Likkutei Amarim Chapter 50 · 5781

00:04 Speaker 1 Okay, good evening. We’ll start from this side, but we’ll start from this side.

00:12 Speaker 2 Michal, I’ll be there too.

00:19 Speaker 1 For two reasons, I wanted to review the last ten chapters before we learn today’s chapter. It’ll become clearer in a few minutes. What we learned in the previous chapters was how to awaken love of Hashem: the different kinds and levels of that love, and different ways of contemplating that awaken it. That was the content of chapters 41 through 49, which we learned last time. Thank you very much. As we said, the Alter Rebbe moves there from the more difficult to the easier. At first—apart from the opening chapters about yirah tata’ah, which is the beginning, the essence, and the foundation of avodah—he presents the different kinds of love: ahavah rabbah, ahavas olam, and ahavah beta’anugim. Then he moves into the details and ways of contemplating that are accessible to a simpler person, and to someone even simpler. Then he speaks at length, over four chapters, about love “as water reflects a face.” That isn’t merely accessible to a simpler person. On the contrary: the simpler a person is, and the further he feels from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the greater his gratitude, and the easier it is for him to love Hashem. So I want to look at the diagram for a moment and go over all the kinds of love and avodah we’ve seen so far. The path to loving Hashem covers chapters 41 through 50. We haven’t learned chapter 50 yet; we’ll learn it today, with Hashem’s help. First, we see two kinds: avodah along the right-hand path and avodah along the left-hand path. Chapters 41 through 49 all have something in common, which we’ll see right away: they deal with serving Hashem along the right-hand path. We’ll see later what the left-hand path means. Avodah along the right-hand path divides into two main branches: serving Hashem in a way accessible even

02:50 Speaker 1 to a simple person, through different ways of contemplating that lead to love and awe—chapters 41 through 45—and then the last four chapters, on serving Hashem through the love “as water reflects a face,” which is especially accessible to a simple person. We’ll say a few more words about that in a moment, by way of review. So let’s start on the right. The first five chapters deal with love of Hashem. The first two, 41 and 42, discuss yirah tata’ah. That itself is divided between two chapters: the beginning, essence, and foundation of avodah, and the need to exert oneself. There we discussed four or five different levels and forms of yirah tata’ah. We discussed kabbolas ol; feeling as though you are standing before the King; fear of sin; and awe of G-d on a smaller scale and on a greater scale. All of that belongs to yirah tata’ah. Then, in chapter 43, once we know what the beginning, essence, and foundation of avodah is—yirah tata’ah, the awe that keeps a person from rebelling against Hakadosh Boruch Hu—the Alter Rebbe explains that, broadly speaking, there are four levels. In awe there are yirah tata’ah and yirah ila’ah, and in love there are ahavas olam and ahavah rabbah. Ahavas olam is called ahavah zuta, a lesser love, while ahavah rabbah is called ahavah beta’anugim, a great love. So there is a lower and a higher level of awe, and a lower and a higher level of love. He explained what ahavas olam, at the lower level, means: love that comes from contemplating the worlds. In other words, what brings me to love Hashem? Contemplating how Hashem reveals Himself to me, what He reveals Himself through, and how His greatness is expressed. I contemplate something I can understand. This is called love of Hashem through G-dliness as it is revealed in the worlds. How does Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveal Himself in the world? He

05:26 Speaker 1 reveals Himself in the many angels He made, in the many worlds He created, in His closeness to me, and in His love for me. Anything about G-dliness that I can understand, grasp, or feel is called loving Hashem as He is revealed within the worlds. It brings a person to a love that remains within the worlds—a relatively limited love. It may be a love like a blazing fire, an immense love, but it is still limited: its content is shaped by the person’s intellect. The person understands that he wants G-dliness; his emotions want G-dliness. We’re talking about the person’s intellect and emotions. Ahavah rabbah is something else altogether. Here we’re talking about ahavah rabbah, ahavah beta’anugim. It isn’t that my intellect understands that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is good, or that my emotions want G-dliness. Rather, the essence of the soul, which is beyond its revealed faculties, comes to light. And when the essence of the soul is revealed in a person, nothing can stand against it, interfere with it, or stop it. How does the verse put it? “Many waters cannot extinguish the love, and rivers cannot wash it away.” Once the essence of the soul is revealed, it is a blazing fire that nothing can stop. This is, in effect, the level of a tzaddik. The essence of his soul shines openly within him, and he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu; no obstacles or hindrances in the world interfere with that. So those are four levels. Then we said that reaching such levels is very difficult. But there are two kinds of love of Hashem that anyone can attain, and he discusses them in chapter 44. Anyone can understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of life. Just as I love my life, I love...

07:37 Speaker 1 I want things to be good for me. If I understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of life and the source of good, then I love Him. This is called “My soul longs for You.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, You are my life; I love You because I understand that You are my life. That is a kind of love anyone can attain. If it’s such a simple love—all I need to do is think that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, as he says later, my father; that I am like a son to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, or that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my life—then it sounds very simple, because anyone can attain it easily. If a person stops for a moment and thinks that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our true Father and our life, will that bring me to love Him? It sounds like a simple kind of love. The Alter Rebbe says: No. It isn’t simple. That love, which sounds simple to you, contains every level and every aspect of everything we learned earlier: yirah tata’ah, yirah ila’ah, ahavas olam, ahavah rabbah, and ahavah beta’anugim. He explains how those two kinds of love, which come through relatively simple ways of contemplating and don’t take so much effort to reveal, are accessible to everyone and yet contain even the loftiest levels of love. That’s chapter 44. Then we move on to chapter 45, where we discuss serving Hashem along the third path, the path of compassion: a person must awaken great compassion for his soul. And then there is love of Hashem “as water reflects a face,” in chapters 46 through 49. Those four chapters explain that when a person thinks about and understands how unworthy he is of a revelation of G-dliness—who am I? The Holy...

09:42 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu revealed Himself to me. Why? What did I do? Did I make some special effort? Who am I? I’m worth nothing. Why should Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveal Himself to me? And yet He reveals Himself to me, gives me Torah and mitzvos, embraces me and kisses me, and gives me a good life, a family, and so on. Hakadosh Boruch Hu showers me with every good thing, and me—what am I? I don’t deserve this tremendous love from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So contemplating this brings a person to the greatest love. The more a person feels unworthy and thinks about how much Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives him, the more it awakens the greatest love within him. That, broadly speaking, is the content of those four chapters, and we discussed it at length. Why have I gone over all this again? First, to give an overview of what we’ve covered over the last four or five months, when we discussed these nine chapters. And more importantly, all these things are called avodah along the right-hand line. What do they have in common? There are so many kinds here: love, fear, [unclear], great, small. How? What do they have in common? What common thread runs through all of them? Why are they all called the right-hand line? The Alter Rebbe says there is one thing they all share: everything we’ve discussed leads a person directly to the fulfillment of mitzvos. If I fear Hashem, I don’t want to commit a transgression, right? What will I do about mitzvos? If I love Hashem because He is my father, or because He is my life, or because He gives life to the worlds—the reason doesn’t matter. If love of Hashem has awakened within me and I want to draw close to Him, to cleave to Him, how will that express itself? By strengthening my observance of Torah and mitzvos. So every—

11:44 Speaker 1 Every kind of love has a common thread, a shared guiding principle. Its goal, its purpose, is to lead a person directly to the observance of Torah and mitzvos. Then the Alter Rebbe comes and says: there is another kind of love, in chapter 50, which we’re going to discuss today. Turn the whole booklet over to the other side. This is something else, another kind, an entirely different matter. It’s a love of Hashem that not only doesn’t lead a person to observe Torah and mitzvos, but does precisely the opposite. It brings a person to a point where he wants neither this world nor the World to Come, neither Torah nor mitzvos nor anything else. He wants only Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Nothing else satisfies him. Why is this called a love from the side of gevurah? Why is it called the left-hand side? The difference between chessed and gevurah is that chessed descends from above to below, like water. Gevurah is an ascent from below to above, like fire. What does fire do? As long as it exists, there is some wick or wood, something it burns that holds it in place so it doesn’t escape. But what does the fire want? Fire doesn’t want to stay down here. It wants to finish burning that thing, break free of it, and cleave to its source and root beneath the sphere of the moon. It doesn’t want to be here. That is the fire’s longing. Now, the moment it breaks free of what holds it, it will cease to exist. It won’t have an existence of its own anymore. That doesn’t concern it. That is what it wants: to be absorbed into its source and root. It cannot bear anything else. It wants G-dliness. Why is that good? Let’s look inside. Chapter 50: “Now, all the aspects and levels of love mentioned above”—what we discussed from chapters 41 through 49. What? We started from the beginning. “All the aspects and levels of love mentioned above are from the right-hand side.”

14:30 Speaker 1 And the aspect of a kohen. A kohen comes from the side of chessed, unlike a Levite, who comes from the side of gevurah; we’ll see that later. A man of chessed. And all these kinds of love are called “the silver of the sacred offerings.” There’s a haftorah—I don’t remember for which parsha—in the Book of Kings. It tells a story about King Yoash, who instructed the... There is a procedure in the Beis Hamikdash: anyone who brings a donation to the Beis Hamikdash has to say whether that donation is for the altar or for the upkeep of the building. Is it for buying offerings to bring on the altar, a voluntary donation beyond what is required, or does he want to contribute to strengthening and... what’s it called? The upkeep of the building? Renovations? Yes, repairs to the Beis Hamikdash. King Yoash told the kohanim: “I trust you. From now on, any money brought to the Beis Hamikdash, take it for yourselves. It’s yours. You don’t have to hand it over to the Beis Hamikdash; it belongs to you personally. I trust that once you have an income and don’t have to worry about making a living, you’ll take care of the Beis Hamikdash and do everything necessary.” That worked well for a year, two years, or a little longer. Then it turned out that the kohanim were taking the money, but the Beis Hamikdash wasn’t being cared for properly. So King Yoash changed his decree and told the kohanim: “Okay, if it isn’t working, we’ll stop here. From now on, the kohanim won’t take anything. All the money people bring will go into a treasury.” After a while they took out the money and counted it. The Book of Kings says how much was there—a huge sum—and they carried out extensive renovations throughout the Beis Hamikdash. They reinforced everything at first, and the regular arrangement was restored. But the wording there is that “all the silver of the sacred offerings,” as King Yoash says, “shall be brought to the kohen.”

16:47 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe says that the word for silver, kesef, comes from the expression “you have so greatly longed for your father’s house.” Kesef is an expression of love. Silver is also white, like the color of water, which corresponds to chessed. That is why Yoash instructed that the silver belong to the kohanim, because a kohen is a man of chessed. It comes from the expression “you have so greatly longed for your father’s house.” That, too, is connected with chessed. Some sefiros belong to the right-hand line and some to the left-hand line. I don’t remember whether we discussed that or not; it doesn’t matter much. Among them, Chochmah and Binah are called father and mother. In Chassidus, they’re called Abba and Imma. Chochmah is called Abba, which belongs to the line of chessed, and Binah is called Imma, which belongs to the line of gevurah. So in “you have so greatly longed for your father’s house,” which aspect does the longing—the love—belong to? It belongs to Chochmah, which also belongs to the line of chessed, the right-hand line. So all the kinds of love we’ve discussed belong to the kohen, to silver, to Chochmah, to the right-hand side. “But there is another aspect of love that surpasses them all.” A kind of love different from, and higher than, all the kinds of love discussed so far. And if you remember, those included ahavah rabbah and love of delights. There is a kind of love even higher than ahavah rabbah and love of delights. “The superiority of this love is like the superiority of gold over silver. It is a love like fiery flames, from the supernal gevurot of the higher Binah.” We’ve already said that Binah belongs to the left-hand side, the side of gevurah. “That is, through contemplating the greatness of the Infinite, blessed be He, before Whom everything is truly considered nothing.” This isn’t contemplation of G-dliness as it is revealed in the worlds, but contemplation of G-dliness as it is above the worlds, before Whom all the worlds are nothing. When a person contemplates how G-dliness itself is above the worlds and beyond all comparison to them,

19:31 Speaker 1 “the soul will blaze and become enflamed by the precious splendor of His greatness, and yearn to gaze upon the glory of the King.” This longing for G-dliness takes the form of “fiery flames, a mighty blaze rising upward,” seeking to separate from the wick and wood to which it is attached. If you remember, in chapter 29 we discussed a dulled heart. What is the remedy for a dulled heart? You have to break down the body, right? There the Alter Rebbe gave the analogy of a large log that won’t catch fire, so you have to break it into small pieces of wood. So why is the body, the animal soul, compared to wood? Right, to wood that has to be broken up so it can burn. Later, when we reached chapter 35, he brought the analogy of the Yanuka from the Zohar. You surely remember the Yanuka, a child who... who hadn’t stopped talking since he was little. Do you remember the story? Hmm? We related that in the time of the Zohar there was a child who somehow was born knowing the entire Torah, including its secrets, and the sages came and consulted him. He revealed the secrets of the Torah until, at a certain point, they silenced him. And there, in chapter 35, the Alter Rebbe brings an analogy that this Yanuka, this child, gave. What did the child say? What analogy did he give? What is a neshamah? What does a neshamah look like? A Jew’s neshamah is compared to a lamp. What is a lamp made from? What do you make a lamp from? Today they make them from wax, yes.

21:26 Speaker 3 Oil.

21:26 Speaker 1 A lamp, uh, an ordinary one is made from an earthenware vessel with oil and a wick inside, and you light it, right? So he said there that the body and the animal soul are like a wick, and the oil is the mitzvos. When a person does mitzvos... Who is the person? The person is the body, the animal soul. Just as the oil is drawn into the wick, when the oil—the mitzvos—is drawn into the wick, into the soul of the body, the animal soul, the lamp gives light. What is the lamp? The lamp is the divine soul. When does the divine soul begin to shine? When the animal soul, the wick, begins to burn with the oil, then the divine soul begins to shine. That’s what he discussed there. So what are the body and animal soul compared to? A wick. But a few chapters earlier we said they were compared to wood. Right? Just five or six chapters earlier. How does that work? The Alter Rebbe says: Yes, there is a person whose animal soul is like a wick—still an animal soul, but a little more refined. You can, uh...

22:40 Speaker 3 You can light a lamp.

22:40 Speaker 1 You can kindle a fire in it that burns nicely, like a lamp. And then there’s someone whose animal soul is like a goring ox. For the light, the oil, the divine soul, to take hold in him, you have to do this—you have to... crush him. So that’s like wood. In any case, whatever a person’s animal soul is like, what does the divine soul want? It wants to burn up the animal soul and separate from the wick and the wood to which it is attached. This happens through the intensification of the divine element of fire within the divine soul. We’re not talking here about love and awe born of contemplation; the divine soul itself has an element of fire. So all the kinds of love we’ve discussed until now come from the element of water in the divine soul. But when a person contemplates not the G-dliness within the worlds, but the essence of G-dliness above the worlds, the element of fire in the divine soul is awakened. And what does it want? It doesn’t want Torah, it doesn’t want mitzvos, it doesn’t want this world, it doesn’t want a body. It wants to burn away the world, connect and become absorbed in G-dliness, and cease to exist as a separate being. That’s what it wants—the element of fire in the divine soul. This awakens such a longing within a person, and from it comes thirst. The Alter Rebbe cites a verse about this: “My soul thirsts for You.” Now, an ordinary person who is a beinoni thirsts for G-dliness because he doesn’t have G-dliness, so he’s thirsty. But a person who is already a tzaddik, who has no yetzer hara—why should he feel thirst? He drinks; he drinks Torah, and his whole life is immersed in it. What could he be thirsty for? So the Alter Rebbe cites a verse from King David, who said, “My soul thirsts for You.” Even a tzaddik like King David, when he contemplates the Infinite Light above the worlds, understands that although he is a tzaddik, he does not have the essence of G-dliness. What he has

24:55 Speaker 1 is only revelations and glimmers of light. It isn’t the essence; it isn’t the thing itself. So he too is stirred to an immense thirst for G-dliness. And if his thirst isn’t quenched, if he doesn’t receive what he longs for—it’s like a thirsty person who isn’t given water. What happens to him? He becomes ill. Right. So he reaches the state of being lovesick. As discussed in the Gemara, a person can even reach the point of losing his life when he isn’t given what he desires. And afterward, if he truly isn’t given what he desires, he can come to actual expiration of the soul, as it says, “My soul also yearns to the point of expiration.” Every Jew can have love of Hashem in this way, to the point of “My soul yearns to the point of expiration for the courtyards of Hashem.” Through contemplating the G-dliness above the worlds, every Jew can reach a love of Hashem like that of Nadav and Avihu, or like those four who entered Pardes. They entered and contemplated the essence of G-dliness, and felt that contemplation so deeply in their souls that they sensed that the truth was not here. There was no point looking for truth here. It aroused such tremendous longing in them that they simply couldn’t return to their bodies. They simply remained there. And such love of Hashem is, of course, incomparably higher than everything we’ve discussed. Because everything we’ve discussed until now is love of Hashem contained within the bounds of the intellect, the emotions, the body. It’s love of Hashem within the world. Here we’re talking about love of Hashem that breaks through every boundary and limitation, to the point of actual mesirus nefesh, to the point where a Jew literally leaves his body. And from here, from this kind of love, from this level of G-dliness, the root of the Levites below emerged from Binah. How can that be? Who is higher, Levites or kohanim? Kohanim. Obviously. Right. What are we saying here? That this love of Hashem, in the manner

27:25 Speaker 1 of supernal Binah, is above every kind of love, even the kohanim’s kind of ahavah rabbah. So it turns out the Levites are higher than the kohanim. Yes. The Alter Rebbe answers this in parentheses. And indeed, that is why in the future, when the world is elevated, they—the Levites—will be the kohanim, as the Arizal wrote concerning the verse “the kohanim, the Levites”: the Levites of today will be kohanim in the future. How can that be? To be a kohen, you have to be born to a kohen. The Torah will not change. Right. How can the Levites suddenly become kohanim? It says that the souls of the Levites will be born to parents where the father is a kohen, and the souls of the kohanim will be born to fathers who are Levites.

28:20 Speaker 4 As though they’ll be born again—

28:21 Speaker 1 That’s what the Arizal writes. What?

28:22 Speaker 4 What, they’ll be born again? Yes.

28:25 Speaker 1 Through reincarnation of souls. Do I know how that works? I don’t know how it will happen in practice. The point the Arizal is making here is that, in truth, love like fiery flames—the love of the Levites—is, in and of itself, by its very nature, far higher than the service of the kohanim. And so, in the future, when the world is as it should be, the Levites will be above the kohanim. And the service—what does the Levites’ service have to do with gevurah? The Levites’ service was to raise their voices in rejoicing and thanksgiving, in song and music, in melody and harmony, in a manner of ratzo and shov. Every ascent comes through song. We spoke about this once. “All those who possess song go out and sing in song.” Huh? We told the story once. This is an expression of that intense love. In other words, the Levites’ service of song and music in the Beis Hamikdash expressed that intense love, “like a flame emerging from a flash,” as stated in the Gemara, chapter two of Chagigah. Now, a flash isn’t a vessel. “Flash” generally refers to a form of fire that bursts out and... fire that throws off flames. That’s called a flash. What’s told there in the Gemara—this is an aside. I don’t know if you’ll hear this. I’ll give you a chance to hear it. It says, “A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, and a person according to his praise,” says King Shlomo. Silver is refined, cleaned in a furnace called a crucible. A crucible. I don’t remember—crucible, I think. Gold is refined in a vessel called a furnace, and a person is refined according to his praise. The more he praises and extols Hakadosh Boruch Hu in music and song, the more this measures the person’s quality, his refinement. Why do gold and silver need two different kinds of furnaces? Because silver is a metal that oxidizes very easily. Everyone knows, everyone

30:49 Speaker 1 You surely know that silver candlesticks, if left out, tarnish very quickly. Gold candlesticks don’t. If someone has gold jewelry on her face, she doesn’t have to clean it every week. It doesn’t tarnish, even if it isn’t coated. Right? Silver, when it’s found in nature, underground, tarnishes immediately. It combines with everything around it, and to separate it from what it’s mixed with, you have to melt the whole thing. Since every substance melts—becomes liquid—at a different temperature, when you reach the right temperature, ah, now the silver comes out. You take it out and separate the waste. Right? So the tool for refining silver is a furnace designed to produce different temperatures, until you reach the precise temperature at which only the silver melts and the other things don’t. That’s a refining furnace. Gold is something entirely different. Gold doesn’t combine with anything; it doesn’t mix with anything. In nature, it’s found as gold. Where there are gold mines, there are places where you can see streaks of gold inside the rock. It’s simply there on its own, not mixed with anything. Fine, but it’s still inside... How do you get it out of the rock? You break out the whole section where you can see gold and crush it. Usually these are hard stones; they look a bit like shards of pottery. You crush it into powder and take a vessel called a crucible. A crucible has two parts: an earthenware dish and an earthenware lid. The lid has holes in it. You put the crushed gold in the dish, put coals on top, cover it with the lid, and blow air through it—whoosh. That creates the greatest heat they could produce with the methods they had back then, and everything inside burns up. Now only the gold remains. Ah, when everything burns, well, everyone knows that when you throw all

33:04 Speaker 1 kinds of interesting materials into a fire, you get all kinds of beautiful colors. Right? Have you ever seen it? You throw in nylon, you throw in... Children love playing with this, throwing in different things to see what color they make. So when they burn these shards with the gold inside them, the fire has lots and lots and lots of colors. It must be a very beautiful sight. And already in Sefer Yetzirah, which Avraham Avinu composed, he compared the soul’s fiery yearning for G-dliness to the flash that comes out of the crucible, to the fire that comes out through those little holes.

33:43 Speaker 5 Music

33:45 Speaker 1 Huh?

33:46 Speaker 5 Music

33:46 Speaker 1 Um, I’ve never seen it myself. There are several descriptions of what it looks like... Among the early commentators, there are several descriptions: it’s like jets, colorful jets of fire rising and falling. Very striking descriptions... I don’t know, I didn’t copy any of them here. It’s very beautiful to read those descriptions and try to imagine it. And the Alter Rebbe says, “like fire emerging from the flash”—something like that coming out. You see the fire yearning in its colors, rising and falling, threads of fire. You see something whose entire being is an immense yearning to separate itself and emerge, to emerge and cling to its source and root. That, says the Alter Rebbe, is as much as I can explain to you about this love. “This matter cannot be properly explained in a letter.” A letter—in writing. You take what I’m feeling right now, this immense love, and now I have to explain it to you, write it down. It has to pass through the mind and the emotions and then, as I said, into the instrument of movement, of touching with the finger. And that’s... that’s it. That’s all I can write. Try to understand it yourselves. “This matter cannot be properly explained in a letter. Rather, every warmhearted and understanding person who reflects on a matter and deeply focuses his mind and understanding on Hashem will find the good and the hidden light in his intellectual soul.” All of that... You, too, have the foundation of a G-dly soul. It has the element of fire. If you contemplate the G-dliness that is beyond the worlds, then you, too—your soul, too—will look like the flash emerging from the crucible. Each person according to their own measure. But the Alter Rebbe writes this in the book for beinonim, so apparently it applies to everyone. One person prays with a blue flame, another prays with a blue flame; one with a green flame, another with a red flame. I don’t know exactly how it works, but the yearning for G-dliness itself

35:47 Speaker 1 is something everyone can awaken in their soul to one degree or another. “After first attaining fear of sin, so as to turn away from evil completely, so that ‘your sins do not separate’ you,” G-d forbid. Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has explained the love that is like fiery flames, the love of a soul longing to expire, which is the opposite of every other kind of love. With every other kind of love, what is the goal? What does the person want? For G-dliness to be revealed to me, for me to feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to love me and for me to love Him, for us to be good friends, and for me to feel something in the Torah and mitzvos I observe. I’ll enjoy it and feel my vitality in it. All of that is love like silver. Love like fiery flames is exactly the opposite. Its goal is: I don’t want to feel; I don’t want Torah; I don’t want mitzvos. I want only You Yourself. There’s a very beautiful saying in Yiddish that I can’t manage to repeat. Yes. So I don’t want anything. I want only You Yourself. Fine, but what’s the point of that, huh?

37:04 Speaker 6 What does it mean, “I don’t want to feel”? If someone wants Hakadosh Boruch Hu, doesn’t he feel G-dliness?

37:09 Speaker 1 He wants to be absorbed into G-dliness. He doesn’t want to feel G-dliness; he wants to be absorbed into G-dliness. He wants G-dliness to be there. He doesn’t want anything else. He isn’t looking to feel something or for something to be revealed to him. No, truly not. He wants Him. He can’t feel, he can’t think, he can’t do anything. He can’t do anything else. It’s well known that the Alter Rebbe would roll on the floor and say this phrase. One of the stories, which was printed once—but I don’t know how often people tell it—is that one time they went looking for the Alter Rebbe. Suddenly he had disappeared. They couldn’t find him. Do you know the story? They searched and searched and searched. They knew he had gone to daven, but... “the child was gone.” They searched for him, and suddenly they saw blood coming out from under the storeroom door. They tried to open it, but the storeroom was locked. They realized he was inside and something had happened, and they couldn’t hear anything. They broke down the door and found him rolling, rolling on the floor. He had injured himself on something in the storeroom, and so much blood had flowed that it had come out under the door. And he was just rolling on the floor, wanting nothing but Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. That was what he wanted. He had begun to daven, he hadn’t noticed what was happening to him, and that was it. He was there with Hakadosh Boruch Hu now. So we aren’t expected to reach such a level, such levels of love for Hashem. But apparently something of it does apply to us. Fine, so even if it applies to us and we can reach it, what’s the point? The whole purpose of awakening love for Hashem is to arrive at observing Torah and mitzvos in this world. This kind of love doesn’t lead to observing Torah and mitzvos. Its whole nature is the opposite of Torah and mitzvos: he doesn’t want the world, or Torah, or mitzvos. What

39:22 Speaker 1 do we need such a thing for? Why are we told that it exists? “Now the order of service in engaging in Torah and mitzvos that follows from this intense love is solely in the mode of return, as it says in Sefer Yetzirah: ‘If your heart runs, return to the One.’” Meaning, “if your heart runs”—this is the soul’s yearning in the right chamber of the heart, growing stronger, blazing and burning ever more intensely, until the soul truly longs to expire and pour itself into the embrace of its Father, the Source of life, blessed be He, and leave its confinement in the physical, material body to cleave to Him, blessed be He. That is “your heart runs.” What does “return to the One” mean? Then he must bring this back into his heart. Even when a person is actually on such a level, he has to rouse himself and sense what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants—what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. As our Sages said: “Against your will, you live.” True, you want Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want that kind of service. You want to detach yourself from life; you no longer want to remain in this world. “Against your will, you live.” I placed you here in the world so that you would observe Torah and mitzvos in a physical body—against your will, contrary to what you want. You must give life to this body. Why? To draw down the higher life from the Source of life, blessed be He, into the world below. I want... I created the world so that I would have a dwelling in the lower realms. I want to be revealed below. Why are you looking upward? What you want is very beautiful, but after reaching such a level, you now have to sense what I want. I want you to return below, to the body. It isn’t comfortable for you, I know. That’s what is needed: through the Torah of life, to make a dwelling in the lower realms where His oneness, blessed be He, is revealed. So what does “If your heart runs, return” mean? Return to the One. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came into being.

42:00 Speaker 7 Rabbi, when you do something through receiving light, it can’t— it doesn’t last very long. I mean, we’re here against our will, but it doesn’t last very long. You can’t keep it up.

42:13 Speaker 1 We’ll talk about that. That’s the conclusion. Exactly right. Just a few more sentences. So what does “If your heart races, return to the One” mean? If you’ve succeeded—or once you’ve succeeded—in awakening within yourself that rush of longing, that yearning of the soul to leave the body, now awaken within yourself an awareness of what Hashem wants: that you return below and bring the One down to earth. If your heart races, return. Not return to the One above; return below to bring the One down here.

42:47 Speaker 7 But what’s the point of trying to reach that level and then coming back?

42:52 Speaker 1 That’s the same question she asked. It’s an obvious question. Absolutely. A good question. To make a dwelling place in the lower realms for His unity in a revealed way, as explained earlier in chapter 37, which we discussed: the purpose of all creation is to bring G-dliness down, to reveal it below—a dwelling place in the lower realms. And as it says in the Zohar, “for the One to be within the one.” Meaning, the hidden unity that I now feel when I’m in that state of the soul yearning to leave the body should become revealed here below in the world. And that is what is meant by what we say in the liturgical poem on Friday night: “Come, my beloved, to greet the bride; let us welcome the Shabbos.” When a person is in the state of “Come, my beloved,” the state of “your heart races,” what do we tell him? “Let us welcome the Shabbos.” He needs to bring Shabbos down, to welcome it here below in the world. This also helps us understand the teaching of our Sages, “Against your will you live, and against your will you die.” Sorry. So what should his desire be? “Against your will you live.” Meaning, a person doesn’t want to live, right? But against his will he lives. He is compelled to live. What does “against your will you die” mean? That he doesn’t want to die; he wants to live, but he is compelled to die. So what are our Sages saying? How can both be true at once? Both have to be true at once, as explained elsewhere at length regarding this Mishnah. Against your will, you live with the help of the Life of life, blessed be He. This is the question you both asked: if a person lives all the time within this world, then even if he has lower-level awe and higher-level awe, love of the world, great love and love of delights, in the end he still feels the world. If he feels the world, the world occupies some place in his mind. He is here; he’s a tzaddik now, but he lives within the world. The world exists for him, and if the world exists,

45:20 Speaker 1 then later it might begin to beckon to him a little more, and more, and more. He could slowly sink into the world and forget a little that he’s a tzaddik, and then forget even more. And then he’ll descend lower and lower. So a person has to awaken within himself the longing of the soul to leave the body, to know that there is something beyond the world. But if he stays in a state of being beyond the world, he isn’t fulfilling Hashem’s desire to bring G-dliness into the world. So he has to come back down. That is the movement of ratzo and shov—running forward and returning. A person has to awaken a movement of ratzo within himself so that the shov will be as it should be. And when he is in a state of shov, he must awaken the ratzo within himself; otherwise the shov will sink lower and lower and won’t endure. As you said, it will keep descending. So it is like a flash of lightning: life moves in ratzo and shov. All vitality—the vitality of serving Hashem—is in a ceaseless, recurring movement: ratzo and shov, ratzo and shov, ratzo and shov. This isn’t the place to go into it at length. I just want to clarify one point: it isn’t only a person’s individual service of Hashem that moves in ratzo and shov—which is, in effect, the conclusion of the whole Tanya, that all service of Hashem must be in ratzo and shov. The vitality of the world as a whole works this way too. Consider a person’s own life: breathing. You can’t only breathe in. Breathing in brings life into the body, right? So I’ll just keep breathing in. You can’t. All right, so to live you have to breathe out, right? Then I’ll let the air out. No, you can’t do that either. In, out—the movement of life works this way. And it isn’t only so in a person’s spiritual life and physical life. It’s the same in time, in the movement of Rosh Hashanah, and also in the worlds—the higher and ever-higher worlds. The entire movement of life in the world

47:29 Speaker 1 takes place through ratzo and shov, and it is brought about by a person’s service in ratzo and shov. A person awakens within himself a desire for G-dliness, to leave the worlds behind, and then understands that his work is here within the world, and then the cycle begins again. He does this with passion, again and again and again. This inner movement of a person’s soul is what acts upon and moves all the vitality of all the worlds. The entire existence of the world depends on this inner movement of a Jew during prayer and Torah and mitzvos: ratzo and shov. That brings us to the end of this part of the Tanya—well, we still have three chapters. We’ve just finished chapter 50, and Tanya has 53 chapters. In fact, the next chapter, which we’ll see, with Hashem’s help, in the next class, begins, “For further explanation.” That means the explanation ended here, but there’s one point the Alter Rebbe still owes us. And for that one small point he gives us three chapters of further explanation—an extraordinary explanation in its own right. We’ll just review one point, with Hashem’s help, at the beginning of the next class. What is that missing point? When we began the second part of Tanya, we said the first part ran from chapters 1 through 34: How do I awaken love of Hashem that will lead me to observe Torah and mitzvos, to do what I’m supposed to and not commit transgressions? We devoted 34 chapters to that. Chapter 35 began the second part. What is the second part? Okay, I already observe mitzvos fully; everything is fine. Yes, but observing mitzvos must be done with love and awe. How do you attain love and awe? Why are love and awe needed? And what kind of contemplation awakens them? And so on, until we see that the whole of our service follows the movement of ratzo and shov. So the explanation of—

49:57 Speaker 1 of serving Hashem with feeling runs from chapter 35 through chapter 50, which we’ve just learned. What is this entire explanation based on? A parable the Alter Rebbe brings at the very beginning of the subject: the parable of the child in the Zohar. What does the child say there? We touched on it briefly earlier: the G-dly soul is compared to a vessel, the earthenware body of a lamp. When does the earthenware lamp shine? When you put oil and a wick into it. The vessel, the G-dly soul, cannot shine unless you put oil and a wick into it. What are the oil and wick, according to the child? The oil is Torah and mitzvos, and the wick is the animal soul. And that is what the Alter Rebbe explains over some fourteen or fifteen chapters, from chapter 35 to chapter 50: the meaning of the oil and the wick, and so on. One thing remains difficult. There’s one point we haven’t explained. We skipped over it; the Alter Rebbe passed over it. Since when is oil a metaphor for mitzvos? Oil is a metaphor for what? For wisdom? For Torah, right? Oil is a metaphor for mitzvos? That’s what you chose to tell us? So up to this point, he explained the content of the child’s parable. Now the Alter Rebbe needs three profound chapters, with an extraordinary explanation, to explain why mitzvos are compared to oil. It’s a short chapter overall.