speaker 20 All the heavens.

31:31 Speaker 13 All the heavens are part of the physical world.

31:34 Speaker 20 There are heavens?

31:36 Speaker 13 What can I tell you?

31:40 Speaker 3 How does that show up in our lives? What does it mean?

31:45 Speaker 20 Is that what you said?

31:46 Speaker 3 No, really, what kind of answer is that?

31:52 Speaker 13 There are several ways to explain it, but not right now. It’s complicated. It isn’t so relevant to us. Even on the physical level, we live in an enormous world. True, we don’t see or hear all the physical things that aren’t part of our world. But it says that the stars, the seven planets, have souls. And not only do they have souls—their souls have greater understanding than human beings, and they serve Hashem and pray. Their bodies are the spheres... that orbit the earth. Ah, this isn’t the place to get into that now.

32:49 Speaker 4 It’s interesting.

32:49 Speaker 13 Around the earth there are seven enormous spheres—not circles, enormous spheres, inside which—

32:59 Speaker 4 Wait, the sun also has angels.

33:01 Speaker 13 Within each sphere, fixed in some tiny corner of it, there’s also a star. And when that entire enormous sphere rotates, the star rotates along with it.

33:13 Speaker 4 What are planets?

33:15 Speaker 13 Planets are stars that move. Why do they move? Because they’re fixed inside these enormous spheres, and when the spheres rotate, the stars fixed inside them rotate too. Now, what are these spheres made of? After all, a spaceship travels through there and doesn’t bump into anything. But it says they’re physical matter. What kind of physical matter, I don’t know. What?

33:37 Speaker 4 You can’t see it?

33:39 Speaker 13 No, you can’t see it, hear it, or smell it. In today’s language it’s called empty space—the emptiness of space. What is it made of? Nobody knows. But it still isn’t—it's no longer physical matter [unclear].

33:54 Speaker 4 On a map it’s drawn as a sphere.

33:57 Speaker 13 What?

33:59 Speaker 4 On a map it’s drawn—

33:59 Speaker 13 No, the map shows only the star’s orbit. It doesn’t show the sphere itself. In any case, all of this... Certainly, if there is so much here in the physical world, then there is much more in the higher worlds. And all of this concerns only the physical world—its more refined part, and then an even more refined part. It’s all physical. Then he says something further: above all seven heavens are the feet of the chayos. The chayos are angels, among the greater angels. Their feet, the lowest level of those angels, are greater than all the... and so on. What does “and so on” mean? After the feet of the chayos, it speaks there of the legs of the chayos, their thighs, their heads, and their horns. Even among the chayos themselves, among the angels themselves, there are levels, and compared with each level, everything below it is nothing at all. And not only that: there is also the entire chain of all the spiritual worlds above these worlds, higher and higher, up to the loftiest heights, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to them all. So when a person contemplates and studies Kabbalah or Chassidus—the entire order of the worlds, all the ranks of angels, all the worlds and what is in them, described at tremendous, tremendous length in very many books and in great depth—and contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to all of it, that inspires a far greater awe than contemplating that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the physical world. Yes. This is awe of G-d, and that is awe of G-d. One is awe of G-d because Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the physical world. Here he contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to a world so vast, so immense, and it inspires a much deeper, much stronger awe. And then it’s... yes. And even so,

36:13 Speaker 13 it is called awe—an external, lower awe. Even though, certainly, when a person contemplates and pictures before his eyes the greatness of Hashem, who gives life to all the worlds, it can make him feel real fear. But it is still called external. Why? Because this awe is drawn from the worlds. What is he contemplating? He isn’t contemplating Hakadosh Boruch Hu; he’s contemplating how Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the worlds. What is the focus of all this awe? What is the person thinking about? How great is Hakadosh Boruch Hu—in what sense? In what He does. He isn’t thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself at all, only about His action. All the greatness of Hashem that he pictures—where is that greatness expressed? In His doing something in the worlds. So he hasn’t even begun to look at the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. He’s looking only at His action.

37:06 Speaker 5 But that’s not right. If someone does something, then what? You look at the action and say, “That couldn’t have been Ravit [unclear],” or “That couldn’t have been the rabbi,” or...

37:14 Speaker 13 Yes!

37:15 Speaker 5 So what? Why are you separating the two? They go together. That’s not right. It isn’t looking at—what distinction am I making? I’m looking—

37:23 Speaker 13 No, no, no. You’re r—you’re r—you’re right. You’re right, but what you’re saying isn’t correct.

37:28 Speaker 5 Why?

37:30 Speaker 13 You’re right in what you’re saying, but not in the substance of it, not in your understanding of it.

37:38 Speaker 5 Okay.

37:38 Speaker 13 When someone says, “Oh, Michael drank coffee.” Right? So what? Is drinking coffee Michael’s essence?

37:47 Speaker 5 If I mentioned it—no, I’m not describing his essence.

37:50 Speaker 13 Does it say something about his personality?

37:52 Speaker 5 No. But there are things—

37:55 Speaker 13 But there are things that can indicate—

37:57 Speaker 5 Some actions are significant. You’re talking about the world. So I say, “Wow, if Hakadosh Boruch Hu made this world...” I’m not look—I mean, that simply magnifies Hakadosh Boruch Hu—

38:08 Speaker 13 In what way?

38:09 Speaker 5 Because that action is something no one else is capable of doing.

38:11 Speaker 13 Exactly.

38:12 Speaker 5 It can be attributed only to Him.

38:13 Speaker 13 Exactly.

38:13 Speaker 5 But that magnifies Him, elevates Him.

38:15 Speaker 13 Exactly. And that’s why it inspires awe in me. But when you contemplate that, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, coming down and creating the world isn’t even like spitting—it is an immense lowering of Himself for Him.

38:28 Speaker 5 For Hakadosh Boruch Hu?

38:28 Speaker 13 Yes. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is infinite! To create a world? He didn’t even... how could He not... He didn’t even exert Himself.

38:36 Speaker 5 With sorrow and worry, that’s... that’s... that’s my [unclear].

38:39 Speaker 13 So, we’ll get to the analogy in a moment. We’ll see what it means, what higher-level awe is. Right now we’re talking about lower-level awe. And where does the greatness show itself? When you look at what He does. If He does something so great, then He must be... this and this and this. Right? It’s true that this is awe, and it can bring a person to very great awe. But ultimately, what is the awe of? It comes from contemplating His actions, not from contemplating Him. It’s like someone being impressed by a person who is, say, a great mathematician, when he’s playing with his child. The child is amazed: “Wow, Dad is so good at building things in the sand with me!” To the child, that’s... But for the father, it’s nothing at all. It isn’t who he is. So that’s why it’s called lower-level awe, awe of G-d. It can bring a person to genuine fear—not just awe, but genuine fear. But what is he afraid of? This is called external awe, since it is drawn from the worlds, which are the garments of the King, Who hides and conceals Himself within them and is enclothed in them to give them life and sustain them, bringing them into being from nothing, and so on. So if it’s only external awe, why do we need it at all? Go straight to... higher-level awe. No. This awe is the gateway and entrance to observing Torah and mitzvos. If a person has no awe, he won’t... he’ll serve himself, not Hashem. So first... That’s why our Sages said, “If there is no awe, there is no wisdom.” If a person doesn’t work on his awe of Hashem—both kabbolas ol and awe of G-d, both in its smaller and greater forms—then he isn’t serving G-d. When he serves G-d, he can have wisdom. He

40:44 Speaker 13 observes Torah and mitzvos genuinely, with feeling. So what is higher-level awe? Higher-level awe, the awe of shame, an inner awe, is drawn from the inner dimension of G-dliness within the worlds. About this they said, “If there is no wisdom, there is no awe.” So when our Sages said, “If there is no awe, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, there is no awe,” they were speaking about two different things. There is an aspect of wisdom that means observing Torah and mitzvos: without awe, a person’s observance won’t be genuine. “If there is no awe, there is no wisdom.” But there is another kind of awe, a higher awe, the awe of shame—being in awe of Hashem. That requires wisdom beforehand. What kind of wisdom prepares a person for that awe, and why is wisdom needed? Lower-level awe doesn’t require any preparation; it is itself the preparation. But without some preparation, a person cannot reach higher-level awe, and the preparation for reaching it is wisdom. What is the preparation, and what is the awe? Chochmah, wisdom, is koach mah—the capacity for self-nullification. As it says, “And wisdom—from where is it found?” Wisdom is a matter of bittul, self-nullification. Who is wise? Our Sages were precise in saying that the wise person “sees what is born.” Why did they say that a wise person sees what is born? Seemingly, you could work it out: if I let go of this cup now, will it fall?

42:36 Speaker 6 Obviously.

42:36 Speaker 13 Obviously. Do you have to be wise to know that?

42:39 Speaker 6 No.

42:39 Speaker 13 No. Why? Because it’s obvious. I understand it. If you understand something, you don’t need to see it. You can figure it out.

42:51 Speaker 6 Right.

42:51 Speaker 13 There’s gravity, and so on. If I eat, I won’t be hungry. If I move my legs, I’ll walk. If I study, I’ll become knowledgeable, and so on. Right? It’s cause and effect, a matter of doing a little figuring. Why do all the natural scientists talk so much about evolution? What assumption underlies their thinking? We see that everything causes the next thing, right? So if that’s the case, what came before that, and before that, and before that. Of course. Go backward, go forward. How can we calculate whether it will rain? Take the data from here, the data from there. The reason we don’t always succeed is that we don’t know enough; we don’t have all the data. If we had all the data, we could calculate exactly what happened and what will happen. We’ll gather more and more data, and eventually we’ll know everything. Right? That’s the basic idea. So why do you need to be wise to see what is born? If a person knows a lot and is intelligent, he can work it out. He doesn’t need to see. So here’s the precise meaning of “A wise person sees what is born”: he sees how everything is born and brought into being from nothing through the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth. A wise person is not someone who sees what will happen in the future. He sees what is born. Meaning, whenever he looks at anything in the world, what does he see? He sees how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is bringing it into being right now, from nothing.

44:46 Speaker 7 That’s a new interpretation.

44:47 Speaker 13 Huh?

44:48 Speaker 7 A new interpretation.

44:49 Speaker 13 Otherwise, it should have said, “Who is wise? One who understands what is born.” But it says a wise person sees what is born. Why does it specifically say “sees”? Because this is something you cannot understand. How can you understand how nothing becomes something? We can understand how a piece of metal becomes a utensil. You change its shape. But how does nothing become... become something? Once there is something, I can understand how to make something else out of it. But before that, there’s nothing. Try to picture it. Nothing. That doesn’t mean merely no earth, no sky, no... Nothing. When we try to picture nothing, what we imagine is

45:45 Speaker 7 Nothing.

45:45 Speaker 13 Empty space, right?

45:47 Speaker 7 Yes.

45:48 Speaker 13 But not a room. A room has walls.

45:50 Speaker 7 Nothing.

45:50 Speaker 13 Empty. There’s nothing. But even space didn’t exist. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created space. There’s nothing—not even space. There’s nothing from which to make anything. There isn’t even anywhere to make it. We can’t grasp it, right? A person can’t... It’s outside our frame of reference. A wise person is someone who looks at everything in the world and constantly sees how it comes into being from nothing.

46:31 Speaker 7 What does it look like to see that? What are you supposed to see? I mean, is it something...

46:37 Speaker 13 Does it happen in reality?

46:38 Speaker 7 Is it something... is it something within us too? I mean, is it something we can see?

46:46 Speaker 13 It’s something a person needs to contemplate constantly. And in the mind there are, broadly speaking, two faculties: understanding and chochmah. Understanding means grasping. To lift this cup into the air, I have to grasp it from two sides. You can’t grasp just one side; it won’t lift. Right? Grasping means enclosing the thing. With understanding, with binah, a person understands something: he encompasses it, it is contained within him, and that is why he grasps it. That is the nature of binah.

47:31 Speaker 7 Then why is it called seeing?

47:33 Speaker 13 That isn’t called seeing; it’s called understanding. It’s called hearing. Chochmah is the exact opposite of binah. Binah deals with something that exists, with grasping something. Chochmah deals with nothingness: there is nothing. I am not an independent existence. The wor—doesn’t exist. Only absolute nothingness, complete self-nullification, can be a vessel for the Infinite. As it says in the note in chapter 35 of Tanya, the light of the blessed Ein Sof rests only in the sefirah of chochmah. G-dliness can be revealed at all, can dwell within the worlds, because there is the sefirah of chochmah. The sefirah of chochmah is not an entity, not an expression, not anything. It is nothing, and there the light of the Ein Sof can dwell... So here we find that—

48:30 Speaker 8 I get it. I already understand how this relates to becoming a beinoni. I get it now.

48:40 Speaker 13 A wise person sees what is born. He doesn’t—With binah, you really can’t. With understanding, you can’t. It’s not possible... As it says—

48:55 Speaker 8 Sorry. How does it show itself, that he sees the... the... I mean, what exactly? How?

49:07 Speaker 13 What’s the difference if someone... What happened today? Well, today Mendy came back from visiting Amos. Right? He called and told me about it excitedly. I could hear his excitement, but I wasn’t excited. I know Amos. I wasn’t excited, I wasn’t excited. I can imagine what happened there, but I didn’t see it. I wasn’t there.

49:36 Speaker 8 Right.

49:38 Speaker 13 Why? Why am I excited—

49:39 Speaker 8 He was disappointed that you weren’t excited.

49:41 Speaker 13 He was disappointed? Of course he was. He’d been there, he’d been there. He called to—

49:45 Speaker 9 Make him happy.

49:46 Speaker 8 Poor guy.

49:48 Speaker 13 No, I understand it. When a person hears something, it doesn’t sink in deeply. Later you can tell him, “Did you hear it or didn’t you? You heard it wrong.” You can convince him otherwise. But could I be mistaken about what I saw? I saw it. Why are you telling me stories? Even fifty years later, I saw it with my own eyes.

50:10 Speaker 8 And when you saw it—

50:11 Speaker 13 Because when a person sees something, it is absorbed into the essence of his soul, even if he doesn’t understand it.

50:15 Speaker 8 Seeing is not the same as hearing.

50:19 Speaker 9 Mount Sinai.

50:20 Speaker 13 For example. This is explained in many places. When a person sees something, it isn’t absorbed through his intellect. He saw the picture, but he can’t explain it. Does that mean he doesn’t know it? On the contrary, he knows it so deeply that he can’t express it in words.

50:43 Speaker 8 Someone who... someone who...

50:44 Speaker 13 Sight is different because it goes beyond the person himself. Like every spiritual faculty, the faculty of chochmah has an expression in the physical body: sight. The thing is absorbed within him not detail after detail after detail, so that he builds it all up and grasps it as a whole. Rather, the whole thing is absorbed within him at once.

51:14 Speaker 8 So he takes all that in.

51:15 Speaker 13 He takes in the thing itself. When a person hears someone speaking behind a wall, he doesn’t take in the thing itself. He knows about it.

51:29 Speaker 8 Right, the experience isn’t the same experience.

51:31 Speaker 13 Through hearing, he knows about it.

51:33 Speaker 8 A different sense.

51:34 Speaker 13 He understands that something was there.

51:36 Speaker 8 Yes.

51:36 Speaker 13 When he sees it, the thing itself is absorbed within him.

51:40 Speaker 8 Sight activates all the senses.

51:42 Speaker 13 So that’s the difference. Similarly, that’s the difference between understanding and chochmah. Through understanding, he knows about G-dliness. He understands G-dliness. He grasps what can be grasped. G-dliness itself can be grasped only through the faculty of chochmah.

52:02 Speaker 8 Who merits that?

52:03 Speaker 13 Everyone. That’s why there is chochmah in the soul.

52:06 Speaker 9 Fine, but who actually merits it? Or is it only—

52:09 Speaker 13 When—No! This is talking about us. This is Tanya.

52:13 Speaker 8 Every person. Every person.

52:14 Speaker 9 Yes, all right, but a person...

52:15 Speaker 13 When a person contemplates—when a person contemplates that this page is being brought into being right now, something from nothing. By the way, that’s also explained at length in today’s Tanya. Just as an aside: apart from the last days of the study cycle, there are only two places in Tanya where the study schedules for a leap year and an ordinary year come together—the same lesson. One of those places is today. Both passages discuss the same thing.

52:48 Speaker 9 And is that written in Hayom Yom?

52:50 Speaker 13 It isn’t written in Hayom Yom. Both passages discuss the same thing. What do they discuss? The Baal Shem— the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching that the entire world is brought into being anew, something from nothing, every single moment.

53:04 Speaker 9 Well, it was written in Hayom Yom about the second one.

53:07 Speaker 13 It’s written in Hayom Yom because it’s today’s Tanya lesson.

53:10 Speaker 9 And also because...

53:12 Speaker 13 The same Frierdiker Rebbe who divided up the Tanya for daily study compiled Hayom Yom in that same year.

53:18 Speaker 9 A leap year. So which...

53:21 Speaker 13 And that’s why he wrote it on that day.

53:23 Speaker 9 It’s no surprise.

53:26 Speaker 13 The same person wrote the same thing on the same day. It’s no surprise. Why do the schedules for a leap year and an ordinary year come together there? Because this is the foundation of all Chassidus. The foundation of all contemplation is the greatness of Hashem. What is the greatness of Hashem? Something from nothing. The foundation of the whole matter of faith, of love, is... So in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, in today’s Tanya, this is explained at great length. We learned it once, and with Hashem’s help we’ll learn it again. Here the Rebbe just mentions this point in a few lines: “Meaning that he sees how every thing is born and brought into being from nothing, by the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth.” As it says, “And by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts”—all the hosts of heaven were created by the breath of His mouth, by Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech. “And therefore, heaven and earth and all their hosts are truly nullified in their very existence before the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, and are considered as absolutely nothing.” We’ve spoken about this many times. Since the entire existence of the world, every single detail in it, is created anew from nothing every moment, what is the world’s true state? What is its reality? Let’s put it this way: does the world have an existence or not? Does the world exist or not?

54:59 Speaker 9 It exists.

54:59 Speaker 13 Huh?

55:01 Speaker 9 It has an existence, but it’s an existence that is continually renewed.

55:04 Speaker 13 What does “continually renewed” mean? Why is it renewed? When a person stands in front of a mirror, is there someone in the mirror or isn’t there?

55:11 Speaker 9 Well, there is.

55:12 Speaker 13 Huh? What is the reality of that person in the mirror? He has no independent existence. He is there because someone is standing opposite the mirror. He doesn’t exist in his own right. There is a real appearance there. There is something there because someone is producing it.

55:32 Speaker 9 Right.

55:32 Speaker 13 Yes? He isn’t a person; he isn’t someone. True, he exists. Of course he exists. You can see him there, right? But his entire existence depends on someone producing him right now. Yes? You throw a stone upward. Why does it fly through the air? There is a force lifting it. Once that force is spent, it won’t be in the air anymore. The only reason it is moving upward now is that there is a force at work. So because it’s flying now, has it turned into a bird? It’s true that it’s flying upward. But the force within it is what makes it fly. In other words, there is a reality to its upward movement, but you can’t attribute that to the stone. You attribute it to the force acting on it. Similarly, what is the world’s true reality? If it weren’t being brought into being—like when you move away from the mirror—it wouldn’t exist. So even while it does exist, what accounts for its existence? The world’s entire existence is attributable to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It isn’t independent. It isn’t its own doing. Yes, all right, it exists, but not on its own at all. Right? Now he says something more than that. It follows that the entire world is nullified before the word of Hashem. If the word of Hashem brings the world into being anew every moment, then the world is completely nullified before the word of Hashem; it is nothing at all. Now he goes even further: it is nullified and nothing at all, like the light and radiance of the sun within the body of the sun itself. Here is the analogy: What creates the world? The Divine light, the word of Hashem, the Divine light. Right? All right? In the analogy—

57:38 Speaker 13 When does sunlight shine? Does it shine inside the sun? Is there light inside the sun? It shines when it leaves the sun. I’ve never been there. The sun shines, and its light is very strong. It reaches us and illuminates the space of the world, right? Outside the sun, you can see it; light has an existence. But when it is within its source, inside the sun itself, before it has left the sun—is there light there? There is the sun. Is there a thought within the faculty of intellect? Are there thoughts inside the intellectual faculty?

58:39 Speaker 10 Yes.

58:39 Speaker 13 No.

58:40 Speaker 10 Why aren’t there thoughts in the intellect?

58:41 Speaker 13 No. What is intellect? It’s some kind of... I’m asking a question. Suppose someone comes along and says, “What is intellect? Intellect is a sort of box—not the brain, right? A sort of spiritual box with millions upon millions of thoughts inside it, and every moment one thought comes out.” Is that what intellect is—a box of thoughts? Intellect is the faculty to think.

59:10 Speaker 10 Mm-hmm.

59:10 Speaker 13 It’s a faculty through which a thought emerges and becomes a thought. Now, when it was inside, it wasn’t—it didn’t exist yet.

59:17 Speaker 10 Yes.

59:18 Speaker 13 It was nullified and included within its source, nullified to its source. It wasn’t there as a thought. Now, you can certainly say that a thought as it is in its source is on a higher level and more united with its source, and that’s all well and good. But if you look inside, it isn’t there. When it comes out, you can see it. Yes? Is that clearer now?

59:42 Speaker 10 Yes, yes.

59:42 Speaker 13 Light inside the sun isn’t light. Of course the light is there. If it shines outside, surely it shines inside. But what does it look like there? It doesn’t appear as light; all you see is the sun. There’s nothing else. Right. Now, we say that the radiance that comes from Hashem—the speech, the word of Hashem that brings the worlds into being—is like light coming from the sun. So it’s clear how Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds: He shines, so to speak, as the sun shines. It is a revelation of G-dliness; it is speech, and it creates the worlds. Where does He create them? This is where it gets interesting. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here, and here He creates the world. Is that possible? Can you say there is any place where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not present?

1:00:28 Speaker 10 No.

1:00:30 Speaker 13 With the sun, you can say that the light goes out from it and shines elsewhere. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is no such thing as speech going out from Him. Where would it go? There is nothing outside Him. Do you hear what I’m saying? Do you hear the point? In other words, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds, it is as though speech were creating things, bringing out words while the thought is still within the faculty of intellect.

1:00:59 Speaker 10 Which happens to a lot of people.

1:01:01 Speaker 13 Before that—not when it’s in thought, but when it’s still contained within the power of the intellect—it has no existence of its own. We’re talking... we’re doing this in stages, right? To make it easier to understand. So it’s like speech. But what is the reality of speech—Divine speech? With a person, speech leaves the person. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, speech has never left Him. It remains in its source and root all the time. It has nowhere to go, it cannot leave, and there is no reason for it to leave. So if it remains in its source and root, the speech itself is nullified to G-dliness; the speech itself has no existence of its own. So the world is nullified. To what? To the speech. The world is absolutely nothing compared to the speech, and the speech itself is nothing. Wait—we’ve only just begun.

1:02:00 Speaker 11 How do you understand all that from what’s written?

1:02:04 Speaker 13 First of all, this is about the two-hundred-and-third time I’ve studied this chapter.

1:02:08 Speaker 11 Really?

1:02:09 Speaker 13 Yes.

1:02:09 Speaker 10 Yes, you know how many... Even with Chani—

1:02:12 Speaker 11 Unbelievable.

1:02:13 Speaker 10 Chani, how many times have we gone through it here already?

1:02:16 Speaker 11 We’re finishing now, apart from [unclear].

1:02:19 Speaker 10 So do you think he just comes to each class like that? He studies. Even if he prepared the class for the previous time, when I wasn’t here—I don’t know when that was—he studies it again and again.

1:02:30 Speaker 11 Because each time he discovers something else.

1:02:32 Speaker 13 But it’s written there.

1:02:33 Speaker 10 All the time.

1:02:33 Speaker 13 Wait, wait, wait, wait, excuse me. All this... Leave something to write on the gravestone at the end. Is it written there or isn’t it? Is everything I said written there or not?

1:02:44 Speaker 11 It’s written there.

1:02:45 Speaker 10 It’s written there.

1:02:45 Speaker 13 It’s written there.

1:02:46 Speaker 11 Yes, it’s written there.

1:02:47 Speaker 13 It’s all written there.

1:02:48 Speaker 11 Right.

1:02:48 Speaker 13 I didn’t say anything that isn’t written there. It’s all written there.

1:02:50 Speaker 11 That means when I read Tanya, I...

1:02:53 Speaker 10 What?

1:02:54 Speaker 13 That means it’s a very good idea to read Tanya with commentaries, not on your own.

1:02:57 Speaker 11 I read the... the commentaries in the margins of [unclear].

1:03:03 Speaker 13 That’s wonderful.

1:03:04 Speaker 11 But it doesn’t reach the level of understanding of—

1:03:07 Speaker 10 Understanding.

1:03:08 Speaker 11 What I’m reading here with you now. Do you think I remember it? I... I need to start writing things down.

1:03:18 Speaker 10 Chani will put out summaries.

1:03:20 Speaker 11 No, you can’t summarize everything, but yes. Yes. But actually there are recordings, there are recordings. She’s a regular, a regular customer of the recordings.

1:03:31 Speaker 13 “And the heavens and the earth and all their hosts are truly nullified in the word of Hashem and the breath of His mouth, which bring them from nothing into being. They are truly nothing, like the light and radiance of the sun nullified within the body of the sun itself.” So wait: “And a person should not exclude himself from the general rule.” Don’t forget, you’re saying that everything is absolutely nothing. Yes, but that “nothing” includes me. Don’t forget that you... Yes. “For his body too”—and not just the body—“his soul, his spirit, and his neshamah too are nullified in the word of Hashem, and His speech is united with His thought,” the thought of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, and so on. As it says there in chapter 21, “and the thought is united with the speech.”

1:04:16 Speaker 10 This is explaining fear of G-d.

1:04:19 Speaker 13 What?

1:04:19 Speaker 10 First it explains fear.

1:04:21 Speaker 13 It’s an introduction to... an introduction to higher fear, yes.

1:04:24 Speaker 10 And what should you think about?

1:04:25 Speaker 13 What?

1:04:26 Speaker 10 And what should you think about Hakadosh Boruch Hu?

1:04:29 Speaker 13 This means thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself—not about what He does, but about Him Himself. Not about His actions. Now, when you contemplate this, you begin... You contemplate it and say: Wait, what does it mean to create the world? The entire world is only speech; it’s absolutely nothing. And the speech itself—in chapter 21 he discusses this at length, describing five levels—the speech itself is absolutely nothing compared to thought, because speech is physical and thought is spiritual, and there is no comparison between them. And thought is absolutely nothing compared to the middos, because thought is, after all, an activity, while the middos are the person himself, the soul itself. And the middos are absolutely nothing compared to the intellect. The intellect gives rise to the middos, and the intellect is absolutely nothing compared to... And that, too, is absolutely nothing, and so on and so on. So all that Hakadosh Boruch Hu uses to create the world is speech, and the world is nullified to the speech, and I am nullified to the world. When a person contemplates this, then he... Is there any comparison between this kind of fear and, “Wow, how great Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, that He creates all the worlds”? It isn’t just a greater fear; it’s a different kind of fear. Why is it different? Yes, we’ve spoken about this too; we’ve already mentioned it. There are... with fear, there are two... Think of fear of another person in the physical world. A person may fear someone with a position, someone powerful, a king; or a person may fear a tzaddik, a great person, a Rebbe. What’s the difference? With a king, he doesn’t know the king’s personality. He fears the king’s actions, his conduct, his outward authority. With a rabbi, he fears the person himself. So in one case he fears what the person does, and in the other he fears the person himself. But it’s not just that one is fear of the external and the other is fear of the internal. It’s a different kind

1:06:25 Speaker 13 of fear. External fear is a fear of being frightened. Internal fear is a fear of shame. What is the nature, the substance, of shame? When a person is ashamed, what does he feel? He wants to shrink away, so that no one will see him.

1:06:47 Speaker 10 Embarrassed.

1:06:48 Speaker 13 Yes. What does “embarrassed” mean? He wants to...

1:06:53 Speaker 10 Disappear.

1:06:53 Speaker 13 Disappear. Exactly! For my own existence to be nullified, for me not to be there.

1:07:00 Speaker 10 Yes.

1:07:00 Speaker 13 When a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem as He brings the worlds into being and gives them life, it brings him fear and awe—an external fear. When a person contemplates G-dliness itself, the greatness of Hashem Himself, with the worlds... yes, as he explains here, then his fear is of G-dliness itself. And when the fear is of G-dliness itself, it doesn’t make him frightened. Being frightened means that I exist, and perhaps something will happen to me, or perhaps it won’t—but I’m afraid. In fear, a person feels his own existence. In shame, a person doesn’t feel his own existence; he feels that he is nothing.

1:07:38 Speaker 10 Yes.

1:07:40 Speaker 13 That’s the difference between fear and bittul. Yes. That’s the difference between external fear and higher fear, lower fear and higher fear. And about this he says... All right, we’ll get to it in a moment. Let’s look at it. I’m saying this ahead of time. Never mind, never mind, never mind, I...

1:08:03 Speaker 10 It’s all right, the women want to hear it. It’s not late.

1:08:08 Speaker 13 In another two lines we’ll reach the point. Um, “And a person should not exclude himself from the general rule, for his body, soul, spirit, and neshamah too are nullified in the word of Hashem, and His speech is united with His thought, and so on, as explained above.” Chapter 21—that’s where he explains all these levels at length. “As explained above at length, by way of an analogy from the human soul: a single utterance of a person’s speech and thought is truly as nothing,” and so on. No, we won’t go into that at length now. “And this is what the verse means when it says, ‘Behold, fear of Hashem—that is wisdom.’ But one cannot attain this fear and wisdom except by observing Torah and mitzvos through the external, lower fear. And this is what is meant by, ‘If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.’” Why can’t one attain this fear without Torah and mitzvos?

1:09:07 Speaker 10 Which fear?

1:09:08 Speaker 13 Higher fear, the fear of shame. Can a physical human being—even a person’s soul—have any connection to the Infinite, which is beyond all worlds? What connection could there be? What difference does it make what he contemplates? There is simply no comparison whatsoever. So think: what is the connection? Torah and mitzvos are Hashem’s will and wisdom. G-dliness is within them. When a person observes Torah and mitzvos, Torah and mitzvos themselves bring G-dliness down to him. Then, when he contemplates, he can truly grasp it with the wisdom of his soul. If there is no wisdom, there is no fear. So if he has no lower fear, he cannot observe Torah and mitzvos properly. And if he does not observe Torah and mitzvos properly, he cannot reach higher fear. Therefore, “If there is no fear, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, there is no fear.” All right, we’ve reached the middle of the chapter. There’s another half to go.

1:10:24 Speaker 10 “And I will trust in You. I will trust in You.” In the end she didn’t come. She’s the one whose head was [unclear] like this.

1:10:33 Speaker 12 So a woman approached me and told me she’d spoken with you.