Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah Chapter 4 – Up to the Parentheses

00:01 Speaker 1 Why does a ketubah need two witnesses? It’s Shira, Yaf’a.

00:05 Speaker 2 …?

00:06 Speaker 1 Why would a written document about a person and an animal need two witnesses?

00:08 Speaker 4 All right, good evening. We’ll begin. We’re up to chapter 4 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah.

00:14 Speaker 1 Stay until—

00:15 Speaker 4 Yes, lots of things. The previous chapter, which we studied before the holidays, ended with a question. The Alter Rebbe left us with a question. Right at the end of the chapter, in the very last line, he asks: Since created beings are nullified within their source and root—nullified within their source and root—how can they feel themselves to be an independent existence? That was the question he left us with, hanging a little.

00:52 Speaker 1 A soul for many things.

00:54 Speaker 4 And chapter 4—the whole chapter—is an answer to that question. Now, to understand the answer, we first need to delve a little deeper into the question itself. What kind of question is it? What exactly are you asking?

01:11 Speaker 1 How do I feel my own existence?

01:13 Speaker 4 Since created beings are nullified within their source and root, why can they nevertheless feel their own existence? What are you asking? After all, the Alter Rebbe himself says a few lines earlier in chapter 3 that there is a reason they don’t feel their source. Hakadosh Boruch Hu places a kind of screen there and conceals from created beings the force that acts within what it creates. He conceals from them the force that brings them into being and gives them life. Since they don’t feel the force that brings them into being, they feel only themselves. He says that himself a few lines earlier. First he explains that created beings are utterly nullified. Why don’t they feel that nullification? He asks, and immediately explains: Because something gets in the way. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made a concealment so they cannot feel it, and therefore they do feel their own existence. So after he has already explained that, why does he ask again at the end of the chapter why they do feel their own existence? You’ve explained why. What’s the question? Is that clear? What really is the question? What does it mean that when something is within its source and root, it is nullified to its source and root? Let’s look at something in ordinary experience. Take an intellectual idea, for example—a thought I’ve understood. Before I understood that idea, where was it? It was contained within its source and root, in the intellect, right? When we look at the intellect before it has grasped the idea, is that idea there?

03:09 Speaker 1 No.

03:10 Speaker 4 It isn’t. The intellect isn’t like a computer containing lots and lots of ideas, where each time you pull one out—one you couldn’t see, and then suddenly you find it and draw it out. That’s not how it works. The intellect is a faculty of the soul with the ability to conceive ideas. The moment I contemplated something and grasped it, that intellectual faculty produced a new idea. Before that idea entered my thoughts, before I understood and grasped it, it was nullified within its source and root. It had no existence of its own. In the source of the intellect, there are no ideas. They don’t exist there. They come into existence only when they emerge. Once the intellect has produced the idea, there it is. Before it produced it, it wasn’t there. You can’t find ideas within the essential faculty of intellect. It is a faculty capable of conceiving ideas, but it contains no conception itself. In other words, before an idea has emerged from it... Let’s begin to hint at where we’re heading. When an idea is still within the essential faculty of intellect, before anyone has conceived it, if I now conceal the intellect—remove it from view—will that help me see the idea there? No. Why? Because within the essential faculty of intellect, there is nothing at all besides the intellect. There are no conceptions there, no ideas, no thoughts. If I cover up the intellect, there’s nothing there. We need to go one step further. We’ve spoken many times about how the intellect gives rise to the emotions, right? A person contemplates something, thinks about it, and comes to understand that it is good. Then an emotion awakens in his heart—

05:32 Speaker 4 Love for that thing. Right? We’ve spoken about this many times. If the intellect gives rise to the emotions, we have to say that before an emotion was born, it was contained within the faculty of intellect. Right? The intellect gave rise to it, so that’s where it came from. But when we look at the intellect before there is an emotion, where is that emotion within it? It isn’t there. The intellect is entirely intellect. Emotion is entirely emotion—a feeling, an arousal. It isn’t there in the intellect.

06:16 Speaker 5 So it’s a kind of creation from nothing, when the intellect sort of produces it.

06:21 Speaker 4 We’ll get to creation from nothing shortly. Intellect and emotion may be something like that, but that isn’t the point. What we’re saying is that the intellectual idea did not exist before it came into being, before I understood it. Why didn’t it exist? It existed within its source and root, but in a nullified state; it had no existence of its own. The same is true of an emotion before it is born: when I’ve only contemplated something good, I don’t yet have an emotion. There is no feeling or emotional arousal within the intellect. It isn’t there. It is nullified within its source and root for the same reason: before anything emerges, while it is still contained within its source and root, it is still nothing at all. Why? Because within the source, nothing exists besides the source. Emotion is not intellect.

07:17 Speaker 5 Like a child, say.

07:18 Speaker 4 …?

07:19 Speaker 5 Like a child who is born.

07:21 Speaker 4 Like a child before he is born. No, not after—before conception. He doesn’t exist. Now, which is more nullified within its source and root: an intellectual idea within the intellect, or an emotion within the intellect? Which is more nullified?

07:47 Speaker 5 The emotion.

07:49 Speaker 4 Clearly. Right. Before it is born, an emotion is much more nullified within the intellect than an intellectual idea is within the essential faculty of intellect. Why? Because an intellectual idea, after all, has something in common with the intellect. This is intellect and that is intellect. One is the essential faculty of intellect and the other is an intellectual idea, right? The distance between them isn’t so great. So before the intellectual idea existed, it was indeed nullified, but not as completely as an emotion is within the intellect, because emotion isn’t intellect at all. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? Because emotion isn’t intellect at all, when it is contained within the intellect it is much more nullified to its source than an intellectual idea is to the essential faculty of intellect. All right. Let’s go one step further. In fact, even the nullification of an emotion within the intellect, while it is in its source and root, is still not total nullification. Why? Because ultimately, intellect and emotion have a relationship to each other. Emotion bears some relation to intellect; intellect gives rise to emotion. They are connected. Both are parts of the soul that have a connection to each other. So if we’re looking for an example of something that is truly nullified, that truly has no existence of its own, we need something separated from its source by an enormous distance—such a great distance between the source and its product that they have nothing in common. The only example Chassidus has found is light and its source. The sun weighs billions upon billions upon billions of tons. Light doesn’t... You can’t weigh it. Weight doesn’t apply to it at all. The sun has a tangible existence. Light does not.

09:56 Speaker 6 I don’t think there’s any way at all to measure it.

09:59 Speaker 4 There’s no way to measure it, and so on. It has no tangible substance. Nevertheless, light does emanate from its source; it is born from it.

10:08 Speaker 6 It receives.

10:09 Speaker 4 Right? In the end, even though the light is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing compared to the sun, and the sun can shine for thousands upon thousands of years without all the light it gives off diminishing it by even a gram, still, despite the fact that they are incomparable, the light comes from the luminary. It comes from the sun. It is born from the sun, right? So what about the light’s existence while it is still in its source and root? Clearly, if an emotion is more nullified to the intellect than the intellectual idea is to the intellect itself, then light is certainly far more nullified to the luminary than emotion is to intellect, because the distance between them is greater. Clear? But the reality goes much further than that. When we speak of a created being in relation to its Creator, the difference is incomparably greater than the difference between light and luminary. Because the created being is truly nothing, absolutely nothing. It has no existence of its own, while the Creator is true existence. If so, before they were created, created beings were nullified to the power of the One acting within what is acted upon. They were nullified to their source and root so completely that they were truly, truly, truly nothing. They had no existence whatsoever. So here the Alter Rebbe asks: Since we said in the previous chapter that created beings are nullified to their source like light within the luminary—and incomparably more so—what good does it do to cover and conceal the luminary? If I conceal the luminary, there is no light, no created beings. There is no such thing as a created being that is contained within its source but simply does not sense its source. If you conceal the luminary, there is no created being. What good will it do you to conceal the luminary? Conceal it, and there will be no created being. Let’s take the example of emotion and intellect, yes? An emotion as it is still contained within the intellect, before I feel it. I’ve now begun thinking about “Closeness to G-d is good for me.” Yes?

12:42 Speaker 4 If I contemplate that at length and think about it, eventually I’ll have some feeling in my heart. Right now, no feeling has yet awakened in my heart. The emotion is still contained within the intellect. There is no actual emotion here. Now, if I make the intellect disappear, will there be an emotion here? There will be no emotion at all. What good will it do to conceal the luminary if I... if there is nothing here but the luminary? That is what the Alter Rebbe asks. Since we explained that created beings are not like sunlight that has left the sun; they are like light contained within its source and root. What good will it do to conceal their source? They are nullified within their source; they have no existence. So how do they sense themselves as existing? That was the question at the end of chapter 3. All right? Now the question is much clearer, right?

13:36 Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

13:36 Speaker 4 The answer is the whole of chapter 4. Chapter 4 introduces us to Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s power of gevurah. What is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s power of gevurah? That provides the answer to the question. Let’s look inside. Chapter 4: “For it is written, ‘For Havayah Elokim is a sun and shield.’” The simple meaning of the verse is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is both a sun to His creatures—He bestows upon them—and a shield: He also protects them from various bad things that happen in the world. That is the plain meaning of the verse. The Alter Rebbe explains that the sun itself has two aspects. There is what the sun gives forth, and there is another element associated with the sun that protects us from the sun itself. What is that shield? “The meaning of ‘shield’ is a covering for the sun, protecting the creatures so that they can bear it. As our Sages said: ‘In the time to come, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will take the sun out of its covering, and the wicked will be judged by it,’ etc.” If the sunlight shone on us at its full intensity, we could not exist. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a shield, a covering, for the sun, to reduce and filter its light so that we, too, could bear it. Is that much clear?

15:16 Speaker 7 Why does it have to be so strong?

15:18 Speaker 4 Hmm?

15:19 Speaker 7 Why does its light have to be so strong? Why does it need a covering?

15:25 Speaker 4 Why that is so is a different question. But here, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the sun with light so strong that, if we were exposed to its full intensity, we could not exist. The sun and its covering are an analogy for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why? Just as the covering shields against the sun, so the name Elokim shields against the name Havayah, blessed be He. The name Havayah is the Divine power that brings created beings into existence. And just as we could not exist if we were exposed to the sun’s full intensity, so too, if the name Havayah alone gave life to created beings at its full intensity, they could not exist. Why couldn’t they exist? Because they would be nullified within their source and root. All right? What does that shield, the name Elokim, do? To understand what that shield, the name Elokim, does, the Alter Rebbe goes into a lengthy explanation here of what the name Havayah does. Once we understand what is distinctive about the action of the name Havayah, we can understand the nature of the name Elokim. And that will give us the answer to how created beings can be contained within their source and root and, at the same time, sense themselves as existing. So he begins: “The meaning of the name Havayah is that He brings everything into being from nothing. The yud at the beginning of the name yud-kei-vav-kei indicates an action that takes place continually, in the present tense. The last three letters, hei-vav-hei, indicate the action of bringing into being: Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings created beings into being. And the yud indicates that He does so all the time. As Rashi explains the verse, ‘So would Iyov do all the days,’ meaning that the life-force flowing at every single moment into all created beings from the utterance of Hashem’s mouth and His breath brings them into being from nothing at every moment. For their having been created during the Six Days of Creation is not enough to keep them in existence, as explained above.”

17:56 Speaker 4 In the previous chapters—chapters 1, 2 and 3—the Alter Rebbe explained at length that created beings have no existence of their own. Remember how we explained that at length? In themselves, created beings are nothing.

18:10 Speaker 8 There were holidays in between.

18:12 Speaker 4 Huh?

18:12 Speaker 8 That was all during the holidays.

18:12 Speaker 4 There were holidays in between. Once, I was giving a class for women, and I asked, “You don’t remember what we discussed last year?” They told me, “If you had given birth, you wouldn’t remember either.” We explained that created beings were created from nothing into something. What does “from nothing into something” mean? Nothing means nothing. It is not anything. Hakadosh Boruch Hu took nothing and made created beings out of it. How can you take nothing—not air, not an empty space, not even empty space, because empty space was also created—and make created beings out of it? What does “from nothing into something” mean? How can you take nothing and make something from it? It means that the very nature and definition of created beings is that they are nothing. The true reality of created beings is nothingness. Who makes them into something? Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He brings them into being at every moment. And because their true reality is nothing, if for one moment He stopped bringing them into being, they would return to what they really are. What are they really?

19:22 Speaker 8 Nothing.

19:23 Speaker 4 Truly nothing. That is what we explained, yes? So the act of bringing them into being must continue all the time. He explained that at length. Now, when we enumerate the praises of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, we say in davening that He is “the great and mighty G-d.” We describe Hakadosh Boruch Hu with two principal attributes: that He is great and that He is mighty. To understand what “mighty” means, we first need to understand what “great” means. So let’s first see what “great” means. “Great” refers to the attribute of chesed and the extension of life-force throughout all the worlds and created beings. Today, in Chassidus, we generally call Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s first attribute chesed: chesed, gevurah, tiferes. Yes, yes. But the early Kabbalists used to call Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s first attribute gedulah, “greatness.” They did not say chesed, gevurah, tiferes; they said gedulah, gevurah, tiferes. In many Kabbalah books it says that: gedulah, gevurah, tiferes. It means the same thing. Why did they call Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chesed “greatness”? Because His chesed is great. What does “great” mean? It is not like our chesed, the chesed of created beings—and not just ours. The chesed of every created being is small, while Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chesed is great. That is why it is called “great.” What does it mean that it is great? He gives three particulars. First, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chesed has no end or limit. A created being’s chesed goes only so far; it is not endless. A created being cannot keep giving and bestowing without end. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chesed is of a different kind: it is infinite. Second, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s chesed brings created beings into existence from nothing. Is there any created being who can create something from nothing? A created being can take one existing thing and give it to another existing thing.

21:44 Speaker 4 Right. If someone wants to give a gift, first there has to be a gift, and there has to be someone to give it to. A created being cannot take nothing and give it to nothing. There is nothing to give and no one to give it to. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can take nothingness and give it to nothingness. Only He has the power to create something from nothing. Our Sages said in the Midrash that if all the creators in the world gathered and tried to create a mosquito and put a soul into it, they could not. To create—to take nothing and create something from it—is within the power of the Creator alone. We can give something that already exists to something that already exists; only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can give existence from nothing. That is why it is called greatness. And the third point is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s greatness, His kindness, is kindness given for no reason. When a created being does a kindness, he does it because he has a reason. Either he has compassion for the other person, or doing good for the other person makes him feel good, or he understands that it is the right thing to do, and so on. He has some reason. There is no such thing as giving without a reason. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can show kindness without a reason. To give—Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to created beings. But there are no created beings. If You do not create them, there will be no created beings. The very nature of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kindness, from the outset, is that it has no reason at all. A created being has no such kindness. So in all three respects—quantity, quality, and existence—Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kindness is of a different kind. It is not the same kind of kindness as ours. Why? Where does that come from? It is called greatness because it comes from the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. For “Hashem is great, and His greatness is beyond comprehension.” Since the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is beyond comprehension, the kindness and greatness through which He expresses Himself are also expressed in things beyond comprehension, things that are not within the power of created beings, that do not apply to

24:09 Speaker 4 created beings. And therefore He also bestows life and brings into existence from nothing worlds and created beings without end, for the nature of goodness is to do good. That is the nature of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can do that. The Alter Rebbe continues: Just as this attribute, the attribute of greatness, is the praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu alone. What does “alone” mean? That no created being has the ability to create something from nothing and give it life. If we want to put it in the language of Chassidus, we say it this way: Our kindness operates within the realm of what exists. When I want to give something, I can only take an existing thing and give it to someone who exists. The kindness of created beings cannot operate in the realm of nothingness. I cannot take nothing. Our kindness is limited kindness. Why is it limited? It is limited to what exists. All right? Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kindness is not limited to what exists. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kindness operates—operates also in the realm of nothingness, in the realm of absence. He can take nothing, take zero, take absence, make something of it and give it. He is not limited to what exists. And just as this attribute is the praise of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because no created being can create something from nothing and give it life, this attribute is also beyond the understanding and comprehension of all created beings. It is not only that created beings cannot make something from nothing; they cannot understand what it means to make something from nothing. There is no way for a created being to understand what it means to take nothing and make something from it. The intellect of no created being, not even the loftiest, has the power to understand and grasp this attribute and its ability to create something from nothing and give it life, because creation from nothing is beyond the intellect of created beings. The whole reality of creation is

26:27 Speaker 4 a reality that is above—above every created being, above the intellect of a created being. How can a created being understand something that is above him? For it comes from the attribute of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s greatness. That is why it is called greatness: it is above created beings. And since Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His attributes are a simple unity—unlike a person, who has his basic sense of self. Yes, I’m alive, I’m a person. A person opens his eyes in the morning and feels himself to be alive and existing, right? He feels himself, feels himself. Afterward, he also loves and understands and gets excited, and he hates and gets angry. He has all kinds of faculties and emotions too. So there is the person’s very existence, and there are his faculties. I am a person who has faculties—the faculties of the soul, right? With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, these are not two things. Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His attributes are one. It is not that He has powers; the powers are Him, and He is the powers. They are not two things. We cannot picture such a thing in our imagination because we have nothing like it. We have no example of it. We can only say the words; we cannot understand it. And because Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His attributes are a simple unity, as it says in the holy Zohar, “He and His vessels are one”—He and the vessels, He and the sefiros, are one. And just as no created intellect can grasp its Creator, so it cannot grasp His attributes. Is that clear so far? And here comes the key sentence. Just as no created intellect can grasp the attribute of His greatness, which can create something from nothing and give it life, as it is written, “The world is built through kindness,” so too, no created being can grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of might. What is the problem? Why can’t we—

28:22 Speaker 9 That we can’t grasp... understand it.

28:24 Speaker 4 Why can’t we grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of great... of might? Might means concealment, right?

28:31 Speaker 9 We don’t know the extent of it—I mean, what the concealment is.

28:35 Speaker 4 In simple terms, might means concealment. We said, what is a sheath? A sheath is a shield. There was a strong light here, and we put up smoked glass to reduce the light—a filter. What? What? Why can’t I—why can’t I understand what greatness is? All right, I understand that. Why can’t I understand what might is? What’s the problem? The Alter Rebbe says that just as you cannot understand His greatness, you also cannot understand His might. Why? Because what is His might? It is the attribute of concealment: preventing the life-force from His greatness from spreading out and appearing and being revealed to created beings, giving them life and sustaining them openly. That is what we cannot understand. We said, what is the whole existence of created beings created from? What is it? From the force of the maker within the thing made. There is no created being without the active force that brings it about. Right? So after Hakadosh Boruch Hu concealed that active force from the thing it brings about, hiding and concealing it until it is not felt at all—does anyone here feel the active force within the thing it brings about? I don’t think so. Hakadosh Boruch Hu hid and concealed that active force completely, until it is not felt at all, at all. He concealed it entirely, and yet it remains. It is like putting a screen in front of the sun that hides it completely, completely, completely, so that it cannot be seen at all, at all, while all its light remains in full force, without any of it being diminished. Excuse me—you concealed it, right? The Alter Rebbe says it is exactly the same thing. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of kindness acts upon nothingness, His attribute of might acts upon what exists. It is exactly the same thing. We understood why I cannot understand Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of greatness. Why? Because I cannot understand what it means to act upon nothingness. Right? Yes? What

31:06 Speaker 4 is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s attribute of might? To take what exists—the Divine light, which truly exists—and conceal it while it remains. The attribute of greatness means to bestow, and even though it bestows, nothingness remains. The attribute of might is the exact opposite: to conceal, and even though it conceals, existence remains. The two sides. And just as we cannot understand greatness, we cannot understand might. Is that clearer now? Um, yes or no?

31:46 Speaker 9 Yes.

31:48 Speaker 10 Could you say that just as we cannot see a light that is too strong, we also cannot sense something that is too faint? That it isn’t such a leap?

32:00 Speaker 9 No, once you study it, it all falls into place.

32:03 Speaker 10 How?

32:04 Speaker 9 What could be so great that you can’t—

32:10 Speaker 10 I don’t know.

32:10 Speaker 9 Maybe that’s not it. I mean, it’s not. It’s not.

32:13 Speaker 4 I don’t think that’s the point. The point is that we cannot understand how you can conceal a reality so that it truly is not there, and yet it remains there in full force. He creates the created beings.

32:30 Speaker 10 No, because he thinks—

32:33 Speaker 4 The attribute of greatness creates the created beings, and although it creates them, they remain utterly nullified within their source and root; they have no independent existence. Although it creates them, they have no independent existence. The attribute of might conceals, and although it conceals, they remain in existence. That is the other side.

32:51 Speaker 10 Yes. I think that’s what I was saying too—with respect to our understanding, how it...

32:56 Speaker 4 All right.

32:57 Speaker 9 No, it can’t be for that reason.

33:00 Speaker 4 That’s the point. And through the attribute of gevurah, created beings do indeed remain alive and in existence, but not openly—rather, through concealment. The vitality, the power of the maker within what is made, is hidden within the body of the created being. It is as though the body of the created being is something in its own right, and not an extension of the vitality and spirituality like the radiance and light extending from the sun. Rather, it senses itself as something in its own right. So here we have, in fact, answered the question at the end of chapter 3. We asked—the Alter Rebbe asked: How can a created being be nullified within its source and root, and yet feel itself to be an entity? After all, if its source and root are concealed, it would not exist. So what is the answer? The Divine power of gevurah. The Divine power of gevurah takes that very Divine light which creates the beings and conceals it completely. And even though it conceals the light, the light remains present, shining and operating at full strength. In truth, from the perspective of the attribute of greatness, from the perspective of the Creator, from the perspective of the name Havayah, the created being is not something in its own right. It is included within its source and root; it is only like the light extending from the sun. But that is only from the perspective of the name Havayah, of greatness. From the perspective of gevurah, however, these are indeed the mighty powers of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: He can contract the vitality and spirituality that flow from the breath of His mouth and conceal them, so that the body of the created being is not nullified out of existence. No created intellect can grasp the nature of this contraction and concealment. Even though the Divine light is contracted, concealed and hidden until it is entirely concealed and hidden, the body of the created being is nevertheless brought into being from nothing. Why can’t we understand this? For exactly the same reason that no created intellect can grasp the nature of creation from nothing. Just as we cannot grasp the nature of creation, as we explained at length, so too, in precisely the same way, we cannot understand or grasp the nature of

35:29 Speaker 4 gevurah. That’s as far as chapter 4. This subject in Chassidus is, I think, truly one of the deepest subjects in the teachings of Chassidus. I mean, it’s just like the question people ask about Divine knowledge and free choice: How can Hakadosh Boruch Hu know something that—what?

35:59 Speaker 9 That a created being will do.

36:00 Speaker 4 How can Hakadosh Boruch Hu make a stone that He cannot lift? And the question of how Hakadosh Boruch Hu can create a being that does not exist and yet does exist is the same question. When you study and contemplate this subject in chapter 4, you receive the answer to humanity’s question of questions. That’s as far as the beginning of chapter 4. Actually, I deliberately cropped the image so that you don’t see the next line of chapter 4...

36:40 Speaker 11 What, is that the end of the chapter?

36:42 Speaker 4 No. Actually, on the next line of chapter 4 there are brackets. It starts with square brackets. I simply cropped that part off the page, so you can’t see it here. We’re done—yes, one second.

36:56 Speaker 11 Just thinking about the next day.

36:57 Speaker 4 Ah, there are square brackets that begin there—something very puzzling. It’s the only place in Tanya where brackets open and you can search for where they close, but you won’t find it. So a new subject really does begin here. We’ll talk about it, with Hashem’s help, in the next class.

37:28 Speaker 3 Thank you very much.