Likkutei Amarim Chapter 49 · 5781

00:02 Speaker 1 Good evening. We’re learning chapter 49. Chapter 49 continues chapter 48, as we said last time. Chapters 48 and 49 both continue chapters 46 and 47. In chapter 46, the Alter Rebbe began speaking about the love described by “as water reflects a face to a face.” That’s the point of the love of Hashem explained there. The farther a person feels from G-dliness, the more deeply he is moved when Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the King, comes and embraces him, gives him Torah and mitzvos, draws him close above all the other nations, and takes us out of Egypt, “the nakedness of the land.” So the more a person feels that he is unworthy, the greater his love of Hashem. That’s the point of the love described by “as water reflects a face to a face.” Then the Alter Rebbe said that, within this subject itself, chapters 46 and 47 explained only what this love is, the essence of this love. And the Alter Rebbe says there is another, deeper aspect to that same love. But to understand that deeper aspect, he first introduced chapter 48. What was in chapter 48? The Alter Rebbe explained what tzimtzum is. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, He created it through light that is sovev kol almin and memalei kol almin. He explained at length what sovev kol almin and memalei kol almin mean. The light of sovev kol almin is unlimited, the infinite light far above the worlds, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu withdrew and concealed it so it would not be present at all. And even the light of memalei kol almin—the small light, the tiny measure of light, which is as nothing and has no comparison to the great light, the light that relates to the worlds—even that,

02:20 Speaker 1 in order to actually create the worlds, Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted again and again through countless tzimtzumim of many different kinds, to create the world—all the worlds in general, and our world in particular. That was the content of chapter 48. And when we learned it, it seemed a little strange. Why did the Alter Rebbe suddenly go into this deep explanation in Chassidus and Kabbalah, explaining concepts? What does it have to do with serving Hashem at all? And what does it have to do, specifically, with the love of “as water reflects a face to a face”? In this chapter, the Alter Rebbe completes his explanation of the tzimtzumim and the point he began making. He explains how the subject of tzimtzumim adds tremendous strength to that love. Let’s look inside. Chapter 49: “Now, although the details of the concealment and obscuring of the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He,” which were discussed in the previous chapter, “in the progression of the worlds until this physical world was created, are innumerable.” There are countless tzimtzumim, and not only countless tzimtzumim, but many different kinds of them. There are different types of tzimtzumim, not just a vast number of them. “As is known to those who have tasted of the Tree of Life. However,” broadly speaking, “there are three general types of immense tzimtzumim.” In the previous chapter, the Alter Rebbe explained in general terms only the tzimtzum of the light of the Ein Sof and the tzimtzumim of the light of memalei kol almin. Here he adds that within the tzimtzum of the light of memalei kol almin there are three general levels. Why three general levels? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to create three general kinds of worlds. He wanted to create the worlds in the form of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, so three tzimtzumim were needed: from Atzilus to Beriah, from Beriah to Yetzirah, and from Beriah—

04:43 Speaker 1 to Yetzirah.

04:43 Speaker 2 From Beriah to Yetzirah to Asiyah.

04:50 Speaker 1 What did I say?

04:52 Speaker 2 Beriah to Yetzirah.

04:53 Speaker 1 From Yetzirah to Asiyah. And... why only three?

05:02 Speaker 2 What about the world of Atzilus?

05:03 Speaker 1 What about the world of Atzilus itself?

05:04 Speaker 2 There, there was revelation.

05:05 Speaker 1 Ah. Right. Both points are correct. In other words, Atzilus itself is described as something from nothing. Atzilus itself is also as nothing, and “wisdom, the beginning of Atzilus, is found from nothing.” So Atzilus as a whole, compared with the light of the Ein Sof—even compared with the light of memalei kol almin—is also truly as nothing. But while it is as nothing compared with the light of the Ein Sof, and even compared with the light of the kav, and even compared with the light of memalei kol almin, it is a “nothing” that is G-dliness. It was not created. It is not something separate. The world of Atzilus is actual G-dliness. It is contracted G-dliness that has a defined form, but it is G-dliness, not something else. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to create worlds, and for that, three general tzimtzumim were needed to create three kinds of worlds. Within each of those three general categories there are myriads upon myriads of details. These are the three worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. Since the world of Atzilus is actual G-dliness, it is not counted as a tzimtzum like those that lead to the worlds. To create the world of Beriah, with its lofty souls and angels—which are already created beings and already separate—a tzimtzum was needed to go from Atzilus to Beriah. And what is the service of those lofty souls and angels? “Their service of Hashem is through the faculty of Chabad vested within them, which they comprehend and receive from it.” We’ve said several times that the world of Beriah is a world of G-dly intellect. The service of the souls and angels there is intellectual. What does that mean? They comprehend the light of Hashem. What do they comprehend of that light? What descends from the world of Atzilus and becomes vested in the world of Beriah. Clearly, they cannot comprehend what is in the world of Atzilus as it exists in Atzilus, only after a tzimtzum. So that is the first tzimtzum. They comprehend and receive from it. For that to be possible, there first had to be an immense tzimtzum in Atzilus, as explained above, so that the created beings of Beriah

07:15 Speaker 1 could comprehend and serve Hashem at that level. Likewise, from Beriah to Yetzirah, there also had to be an immense tzimtzum, because even the tiny measure of light vested in the world of Beriah is still infinite relative to the world of Yetzirah. Just as intellect is of a different nature from emotion, a different level, so too the light, the G-dliness that shines in Beriah, is still infinite relative to Yetzirah. The created beings of the world of Yetzirah cannot comprehend it, so another tzimtzum is needed. It cannot become vested in the world of Yetzirah except through contraction and concealment. And likewise from Yetzirah to Asiyah, as is explained elsewhere. These three tzimtzumim are explained there at length, to bring them closer to our limited understanding. So that’s as far as we’ve gone. At the beginning of the previous chapter, the Alter Rebbe explained that, broadly speaking, there are two kinds of tzimtzumim: the tzimtzum of unlimited light and the tzimtzum of limited light. Here he added that, within the limited light, there are three general tzimtzumim to create the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. What are all these tzimtzumim for? Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu contract Himself? Blessed be He, He is infinite and has everything. Why would He suddenly need to contract Himself? What did He do such a thing for? Think of a person—me, let’s say. I decide that I’m suddenly going to give up my own existence, hide it, diminish it. What for? When someone does such a thing, when a person sets aside his own existence completely, as much as he possibly can, and gives himself over, he has some reason, some purpose. Why does he do it? Surely Hakadosh Boruch Hu had a reason for this whole process of tzimtzumim. What was the reason and purpose? The purpose of all the tzimtzumim is to create not the human soul, but the physical human body, and to subdue the sitra achra, so that there should be an advantage of light that comes from darkness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted there to be

09:34 Speaker 1 The superiority of light over darkness. He wanted there to be darkness—there are two ways to understand this: either He wanted the light that shines in darkness to be more precious, to have greater value. That is one explanation. Or, on a deeper level, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted the darkness to shine, for the darkness itself to begin giving light. So He created a state of darkness in order for light to have an advantage that comes from the darkness. What is darkness? Darkness is the physicality of the body, the physical person, and the challenges a person faces. And for there to be the superiority of light over darkness. When? When a person elevates his G-dly and vital souls, their garments, and all the powers of the body, to Hashem alone, as explained above at length. As we discussed there, in chapters 36 and 37, the purpose of the world's creation is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place in the lower realms. So what has he added here? In chapters 36, 37, and 38, he already said that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place in the lower realms, but there he did not say what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did to make that happen. Here the Alter Rebbe has spent two chapters on it, with many, many details and a great deal of depth: what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did to Himself, so to speak, because He wanted man's service in the lower realms, which is the purpose of the chain-like descent of the worlds. Now that we have understood at great length what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did and why He did it, we begin to consider what it means for us. “And behold, as water reflects a face to a face.” Here we return to the beginning of chapter 46. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, set aside and removed, by way of analogy, His great, infinite light, and stored it away and concealed it through three different kinds of tzimtzum. If you notice, there is a kind of repetition here. “Set aside and removed,” by way of analogy. Then he adds, “stored it away and concealed it through three tzimtzumim.”

12:05 Speaker 10 That's four.

12:06 Speaker 1 Hmm?

12:08 Speaker 10 Because He did.

12:08 Speaker 1 It comes in two parts. The first part speaks about the infinite light, the light without limit. There it says that He set it aside and removed it—removed it entirely, hid it completely. After that, when he speaks about the light that... the limited light with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates and gives life to the worlds, he writes that He only stored it away and concealed it through three kinds of tzimtzum. Yes. For what purpose? All of it was out of love for the person in the lower realm, to elevate him to Hashem. Well.

12:51 Speaker 10 Yes.

12:58 Speaker 11 Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came into being.

13:10 Speaker 10 We have it here. There are things you can... No, nobody will see. No.

13:35 Speaker 1 Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do this? Because “love makes room for the flesh.” That is... that is also from the Gemara.

13:55 Speaker 10 Thank you.

13:55 Speaker 1 When there is love in a family and they want to, they can host many, many people in the same house. People can sleep close together, with mattresses on the floor, and everything is fi...

14:05 Speaker 10 There's room in the heart; there's room for everyone.

14:06 Speaker 1 There is, there is room in the heart, and that's called “love makes room for the flesh.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves us so much, loves me so much, that for this He made room at His own expense. He contracted Himself, hid Himself, stored Himself away, removed Himself. What mattered was that—He loves me, and wanted me to exist. So when a person thinks about this, it isn't just that some great king came and lifted me from the rubbish heap. What did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do for... Hakadosh Boruch Hu made a sacrifice for this. It isn't that Hakadosh Boruch Hu simply created the worlds because He wanted a dwelling place in the lower realms, so He went “poof” and there were worlds. No. Hakadosh Boruch Hu exerted Himself for this; He made a sacrifice for this. One could say—I don't know if I'm allowed to use the word—Hakadosh Boruch Hu annihilated Himself. He gave Himself over completely. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave Himself over completely. What did He do? He removed Himself. He hid Himself. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave Himself over completely to create us. Why? He loves us.

15:21 Speaker 10 If we hadn't been created this way, we would be on a much higher level.

15:24 Speaker 1 What?

15:25 Speaker 10 If we hadn't been created this way, with all the tzimtzumim, we would be on a much higher level.

15:28 Speaker 1 Right.

15:29 Speaker 10 So all these tzimtzumim aren't for our sake.

15:32 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us as we are.

15:34 Speaker 10 We don't want ourselves as we are.

15:36 Speaker 1 So we don't. But what does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want? Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us with a physical body, with desires, with challenges. He wants a dwelling place in the lower realms. Lower—that is what “lower realms” means. That's why He created the world. And for this Hakadosh Boruch Hu was willing to exert Himself. His effort wasn't something minor: He hid and stored away and contracted His light, with three tzimtzumim and tens of thousands of kinds of... and so on, all that lengthy discussion. So when a person thinks about how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu did—what tremendous effort, how many stages, and how much, how much sacrifice, so to speak, on the part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu to create me, just because He loves me—then all the more so, infinitely more, it is fitting for a person, too, to set aside and leave behind everything he has.

16:42 Speaker 12 I mean, seemingly, angels are...

16:45 Speaker 13 Because if we strip it down, it isn't such a problem for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I mean, beings created without great effort—that's already...

16:52 Speaker 12 I mean, we're the ones whose creation required Hakadosh Boruch Hu to invest the most effort.

16:58 Speaker 13 But it did happen. Now it really is...

17:01 Speaker 12 Hakadosh Boruch Hu invested the most effort in creating you.

17:03 Speaker 13 So that—no, so that He could see His love, then it isn't an external dwelling place.

17:07 Speaker 12 I see it.

17:08 Speaker 13 But I don't want it.

17:09 Speaker 12 But otherwise you wouldn't have been created.

17:10 Speaker 13 I do it, but it's for me, for that.

17:16 Speaker 12 And then what?

17:17 Speaker 1 No, He didn't do it for me. He did it for Himself.

17:20 Speaker 13 Right. So why does that make me feel love? I mean, He's doing it for Himself.

17:23 Speaker 1 Because the point of... of... Let's go back to the beginning. What did we say about “as water reflects a face to a face”? When a person looks in a mirror, it evokes a reflection. When a person looks at his friend, it evokes a similar feeling in that friend toward him. So when I think about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves me and sacrificed for me, then even if, for my own part, I'm uncomfortable, I'm unhappy, and I want other things, seeing how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu sacrificed for me out of His great love for me naturally awakens the same feeling in me toward Him. It's the same as if this happened in physical life. Say someone is a friend of mine, but we just say hello from a distance. Then one day he goes to great lengths for me, and I see how hard he worked. He invested time, stayed up all night, went all out—I don't know—gave more money than he could afford. He invested himself in me. That awakens something in me too. Even though, ordinarily, I'm not such a close friend of his in day-to-day life, the effort he made automatically awakens something in me, without...

18:26 Speaker 13 But He made that effort for Himself. Why did He make all those tzimtzumim? For Himself.

18:33 Speaker 12 It's like they say...

18:34 Speaker 13 No, it isn't.

18:35 Speaker 12 [unclear] You wouldn't exist if there hadn't been tzimtzumim.

18:40 Speaker 13 I would.

18:41 Speaker 12 No, you wouldn't.

18:42 Speaker 13 Yes.

18:42 Speaker 12 Some angel, not you.

18:43 Speaker 13 That's not true.

18:44 Speaker 12 No, there wouldn't have been [unclear].

18:45 Speaker 13 There would have been.

18:45 Speaker 12 There are no names in [unclear].

18:47 Speaker 13 There are no names.

18:48 Speaker 1 Look, every, every kind of love...

18:50 Speaker 13 All right, [unclear].

18:52 Speaker 12 [unclear].

18:53 Speaker 1 Almost every kind of love. I qualify that with “almost,” because later we'll see something different. But generally, in every kind of love there is the one who loves and the one who is loved. When a person loves someone, he is drawn to that person. I am drawn to him. So every kind of love includes the personal feeling of the one who loves. But what is the main thing in love? The main thing here isn't “me”; it's the other person. So, too, so to speak, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. True, He wanted a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms, but He wanted a dwelling place in the lower realms because He loves us. Is that better?

19:40 Speaker 13 All right, never mind.

19:49 Speaker 1 So all the more so, infinitely more: “It is fitting for a person, too, to set aside and leave behind everything he has, from soul to flesh, and to give up—give up everything in order to cleave to Him, blessed be He, with attachment, longing, and desire.” So just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted Himself through three tzimtzumim, a person, too, needs to contract himself, leave himself behind, and give up everything he has in three respects. “From soul to flesh, and to give up everything”: his spiritual concerns, his physical concerns, and all his external possessions as well.

20:38 Speaker 14 Giving things up.

20:39 Speaker 1 Hmm?

20:40 Speaker 14 Giving things up.

20:41 Speaker 1 Yes. What is it called? Health, children, and livelihood. Yes. To give it all up. For what? To cleave to Him, blessed be He. And also, just as on the side of giving things up, a person needs to bring about three contractions within himself corresponding to the three tzimtzumim of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he also needs to awaken three positive levels within himself.

21:07 Speaker 14 All of that through what?

21:08 Speaker 1 With attachment, longing, and desire. Chassidus explains that these refer to ahavas olam, ahavah rabbah, and love with delight. And nothing, from within or without, should stand in the way: not body, soul, money, wife, or children. Nothing from within—the body and soul—and nothing from without—money, wife, and children—should prevent a person from cleaving to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what the concept of “love as water reflects the face” adds to the matter of tzimtzum. Before, we were only told what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did; now we have also been told why He did it. Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted Himself because He loves us. The Rebbe says: “And with this we can understand”—now that we understand what “love as water reflects the face” means: that I must love Hakadosh Boruch Hu, give my—Not merely love Him because He did me a great favor. Just as He gave of Himself for the sake of that favor, I too must give of myself for Him. This explains, “And with this we can understand the reason and rationale for the Sages’ enactment. The Sages instituted two blessings before the Shema, etc.” Two before it, and—what does “etc.” mean?

22:50 Speaker 14 One after it, or two after it—

22:52 Speaker 1 What?

22:52 Speaker 14 One after it, or two after it—one after it, that’s simply at Maariv.

22:55 Speaker 1 Yes. There’s an interesting note here from the Rebbe. He demonstrates that we cannot say the Alter Rebbe means the blessings after the Shema; we have to say he means two before it in the morning and two before it in the evening. We won’t go into it, but it’s an interesting note from the Rebbe, and people discuss and explain it. What’s the connection between Hakadosh Boruch Hu going to such lengths to create me, showing that He loves me, and my now understanding why there are two blessings before the Shema? He explains it like this: Seemingly, the blessings of the Shema have no connection at all to the Shema, as the Rashba and other halachic authorities wrote. The Sages instituted the blessings of the Shema—Yotzer Or and Ahavas Olam—independently of the Shema. Even if a person recited the Shema without saying the blessings, he has recited the Shema; he just hasn’t said the blessings. Later, he has to say the blessings independently of the Shema. And seemingly, the blessings of the Shema have no connection to the Shema. With all the other blessings, you say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle a light,” and then you kindle the light. You hear the mitzvah in the blessing. The one place where it isn’t like that is the Shema. The Shema contains the mitzvah to love Hashem: “And you shall love Hashem your G-d.” What do the blessings say? Blessed is He Who form—what?

24:45 Speaker 15 Yotzer Or.

24:46 Speaker 1 Blessed is He Who formed, Who formed light and darkness. There are angels who say “Holy, holy,” and Ofanim and Serafim. And then—

24:53 Speaker 15 No. So why does it say all that? To explain to us that Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves us.

24:56 Speaker 1 Go on.

24:57 Speaker 15 But the blessing says to love You.

25:00 Speaker 16 So how much does Hakadosh Boruch Hu love us, that He created...?

25:02 Speaker 1 So He loves us very, very much. All right, fine; then we have the strength.

25:05 Speaker 16 So therefore we need to love Him.

25:08 Speaker 1 That’s “love as water reflects the face.”

25:10 Speaker 16 Right.

25:10 Speaker 1 So that’s the answer.

25:11 Speaker 16 Ah, okay.

25:14 Speaker 1 Otherwise, there really is no explanation for it, because in terms of their content, they really aren’t connected.

25:19 Speaker 16 It’s just that when you read it, you see why Hakadosh Boruch Hu would say that too.

25:24 Speaker 1 Yes.

25:27 Speaker 16 There’s no doubt about it.

25:28 Speaker 1 And why were they called the blessings of the Shema? The Shema isn’t mentioned in them, and why were they instituted specifically before it? Rather, because the main point of the Shema is to fulfill “with all your heart”—with both your inclinations, etc.—meaning to stand firm against anything that prevents love of Hashem. If the mitzvah of the Shema were simply “And you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart,” it would be written with only one beis. There is a mitzvah to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There are all kinds of meditations that lead to love of Hashem. Earlier we saw the love of “a son who strives,” the love of “My soul desires You”—all kinds of levels. Ahavas olam, meditation, all kinds of levels: things a person can contemplate and thereby come to love Hashem. The novel point of the Shema is that a person must love Hashem not just “with all your heart,” but “with all your heart” written with two beis letters—with the evil inclination too. What does it mean to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu with the evil inclination? Although the evil inclination wants me to have health, children, health and a livelihood—it wants the concerns of this world—I reject it, let go of it, put it aside, and cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

26:54 Speaker 15 It shows us something so that we’ll throw it in the trash.

26:56 Speaker 1 Yes.

27:01 Speaker 15 Yes.

27:01 Speaker 1 Exactly. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want us merely to have love of Hashem. He wants us to love Him with the evil inclination—meaning to reject the evil inclination. That is, to stand firm against anything that prevents love of Hashem. And “your heart” includes one’s wife and children, to whom a person’s heart is naturally attached, as our Sages say about the verse, “He spoke, and it came to be”—this refers to a wife; “He commanded, and it stood”—these are children. And “your soul” and “your might” mean just what they say: life and livelihood. To give up everything for love of Hashem—that is the Shema.

27:37 Speaker 15 That’s chapter 45.

27:38 Speaker 1 What?

27:39 Speaker 15 Chapter five.

27:40 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. We’ll get to the end of the chapter. Wait. For now, that’s right.

27:49 Speaker 15 You won’t understand...

27:50 Speaker 1 And the Alter Rebbe asks. The Alter Rebbe asks: How can a physical person reach this level? A normal person is physical. How can he do it? Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands him: Love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Give up everything for Me. It isn’t genuine. What is this, playacting? A physical person can’t reach this level of giving up everything for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He doesn’t truly feel that way. He feels himself. That is why they first arranged the blessings of the Shema. Through the blessings of the Shema—which, as we’ve discussed and will now see in detail inside, are about contemplating what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did and why He did it—“love as water reflects the face” will be awakened in us. What does that love mean? That a person is prepared to give himself up for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So first they arranged the blessing of Yotzer Or. What does it say—what?

29:04 Speaker 17 [unclear], as I said about Maariv.

29:06 Speaker 1 Maybe, it could be. Good. And there, in the first blessing, the order of the angels who stand in the heights of the world is described at length. To make known why—why do they suddenly tell us about the angels? To make known the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To make it known to us. They tell us about the angels so that we will know the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: that all of them, even the angels, are nullified before His light, and proclaim in awe, etc., “They sanctify,” etc., and say “Holy” in awe, etc. In other words, we should know, understand, and contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is separate from them, from the angels, and is not revealed within them. So where is He revealed? Only in “the whole earth is full of His glory.” Who is “the earth”? It is Knesses Yisroel above and the Jewish people below. After Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all the angels, who are so holy and have such understanding, and so on, He does not reveal Himself among them. He reveals Himself only among us.

30:02 Speaker 17 What, among us He’s most hidden and most revealed? Ah, yes, because He’s hidden, because He isn’t—He’s the least...

30:10 Speaker 1 Why hidden?

30:11 Speaker 17 Because He is brought down to the lowest place here. We are in a world of concealment, mostly evil with only a little good, and even the good itself is problematic.

30:24 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not give the Torah in heaven. The angels have no Torah. When the angels want to hear about G-dliness, to experience G-dliness, they come down here to this world and listen to us learning Chitas. They don’t have that.

30:41 Speaker 17 We have it, but it’s...

30:43 Speaker 1 We have it fully revealed. We don’t feel the G-dliness in it, but it is here. It isn’t with them.

30:52 Speaker 17 Don’t feel... as if...

30:52 Speaker 1 The angels feel it, but they don’t have it.

30:56 Speaker 17 Then why is there a blessing after the blessings that G-dliness should be revealed? There isn’t...

31:01 Speaker 1 Revealed in our experience.

31:04 Speaker 17 Yes.

31:04 Speaker 1 Because we don’t feel it.

31:05 Speaker 17 Feel it. As if it’s another world where it’s revealed.

31:08 Speaker 1 First, yes; and second, through avodah, we do feel it.

31:14 Speaker 17 Is it another world where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed?

31:16 Speaker 1 It isn’t merely another world of revelation. He is revealed only here.

31:18 Speaker 17 But what is there—I just want to define it—what does “revealed” mean?

31:21 Speaker 1 What?

31:21 Speaker 17 Any definition of revelation means that they receive it.

31:23 Speaker 1 Exactly, exactly.

31:23 Speaker 17 Yes, every revelation is experienced, and we don’t see it. After all, revelation means that someone reveals something to someone else; there’s another person there who sees what is revealed.

31:33 Speaker 1 We’ve spoken about this more than once, that...

31:35 Speaker 17 I wasn’t here then.

31:38 Speaker 1 A person who, ah, can’t see—G-d forbid—or who closes his eyes is in a brightly lit room. There’s light; everything is visible. He closes his eyes. Open your eyes.

31:49 Speaker 17 If everyone closed their eyes, would it still be called a revealed sanctification?

31:52 Speaker 1 What?

31:52 Speaker 17 If everyone closed their eyes, or sort of passed by, would it still be revealed?

31:57 Speaker 3 If someone enters a brightly lit room and closes his eyes, does that mean there’s no light in the room?

31:59 Speaker 17 No, if we move on. No, because light has arrived. It has already come into revelation. Revelation is something we receive.

32:05 Speaker 3 But I think it doesn’t necessarily come...

32:06 Speaker 1 So there is—in revelation itself, there is a revelation that I feel, a revelation on the part of the light, and a revelation on the part of the person. So for me, it isn’t revealed. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants a dwelling place in the lower realms, and for now He still wants us to continue the work. So in the meantime, He has put up some sort of barrier, some sort of screen, so we won’t feel it. But it’s here, and through our work it is drawn down, it becomes integrated, and it is revealed.

32:32 Speaker 17 So what is all this drawing down the Shechinah, bringing the Shechinah down, the work of birurim, and all that? Are those acts of, as it were, bringing about revelation in the world because it isn’t there, because He conceals something... No?

32:48 Speaker 1 Right, but there are... You mentioned several things all at once.

32:54 Speaker 17 No. Okay, so these are parts of the question. First, there’s all our work in the world, which is, as it were, to reveal, to bring the Shechinah down here.

33:04 Speaker 1 There is a revelation that is present in its own right, but I just don’t feel it. And there is a revelation that I do feel.

33:10 Speaker 17 More than that. I mean, there is also the whole discussion in the Rambam, which speaks about the revelation becoming revealed in the world. The revelation of creation will be revealed in the world. So then there is [unclear] with this revelation becoming revealed in this world.

33:26 Speaker 1 It will be revealed.

33:27 Speaker 17 It will be revealed.

33:28 Speaker 1 Yes.

33:28 Speaker 17 So?

33:30 Speaker 1 There, it’s something you feel. You’re there; you see it with your own eyes.

33:35 Speaker 17 Every time we talk about revelation, are we talking about what we feel?

33:39 Speaker 1 Each instance according to its context. It depends on what we’re talking about. In Atzilus there is no concealment. In Atzilus, they see G-dliness—they see it, feel it, live it. There is nothing else there. There is nothing besides Him. In Atzilus, it is clear that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present.

33:58 Speaker 17 As if the rabbi is saying that... I’m not [unclear] Rosh Hashanah, when we draw down that aspect of malchus.

34:05 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

34:08 Speaker 17 That’s it, basically.

34:10 Speaker 1 It is drawn down, actually drawn down, and it is here. I don’t feel it because a screen has been placed before me. I’ve been placed in a physical body. The physical body is not a vessel for feeling it—but it’s not that it’s inherently incapable of being a vessel. Inherently, the body is a vessel for feeling G-dliness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it so that it wouldn’t feel it, so that right now it doesn’t feel it. Through a person’s work, the body becomes refined, and so on, and the whole world becomes refined. We learned this in the first chapters, until eventually Hakadosh Boruch Hu will lift the screen all at once, and then we will see all the work of all those years at once.

34:50 Speaker 17 And what if there are people who don’t become refined?

34:52 Speaker 1 Who...

34:52 Speaker 17 Who still haven’t [unclear].

34:53 Speaker 1 The Torah has promised.

34:56 Speaker 17 That everyone will merit it?

34:57 Speaker 1 Yes.

34:58 Speaker 17 Before Moshiach?

35:01 Speaker 1 Yes. The Torah has promised that ultimately all of Israel will do teshuvah. That is the Rambam’s wording—a halachic ruling.

35:10 Speaker 17 Will that happen suddenly? Suddenly everyone will come to teshuvah?

35:13 Speaker 1 If Hakadosh Boruch Hu lifts the screen all at once?

35:16 Speaker 17 Oh, after... after they’ve received the world.

35:18 Speaker 1 I don’t know.

35:19 Speaker 17 Wait, but if it’s a world of free choice with revelation, then it somehow works itself out because it’s a world that came after the tzimtzumim. So how can there be both revelation and tzimtzum at the same time?

35:29 Speaker 1 That’s hard. A good question. I knew the answer, too, but I don’t remember it right now. In actuality, where is Hakadosh Boruch Hu? In actuality, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here. He is not in the higher worlds. In the higher worlds there are created beings, there is a radiance of G-dliness, there are all sorts of wondrous and holy things. But G-dliness itself—Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself—where is He? He is only here. The angels want to see Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They come here for that.

36:13 Speaker 17 Hey, hello. One last question. So what does it mean when they say the neshamah is [unclear]?

36:22 Speaker 1 Because it’s [unclear]?

36:23 Speaker 17 Why is it [unclear]? Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, His very essence...

36:26 Speaker 1 But, but that’s just...

36:28 Speaker 17 And the neshamah is a spirit.

36:31 Speaker 1 The neshamah, like here? No.

36:33 Speaker 17 It isn’t either.

36:34 Speaker 1 Certainly not. The neshamah is me. There is the essence of your neshamah, which is above—far above—but my neshamah is me. My mind and my feelings are the neshamah. What is a neshamah?

36:49 Speaker 17 Isn’t it something...

36:51 Speaker 1 Huh?

36:51 Speaker 17 The neshamah is me.

36:53 Speaker 1 So when I study Torah, that’s the G-dly soul—that’s me.

36:56 Speaker 17 When I study Torah, it’s revealed.

36:57 Speaker 1 Right.

36:58 Speaker 17 I’m not G-d. It’s a soul. It’s a soul...

37:05 Speaker 1 Leave those distinctions aside. When a person studies Torah, does a mitzvah, and feels good about it—enjoys it, feels happy—that is the G-dly soul.

37:15 Speaker 17 Which is the neshamah.

37:16 Speaker 1 Yes, certainly.

37:19 Speaker 17 What, do you feel yourselves?

37:21 Speaker 1 Of course. What else is it?

37:23 Speaker 17 [unclear] only of the soul.

37:26 Speaker 1 What is a neshamah? A neshamah is life. Neshamah is another word for life. What else?

37:40 Speaker 17 But...

37:40 Speaker 1 There is physical life and there is spiritual life. There is an animal soul that gives life to the physical body.

37:45 Speaker 17 [unclear] Isn’t it some sort of spiritual thing inside me that awakens when, for example, something comes to me?

37:50 Speaker 1 Of course it’s something spiritual. Would the body be alive without a neshamah?

37:59 Speaker 17 No, but it’s deeper than just the level of life.

38:04 Speaker 1 When you put a piece of iron into a fire, right, does the fire heat the iron?

38:12 Speaker 17 Yes.

38:12 Speaker 1 No. The fire is hot; the iron is inside it, so it’s hot. The fire doesn’t do anything to heat it. The fire is within it, so it’s hot. The neshamah is inside the body; its essence is life. It is in the body, so the body is alive.

38:30 Speaker 17 [unclear] Sorry.

38:35 Speaker 1 We clarified this a little last week. People say that the body conceals and hides the neshamah. How does the body— We never talk about how the body conceals the neshamah. There are two kinds of concealment. There is the kind we discussed last week: I put up a screen, and I can’t see what’s behind it. It’s been hidden from me. And there is a kind of concealment that is exactly the opposite. When the neshamah gives life to the body and is enclothed in it, it becomes so united with the body that I don’t see a neshamah; I see a body. It doesn’t even occur to me that there is something spiritual here. Most people in the world think there is no neshamah, that there is only a body, a machine.

39:28 Speaker 17 But people also say that there’s something spiritual that gives life, that there’s some sort of spirit that makes the body live.

39:34 Speaker 1 Sorry, most—most people...

39:37 Speaker 17 Psychology is based on the fact that we have a soul.

39:40 Speaker 1 No. Why?

39:42 Speaker 17 That there’s something beyond just the body. The body has desires. There’s something that causes things.

39:49 Speaker 1 I can...

39:50 Speaker 17 Between that and other things.

39:51 Speaker 1 No, no, no. I don’t know if it’s most people, but there are very many people—scientists and so on—who are one hundred percent certain that there is nothing spiritual.

40:02 Speaker 17 Then how is there death? What is death?

40:04 Speaker 1 The machine broke down.

40:06 Speaker 17 But it’s something beyond the body just stopping.

40:11 Speaker 1 That’s clear to you. Bring proof. There is no proof. There’s no proof, so it doesn’t exist.

40:15 Speaker 17 Well, then there’s nothing left.

40:16 Speaker 1 There’s no proof, so it doesn’t exist.

40:20 Speaker 17 What good is proof?

40:22 Speaker 1 All right, come on. It’s a shame to— I mean, it isn’t a shame; these are interesting things, but...

40:26 Speaker 17 Actually, when people want to strengthen—to prove that there is G-dliness, they say that something cannot be alive and have something else giving it life, because otherwise...

40:33 Speaker 1 Say that again.

40:34 Speaker 17 It can’t be alive and give itself life, because otherwise...

40:38 Speaker 1 Yes.

40:38 Speaker 17 Because otherwise it would limit it.

40:41 Speaker 1 So?

40:41 Speaker 17 And it also, uh, also [unclear].

40:46 Speaker 1 Yes.

40:46 Speaker 17 So it can’t itself be its own life-force.

40:49 Speaker 1 It can’t be the essence of life itself; there must be something higher.

40:52 Speaker 17 That’s a logical, intellectual proof.

40:55 Speaker 1 An intellectual proof.

40:56 Speaker 17 Yes.

40:57 Speaker 1 Fine, but you can’t—you can’t put it to an experimental test. You can’t design an experiment that will prove it.

41:04 Speaker 17 Like death. Why? It seems like the most logical thing. If the thing itself is its own soul, then what causes it to cease? I don’t know.

41:13 Speaker 1 Science doesn’t accept intellectual proofs as proof.

41:18 Speaker 17 Okay.

41:18 Speaker 1 Only experiments.

41:21 Speaker 17 Does a person want something?

41:22 Speaker 1 What?

41:22 Speaker 17 Does a person want something?

41:25 Speaker 1 No.

41:25 Speaker 17 Well, an animal also wants something.

41:27 Speaker 1 Yes.

41:27 Speaker 17 So there is something that causes it to want. It isn’t just blood, even if there’s something in the blood.

41:35 Speaker 1 A battery-powered car—a car drives as long as it has fuel. When the fuel runs out, it doesn’t drive.

41:39 Speaker 17 No, because then there’s some sort of holy fuel that doesn’t run out. It lives on that.

41:45 Speaker 1 All right, come on, come on. It’s a shame to... We want to...

41:49 Speaker 17 That’s why a person lives; there’s the space, the fuel. So I suppose...

41:52 Speaker 1 Later we’ll start a group for in-depth discussion.

41:57 Speaker 4 But all these questions are important too.

41:59 Speaker 1 They’re very important. Yes, but you can’t just pull them all out—these are eight hundred topics, each of which a person needs to think through for themselves. All right.

42:07 Speaker 4 Give a questions-and-answers class.

42:11 Speaker 1 We could start a question-and-answer group, and then, whenever someone asks something, there’ll be time to think and answer in an orderly way. No problem. I’m willing to do that. Okay, we’re now finishing the first section on page 51. What are we discussing? The angels. What do we say in the first blessing before Shema? The angels tell us that He is holy. In other words, the angels are telling us that they do not see Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Where is He? The angels themselves say that He is with us.

42:52 Speaker 4 They don’t see Him?

42:53 Speaker 1 What?

42:54 Speaker 4 They don’t see Him, but they sense Him, don’t they?

42:56 Speaker 1 No.

42:57 Speaker 4 The angels?

43:00 Speaker 1 Divinity? Of course they sense it. They are in the World of Beriah. Divinity is in Atzilus.

43:04 Speaker 17 They sense a radiance.

43:06 Speaker 1 A radiance, yes.

43:07 Speaker 17 Well, then that’s Divinity.

43:08 Speaker 1 A radiance from Divinity.

43:10 Speaker 17 Okay.

43:10 Speaker 1 But Divinity itself they see as “holy, holy, holy.” It is set apart, and they want to reach up there, but they cannot.

43:15 Speaker 4 But that’s still the seraphim.

43:17 Speaker 1 Huh?

43:18 Speaker 4 The seraphim sense it.

43:19 Speaker 1 That’s the seraphim.

43:19 Speaker 4 That’s the seraphim.

43:20 Speaker 1 Yes.

43:20 Speaker 17 Within Beriah, you have angels.

43:22 Speaker 1 The seraphim are in Beriah, yes. And the ofanim—

43:25 Speaker 17 That was sort of a jump to Beriah.

43:29 Speaker 1 And the ofanim and the chayos hakodesh. So the chayos hakodesh are in Yetzirah. We’ve discussed several times that chayos have to do with emotion. With animals, the main thing isn’t intellect; the main thing is emotion. So the angels called chayos are in Yetzirah, the world of the middos, while the ofanim and the celestial spheres, with their self-nullification, are the angels of the World of Asiyah. So first—

43:57 Speaker 17 What, there are angels there?

44:04 Speaker 1 First, yes. And second, we’re talking about the spiritual World of Asiyah, not the physical one. But there are angels in the physical world of Asiyah too; they’re called ishim. That’s not what we’re discussing, though. And then they make a great noise—okay, no, I’ve spent too much time on this. Fine. So the angels make a lot of noise, and they cannot grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu, while Hakadosh Boruch Hu is down here, as it says, “For He alone is exalted and holy.” That is all in the first blessing. Then we explain why—how the concept of love being reflected like a face in water explains the blessings before Shema. Then comes the second blessing: “With everlasting love You have loved us, Hashem our G-d.” In other words, He set aside all the holy hosts above and caused His Shechinah to rest upon us, so that He is called “our G-d,” like “the G-d of Avraham,” and so on, as discussed above. As we discussed in chapter 46, Hakadosh Boruch Hu associates His name with the righteous—Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov—because He became united with them. And then Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us Torah and mitzvos, through which we become united with Him like the Patriarchs, and even more than the Patriarchs, incomparably more. And who calls Him “our G-d”? Only we do. The angels don’t say “our G-d,” because He really isn’t there; He does not become united with them. That is because love presses past the flesh, and that is why the second blessing is called Ahavas Olam. Olam means concealment. Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves us, He concealed Himself; He contracted Himself. This is the contraction of His great, infinite light so that it can be enclothed within the limits called a “world,” out of love for His people Israel, to bring them close to Him, to include them in His blessed oneness and unity. That is what is meant by “You have shown us great and surpassing compassion.” If

46:05 Speaker 1 it had said, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu, You have shown us great compassion,” we would say, “Really, thank You. We truly appreciate it, and we love You too.” But it says “great and surpassing compassion.” What does the word “surpassing” add? More—not just great. More than what?

46:22 Speaker 5 More than we deserve.

46:25 Speaker 1 That could be, but here it means more than the angels. You have shown us greater compassion than You have shown the angels. You don’t reveal Yourself to them, but You do reveal Yourself to us, and You are with us. You associate Your name with us. “Surpassing” means beyond the closeness to G-d experienced by all the hosts above. “And You chose us from every people and tongue”—that refers to the physical body that Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose, not the soul. You can’t say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose the soul of a Jew, because if you have two things, the soul of a non-Jew and the soul of a Jew, well, which will He choose? That isn’t called a choice; it’s a matter of necessity. It’s like someone being told, “Listen, if you don’t do such and such, we’ll beat you.” Would you say he chose to do it? No. He was afraid of being beaten, so he did it. He was forced.

47:16 Speaker 5 But he could have chosen to take the beating—

47:20 Speaker 1 True, but generally he’ll choose the sensible option. In any case, that isn’t a choice—certainly not a free choice. All the more so when you put a G-dly soul up against the soul of a non-Jew. There’s nothing to choose between. So when we say Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose us from all the peoples, He chose our body, not our soul—a body that, in its physical makeup, resembles the bodies of the nations of the world. Our body really looks exactly like theirs on the outside. You go to a doctor and ask, “What’s the difference?” Even a religious doctor, a charedi doctor, even a Chabad doctor, will tell you there’s no difference. In any case, I don’t know what the difference is, because it looks the same. So what is the difference, really? Huh?

48:09 Speaker 5 In the DNA. The soul.

48:11 Speaker 1 In the body.

48:12 Speaker 5 In the DNA.

48:12 Speaker 1 It says the body resembles theirs. It isn’t the same; it only resembles it.

48:16 Speaker 5 Maybe it’s sort of—

48:17 Speaker 1 With anything you can test using scientific tools, you don’t see a difference. It looks exactly the same. There’s no difference.

48:25 Speaker 5 It’s—

48:25 Speaker 1 So why does it say “resembles”? Because a Jew’s body is nevertheless a vessel in which the soul can dwell. The soul cannot dwell in the body of a non-Jew. A Jew’s body has something more refined about it that allows the soul to become united with it. The soul cannot become united with the body of a non-Jew.

48:46 Speaker 5 They’re trying to run an experiment.

48:49 Speaker 1 That’s the explanation. What the physical explanation is, I don’t know.

48:52 Speaker 5 Rabbi, does that basically mean that in all the other worlds, apart from this world, He isn’t there?

49:01 Speaker 1 Yes.

49:02 Speaker 5 But that’s not... He’s everywhere; He fills all space.

49:09 Speaker 1 We discussed that in the previous class.

49:11 Speaker 5 I wasn’t here; I’ve only just joined.

49:14 Speaker 6 So all of this is new to me.

49:16 Speaker 1 There is, there is—

49:18 Speaker 5 No, no.

49:18 Speaker 1 When we say “Hakadosh Boruch Hu,” what are we talking about?

49:23 Speaker 5 I...

49:25 Speaker 6 Whoever knows...

49:25 Speaker 1 I, I, I...

49:27 Speaker 6 I don’t know.

49:28 Speaker 1 What, is there time? Why? What’s the story with Mr. [unclear]?

49:31 Speaker 6 No.

49:31 Speaker 1 There’s no time.

49:32 Speaker 6 There’s no time.

49:35 Speaker 5 Depends for whom. We won’t tell you. I have no idea.

49:42 Speaker 1 Whenever anyone asked Rabbi Yoel Kahn a question, he would always answer, “What are we talking about?” Every time. Anyway, he taught at 770 for years, many years, and he also had to give the students exams at the end, once or twice a year. So on one of those exams, a student once wrote, in answer to a question, “What are we talking about?”

50:09 Speaker 5 Did he get full marks?

50:10 Speaker 1 Huh?

50:11 Speaker 5 Did he get full marks, or did he get...

50:13 Speaker 1 Now, those who had the privilege of hearing Reb Yoel know he could be a little impatient. When the exams were brought to him and he looked at this one, he got annoyed with the student. “What, what, what, what, what, what?” That was how he spoke. So the student said, “But that’s what the rabbi says.” “No! You don’t know what we’re talking about.”

50:46 Speaker 6 Did he fail?

50:48 Speaker 1 Huh?

50:48 Speaker 6 Did he fail?

50:48 Speaker 1 I don’t know how the story ends.

50:54 Speaker 5 What a...

50:54 Speaker 6 He didn’t get enough from home.

50:56 Speaker 1 Okay, so, this is how it is. Hakadosh Boruch Hu—His very Essence and Being—is actually present everywhere, but in a transcendent way. And we explained in the previous class that there are two kinds of encompassing presence. There is encompassing as it is among created beings, and there is encompassing as it is with the Creator. Among created beings, what encompasses is outside. Right? If there is a ring surrounding something, the ring is outside and the thing is inside. The illustration they give for this is from Ezekiel—from Ezekiel again—from Daniel and his companions, who saw the vision on the mountain opposite them. His companions were frightened even though they saw nothing. In other words, the vision hovered over them from above. They did not see it, they did not understand it, they did not know why. The vision was something entirely external to them, and yet they were afraid. So the effect of something encompassing upon created beings is external. It is outside and makes a person feel something, without his knowing what it is. When we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, His very Essence and Being, encompasses and surrounds, that does not mean He is outside. He is within created beings, in their very innermost being. More than that, He is the One who creates them from nothing into existence. When we say that He surrounds and encompasses, it means they do not sense Him. And even “not sensing Him” can mean two different things. There is not sensing the light that fills all worlds, and there is not sensing the light that encompasses all worlds. Not sensing the light that fills all worlds means not sensing something that could eventually be sensed. I do not sense it now because it is very lofty, but I will understand more, develop, and refine myself, and then I will understand that level, while a higher level I will not understand. That is the—that is the kind of not sensing that belongs to

53:14 Speaker 1 created beings. Not sensing His very Essence and Being is [unclear]. No—it does not exist as a possibility; sensing Him is not possible. And it is not only impossible to sense Him in this world. It is impossible to sense Him in the world of Asiyah, or Yetzirah, or Beriah, or Atzilus; not in Tohu, or Akudim, or Nekudim, or Adam Kadmon, or the light of the kav—not anywhere. Even in the infinite light before the tzimtzum, sensing Him is not possible. This is something else entirely. So when we say “not present” or “present,” “not revealed” or “revealed”—what are we talking about? Whom are we talking about? Which level of G-dliness? What exactly? To whom is it revealed, and what is revealed? You have to look carefully at each statement. Okay, so all of that was about the “great compassion,” and “You chose us and brought us close to give thanks,” and so on; the meaning of “You made known” is explained elsewhere, and “to proclaim Your oneness,” and so on. Up to this point, he has explained the two blessings before Shema. Now we understand how they connect to Shema, and that is what he says in the next passage, beginning on line eight: “And when a discerning person sets these matters deep in his heart and mind”—how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted Himself, exerted Himself, and gave of Himself because He loves us—“then, as water reflects a face to a face, his soul will be inflamed, and he will be clothed in a willing spirit, volunteering to set aside and abandon everything that stands in his way, seeking only to cleave to Him, may He be blessed, and to be absorbed in His light with passionate attachment, and so on, in the manner of kisses and the joining of spirit with spirit.” What I mean is, as we discussed in the previous chapters, what kind of movement does the love of “as water reflects a face” produce? A movement of ratzo, moving outward, or a movement of shov, returning?

55:24 Speaker 7 Shov.

55:25 Speaker 1 Ratzo. A person wants to leave his limitations behind; he wants to cleave to G-dliness. He has understood and absorbed so deeply, and feels so strongly, how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves him that he wants no part of the world. He does not want a wife and children, health or a livelihood. Nothing else interests him. He wants to go out and cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what he wants. So at the beginning we said that this is not “Amen”; it is exactly the opposite. As the Rebbe emphasizes, this love is especially relevant the more a person says “Amen.” The more he does, the more relevant it is to him, because it is “as water reflects a face.” The more distant a person feels, the greater the kindness Hakadosh Boruch Hu has done for me.

56:14 Speaker 7 What do you mean?

56:16 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the One who—

56:17 Speaker 7 The last word.

56:18 Speaker 1 The kindness Hakadosh Boruch Hu has done for me is greater. I am more distant. So by what merit did He create me at all? He loves me? If I were a tzaddik, I could understand why He created me. But He created me? That arouses a much greater love. The more distant a person feels from Him, the more—the more he says “Amen,” the greater his love can be, if he will only reflect on it.

56:43 Speaker 7 Amen. For the presentation.

56:54 Speaker 1 So couldn’t someone mistakenly think that the love of “as water reflects a face to a face”—what does it bring a person to? To the soul’s yearning to expire? Right, that is how it sounds.

57:06 Speaker 7 It really is—that is also what he—

57:07 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe says exactly the opposite. “But how is this joining of spirit with spirit achieved? For this, it says, ‘And these words ... which I command you shall be upon your heart.’” You have now said the two blessings before Shema, and the love of “as water reflects a face” has awakened in you. You are now filled with longing—tremendous longing, attachment and desire, your soul yearning for G-dliness. So know how to put it into practice: “And these words shall be upon your heart,” and “you shall speak of them,” and so on. As it says in Eitz Chayim, the union of kisses is primarily the union of Chabad with Chabad. You want to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? What do you want to cleave to Him with—air? With love and awe? Study Torah. Your love and awe will not bring you close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Your love is limited love. Your awe is limited awe. Everything about you is limited. To cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that is what you want, to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is infinite. You are not infinite. Only if you study His wisdom, His Torah—for His Torah is He Himself, the Infinite Himself—and bring His Torah into your mind, are you now attached to the Infinite.

58:34 Speaker 7 That is why they say you have to study Torah after davening, so that the ratzo will not be broken and lead to anger.

58:42 Speaker 1 The way to put the longing of ratzo into practice is to study Torah. You want to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You have now been stirred with tremendous longing. How do I come close to Him? The only way is to study Torah.

58:58 Speaker 7 Another student.

59:00 Speaker 1 Certainly.

59:02 Speaker 7 What does it say in the inner dimension of Torah?

59:05 Speaker 1 The union of Chabad with Chabad is studying Torah in depth, while the mouth is where the breath emerges and becomes manifest. That means speaking words of Torah—not only studying in depth, but speaking as well. And how does a person come to—sorry. Let’s go back a page. Pay attention to a trap here; don’t fall into it. “For man lives by every utterance of Hashem’s mouth.” Now let’s pay attention to the following words: “Nevertheless, he has not fulfilled his obligation through thought and study alone until he expresses it with his lips.” What does that imply? If we now say, “Nevertheless, he has not fulfilled his obligation through thought and study,” that means that up to this point, what were we talking about? Only thought and study, right? And when we loo—

59:54 Speaker 7 But davening—thought and study.

59:56 Speaker 1 Wait. If line two says, “Nevertheless, he has not fulfilled his obligation through thought and study,” what do I understand? What do I conclude? One second—what do I conclude? That the previous lines spoke only about thought and study. Right? Let’s turn back one page. What does it say there? “And the mouth is where the breath emerges. Speaking words of Torah, for man lives by every utterance of Hashem’s mouth...” Excuse me, why are you telling me that until now you were speaking only about study and thought? You spoke—you explicitly mentioned the mouth there, more than once, and emphasized it. Right?

1:00:31 Speaker 8 Yes.

1:00:32 Speaker 1 Good. So from the explanation in this line, throughout this passage, when the Rebbe spoke about “what issues from the mouth of Hashem,” the issuing of breath, revelation, and so on, he was not talking about speaking with the lips. He was talking about the intellectual conclusion. When you learn Torah, there is the learning, the analysis, the understanding, and at the end there is the halachah: what comes out of it, what I understood. It might be a practical halachah: I need to do this or that. Or it might be a spiritual conclusion: therefore I need to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu; therefore I need to fear Him. Right? The conclusion of the learning. The conclusion is what has already come out, and that is called the level of the mouth. But everything we discussed earlier, both the analysis and the conclusion—even though it is no longer just working through the text but has become a conclusion—is still an inner connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It has not gone outward. And seemingly, that should be enough. I came to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I contemplated the blessings, and love was awakened in me, “as water reflects a face.” Now I long for G-dliness, and I put it into practice. No, I did not grab angels by the tail; it led me to study Torah in depth, until I understood it and reached a practical conclusion. So seemingly, it should end here, right? I reached a longing, and the longing led me to learning. The Alter Rebbe says no, it does not stop here. How do we know? Because the Shema does not end here. The Shema continues. What does it say next?

1:02:28 Speaker 8 What else was there?

1:02:28 Speaker 1 Nevertheless, even with analysis and attachment to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through Torah study, one has not fulfilled one’s obligation through thought and analysis alone, until one expresses it with one’s lips. Why? This is not about love. It is in order to draw the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, down as far as the vital soul that dwells in a person’s blood and is sustained by the inanimate, vegetable, and animal realms. We learned in the previous chapters that this is in order to elevate them all to Hashem, together with the entire world, to include them in His unity and light, which will shine openly upon the earth and its inhabitants, “and the glory of Hashem will be revealed,” as it says, “And all flesh shall see,” and so on. That is the purpose—“all flesh,” and so on. Why? What does this have to do with the Shema? The Shema lays out the path to “You shall love.” How do I reach “You shall love”? I reflect on the service of the angels, on how Hakadosh Boruch Hu loved me and how much He gave up for me. I reached “You shall love.” What is the result of “You shall love”? Torah study. Why does the Shema then go on to say that this is not enough, that I must also express it with my mouth? I must also bring G-dliness down and reveal Him in the world, so that the physical body takes part. Why? What does that have to do with love? I have a mitzvah to love, and I fulfilled that mitzvah. Why must I then also say it with my mouth? The Rebbe says: We already spoke about this earlier. This is the purpose of the entire chain of worlds. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create the world? To have a dwelling place in the lower realms. If the dwelling remains inside your mind, it is not in the lower realms. You need to bring it down into this physical world. That is the purpose of the chain of all the worlds: for the glory of Hashem to fill this very earth, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to fill the physical reality of the world in a revealed way, transforming darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness, as explained at length above. And this is the ultimate purpose of a person’s service: to draw the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, downward. Oh, wait, sorry. If a person’s ultimate purpose is to draw the light of the Ein Sof down into the physical world,

1:04:51 Speaker 1 then why do I need the whole process of the blessings of the Shema and the Shema itself? “You shall love,” and Torah study. I have a shorter way to do it: I will perform mitzvos with physical things in the world. The mitzvos are Hashem’s will. The moment I take a physical object and use it for a mitzvah, Hashem’s will is revealed in the physical world. Why do I need to work so hard, contemplate, come to love Hashem, study Torah and analyze it, and then [unclear]? What is this whole process for? I will take a mitzvah and do it—I will give tzedakah. I took the physical metal of the world and connected it with G-dliness. Why do I need all these preparations? It takes so much work. Is the question clear? The Alter Rebbe answers in the last line: “But first there must be an elevation of mayin nukvin, to surrender one’s soul and all one has to Him, as explained above.” Drawing down mayin duchrin, drawing G-dliness from above to below, is possible only after there has been an elevation of mayin nukvin, an awakening from below to above. Everything depends on a person’s service. The ultimate goal and its fulfillment really are the performance of mitzvos. To sanctify the world, one must carry out Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s will within the physical world. But for it truly to become holy, something has to enter into it. For the performance of mitzvos to be accompanied by love and fear—so that a person’s love and fear, while performing the mitzvos, connect with the physical object—he must first have love and fear. So there has to be an order. It has to proceed in order. First comes the preparation for the Shema, all of Pesukei Dezimrah and so on, as explained elsewhere. Then comes the contemplation that brings about love, “as water reflects a face”: contemplation during the two blessings before the Shema. After that, one must actually reach a feeling of love. Then one must bring that into

1:07:02 Speaker 1 Torah study, so that my Torah study is done out of love. And then, when I go to perform a mitzvah, I will truly do it with love and fear of Hashem, and the world will truly become holy. That is the order.

1:07:16 Speaker 9 There is a lot of focus on—

1:07:17 Speaker 1 What?

1:07:18 Speaker 9 Why not?

1:07:20 Speaker 1 It’s a shame.

1:07:21 Speaker 9 No, that is part of it. We often see that the underlying assumption is that even if the Jew does not understand, and throughout the book there are things suggesting that even if the Jew does not intend anything at all...

1:07:32 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. We are living in a time of “grab a chance to eat, grab a chance to drink.” We are not living in an orderly time.

1:07:36 Speaker 9 So seemingly, what is written here does not apply to us—or does it?

1:07:42 Speaker 1 First of all, it certainly applies to us. On the contrary, what is written here is the main service. There is another approach, another consideration. If you tell someone, “Perform a mitzvah; the mitzvah itself is Hashem’s will, and through it you will connect somehow and something will be awakened within you”—that is possible, but it is not the normal order. The normal order is the one described here. We are talking about a beinoni, not someone who does not observe mitzvos. The normal order concerns a person who observes mitzvos: how should he serve Hashem? We have discussed this many times. I want to say one more thing. We have said many times that the entire Tanya is not a guide to how to become a beinoni.

1:08:19 Speaker 9 No, it is about a beinoni.

1:08:21 Speaker 1 Tanya explains how someone who is already a beinoni should serve Hashem. I am a beinoni; most people are beinonim. If someone is not a tzaddik, then he is a beinoni. And this is how he should serve Hashem, step by step.

1:08:33 Speaker 9 Even if we are resha’im?

1:08:34 Speaker 1 What?

1:08:34 Speaker 9 Even if we are resha’im?

1:08:36 Speaker 1 A person might stumble now and then, and for a moment he will be a rasha. Then he does teshuvah and returns to being a beinoni.

1:08:42 Speaker 9 That’s, um...

1:08:43 Speaker 1 All right, what I wanted to add—and so on, and this is also a main point—is that, seemingly, from our perspective, as we keep saying: “Oh, now we have finished Tanya.” Yes, we have finished explaining all the kinds of love of Hashem and how to reach them, right? From the love that is hardest to attain, ahavas olam, to kinds of love one cannot attain on one’s own and that come only as a gift from above, and so on. We discussed everything in order, all the way to the love of a simple person, whose love is all the greater precisely because he is more simple. So seemingly, we have closed the circle and finished explaining all the kinds of love. That is how it appears. But the Alter Rebbe has a surprise for us in the next chapter: another kind of love, fundamentally different from every kind we have learned until now. Not just different, but the opposite.

1:09:40 Speaker 9 And it is still love? And then the last three minutes are...

1:09:43 Speaker 1 Ask me that when we get there.

1:09:46 Speaker 9 We’ll see.

1:09:52 Speaker 1 Long live our master, our teacher, and our Rebbe, King Moshiach, forever and ever.