Likkutei Amarim Chapter 52 · 5781

00:00 Speaker 1 Wait, but the two girls...

00:02 Speaker 2 What?

00:03 Speaker 1 Those two girls, don’t they need to—uh, the ones who were with them—don’t they need to come up?

00:06 Speaker 2 Uh, they’re talking.

00:07 Speaker 1 No, they’re here, the ones who were with them.

00:14 Speaker 2 I think we’ll start; they’ll join us. All right, we’re up to chapter 52. Chapter 52 is the chapter—thank you very much. It’s the middle chapter of the three in which the Alter Rebbe further explains the words of the Yenuka, after explaining the subject at great length over fourteen, fifteen, eighteen chapters. What does the Yenuka say? That a Jew needs to serve Hashem with enthusiasm, with vitality, with love and awe. The goal isn’t only—serving Hashem isn’t just keeping the mitzvos themselves, doing the mitzvos and not committing transgressions, but also how to do the mitzvos: with vitality, with enthusiasm, and with love and awe. So he explained that at length. Now he further explains the Yenuka’s words. The Yenuka says that for the fire of the Shechinah to take hold in a Jew, for the fire, the Shechinah, to rest upon the Jew’s soul, you need oil. And the Yenuka says that the oil is the mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe asks: Why are the mitzvos compared to oil? Oil—particularly olive oil, which is customarily used to light a lamp—is usually a metaphor for wisdom. Why does the Yenuka suddenly compare the mitzvos to oil? So we said that to explain this point, the Alter Rebbe adds three more chapters to Tanya—51, 52, and 53. The basis of the explanation is the resting of the Shechinah. The Alter Rebbe explains what it means for the Shechinah to rest somewhere. He explains it in three stages, and once we understand—once we finish understanding what that means and what its significance is—he’ll explain at the end why the mitzvos are compared to oil. So we began with the first chapter, chapter 51, last week, or two weeks ago, whenever it was. He explained what the resting of the Shechinah means in the first place. We use such

02:42 Speaker 2 holy words: the Shechinah rests upon a Jew. The Shechinah rests in the Holy of Holies. What does “Shechinah” mean? What is this “resting”? What is the Shechinah? What are we talking about? He explained that in the previous chapter: the essence of what it means for the Shechinah to rest somewhere. He explained that the Shechinah is the source of life for the worlds. It’s like our soul, in a person: there is the soul’s essence, which does not give life to the body. The soul’s essence—what are called its encompassing powers, chayah and yechidah—does not give life to the body. It doesn’t need the body; the body is of no concern to it. It doesn’t know what a body is. It is connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, included in His Essence and Being. It is up there, beyond matters of the body. What gives life to the body is not the soul’s essence, not the soul as it is in its essence, but only the 613 powers contained within the soul. That is what gives life to the body. He explained at length, both through the analogy and in its application, what that life-force is that becomes vested in the body and gives it life. And that is called the Shechinah. The Shechinah is the G-dly light that gives life to the worlds. That, broadly speaking, is what was explained in the previous chapter, along with many details. In the chapter we’re about to learn today, he explains how it happens. What he explained in the previous chapter was only what the Shechinah is. The Shechinah is the source of life. Okay, but how does it become vested? How does it enter? How does it give life to the worlds? That’s what our chapter explains. So let’s begin reading it inside. Chapter 52: “And just as in the human soul, the principal revelation of the overall life-force is in the brain.” He explained that in the previous chapter. “And all the limbs receive only a light and a power that shine to them from the source of the revealed life-force in the brain.” He explained this in the previous chapter. Let’s put it as an analogy; it will be easier to remember

05:23 Speaker 2 and easier to understand, instead of going through the whole lengthy explanation. When a teacher wants to teach a student something, the teacher’s intellect as a whole—assuming a true teacher and a true student—is infinite in relation to the student’s intellect. Now, the teacher can’t take all his knowledge and pour it into the student. That’s impossible. The teacher has to set aside a particular idea, a particular subject, and decide: What am I going to teach the student now? Once the teacher has decided, that idea, that subject, exists within him in its entirety, with all its details, all its depth, and all his understanding and grasp of it. But that is the subject as it exists in the teacher’s mind. The teacher can’t take that deep idea and throw it at the student. The student would drown. He can’t handle it; he doesn’t have the capacity for it. The teacher now has to take the idea and start thinking about how to simplify it, how to bring it down and illustrate it so that the student can understand. As the idea exists in the teacher’s mind, it is beyond the student’s reach. Then, after the teacher actually speaks to the student, teaches him and explains it to him, there is the subject as the student absorbs it in his own mind.

07:00 Speaker 3 It’s just like someone who works with graphics, and then she has ideas, and suddenly she’s like this.

07:07 Speaker 2 There’s a big difference: even after the teacher has brought the idea down, illustrated it and explained it, there’s still an enormous difference between what the teacher taught and what the student absorbed. After the student thinks and reflects on it, he may eventually come to understand the depth of the teacher’s thinking. But what he understands now... So there are three stages. First, the teacher sets aside the idea, which is essentially still the teacher’s intellect in its pure form; it has no connection to the student. The student has no way of relating to it. Then there’s the teacher thinking through how to explain it. That is already the source of something the student can understand. And then there’s what the student understands—an illumination from that intellect. The same applies to any transmission from a mashpia to a recipient. You could break it down into more stages, more parts and more analogies. There is the essential G-dly life-force with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the worlds. The life-force in its essence, as it is with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is beyond them. The worlds cannot live from that. Hakadosh Boruch Hu decided that He wants to give life to worlds. Well, that alone doesn’t yet enable worlds to exist; they can’t receive life from that. Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu has to clothe this G-dly life-force and bring it down. And once it has descended, it becomes a source from which the worlds can receive life. In other words, after Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings the life-force down and clothes it, that life-force is only a source, like the sun from which light can emerge. What the worlds receive is not the essential G-dly life-force as it is with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, nor even the source of life, but only an illumination from it. The same applies to the soul. So that’s what he says here: “Just as in the human soul, the principal revelation of the overall life-force is in the brain,” but that

09:25 Speaker 2 The main, general life-force... The general life-force found in the brain is not something the organs can live from directly. What all the organs receive from the soul as it is enclothed in the brain is only a light and a power that shines to them from the source where the life-force is revealed in the brain. All right? In just the same way, by analogy, the main revelation of the overall flow of life-force—which life-force? The life-force that Hakadosh Boruch Hu draws down to give life to the worlds and the beings within them—is enclothed and included in His will, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, which are called the mochin, the intellectual faculties. Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes the essence of that life-force and brings it down, enclothing it in the mochin—in Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Atzilus. And those are the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Atzilus. What is enclothed in them? That light of Ein Sof, that flow of life-force that gives life to the worlds. So Chochmah, Binah, and Daas, together with the G-dly light within them, with the essence of the life-force within them, are enclothed in the Torah and its mitzvos. And the revelation of this overall flow is the source of life-force from which the worlds receive, each according to its level and standing. In other words, where does it begin? What is the source of the worlds’ life-force? First there is the G-dly light itself, which descends and is enclothed in Chochmah, Binah, and Daas. After it is enclothed in Chochmah, Binah, and Daas, which are the Torah and its mitzvos, it descends further and is enclothed in Malchus of Atzilus, as we will see in a moment. And Malchus of Atzilus is the source of life-force for the worlds. So we have three stages: the life-force itself; the way it is enclothed in Chochmah, Binah, and Daas; and then the way Chochmah, Binah, and Daas are enclothed in Malchus. What is the source from which the life-force is revealed? The source of the worlds’ life-force is Malchus alone. The levels above it are not... Not only can the worlds not live or exist from them, they are not even a source for the worlds. Each world, in particular, receives only an illumination that spreads out and shines from this source, from Malchus, like the light that spreads from the sun, for example. So

12:21 Speaker 2 Malchus of Atzilus is like the sun, from which light goes out to give life to the world. In the same way, Malchus is the source of life-force from which the worlds receive only an illumination. And the faculties of the body’s organs... All the worlds, each one in particular, receive only an illumination that spreads out and shines from this source, like the light that spreads from the sun, for example, and like the faculties of the body’s organs that receive from the brain, as mentioned above. And this source—the source of life-force, the source of the worlds’ life-force—is called... The Alter Rebbe gives it four names. Until now, we knew it was called Malchus, Malchus of Atzilus. Now the Alter Rebbe gives Malchus of Atzilus four names. It is called Alma d’Isgalya, Matronisa, Ima Tata’ah, and Shechinah, from the expression “And I will dwell among them.” Why did the Alter Rebbe see fit to give Malchus of Atzilus four names? Because of four characteristics of Malchus of Atzilus in relation to the way it gives life to the worlds. And the Alter Rebbe explains. First, why is it called Alma d’Isgalya? Because this source... Which source? What are we talking about? Malchus of Atzilus, right? Which is the primary Shechinah. Why is it called Alma d’Isgalya? Because this source is where the light of Ein Sof first begins to be revealed. What was above it was not revelation. There, the light of Ein Sof is not revealed. It is present, it exists, it is itself, and so on. It is not revealed. So first of all, it is called Alma d’Isgalya, because from it the light is drawn down and shines to the worlds openly. Why is it called Matronisa? Because from this source each one receives the particular light and life-force appropriate to it. Matronisa means a lady, a queen. The queen is the one who brings the king’s affairs out to the people. The king himself has his own affairs; he is exalted, and the people do not have much access to him. The one who serves as an intermediary between the king and the people is the matronisa, the queen. You can bring your requests to her. When the king’s door is closed, you can knock

15:00 Speaker 2 on the queen’s door and ask through her. The matronisa is the one who brings the king’s affairs to the people. So because Malchus is the one that brings the affairs of the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to the people, to the worlds, it is called Matronisa. These are two different things. Its being the first revelation to the worlds—that is the beginning of revelation. It is like when a teacher has already decided what he is going to speak about. That is already called revelation. It is no longer the teacher’s intellectual capacity itself, where we do not know what is there. He has decided what to speak about, but it is still not a revelation that the student can receive. For the student to receive it, you also need the matronisa to take that revelation and bring it down to the people, to bring it down below. So it is called both Alma d’Isgalya and Matronisa. Then it is also called Ima Tata’ah. Because from this source each one receives the particular light and life-force appropriate to it. Just as a mother gives birth to children, so Malchus gives birth to and sustains all the worlds. So it is also called Ima Tata’ah. By the way, what does tata’ah mean? Tata’ah means “lower.” That means that if there is an Ima Tata’ah, there is also an Ima Ila’ah. Otherwise they would not add the word tata’ah to distinguish between the two, right? So what is Ima Ila’ah? It is not relevant here; just a side note. Ima Ila’ah is Binah. Binah, the sefirah of Binah, is called Ima Ila’ah, and the sefirah of Malchus is called Ima Tata’ah. Why? Because each of them gives birth, but they do not give birth to the same thing. The sefirah of Binah is contemplation. When a person contemplates something, what is born? An emotion. He thinks deeply about something, and he begins to be moved, to feel something. This is good; that is not good. He begins to feel drawn to it

17:03 Speaker 2 or to hate it, depending on what he is thinking. So Binah is called the mother of the emotions; that is Ima Ila’ah. And Malchus, the lowest sefirah, is called Ima Tata’ah because it also gives birth, but it does not give birth to emotions. It gives birth to worlds—to beings and worlds. So it is also called Ima Tata’ah, and it is called Shechinah because through the illumination that comes from it—that is, through Malchus—the G-dly light dwells within them and is enclothed in them to give them life. So it has four names. Okay, so we have learned that Malchus has four names, corresponding to four aspects of the way it gives life to the worlds. The Alter Rebbe does not stop there; he adds another two names for Malchus. After presenting its four names and explaining them, he adds another two. It is therefore called “the mother of the children,” by way of analogy, and Knesses Yisroel. Why? Why these two names? Because from this source—we are still talking about the same source, the same Malchus—the souls of Atzilus were emanated, the souls of Beriah were created, the souls of Yetzirah were formed, and the souls of Asiyah were made. Right. So Malchus is the source from which all the souls of the Jewish people are born, and it is therefore also called “the mother of the children.” By the way, so we do not get confused: earlier we said that Binah is called “the mother of the children,” and now we are saying that Malchus is called “the mother of the children.” But they are not the same children. In one case, the children are the emotions; in the other, the children are the souls of the Jewish people. That is Ima Ila’ah and Ima Tata’ah. These names... You have to be careful with them. In any event, what we have seen so far is that Malchus of Atzilus is, broadly speaking, the source of life-force for two things. First, it is the source of life-force for all the worlds and all the beings within them. Second, it is also the source of life-force for the souls of the Jewish people. Not only the worlds and the beings are created from Malchus; the souls are created from it too. That is what he goes on to say. And all of them—that means the worlds, the

19:31 Speaker 2 beings within them, and the souls—all of them are only an extension of the life-force and light from this source called Shechinah, like the light that spreads from the sun. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came into being. No questions, then?

19:58 Speaker 4 I thought the souls had always existed. I mean, suddenly it says that she gives birth to them.

20:06 Speaker 2 So both are true. You asked: If souls have always existed, how are we suddenly learning that souls are born? Both are true. There are souls as they exist at their highest level, in their source, and there are souls as we know them—souls clothed in a body. And souls as they exist in their source and root have a source and root that is far, far higher still. This isn’t the place to explain that. Here we’re explaining how Malchus, how the primary Shechinah, is the source of the life of the worlds. That’s the subject of the chapter, and we’re staying with it. The soul as it is clothed in a body is fundamentally different from the essence of the soul. It’s something else entirely, only a radiance of it. It’s called the “foot” of the soul—to the extent that it’s called something born. It was born. In other words, before it was born, it didn’t exist as a distinct reality. There was something called the essence of the soul, but that’s not the same thing. It’s like a baby before it... not before it was born, but before the pregnancy began. Even then, it existed in potential. All right? That’s a good question. So what have we established so far? Malchus is the source of the life of the worlds. “Source of life” means that it is the sun, while all the worlds, and the souls too, are created, formed, and made only from the radiance that comes from the sun—only a radiance of Malchus. The Alter Rebbe continues in the next passage and emphasizes: “But the Shechinah itself, which is the beginning and primary aspect of the revelation”—what we discussed as it still exists in the teacher’s mind—“of the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, shining upon the worlds in a revealed manner.” So yes, Hakadosh Boruch Hu has already revealed that He wants to create worlds. “And it is the source of the entire flow of life in all the worlds, for all the life within them,” within the worlds, “is only light spreading from it, like light spreading from the sun. But the essential light,” like the sun itself, “the worlds cannot bear or receive the light of the Shechinah.” So the Alter Rebbe emphasizes again

22:37 Speaker 2 that everything the worlds receive is only a radiance of the Shechinah, not the Shechinah itself. Why? Because they can’t. They cannot bear to receive the light of the Shechinah “dwelling and actually becoming clothed within them without a garment that conceals and hides its light from them.” Why? Seemingly, if the Shechinah is the source of the life of the worlds, why must it be hidden in order to give them life? On the contrary, let it give them life itself, directly, without any garment, and then they could live a much fuller life, seemingly. Right? He says no: “So that they should not be completely nullified in their source, like the light of the sun is nullified in its source, within the body of the sun.” What is the sun’s light like before it leaves the body of the sun? Does it exist there? Well, we’ve already discussed this once. Hmm?

23:35 Speaker 4 It exists. It exists before that. No, if it’s nullified as a distinct reality. It exists. It exists, but... It exists, but...

23:46 Speaker 2 This is a very interesting subject, very difficult to understand, and very deep. We’ll deal with it when we reach Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, the next part of Tanya. Yes, the next part. In both chapter 3 and chapter 10, there are major differences in how this analogy is presented, but for our purposes right now, without getting into too many explanations, everyone understands that the light, before it leaves the sun, is indeed there—but light isn’t there in the way we know light. Certainly not. So if all the worlds receive their life only from the light, that means their very existence is sunlight that has taken the form of, I don’t know, a flower. It’s not that there’s something separate and Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it life, that the light gives it life. No. The light creates its very existence, its being. Without the light—without what we call “light,” yes?—without this Divine flow, the worlds, the created beings, have no existence. This Divine flow is what sustains them, what brings them into being and gives them life, creating them from nothing at every moment. If there is no Divine radiance, there are no created beings, no reality. It doesn’t exist. We say that created beings receive from the light. We don’t mean that there’s some created being here and light pours over it, shines on it. No. “Receive” means that the light creates their existence. So if the entire existence of created beings is only that Divine light, then if the source of the Divine light shines here, there are no created beings. Just as the light within the sun has no independent existence—it doesn’t exist as light. So the worlds cannot receive their existence directly from the Divine light. It has to pass through some kind of barrier, some kind of screen, some kind of

26:00 Speaker 2 garment, so that the Divine light in its essence is concealed and they receive it only after that concealment. And that is the question. That’s the beginning of the question. So the Alter Rebbe asks—sorry, yes, in the next passage: “And what is the garment that can conceal and clothe it without being nullified in its light?” If we say that all the reality we know, and even realities we don’t know, including spiritual reality—what is its source and root? Its source and root are that Divine light, that primary Shechinah, that radiance from it. So any garment we can imagine—what is it made of? What is the source of that garment? The light of the Shechinah. Well, how can it conceal the light of the Shechinah if it itself comes only from there? It itself would be nullified in the light of the Shechinah. Right? So we have a problem. For the Shechinah to give life to the worlds, there must be some kind of garment; otherwise they would be nullified as distinct realities and would not exist. But where is it? Where can we look for something that can clothe the light of the Shechinah? What’s the solution? The only thing that can, so to speak, hold back the light of the Shechinah, filter it, diminish it, constrict it, is something higher than the Shechinah—not something that comes from it. All right, let’s look at the text: “And what is the garment that can conceal and clothe it without being nullified in its light? It is His blessed will and wisdom, etc., clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos, which are revealed to us and to our children.” Torah and mitzvos. The Torah is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom. The mitzvos are His will. That’s what He wanted us to do, and—

28:21 Speaker 5 But you could say they resonate with each other and fit together.

28:24 Speaker 2 One second. That’s already a step ahead. We’ll get to that in a moment. So if the Torah and mitzvos are His will and wisdom, and the source of life, the primary Shechinah—what sefirah did we say that is? It’s Malchus, right? And His will, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are far higher than Malchus, right? So the Torah and mitzvos, which are His will and wisdom, are higher than Malchus, than the primary Shechinah. That’s why they have the power to be the garment in which Malchus can be clothed and through which it can give life to the worlds. So this is very interesting. The source of the worlds’ life is Torah and mitzvos. That’s what follows, right? Let’s look at the text again: “And what is the garment that can conceal and clothe it without being nullified in its light? It is His blessed will and wisdom, clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos, which are revealed to us and to our children.” How do we know that the Torah really is higher than the Shechinah? “For the Torah proceeds from Chochmah.” It is supernal Chochmah, and supernal Chochmah is far, far above alma d’isgalya, the revealed world; it is far above alma d’isgalya, above Malchus. “He,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in Chochmah—Hakadosh Boruch Hu as He is united with Chochmah of Atzilus—“He is wise, but not with a knowable wisdom,” and so on. It’s a lengthy subject. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes—and I don’t want to get into these matters—the Alter Rebbe emphasizes just how much higher the Torah is than the level of Malchus. Malchus is alma d’isgalya, the revealed world; it relates to things that are revealed, things that descend into the worlds. Supernal Chochmah is far higher. It doesn’t relate to the existence of the worlds, and so on. So the Torah, which comes from there, is incomparably higher than Malchus, as explained earlier: the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is clothed in and united with supernal Chochmah, and He, blessed be He, and His wisdom are one. All right, I’m trying to catch you out. Maybe someone remembers already. We’ve gone over this several times. Where does it say that the light of the Ein Sof is united only with Chochmah? Hmm? Very good. That’s just something to remember. It’s mentioned countless times. I said it too; I asked several

31:22 Speaker 2 Sometimes. Chapter 35, in the note. There’s a note there that says: Wherever in Chassidus—all our Rebbeim—wherever one of the Rebbeim wants to emphasize how the infinite light of Ein Sof unites with the worlds, when one is infinite and the other is limited, how do they come together? Look in the note to chapter 35; it’s written there. “He and His wisdom are one.” But that raises the opposite question for us. Sorry. What was our problem with a garment? That if the worlds received directly from the Shechinah, their existence would be nullified. Right? So we need a garment. Now what are you telling me? There is a garment; I found one. What is it? Torah and mitzvos. How are they a garment? Because they are higher than the Shechinah. Excuse me, what have you answered? If the worlds cannot withstand the light that comes from the Shechinah, how can they withstand the light that comes from Torah and mitzvos, which are incomparably higher than the Shechinah? What kind of garment is that? If they are higher, they are not lower. What does he answer? “But it descended”—the Torah descended through the order of levels, from one level to the next in the chain of worlds, until it became clothed in physical things, which are the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. So yes, the Torah as it is at its source and root is truly incomparably higher even than the source of the worlds’ life. But the Torah has a unique quality: it can descend. And however far it descends, it can descend until it becomes clothed in physical things. When a person takes an esrog in his hand, his physical hand is holding a physical object. And although it is physical, it has the same essence as the Torah at its source and root, the supernal Chochmah. A Jew takes an esrog in his hand, and with his physical hand he holds the supernal Chochmah of the world of Atzilus. So on the one hand, Torah and mitzvos are higher

33:59 Speaker 2 than Malchus, than alma d’isgalya, the revealed world, than the source of life, so they can limit it. On the other hand, they descend below, all the way into physicality, so the worlds can receive the life of Malchus through them. Ah, we’ve turned the page, right? “And in its descent, through the chain of worlds”—whose descent? The Torah’s descent. There’s an interesting note from the Rebbe here, which the Rebbe leaves as requiring further examination. There aren’t many places like that, where the Rebbe asks a question and says he has no answer.

34:42 Speaker 6 There’s no answer anywhere? Or—

34:45 Speaker 2 When the Rebbe says there’s no answer, I don’t keep looking. If the Rebbe says he doesn’t understand it, then where am I going to look?

34:55 Speaker 6 Hasn’t the Rebbe explained it somewhere else?

34:57 Speaker 2 No. He hasn’t. There are quite a few places like that. The question the Rebbe asks about “in its descent, through the chain of worlds” is: What does “its” refer to? What descends—the Torah, or the supernal Chochmah? But the plain meaning, without the Rebbe’s note, is that the Torah descends. And as the Torah descends from world to world, the Shechinah also descends and becomes clothed in it in each world. Now this is beginning to make sense, and the Rebbe will spell it out in a wonderful explanation. We already know from earlier—being such great scholars—that there are four worlds, and the created worlds are Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. There are enormous differences between them, and within each world there are also great differences between its individual realms. And the lower Gan Eden and—if they all receive from the same Shechinah, from the same G-dly life, why is there more here and less there? What is the difference? They all receive the—when sunlight shines, it shines the same way everywhere. Why does the G-dly light shine in the world of Beriah in an incomparably higher way than in Yetzirah, and so on? What causes that? The Rebbe says—here he begins to explain—that everything the worlds receive as their life comes through the Torah. And when the Torah descends from the Chochmah of Atzilus down to physicality, it does not descend all at once; it descends gradually, step by step. Each level to which the Torah descends gives rise to a world, and that world receives its life from the Torah as it is at that level. Then it descends further. A new world comes into being, whose created beings are much lower, because the G-dly life is clothed through the Torah after it has descended another level, and so on. Let’s see how the Rebbe says it inside the text. “And in its descent and progression from world to world”—as the Torah descends—“the Shechinah, too, descended and became clothed in it in each world. And this is”—what is it?

37:38 Speaker 2 “The Torah in each world is the Holy of Holies of that world.” And of course, since this is somewhat novel, the Rebbe immediately says: This is not my innovation; I found it written before, as stated in the Zohar and Eitz Chayim. The references in the notes below identify where it appears in the Zohar and Eitz Chayim. The Shechinah, which is the Malchus of Atzilus, is the manifestation of the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, and the life that shines into the worlds. That is why it is called “the word of Hashem” and “the breath of His mouth,” so to speak—by way of analogy, just as a person’s speech reveals his hidden, concealed thoughts to his listeners. We’ll skip the explanation in these parentheses. We’ll deal with it at length in the next part. So the Shechinah, which is the Malchus of Atzilus and gives life to the worlds, becomes clothed in the Holy of Holies of Beriah. Now, we said earlier that the principal dwelling of the Shechinah is in Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Atzilus. Then it descends and becomes clothed in the Malchus of Atzilus. The Malchus of Atzilus is the source of life for the worlds; that is where the principal dwelling of the Shechinah is—the beginning of its revelation. That same Malchus of Atzilus, together with the G-dly light, the life clothed within it, descends and becomes clothed where? In the Holy of Holies of the world of Beriah. What is the Holy of Holies of the world of Beriah? Its Chabad—Chochmah, Binah, and Daas—the first three sefiros. “And when they became clothed in the Malchus of Beriah,” what was created? “The souls and angels of Beriah.” So Malchus has a dual role. Until now, what have we learned? That Malchus is the source of life for all the worlds beneath it. Just as a king stands above the people and gives life to the whole country: he commands and leads the whole country, and the people are beneath him. Right? That’s what we always knew. Here the Rebbe says that Malchus is also the source and root of all the created beings in that same world. From the Malchus of Beriah come the souls, angels, and other beings of Beriah—not those of Yetzirah. So Malchus has a dual role: it is

40:35 Speaker 2 the source of the revelation of life in general to the worlds beneath it, and the direct source of life for all the created beings above it, so to speak, in that same world. “And when they became clothed in the Malchus of Beriah, the souls and angels of Beriah were created; and from there, too, comes the Talmud before us.” “From there” does not mean from Malchus, but from the Holy of Holies. So when the principal dwelling of the Shechinah—the Malchus of Atzilus, with the G-dly light within it—descended to become clothed in the Holy of Holies of Beriah, two things resulted. First of all—well, this is the second thing, but what happened initially... Actually, I don’t know the order, which came first and which came afterward. First of all, we already said that the Torah comes from Chochmah, Binah, and Daas. Right? That makes sense too: “The Torah comes forth from Chochmah.” But the Torah of Atzilus comes forth from the supernal Chochmah, while the Torah as it is in Beriah comes forth from Chochmah, Binah, and Daas as they are in Beriah. Once the Malchus of Atzilus descended to become clothed in the Holy of Holies of Beriah—in the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Beriah—the Torah is now present in the world of Beriah. Where in Beriah? In its Chochmah, Binah, and Daas. What does the Torah of Beriah look like? It is no longer like the Torah of Atzilus; it is already a different Torah. That is what he means when he says that “from there comes the Talmud before us.” Why? Why does the Talmud belong specifically to Beriah? What is special about the world of Beriah that makes the Talmud belong specifically to it? “As explained above in the name of the Tikkunim, in the world of Beriah, His Chochmah, Binah, and Daas—the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Ein Sof, blessed be He—shine and exert their influence through an immense contraction.” Why? “So that the souls and angels, which are finite and limited, can receive the influence of these aspects of Chabad. Therefore the Talmud comes from there, for it too is an aspect of Chabad: the Talmud gives the reasons for the halachos in full, and reasons are an aspect of Chabad.” Let’s stop here and explain. When the Malchus of Atzilus became clothed in the Chabad of Beriah, two things happened. One: G-dly life descended to give life to the world of Beriah. There is life

43:43 Speaker 2 Divine light in the world of Beriah. Where is it? It is in Chabad—the intellectual faculties. What happens there? The body can receive life from the brain, from the soul that is in the brain. But the organs of the body do not receive the life-force itself from the brain. They receive only a ray from it. They live from that ray, not from the essence of the life-force. So how do all the “organs” of the spiritual world, the world of Beriah, receive that ray? Through Malchus. The Divine light in Chabad of Beriah descends and becomes clothed in Malchus. Malchus gives life to all the worlds and created beings. What was created there? Angels, souls, and all sorts of other things—spirits and who knows what else. Now, those beings were created through Malchus in the world of Beriah. The world of Beriah is the higher Gan Eden. It says that souls sit in Gan Eden and enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah. What is the radiance of the Shechinah? They study Torah. Which Torah do they study? The Torah as it exists in Beriah. What is Torah like in Beriah? It is Chabad of Beriah—the reasons behind things. The explanation of why each thing is the way it is; understanding it. Say someone comes to a rabbi with a question. You know the story about the poor woman who had one chicken, and the shochet said there was a question about it. He did not know whether it was treif or not. So she came to the rabbi. The rabbi began examining it, looking in a sefer, looking at the chicken, looking back in the sefer. He opened another sefer, looked again at the chicken, looked here and there, went back and forth. He began debating the matter with himself. The poor woman just wanted to put the chicken in the pan, and in the end he started explaining to her that there was this consideration and that consideration and another consideration. The rabbi’s world is a world of halachah. What the woman needed was, “Tell me, Rabbi, is it kosher or not?” She needed the bottom line. Why would she care about every step of how the rabbi reached his conclusion?

46:12 Speaker 2 The rabbi lives in the world of Beriah. He lives in a world of explanations. The woman lives in a world of what needs to be done. Tell me what to do in practice. I am a kosher woman, G-d-fearing. I want to be connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What Hakadosh Boruch Hu says matters to me, but the explanations and reasoning—that is not for me. It is beyond my abilities. Tell me yes or no, good or bad, kosher or not kosher. She lives in a world of right and left. Something can be kosher or not kosher, pure or impure. Yes or no, right or wrong. This is called the world of middos, of emotional attributes. In middos, in emotions, there are two sides. Some emotions come from the right side, the side of chesed, and others come from the left side, the side of gevurah. So someone who lives in a world of yes and no, of right and left, lives in what is called the world of Yetzirah. It is the world of middos, the world of emotion, the world of right and left. The world of Beriah is the world of intellect. There it is not a matter of right and left; there, the aim is to understand why something is so, to grasp its depth and explain it. So what is the difference between the Talmud, the Gemara, and the Mishnah? The Mishnah gives definitive rulings: this is what you must do, this is what you must not do; this is right and this is wrong. The Mishnah is halachah. It belongs to the world of Yetzirah, to middos. What is the Talmud about? Intellectual explanation, understanding the reason for something. Where does the Talmud come from? From the chamber of the Holy of Holies in the world of Beriah. That is the higher Gan Eden. That is what the world of Beriah is about: understanding, reasons, intellect. All right?

48:12 Speaker 7 Tanya—what is that?

48:13 Speaker 2 …?

48:13 Speaker 7 Tanya—what is that?

48:15 Speaker 2 Tanya is the inner dimension of Torah. It is the essence of Torah. Tanya changes—well, not now. That is not our subject.

48:24 Speaker 7 No, you said it.

48:24 Speaker 2 Don’t draw me into it.

48:25 Speaker 7 You said a few sentences.

48:30 Speaker 2 Torah has pshat, remez, drush, and sod—four levels. The inner dimension of Torah is not one part of that. Pshat, remez, drush, and sod are rays of Torah, revelations of Torah. They are Torah as it is clothed in pshat, as it is clothed in remez, as it is clothed in the other levels, and so on. The essence of Torah is something else entirely. It is the essence; it is Torah itself, not a place where it is revealed. And you can see this when you study a particular halachah, taking some subject in Torah and studying its intellectual explanation. Then you study it as a halachic ruling, as it appears in remez, and so on. Afterward, you study that same subject, that same halachah, as it appears in the inner dimension of Torah and as Chassidus explains it. That completely changes your understanding of all four approaches. You can demonstrate it—we see it, and I could demonstrate it—but that really is not our subject right now. All right, so let’s—we are on line eighteen. After the Rebbe said that the Talmud comes from Beriah, he goes on to explain why the halachos themselves are not in that category. The halachos themselves come from the middos of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. They are not a matter of reasons or intellect; they relate to middos, to feeling: chesed, din, and rachamim. From these come what is permitted and forbidden, kosher and unfit, obligated and exempt, as it says in the Tikkunim. That covers the Divine life-force of the world of Beriah. The next stage in Malchus of Atzilus becoming clothed in Malchus of Beriah is that it descends and becomes clothed in the chamber of the Holy of Holies of Yetzirah, which is Chabad of Yetzirah, and then becomes clothed in Malchus of Yetzirah. At that point, the spirits and angels of Yetzirah were created. A person has a nefesh, a ruach, and a neshamah. The neshamahs are in Beriah, and the ruchos are in Yetzirah. Just as the neshamahs in Beriah were created through Malchus of Beriah, so the ruchos in the world of Yetzirah were created through Malchus of Yetzirah. In exactly the same way,

51:00 Speaker 2 And the Mishnah before us comes from there, from the chamber of the Holy of Holies of Yetzirah, just as the Talmud comes from the Holy of Holies of Beriah. The Mishnah consists of definitive halachos, which also come from Chabad of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. But the aspect of Chabad—the reasons for the halachos—is clothed and concealed within the halachos themselves. You do not see the reason or the explanation; you see only the final ruling. The reasons are not revealed, while the halachos themselves are revealed. They are a ray of the middos of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. It is not the reason that shines in the halachos, but the middos. As explained below in the name of the Tikkunim, the six sefiros “nest in Yetzirah.” Broadly speaking, those six sefiros form two lines: some are on the right and some on the left. To rule leniently comes from the side of chesed—that is, to permit something so that it can ascend to Hashem—or to rule stringently, and so on, comes from the left. And everything is according to the supernal Chochmah of Atzilus; everything is according to the supernal Chochmah of Atzilus. In other words, both the reasons in the Talmud and the halachos in the Mishnah—or, in the terms we have been using, everything in the world of Beriah and everything in the world of Yetzirah, and on down to the very lowest level—all of it is according to the supernal Chochmah of Atzilus. After all, where did it all begin? Torah emerged from the supernal Chochmah, then became clothed in Binah and Daas, then in Malchus, and then descended further, and so on. It follows that the Chochmah of Atzilus is present within all created beings, with Binah and Daas included in it, united with the Ein Sof, blessed be He. For Chabad of Atzilus is clothed within all of them, and the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is united with it in an absolute unity. Having explained this in detail with regard to Beriah and Yetzirah, the Alter Rebbe sums up the subject: “And in this way, the Shechinah descended and became clothed in the chamber of the Holy of Holies”

53:12 Speaker 2 of Asiyah, in the chamber of Kodesh Kodashim of Asiyah. The Alter Rebbe adds another layer: Each of these three worlds—Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—is divided into myriads of levels, which are also called individual worlds. And Malchus of Atzilus is vested in the Malchus of each individual world. So in exactly the same way that Malchus of Atzilus is vested in the Kodesh Kodashim of Beriah, which is then vested in Malchus of Beriah, and from this come the Torah of Beriah and the created beings of Beriah, and afterward it—so in the same way, within the world of Beriah itself there are myriads of worlds. At each level, Malchus descends and is vested in the Kodesh Kodashim of that individual world, and that is its life-force, the overall life-force of that entire individual world. Then it descends and is vested in the Malchus of that individual world, and from this the beings of that individual world are created. And they benefit from the radiance of the Torah of that individual world, and so on. The Malchus of each individual world descends and is vested in the chamber of Kodesh Kodashim—which is the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas—of the world one level below it. Yes. Now, from the Shechinah vested in the chamber of Kodesh Kodashim of each and every world, whether a general or an individual world, light and life-force flow and spread to the entire world and the beings within it, souls and angels and so on. So all the life-force of everything in that world, general and individual, flows from the level of Malchus. And the Rebbe sums up the chapter: For all of them, all the created beings—the worlds and the beings within every world, both the general and the individual worlds—were ultimately created through the Ten Utterances of the work of Creation. Before Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world—“Let there be light,” “Let there be heavens,” “Let there be a firmament amid the waters”—before that, there was no world, neither physical worlds nor spiritual worlds. Everything was created in the work of Creation. And what is the work of Creation? It is the word of Hashem, which is called the Shechinah. Malchus—one of the names of the sefirah of Malchus that we haven’t mentioned yet, at least not today—

56:03 Speaker 2 is also called “Malchus is the mouth.” “We call it the Oral Torah.” Malchus is called the mouth. Why is Malchus called the mouth? Because it is, so to speak, the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When a person wants to reveal to listeners what he is thinking, what does he use? The mouth is the means through which a person’s thoughts are revealed to someone else. How is the G-dly light revealed to the worlds through Malchus? Just as a person reveals what is in his heart to someone else through speech. That is why Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s creation of the worlds through Malchus is likened to speech. The word of Hashem, the word of Hashem—that is the G-dly life-force that Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveals in order to create the worlds. In other words, the world was created through the Ten Utterances. What are those Ten Utterances? They are Malchus. They are the word of Hashem. They are that alma d’isgalya, and the matronisa, and the essential life-force, and everything we discussed throughout this chapter. What are we talking about? The word of Hashem, Malchus. So, in the previous chapter, the Alter Rebbe explained what the indwelling of the Shechinah means: that it is the source of life for the worlds. In this chapter he explained in detail how the Shechinah descends and gives life to the worlds, to the created beings and the souls, and also to everything the souls benefit from. The radiance of the Shechinah and the Torah—all of it comes from the G-dly life-force through Malchus, through the essence of the Shechinah. We still haven’t understood what the indwelling of the Shechinah is. We haven’t discussed that yet. There’s one more chapter.

58:04 Speaker 8 Thank you very much. Yonatan got back to me [?] [unclear]. Thank you very much. [unclear] individual, and that is also [unclear].