Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah Chapter 8

00:01 Speaker 1 Okay, good evening. We’re up to chapter 8 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. The previous chapter. No, no, no, not that—

00:12 Speaker 2 Oh, is that yours?

00:12 Speaker 1 Yes, today we have a packet of one page. That’s it.

00:16 Speaker 2 Oh, that’s it. Then I’ll bring it to—why?

00:23 Speaker 1 …

00:28 Speaker 2 It’s not

00:28 Speaker 1 Chapter 7 was very lo—both very long and very deep, and somehow we got through it. As I said at the end of the previous class, I want to summarize the subject again to make it easier. Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah has two branches, two broad parts. The first part, chapters 1 through 7, which we finished last week, discusses the oneness of Hashem. What does the oneness of Hashem mean? The oneness of Hashem means “there is nothing else besides Him.” Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists. But I see created beings. No—you know that created beings are only a radiance, that they are utterly nullified, and that they are created from nothing into something. So their existence is not their own; they have no independent existence, because their entire existence comes only from the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants them to exist. The second part is about the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself—that He is singular. Or, to put it more generally, the first part of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah is about “Hashem is one,” and the second part is about “Hashem is singular.” In other words, the first part explains why, despite the multitude of created beings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu remains one, singular and unique. There is no change in Him between before the world was created and after it was created; He remains one and singular even after there are many created beings. The second part doesn’t discuss created beings at all. It discusses Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is Himself singular. What does it mean that He is Himself singular? All right, I’ll skip that.

02:44 Speaker 2 You thought about it, and then you skipped it.

02:47 Speaker 1 Yes, I don’t want to confuse things by bringing in more topics. As for Hakadosh Boruch Hu being singular, the Alter Rebbe divides this second part of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, which we’re beginning today—this broad branch, that Hashem is singular—into three general topics. The first: although there are ten sefiros, He is nevertheless singular. The second: although there are utterances that create the world, He is nevertheless singular. And the third: although there are letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world, He is nevertheless singular. The first is the hardest of the three: the unity of the sefiros. How is it that the sefiros do not introduce multiplicity? Although there are ten sefiros, that does not mean Hakadosh Boruch Hu is a composite unity, that He has chesed, gevurah and tiferes. Despite the ten, He is still singular. The Alter Rebbe explains this over three chapters. In the first chapter, which we’re learning today, we begin with unity as we know it—unity in a person, which is composite unity—because we cannot understand how the sefiros are united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. On that basis, in the next chapter, chapter 9, we’ll explain unity as it applies to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: simple unity. Then, in chapter 10, he’ll also give an analogy for it, which we already began to allude to in chapter 3. It’s one of the central ideas of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. We’re starting chapter 8. What is unity in a person? Chapter 8: “Now, regarding what the Rambam, of blessed memory, wrote—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, His essence and being, and His knowledge are all truly one, a simple unity and not composite at all—the same applies to all the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” But in the previous chapter,

04:58 Speaker 1 chapter 7, a major part of the explanation was that Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His knowledge are one, unlike us. Why did the Alter Rebbe address that there? Because there we wanted to explain... It came in chapter 7 as a continuation of Hashem’s oneness in relation to created beings, after explaining yichuda tata’ah and yichuda ila’ah. Do you remember what yichuda tata’ah and yichuda ila’ah are? The main point of the explanation? We said that yichuda ila’ah means that the word of Hashem, the source of all the worlds, becomes revealed within a thing: the thing is elevated and refined, and G-dliness is openly revealed within it. It becomes apparent that the word of Hashem that creates the worlds does not stand on its own, but is itself nullified to G-dliness. The example we gave was the Holy of Holies. The space occupied by the Ark was not included in the measurement. There is a world, there is a physical reality, yet within that reality itself you see that the reality is G-dliness. Yichuda tata’ah means that there are boundaries, there is a world, and nevertheless Hakadosh Boruch Hu directs it—individual Divine providence, miracles clothed in nature. We said that these also have parallels in our service of Hashem. Yichuda ila’ah is when a person stands in prayer and is now nullified to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: there is nothing else besides Him. Yichuda tata’ah is when a person is engaged in business, works in worldly matters, and conducts business faithfully. So in chapter 7, after he explained yichuda tata’ah and yichuda ila’ah, he explained that Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows the created beings even after they have been created. That raised a question for us: What does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows the created beings? If He knows each created being, then He has many pieces of knowledge. He knows that I exist, and He knows that you exist, and He knows that you exist, and He knows... So

07:19 Speaker 1 with everything we do, He knows one more thing. That would mean there is multiplicity in His knowledge. But we say that His knowledge is only one. So he explained at length that Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge is one because He knows created beings not through knowledge of something outside Himself, but through knowledge of Himself. Do you remember that? Do you or don’t you?

07:40 Speaker 4 Boring.

07:41 Speaker 1 Huh? Why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge one? Because He doesn’t know created beings the way I know something. For me, there is something outside me, and when I learn about it, I now know something I didn’t know before, because that thing is external to me. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself brings created beings into existence. He doesn’t know them because there is something else He needs to learn about. He knows Himself.

08:10 Speaker 4 Like I know my thoughts.

08:12 Speaker 1 Like a person knows his thoughts—and more than that, like a person senses himself. He feels his leg, his hand, his body, his heart beating. He doesn’t need someone to tell him about it. He doesn’t need to think about it. He knows because he knows himself; he senses himself. So, so to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge is one. There is no multiplicity, because He knows created beings through knowing Himself, not through knowing them as something separate. So there he discussed Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge at length. Continuing from that, he begins chapter 8, the second part of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah: this point—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s knowledge does not introduce multiplicity because He knows Himself—is true not only of His knowledge. It is also true of all the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is true of chochmah, binah and daas, and of chesed and gevurah. It applies to all His attributes. They are the same as His knowledge. That is how he begins the chapter: “The same applies to all the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” And not only to all His attributes, but also to all His holy names. The names and descriptions given to Him by the prophets and our Sages are not something added to Him, something composite within Him. Rather, they are part of His knowing Himself. For example—he gives three examples here—“gracious,” “merciful” and “kind.” These refer to attributes. They are names of Hakadosh Boruch Hu that describe what? How gracious He is, how merciful He is, how kind He is. They are names that describe the attributes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And also the fact that He is called wise, as it says—where do we

10:06 Speaker 1 see that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is called wise? It says, “He too is wise.” There’s a verse. And regarding Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s will, it says, “For Hashem desires those who fear Him.” So He desires; He has a will. It says, “For He desires kindness.” So there are things He desires, including kindness. It says that He desires the repentance of the wicked and does not desire their death or their wickedness. So there are things He wants and things He doesn’t want.

10:39 Speaker 4 Yes.

10:41 Speaker 1 So how can you say that He is a simple unity? How can you say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is absolutely one? He has wisdom, He has kindness, He has compassion, there are things He wants and things He does not want. How can you say He is one? He has many, many qualities, so to speak. “Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil.” He sees this, and He does not see that. So the Alter Rebbe explains here, bringing verses that show that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has attributes and also names. There are names for His attributes, names for His wisdom, and names for His will. That’s going from below upward: attributes, intellect, and will. We’ve spoken about this several times, right? Yes. How does the progression of the soul work in a person? The highest faculty in a person is the will. What does he want? The will directs the intellect. When someone wants to understand something a certain way, you can’t persuade him otherwise. He has already decided in advance that this is how he wants to understand it, so you won’t convince him otherwise. Have you ever tried arguing with someone who believes in a conspiracy theory? The more you try to persuade him with logical arguments, the more convinced he becomes that he’s right.

12:19 Speaker 4 Do you mean someone in particular?

12:29 Speaker 1 And the intellect directs and gives rise to the emotions. So the three general levels in a person are will, intellect, and emotion. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, too, so to speak, has attributes and names for those attributes, and He has intellect. He is wise, and He also has a will. So how can we say that He is… that He is absolutely one? What does “one” mean? That isn’t unity. It would mean He is made up of parts, as I am, and He is too—that’s how it appears, G-d forbid. So the Rebbe says about this: “His will and His wisdom, and His attribute of kindness and compassion, and His other attributes, do not add any multiplicity or composition, G-d forbid, to His essence and being. Rather, His essence and being, His will, His wisdom, His understanding and knowledge, His attributes of kindness, might, and compassion, and His beauty, which encompasses His kindness and might, as well as His other holy attributes—all are truly a simple unity.” Just as His knowledge—as we learned at great length in the previous chapter, where he brought an extensive passage from the Rambam—is united with Him and adds nothing to Him, because by knowing Himself He knows all created beings, so it is with His will, His wisdom, and all His other attributes. Each is His very essence and being. In other words, just as His knowledge is literally His essence and being, truly one thing, so His kindness is one with His essence and being, not something else. And His might, His essence and being, His wisdom and His will—all of it. They aren’t separate things; it’s all one thing. This needs explaining. What does that mean? How can you say, for example, that might and kindness aren’t two different things? Might isn’t really might; it’s His essence and being. Kindness, too, isn’t really kindness; it’s His essence and being. Wisdom isn’t wisdom, and will isn’t will. There’s only one thing here. On the one hand, we say He has wisdom, will, kindness, might, beauty, all the attributes and all the names. On the other hand, we say there is

15:00 Speaker 1 nothing else here—only His essence and being. How do those two things fit together?

15:04 Speaker 4 In the revelation and the emanations.

15:06 Speaker 1 Hmm?

15:06 Speaker 4 In the revelation and the emanations. In the revelation and the emanations that He gives.

15:14 Speaker 1 Ah… We can’t simply say that the answer is… You mean this: Why are there wisdom, understanding, kindness, distinctions, multiplicity? The multiplicity isn’t Him. The multiplicity is in the emanations from Him. He Himself has no multiplicity, but in the emanations from Him there is… Is that what you mean? But in the emanation from Him there is a multiplicity of His wisdom, and so on.

15:46 Speaker 4 No, there’s no multiplicity. The expressions are different.

15:49 Speaker 1 Hmm?

15:50 Speaker 4 No, there’s no multiplicity. The expressions are different. Because it’s like… I don’t know, one person can have several roles: a father, a husband, a grandfather, a teacher. Like…

16:04 Speaker 1 That’s an excellent analogy. And that’s really what the Rebbe wants to say here, although he doesn’t use this analogy: the same person is all these things. But right now we’re at the stage of the question. Actually, that analogy explains the question better than I was going to explain it. That’s good. Did you understand what she said?

16:34 Speaker 4 You could add something else to that. If one person sees it from above, he sees one thing, and when you look…

16:42 Speaker 1 You see several… Yes, like the light of the sun shining through many windows. “And likewise His other holy attributes—all are truly a simple unity, which is His very essence and being.” And as the Rambam, of blessed memory, wrote: How can I understand that all His attributes are literally one thing? The Rambam says, “The mouth has no power to express this, nor the ear to hear it, nor the human heart to grasp it fully.” I can give some analogy for it, like that one, but the truth is that the analogy doesn’t fully resemble what it illustrates. With me, with a father, when he is with his children and has compassion for them, that is one quality; when he is angry with them, that is an entirely different quality. It’s true that he is the same father, acting one way at one time and another way at another time. But when he is angry, he isn’t feeling compassion, and when he feels compassion, he isn’t angry. Those are two different things. Here, though, we’re saying that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is a simple unity, not a composite unity. It isn’t that He has several qualities that He takes on. Rather, He Himself is this and this and this, with no distinction between them.

18:10 Speaker 4 The several qualities—if I were to put it in our terms—several qualities come from one quality?

18:17 Speaker 1 Yes. And that is something I can’t understand. There is no power—how does it say? Not only can the heart not grasp it fully; the mouth doesn’t even have the power to say it. How can you say such a thing? These are two things that are completely opposite and different. How are they one thing? Why is that? Because a person pictures in his mind everything he wants to comprehend and understand. He pictures everything as it exists within himself. He finds an analogy for everything. As the verse says, “From my flesh I perceive G-d”: a father who acts this way and that way. At one time he’s like this. So when a person wants to picture Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to understand what Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, he immediately tries to think: Wait, how is it with me? It must be like that with Him, but on a higher level. But since Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not one of the created beings, we have no foothold, nothing to grasp. There is nothing in the world that can serve as an analogy for this. For example—and from here to the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain what a composite unity is, what unity is like in a human being.

19:31 Speaker 4 Ah, like…

19:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

19:33 Speaker 4 In chapter 8, is it a question? Really, in chapter 8?

19:36 Speaker 1 What?

19:36 Speaker 4 Is chapter 8 just a question?

19:38 Speaker 1 It isn’t a question. It’s an introduction to chapter 9.

19:43 Speaker 4 Oh.

19:43 Speaker 1 It isn’t a question. To emphasize—to emphasize that we cannot understand what Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, he first explains why we can’t understand it. In other words, our comprehension is only by way of negation. So first of all—

19:57 Speaker 4 What does he explain in chapter 9?

19:59 Speaker 1 In chapter 9, he explains comprehension by way of negation. Here he explains, in positive terms, what we can understand: unity as it exists for us. In the next chapter he will—

20:08 Speaker 4 The question is how it can be understood.

20:10 Speaker 1 Hmm?

20:11 Speaker 4 No, we discussed this last week, didn’t we? So what is it, then?

20:16 Speaker 1 Comprehension by way of negation, yes.

20:18 Speaker 4 It’s just harder to understand than comprehension in positive terms.

20:20 Speaker 5 Because in positive terms, you reveal the answer.

20:24 Speaker 1 No.

20:24 Speaker 5 That isn’t understanding; it’s a clear answer.

20:25 Speaker 4 It’s a ruling. It’s, it’s, it’s a ruling.

20:27 Speaker 5 You’re told, “This is it.” There isn’t really—

20:29 Speaker 4 “It’s like this.”

20:30 Speaker 5 You’re told, “It’s not this, it’s not this, it’s not this.”

20:32 Speaker 4 No, but in positive terms too, you’re told, “It’s like this.” It isn’t actually this, but it’s like this.

20:36 Speaker 5 Well, like all the analogies in Chassidus. For example, half a clutch.

20:40 Speaker 1 Comprehension in positive terms means that, ultimately, I can define it, I can grasp it. Something that I can—how do I understand something?

20:51 Speaker 5 That’s what—so in that case, the introduction works better than the chapter.

20:55 Speaker 1 How does a person understand anything at all? Through the intellect. And how does the intellect understand any given subject? By grasping it. How do you grasp a ball? You hold it. If it’s a basketball, you can’t grasp it with one hand, right? Unless someone has a very big hand. You need two hands, right? Why? Because how else am I going to grasp it? The idea of grasping means holding an object from both sides. Then I can lift it, take it, throw it. That’s what grasping means physically. Why do we sometimes say, when we understand something, “I’ve grasped the idea”? Because I can define its boundaries. I explain it from this side and from that side, and then I have the whole idea. I’ve grasped it from both sides. The intellect understands by defining boundaries. That’s how it understands everything. But where are Hashem’s boundaries? He has none, so there’s nothing by which to grasp Him. The highest faculty a person has for grasping spiritual things is the intellect. We don’t have a faculty above the intellect.

22:17 Speaker 5 So how can it not grasp the end? Wait, but you said that will is above the intellect.

22:22 Speaker 4 But it doesn’t understand. It won’t grasp it that way.

22:24 Speaker 5 Ah, okay.

22:25 Speaker 1 The fact that will... that will is above the intellect... Again, there’s will and there’s will. There are two kinds: a will that comes from the intellect, and a will that is the cause of the intellect. The will that causes the intellect is the essence of the soul, and that truly can grasp G-dliness.

22:44 Speaker 5 Okay.

22:44 Speaker 1 “No thought can grasp Him.”

22:47 Speaker 5 What grasps G-dliness? What he’s saying about the intellect.

22:51 Speaker 1 Yes. It says, “No thought can grasp Him at all, but He can be grasped through the desire of the heart.” The desire of the heart can indeed grasp Him. That desire isn’t intellect; it’s the essence of the soul. It’s something else. But...

23:03 Speaker 5 Yes, will isn’t an intellectual thing.

23:05 Speaker 1 Right. The highest faculty a person can consciously use to grasp something is the intellect. We don’t have a faculty above it, and the whole function of the intellect is to grasp something by defining its boundaries. But Hashem has no boundaries. He has no beginning and no end—not a physical beginning or end, not a spiritual one, and not even something beyond that. He has no definition whatsoever. If He had some definition, it would be possible to grasp Him with... But there’s nothing by which to grasp Him.

23:38 Speaker 5 What Chassidus says about this.

23:40 Speaker 1 Hmm?

23:41 Speaker 5 What Chassidus actually...

23:41 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:43 Speaker 5 G-d before that.

23:45 Speaker 1 Yes. So here he first explains what... how... what a person’s oneness is. He begins like this: “For a person pictures in his mind all the concepts he wishes to comprehend and understand as they exist within himself. For example, if he wishes to picture in his mind the nature of will,” a person wants to understand what will is, or the nature of chochmah, binah or daas, or the nature of the attribute of kindness or compassion, and the like. So how does he... how does he understand them? He pictures them all as they exist within himself. I know what intellect is in myself. I want to understand what Hashem’s intellect is, so I try to think of it by analogy. What picture forms in my mind? I reflect and try to understand, to define precisely what intellect is in me. Then I think: with Hashem it’s something like that, only on a higher level. I have no other way. But ultimately, even after I’ve grasped it—after I’ve managed to define and understand what these spiritual matters are in us, which is difficult—after I’ve understood what binah is in me, for example, and “from my flesh I perceive G-d,” I understand that with Hashem, too, there is something called binah. Ultimately, though, what I’ve understood is not what it really is. When we say that Hashem understands, that He has binah, we don’t mean He has binah as I do. I call a certain way He reveals Himself “binah” because it resembles, by analogy, the binah within me. But His binah itself isn’t that. It’s something entirely different. In truth, Hashem is exalted and elevated, and His name is holy. That is, not only is He holy, but His name is holy too. He is holy and set apart by myriads upon myriads of levels of separation, without end or limit,

25:54 Speaker 1 far, far beyond the scope, kind and type of any praise or virtue that created beings can comprehend or picture in their minds. The meaning of the word “holy” is

26:08 Speaker 6 set apart.

26:09 Speaker 1 “Holy” means set apart. Our Sages called Him Hakadosh Boruch Hu because He is holy and set apart. How set apart? By myriads upon myriads of levels, without end or limit. We have no number that could describe how many degrees of separation there are: holy beyond holy, beyond holy; set apart, set apart, set apart. Myriads upon myriads of levels, without end or limit. You can’t even say

26:44 Speaker 6 that, from His perspective, it has an end.

26:45 Speaker 1 Li... What?

26:46 Speaker 6 That, from His perspective, it has an end.

26:47 Speaker 1 Right, you can’t say that. One level of holiness I can still understand. A second level, holy beyond holy, I already can’t understand. Myriads upon myriads—I certainly can’t understand that. And what does “without end” mean? I have nothing to grasp.

26:59 Speaker 6 It’s like those mirrors where you see one inside the other and you see...

27:02 Speaker 1 What’s that?

27:02 Speaker 6 You can no longer see the end.

27:04 Speaker 1 Yes.

27:04 Speaker 6 You put them fac...

27:05 Speaker 1 Oh, mirrors.

27:06 Speaker 6 One second.

27:10 Speaker 1 With mirrors reflecting each other, it looks to us as though it goes on forever, but actually...

27:16 Speaker 6 It’s like it goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

27:18 Speaker 1 Actually, yes, after about sixty or seventy, it already...

27:24 Speaker 6 Then there’s no room for the mirror.

27:24 Speaker 1 It fades away. No, not because there’s no room for the mirror, but because the mirror absorbs five percent of the light. So after some fifty back-and-forth reflections, there’s nothing left. Anyway, the first and highest level among created beings is chochmah. The highest faculty created beings have is chochmah, and that’s why it’s called “the beginning.” Chochmah really is the beginning and source of all vitality in created beings. Chassidus explains at length in several places that the soul enters a person through the nose. The nose is the gateway into the physical through which the soul enters the body, and that’s why it’s called neshimah, breathing.

28:16 Speaker 6 It says... I’m reading this, and it looks as though it enters through the mouth too.

28:20 Speaker 1 Hmm?

28:21 Speaker 6 Oh, it enters through the nose. Okay.

28:23 Speaker 1 A person, uh, can...

28:24 Speaker 6 It enters through the nose, it enters.

28:24 Speaker 1 You can breathe through the mouth too, but not...

28:27 Speaker 6 No, no, but the soul...

28:28 Speaker 1 The soul doesn’t enter from there.

28:29 Speaker 6 That’s where the entrance is, so it comes out...

28:30 Speaker 1 That’s also why there are...

28:31 Speaker 6 Through the mouth, but it sounds...

28:32 Speaker 1 Also, that’s why there are two nostrils. That’s another subject.

28:35 Speaker 6 Hmm.

28:36 Speaker 1 Huh?

28:36 Speaker 6 Are they really both the same, then?

28:38 Speaker 1 No. The right nostril and the left nostril, the lower and the upper.

28:46 Speaker 6 There’s always a Kabbalistic explanation.

28:50 Speaker 1 The soul enters; the nose is called the gateway of the intellectual faculties—that’s how Kabbalah describes it. It’s called the gateway of the intellectual faculties. The soul enters through it, and its first manifestation in the body is in the intellect. That’s where the primary vitality is. A person... What?

29:10 Speaker 6 That’s why there’s the sense of smell. It’s the most intangible thing, because it can enter through the nose.

29:13 Speaker 1 Right.

29:14 Speaker 6 That’s also why.

29:15 Speaker 1 Among the senses. Yes.

29:18 Speaker 6 What happens with the spices is the soul entering.

29:21 Speaker 1 It’s connected to spices, connected to offerings. Yes, yes.

29:24 Speaker 6 Hmm?

29:24 Speaker 1 Connected to the ketores. Yes.

29:25 Speaker 6 To the ketores.

29:27 Speaker 1 The difference between the right nostril and the left is the difference between the offerings and the ketores, but that’s not for now.

29:37 Speaker 6 I think we have enough on our plate today.

29:40 Speaker 7 A short chapter.

29:43 Speaker 6 You could wrap up Chassidus with this subject.

29:45 Speaker 1 No, you’re just getting sidetracked. Come on, it’s not relevant.

29:48 Speaker 6 We are. I don’t know. I know because it’s...

30:01 Speaker 1 In the physical body... Ah, let me explain this a little in physical terms. When a person is alive, my first thought, based on how I feel, is: What keeps me alive? Food, right? A person who doesn’t eat immediately feels that... one day, and that’s it. Right? A person eats, the food... What actually happens? In practice, when a person eats, after the food is digested in the liver, the choicest part of the food becomes blood. Some of that blood, which is formed in the liver, goes directly to the organs, and some reaches the heart through special vessels. Up to this point, this is medicine. Doctors say this too. In the heart, the blood—which was actually formed from the food—meets the life force, the animal soul, which is in the left chamber of the heart. Then it becomes refined and takes on the life force of the animal soul, and from there it is sent to all the organs of the body. But the choicest blood, which was refined in the heart, does not go to the body; it rises to the brain. When it reaches the brain, it meets the divine soul and is refined a second time. Then it returns downward and gives life to the body. This is no longer blood. It is now the life force of movement, thought, and desire, carried through the nerves—the person’s inner vitality. So there are two movements here. The body’s physical vitality begins with food and rises from below upward. The body’s spiritual vitality, the soul, enters through the nose, and there in the brain it unites with the blood, refines it, and descends from there to give life to all the organs. So the beginning of life, the soul’s first entry into the body, is in the brain. The first place where the soul expresses and reveals itself is the intellect, in chochmah. From there come binah and daas, and then it also descends to the heart, to the middos, until it descends further...

32:42 Speaker 1 to direct the organs of action, the hands and feet. Because from chochmah come binah and daas, and from them come all the middos of the intellectual soul, such as love, kindness, compassion, and the like. If you remember, in chapter 3 of Tanya we learned how the middos are born from contemplation. What is the connection between chochmah, binah, and daas and emotions, the middos? Intellect and emotion are two separate worlds. How can you tell me there is a connection between them? The Alter Rebbe does not explain that connection here, but he shows that it exists. How can we see for ourselves that emotions, too, are born from and develop out of the intellect? We see that there is a correspondence, a relationship, between emotion and intellect. What is that relationship? We can plainly see that a young child, who lacks daas, is often angry and cruel. A young child gets upset very easily. There are adults who get upset very easily too, but that is really because their daas is limited.

34:01 Speaker 8 That is what it means to have the capacity to take something in.

34:04 Speaker 1 Hmm?

34:04 Speaker 8 So why are they cruel?

34:06 Speaker 1 Ah, it’s the same thing. Just as he gets upset easily, he also...

34:14 Speaker 8 Sees.

34:14 Speaker 1 Sees only himself. When someone else gets in his way, a child has no problem trampling over them or hitting them. He doesn’t...

34:23 Speaker 8 It isn’t always because someone gets in his way. With children, sometimes it’s precisely someone close to them, and suddenly they have something against a child who’s hurting.

34:31 Speaker 1 Not against them. There’s nothing against them; it’s because he feels only himself. Why does he feel only himself? Why doesn’t he feel the other person? Daas has to do with feeling. His daas is limited. He feels only what is close to him; he has little daas. And since his daas is small—and what gives rise to the middos, to emotion? Daas. When daas is small, emotion is small too. That is true both on the negative side and on the positive side. As we see with a young child, his love is directed toward little things that are not worthy of love. The younger he is, the smaller and less significant the things he loves. Incidentally, this relates to what we’re discussing: there is a long maamar by the Alter Rebbe that explains how the soul grows and develops. It isn’t only the Alter Rebbe; this is actually a whole subject in Chassidus. When a person is born, his soul is small. It isn’t only his body that is small; his soul is small. As he develops, his intellectual faculties grow, and his emotions naturally become more refined. The maamar shows this at length: how you see it in a three- or four-year-old, then in a five- or six-year-old, a seven- or eight-year-old. He keeps climbing and growing, up to age thirteen, age twenty, and age seventy. How the sou... Yes?

36:02 Speaker 8 Where is that written?

36:03 Speaker 1 Ah, the exact reference.

36:07 Speaker 8 It sounds like it was lifted from a psychology book.

36:10 Speaker 1 Ah.

36:12 Speaker 8 No.

36:12 Speaker 1 Remind me. I’ve seen it several times, but I don’t remember the reference right now. There are several maamarim that explain this. It applies to every person, even a non-Jew. But for a Jew, what causes his divine soul to grow and develop is learning Torah. If he learns Torah—and we’re talking about the revealed part of Torah, not Chassidus—because just as the physical body needs food in order to grow and develop, the soul needs Torah study in order to grow and develop. When a Jew learns Torah, even if he does not work on his middos, his intellect naturally grows, and his middos become more refined. Why do the middos become more refined? Because the intellect grows. And the divine intellect grows because he learns Torah: he is giving the soul food. So that is a very, very beautiful explanation. But you can see the difference in a child... In general, everyone can see it, even without all the explanations of Chassidus: a young child is drawn to little things, focuses on little things, and gets upset over little things. With an adult it is not like that, because the child does not have enough daas to appreciate things that are worthy of love; love follows daas. And from the middos of the soul come the words and letters of thought. So what is the beginning of a person’s vitality? The chochmah of the soul. What comes from chochmah? Binah and daas. The middos follow the level of daas. And what comes from the middos? Thought. The soul thinks about what it loves. What does a person think about? We’re not talking about a time when a person is studying and trying to understand something. Fine. That’s not what we’re talking about right now. We mean a person as he is, when he isn’t engaged in some activity...

38:27 Speaker 8 Driving a car.

38:28 Speaker 1 An external activity. Yes, when a person is by himself, not talking to anyone and not trying to understand anything. Just as he is, alone with himself, he has feelings at work within him. What ideas and thoughts pass through his mind? After all, thought never stops for a moment. What does he think about? He thinks about... what he feels.

38:48 Speaker 8 Right.

38:50 Speaker 1 In other words, thought comes from feelings.

38:54 Speaker 8 And transforms them.

38:55 Speaker 1 What?

38:56 Speaker 8 Feelings come from thought, but thought doesn’t come from feelings.

38:59 Speaker 1 I didn’t understand.

39:00 Speaker 8 Yes.

39:00 Speaker 1 Feelings come from thought, don’t they?

39:03 Speaker 8 Why? You can arouse the middos. You can arouse emotions through...

39:07 Speaker 1 Thought is a garment. It isn’t part of the soul.

39:10 Speaker 8 What is a soul?

39:12 Speaker 1 Nefesh means soul.

39:16 Speaker 8 When we speak of the divine soul, a person is the nefesh; nefesh means soul. No, we just said that the middos come from the intellect.

39:24 Speaker 1 But not...

39:24 Speaker 8 From daas.

39:26 Speaker 1 But not, not from thought.

39:29 Speaker 8 What’s the difference?

39:30 Speaker 1 We spoke about that at length. We discussed chapter 4 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah.

39:34 Speaker 8 You weren’t here.

39:38 Speaker 1 It really is a question everyone... It isn’t directly related to this, but let’s take a brief detour and explain it. First of all, that was a long time ago—some two years, a year and a half ago. And second, it really is...

39:52 Speaker 8 It might have been even longer.

39:55 Speaker 1 And second, it really is fundamental to understanding Chassidus, and to understanding the human soul in general. So one of the first things the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya is something that is genuinely hard to understand: What is the difference between intellect and thought? How can I understand without thinking? Aren’t they the same thing? That’s the question, right? It’s a question everyone has. Not everyone knows...

40:19 Speaker 8 How do you understand?

40:20 Speaker 1 Not everyone knows how to put it into words, but it isn’t clear to anyone. Understanding and thought are two entirely different things. A person can... Let’s start at the bottom. A person can understand one thing and say something else. We call that lying. No problem. Yes, I can...

40:46 Speaker 8 Understand that he’s lying, you mean?

40:48 Speaker 9 No.

40:48 Speaker 1 Hmm?

40:49 Speaker 9 He understands that it’s wrong, but he does it anyway.

40:50 Speaker 1 A person can do that. It’s possible. It happens. I can understand that two plus two equals four...

41:01 Speaker 8 And say that it...

41:01 Speaker 1 I can say it equals three, or a hundred. No problem. Two plus two equals a hundred. There, I said it. I know it isn’t true. I understand it isn’t true. And I said it.

41:12 Speaker 8 And in thought, straightaway...

41:13 Speaker 1 Is that clear so far? Yes? Now, before I said it, I also thought it.

41:20 Speaker 8 Mm.

41:21 Speaker 1 Right?

41:22 Speaker 8 I thought about you.

41:22 Speaker 1 I thought, “I want to say that two plus two equals a hundred.” It passed through my mind.

41:28 Speaker 8 There are things that don’t pass through thought.

41:29 Speaker 1 First of all, is that correct?

41:31 Speaker 8 That’s a question. There are things that don’t—

41:32 Speaker 1 First of all, is that true? It is. It’s simple.

41:36 Speaker 8 An example.

41:36 Speaker 1 I can think things that I know aren’t true.

41:41 Speaker 8 Ah, okay.

41:43 Speaker 1 That means thought isn’t part of understanding at all. It’s only a tool I use to explain to myself what I understand.

41:52 Speaker 8 And that also helps me understand, because sometimes, when I think—

41:55 Speaker 1 But I know whether what I’m thinking is what I understand or not. I know that perfectly well about myself. In other words, understanding isn’t thought at all. Here’s another example people give: A person can, uh, speak a language, uh, hear the letters of another language. Let’s put it differently. If he knows several languages, he can say and think about something he understands in this language or that language. But he understands that it’s the same thing.

42:39 Speaker 8 Across languages, it’s the same thing.

42:41 Speaker 1 A person can understand one thing and say it in different languages.

42:46 Speaker 8 Right.

42:47 Speaker 1 More than that, two different people can understand the same thing—Abaye and Rava, for instance. Sometimes they don’t disagree; sometimes they’re saying exactly the same thing, but each says it in different words. He uses different words because his thought is different. But the idea they grasp is the same. They’re saying the same thing.

43:10 Speaker 8 People, like—

43:10 Speaker 9 Intellect means saying the same thing—

43:12 Speaker 1 Intellect is the understanding.

43:14 Speaker 9 Thought is—

43:14 Speaker 1 Binah—binah isn’t thought. Binah is understanding: understanding what something is.

43:20 Speaker 9 Thought is, it’s the garment for...

43:23 Speaker 1 Thought is a garment for binah. In other words—

43:28 Speaker 8 Where does it come from—

43:29 Speaker 1 Just as a person can change a physical garment, speech is also something a person can change, because it isn’t me. It’s only a garment for the soul, not the soul itself. And a person can also replace one thought with another, or think it in other words, other letters of thought. But I can’t replace my understanding. I understand it this way, and that’s it—that’s what I understand. I can’t change that. Understanding is me. And yes, my feelings are me. When I feel something, I feel it. I can say it in different words, think it in different letters, but what I feel is what I feel. That’s me myself. So thought, speech, and action are garments for the soul. Now, Chassidus explains in Likkutei... Likkutei Dibburim, mainly the talks of the Frierdiker Rebbe, but in other places too, that even the soul’s garments are in some way expressions of the soul. They aren’t completely disconnected. But in relation to the essence of the soul, in relation to intellect and emotion, thought, speech, and action are considered something separate. So, as far as our subject here is concerned, we said—we’ll close that parenthesis—

44:49 Speaker 10 We needed to see

44:50 Speaker 1 that binah and daas develop from chochmah, the emotions develop from the intellect, and thoughts are born from the emotions.

45:01 Speaker 10 Thoughts are intellect.

45:03 Speaker 1 Hm?

45:03 Speaker 10 Thoughts are intellect.

45:05 Speaker 1 Thoughts, yes—the garment.

45:07 Speaker 10 Now, don’t be alarmed.

45:09 Speaker 11 No, no, you can understand that I understood.

45:12 Speaker 10 That... you can understand that...

45:13 Speaker 11 You didn’t quite get it out.

45:15 Speaker 1 “And in every thought in the world”—we’re on line twelve—“and in every thought in the world, some emotion is vested in it that brings one to think that thought.” When a person thinks a particular thought, why is he thinking it now? Because that emotion is now active within him and is becoming vested in that thought. “And this emotion is the life force of that thought. And from the letters of thought are drawn the letters of speech, and they—the letters of speech—are the life force of the letters of thought... they are the life force of the letters of speech.” Why does a person speak? Because he thinks. If a person speaks without thinking, nothing coherent comes out. Right? Now, if we think about the letters of thought and the letters of speech for a moment, they’re like a body and a soul. The letters of speech are physical. Physical. They’re air, and air is something entirely physical. Right? Yes, it comes out through one of the organs of the mouth—the five points of articulation. The way they shape the air, the movements of the voice, so that it comes out as one syllable or another, is entirely physical. But when a person speaks physical letters, there’s content within them. What is that content? It’s thought, which is spiritual. So that’s the life force of the letters of speech. Speech is physical, and its life force, thought, is spiritual. It’s truly like a body and a soul: the body is dust from the earth, while the soul is spiritual. That’s the relationship between the letters of speech and thought. The letters of thought give life to the letters of speech; they are truly their life force. “And speech brings about acts of tzedakah and kindness, for example”—where do we see that speech leads to action? “For example, a king. A king commands his servants to give”—to give tzedakah. Yes, the Rebbe instructs that everyone put a tzedakah box in their home, and ever since then, for about thirty years now, every Jew puts in a coin every day. The person preparing food for the home puts a coin in the box beforehand. The king gave the command, and everyone does it. The king’s speech brought about an act of tzedakah.

47:55 Speaker 1 But it’s true that sometimes an action doesn’t come about through speech. Let’s put it this way: There’s no such thing as a thought that doesn’t come from an emotion. That can’t happen, right? There’s no such thing as speech that doesn’t come from thought. But there can be an action that doesn’t come from speech. That can happen, because something—

48:21 Speaker 10 It does come from thought.

48:22 Speaker 1 What?

48:23 Speaker 10 It does come from thought.

48:24 Speaker 11 It does, but speech—

48:26 Speaker 1 Yes.

48:26 Speaker 10 Because action—

48:27 Speaker 1 At each of the previous stages, we said this becomes vested in that, and that becomes vested in—this is the life force of that, and that is the life force of this. But with action, we don’t have to say that speech is the life force of the action—that the king speaks and therefore people give tzedakah. A person can give tzedakah even without the king’s command, and without speech having come first.

48:48 Speaker 11 Speech causes, uh, others to do the action.

48:52 Speaker 1 Others. Right.

48:53 Speaker 11 Others, because he himself—

48:54 Speaker 1 Right, right, right. Speech causes others to act, but a person can also act without anyone having spoken, without being commanded first. Right? So why do we say that speech—that action flows from speech? He adds, uh... Even when a person does something himself without speech coming first, without the king telling him, “the soul’s power and life force vested in this action is truly as nothing compared with the soul’s power and life force vested in a person’s speech.” So even when a person acts without speech, it’s clear to us that there is a power of the soul vested in speech, a power of the soul now activating the organs of speech, and there is a power of the soul that activates the organs of action, causing the hand to move and a person to run and exercise. Right? So clearly, the soul’s power vested in speech is far higher than the soul’s power vested in action. Even when an action doesn’t actually come from speech, it’s clear that the soul’s power vested in action is very low compared with the soul’s power vested in speech. Okay? How much lower is the soul’s power in action than the power of speech? Like the relationship of the body to the soul. Did you hear that? That’s something we need to absorb, to think about. When a person speaks, he himself is speaking. The soul is present here, expressing itself here. A person wants to say what his thoughts are, what his feelings are. He himself is there in his speech. But when a person does something, from the soul’s perspective it’s almost incidental; it follows as a matter of course. The soul—when a person speaks, he has to think, “What am I saying now?” Right? He speaks—when a person speaks, he expresses his very self, his inner being. When a person does something... Yes. Uh, we once said... When you want to silence a Jew, how do you silence a Jew? You tie his hands behind his back. How can he talk like that? When a person... What? The—

51:45 Speaker 10 He speaks from the thoughts of his heart.

51:48 Speaker 1 The thoughts of his heart are his feelings.

51:50 Speaker 11 Of course, he thinks; he can say it.

51:53 Speaker 1 What?

51:53 Speaker 10 “Thoughts” specifically means thoughts.

51:58 Speaker 1 Why? Why is it called “the thoughts of his heart” and not “the feelings of his heart”? I don’t know. I don’t know, but that’s what it means. A person really... Maybe, maybe you’re right, yes. Thoughts are thoughts. What kind of thoughts? The thoughts of his heart. A person thinks about the things he feels in his heart, and then he speaks about them. So here a whole line of reasoning begins. The power of the soul invested in action is as nothing compared to the power of the soul invested in speech. How great is the difference? Like the soul compared to the body. The difference between the soul’s power in speech and its power in action is like the difference between soul and body. One is physical and the other spiritual. He says more than that. Up to now, he’s been going from above to below, from chochmah to binah and down to action. Now he begins going from below to above. And likewise, the relationship of the letters of thought to the essence of the emotion invested in them and giving them life is also like that of body to soul. The emotion, the feeling, is like the soul in relation to the thought in which it is invested, because thought is only a garment, while the emotion is part of the soul itself. It really is like body and soul. It’s an enormous distance, not something close. And higher still: the same applies to the essence and vitality of the emotion in relation to chochmah, binah and daas. So it’s clear that the soul as it is revealed in chochmah, binah and daas is incomparably higher than the soul’s radiance in the emotions. The relationship of intellect to feeling is like that of soul to body. Here too, it’s like body and soul: the intellect is the source from which this emotion was drawn. And all this is within the human soul. So within the human soul, the difference between action and speech is like that between body and soul; the difference between speech and thought is like that between body and soul; and so is the difference between thought and feeling, and between feeling and intellect. And there’s a difference like that between intellect and will, and so on, higher and higher. Those are five levels.

54:37 Speaker 3 Not between speech and thought?

54:40 Speaker 1 What did I say?

54:42 Speaker 3 Between speech and feeling.

54:43 Speaker 1 Between speech and thought, and between thought and feeling, and between feeling and intellect. Yes.

54:52 Speaker 3 Okay.

54:52 Speaker 1 Right. And all this applies to the human soul, and also to the souls of all created beings in all the higher and lower worlds. In all of them, chochmah is the beginning and source of vitality. This is called a composite unity. That’s what he began with on the previous page: unity in a person is a composite unity. What does “composite unity” mean? True, there’s only one person. There’s only one soul here that thinks, understands, feels, speaks and acts. But in that soul there are, broadly speaking, five levels, one below another—or one above another, however you look at it. Each is incomparably higher than the level below it. Now that we understand what a composite unity is, the Alter Rebbe will use that in chapter 9 to explain the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, which is a simple unity. Even though there too we speak of chochmah, binah and daas—the very same names, the exact same words—and we speak of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as also having, so to speak, thought, speech, action, will and so on, with Him it isn’t like our composite unity, where the difference between one level and the next is immeasurable, like the difference between body and soul. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is all one simple unity.

56:18 Speaker 3 What is “Yanush”?