Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 4

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re up to chapter 4. We said that in chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe begins explaining teshuvah itself. In the first three chapters, he sorted out the concepts connected with teshuvah. He began in chapter 1 with the definition that teshuvah means returning to Hashem, and nothing else. Teshuvah comes from the word “to return”—to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So what are the other concepts we know about: confession, atonement, fasting, self-mortification? He explained that teshuvah means resolving to leave the sin behind and return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, it concerns the future. Atonement is meant to repair the damage the sin caused in the past. We didn’t emphasize verbal confession very much. I don’t think we spoke about it at all, really. But he explains there that verbal confession is also for the sake of atonement. In other words, for there to be atonement, there must be verbal confession. Teshuvah uproots the desire for the sin, while verbal confession is something a person says with his mouth, and “the movement of the lips is considered an action.” So the act of speaking uproots the body of the transgression. That’s confession and atonement. Then he goes into it at length. So why does everyone fast? As soon as someone does teshuvah, he immediately starts fasting and practicing self-mortification, taking all sorts of difficult things upon himself. What is that about? First, he ruled out entirely the idea that fasting has anything to do with either teshuvah or atonement. Then, in chapters 2 and 3, he said that although fasting is connected to neither teshuvah nor atonement—that is, it isn’t meant to bring a person back to Hakadosh Boruch Hu or to repair the sin—it does have great significance. What is its significance? It is to become beloved and pleasing before Hakadosh Boruch

02:06 Speaker 1 Hu as one was before the sin. When a person sins against Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it causes Him, so to speak, to say, “Leave Me alone.” He doesn’t want to see you. You asked forgiveness? Fine, I’ve forgiven you; I won’t punish you. But that doesn’t mean you’re beloved as you were before the sin. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, they would bring a korban. Later, when it was no longer possible to bring a korban, one could fast. When a person fasts, his flesh and blood are diminished, just as the korban is offered up on the altar to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Today, when fasting is difficult too, the Alter Rebbe says to give tzedakah. In chapter 3 he details how much tzedakah to give, and we saw that the sums are not small. It comes to about eighteen shekels for each day of fasting, but since the number of fasts is very, very large, all those who fear the word of Hashem give a great deal of tzedakah, without limit or measure. That was the first three chapters: an explanation of teshuvah according to the revealed dimension of Torah. Now the Alter Rebbe begins to address the essence of teshuvah. In general, teshuvah is kabbolas ol. Until now I had cast off that yoke, and that’s why I committed—or stumbled in—this particular transgression, and another time it might be a different one. But why does a person stumble in sin in the first place? Because he has cast off the yoke. So the heart of teshuvah is for a person to accept the yoke of Heaven upon himself. For that kabbolas ol to permeate him and not leave him—for his teshuvah to be genuine and wholehearted—he needs to contemplate what damage his sin caused, the nature of his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and how teshuvah repairs the connection he damaged. So what is

04:24 Speaker 1 teshuvah itself? The Alter Rebbe will explain that only later, in chapter... Good evening.

04:34 Speaker 2 Good evening.

04:35 Speaker 1 Wonderful.

04:36 Speaker 2 Well done.

04:37 Speaker 1 But I gave that whole introduction for you. You...

04:40 Speaker 2 We’re ready. There we go—Baruch Hashem, we’ve been fortunate that people are arriving. Baruch Hashem.

04:45 Speaker 1 All right, with your permission, I’ll briefly repeat the introduction. Good evening. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came to be.

04:57 Speaker 2 The rest afterward. I see I have one left.

05:05 Speaker 1 There are more, there are more. I got hold of some at Shlomi’s; it’s no problem. Give one to whoever wants one.

05:13 Speaker 2 That’s it, I have one.

05:15 Speaker 1 Give one to whoever wants one. Tell me how many are missing and I’ll know.

05:21 Speaker 2 One more is missing. That’s it. That’s the Chanukah one you didn’t do.

05:25 Speaker 1 All right, we’re now up to chapter 4 of Igeres Hateshuvah, which is actually the first chapter in which the Alter Rebbe begins to explain what teshuvah is. Until now, in the preceding chapters, the Alter Rebbe was only putting things in order. He explained what teshuvah is, what atonement is, and what fasting is. The central point was that teshuvah means returning to Hashem from now on, while atonement is not actually part of teshuvah. Atonement means repairing the sin. People always say that teshuvah means making repairs, that teshuvah can even repair the past. That’s what people always say, right? But the Alter Rebbe explained: Not at all. Repairing the past is atonement—to cover over, to cleanse. That is only the completion of teshuvah. Teshuvah means returning to Hashem. The fact that teshuvah also makes it possible to repair the past, through atonement, is a bonus; it’s another matter. He explained several details about atonement and about becoming beloved before Hakadosh Boruch Hu as one was before the sin. He discussed these matters at length over three chapters, and now we’re beginning to explain teshuvah itself. We said, we explained: Why does a person sin at all? How does someone come to stumble in a transgression? If a person saw Hakadosh Boruch Hu before his eyes, he wouldn’t sin. He sins because he thinks no one is watching him. Take a person during prayer, for example. He’s praying now. In the middle of prayer, he isn’t suddenly going to feel like—I don’t know—committing some transgression, because right now he’s thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. When do all sorts of thoughts of sin start entering his mind? When he isn’t thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, at the root of all transgressions is casting off the yoke. From this we can understand what teshuvah is. Teshuvah means strengthening

07:18 Speaker 1 kabbolas ol. How do I strengthen my kabbolas ol? When I understand the nature of my connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu and understand what the sin damages, I won’t want to commit sins anymore. That’s what the Alter Rebbe begins to explain. Let’s look inside. Chapter 4: “However, all the above”—the fasting and self-mortification he discussed in the preceding chapters—“is for the completion of atonement and the cleansing of the soul before Hashem after teshuvah.” In other words, after I have done complete teshuvah, fasting and self-mortification also come into play so that I can be beloved before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s what the preceding chapters discussed. “As explained above from the Gemara in the first chapter of Zevachim, that an olah”—an olah offering—“is a gift after the advocate has secured acceptance,” and so on. After you’ve done teshuvah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu has accepted it and forgiven you, to be beloved before Him as you were before the sin, you also need an olah, a gift, fasting, and other things. But what is teshuvah itself? “The beginning and essence of the mitzvah of teshuvah, however, is to return to Hashem in truth and with a whole heart. This must be thoroughly explained at length.” How does one do teshuvah? The Alter Rebbe explains it by first citing what is written in the holy Zohar about the word teshuvah according to its mystical meaning. The holy Zohar says: “Teshuvah consists of the words tashuv hei”—return the letter hei. Which hei are we talking about? Do you know? Hmm? Do you know? Right, the hei in Hashem’s Name, but in—yes, yes. And in Hashem’s Name there are

09:28 Speaker 3 four. Two let—

09:30 Speaker 1 Four letters, but the letter hei appears twice.

09:31 Speaker 3 Ah.

09:32 Speaker 1 So if teshuvah consists of tashuv hei, and we’re talking about the hei in Hashem’s Name, which hei is it?

09:38 Speaker 3 The lower hei.

09:38 Speaker 1 Hmm?

09:39 Speaker 3 The lower hei.

09:40 Speaker 1 So that is what the Zohar says: the lower hei, lower-level teshuvah; the upper hei, higher-level teshuvah. It’s interesting. The Zohar says there are two kinds of teshuvah. What does that mean? How can we explain it? If until today I didn’t have kabbolas ol, and now I’m doing teshuvah and want to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, what does it mean that there could be two ways of doing that? What does it mean to say that I return to Him on a lower level, and return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu on a higher level? We need to understand that. And there’s something else we need to understand, on line seventeen, concerning what the Zohar says in several places. The Zohar says in several places that teshuvah does not help someone who has violated the covenant and emitted seed in vain. For that, teshuvah doesn’t help. This is extremely puzzling, because nothing stands in the way of teshuvah—not even idol worship or forbidden relations, and so on. The three most severe transgressions in the Torah are idol worship, forbidden relations, and murder. A person deliberately murdered someone; he does teshuvah, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives him. But for violating the covenant, teshuvah doesn’t help? What happened? How can that be? What does the Zohar mean? The Reishis Chochmah, a work of Kabbalah that explains the Zohar, interprets it to mean that lower-level teshuvah does not help, only higher-level teshuvah does, and so on. When the Zohar says teshuvah doesn’t help for this transgression, it means lower-level teshuvah doesn’t help. But if you do higher-level teshuvah, it will help. What is that? How do you do it? What does it mean? Now, to understand this even a little, we first need to explain what Scripture and our Sages say about kareis and death at the hands of Heaven. Here’s how it goes: we’ve understood that the foundation of teshuvah is kabbolas ol. But when it comes to teshuvah according to the mystical teachings, according to its inner dimension, there are

12:20 Speaker 1 several things here that aren’t clear. First, what does it mean that there are two kinds of teshuvah? And second, how can there be transgressions for which one kind of teshuvah doesn’t help, and only the other kind does? Those are two very strange questions—really astonishing, I think. To explain this, we first need to understand what sins are. What does a sin damage? And to understand what a sin damages in the soul, we first need to understand the connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu in general. Once we understand the nature of my connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, we’ll be able to understand how sin damages that connection, and then we’ll also be able to understand how to repair it. All right? So we’ll go in order. But there’s one more question first. Scripture and the words of our Sages explain the matter of kareis and death at the hands of Heaven. There are transgressions that carry the penalty of kareis, and there are transgressions that carry the penalty of lashes. Let’s start in order. Some transgressions carry the Torah’s penalty of lashes. Some carry the death penalty imposed by a beis din: the person has to be brought before the Sanhedrin, and based on witnesses and so on, the Sanhedrin sentences him to death if it is established that he committed that particular transgression. Some transgressions carry the penalty of kareis, and some carry death at the hands of Heaven. What are these two punishments? The Gemara says—and Scripture and the words of our Sages explain—what kareis and death at the hands of Heaven mean. What is this punishment? Someone who committed a transgression punishable by kareis would actually die before the age of fifty. “Actually die” means physically die, because there can also be spiritual death. For example, it says that a poor person is considered

14:47 Speaker 1 like someone dead. A person who has lost his wealth is considered like someone dead. So perhaps we might interpret it as meaning that sort of death: he becomes poor. No. The Gemara says that someone liable for kareis actually dies. When? Before he reaches fifty. And for transgressions punishable by death at the hands of Heaven, a person would actually die before the age of sixty. What’s the proof that he actually dies—not spiritually, but dies and has to be buried in the ground? Like Chananiah ben Azur, the prophet in Yirmiyahu. There’s a story about Chananiah ben Azur in the book of Yirmiyahu. At first he was a true prophet. Later he uttered a false prophecy, and Yirmiyahu the prophet told him, “Because you uttered a false prophecy, you will die.” And in fact, he did die that year. The people trampled him at the gate, and he actually died. And sometimes, the Rebbe adds in parentheses, even death at the hands of Heaven is exacted immediately, as we find with Er and Onan, who brought a strange fire in the Beis Hamikdash on—on the first of Nissan, today. Rosh Chodesh Nissan, when the Mishkan was erected. That’s hashgachah pratis. So...

16:20 Speaker 4 No, Google.

16:25 Speaker 1 Oh, no—Nadav and Avihu. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, I made a mistake. You’re right, you’re right. Er and Onan, that’s the story of Tamar. They’re the ones Yehudah took as husbands for his daughter Tamar, and they wasted seed. So that was a violation of the covenant; the punishment was death at the hands of Heaven, and they died immediately. They weren’t left until they reached fifty or sixty. “Yet in every generation,” the Rebbe asks, “there are many people liable for kareis or death at the hands of Heaven who live long and pleasant lives.” How can it be that the Torah is seemingly not correct, G-d forbid? We know all sorts of people, and it says that if someone desecrates Shabbos, then if it was deliberate, with witnesses and a warning, he is liable for the death penalty imposed by a beis din; and if it was inadvertent, he is liable for kareis. Well, we know many Jews who desecrate Shabbos inadvertently, and they don’t die when they reach fifty. The Torah says that any Jew liable for kareis dies before fifty. So how does that fit? We need to understand what this punishment of kareis is. What does the sin damage? To understand all this—what sin is, what it damages, what kareis is, and why people actually die, and when they do or don’t—we first need to understand the nature of a Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. From here to the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe explains the nature of that connection. The matter can be understood in light of the verse, “For His people are a portion of Hashem.” “His people” means us, the Jewish people. Every one of us is a portion of Hashem. What does that mean? A portion of the name Havayah, blessed be He. That’s very interesting. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has various names: Elokim, Adonai,

18:54 Speaker 1 Shaddai. The explicit Divine Name is Havayah, the name Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei. What does the verse tell us? An explicit verse in the Torah says that every Jew is a portion of the name Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei. Where can you see it—on the forehead, the nose, the hand? Where can you see that we are a portion of that name? The Torah says it explicitly. The explanation is in the verse: “And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.” “And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu blows a soul into every Jew, giving him life, and the soul that gives life to every one of us is a portion of the name Havayah. The name Havayah, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, is the soul that gives life to the body of every Jew, to each of us. As it says, “One who blows, blows from within himself.” What does that mean? The Torah describes how Hakadosh Boruch Hu puts a soul into a person using the word “blowing.” What is blowing? It’s when a person blows out air. Speech also comes out of the mouth, and that’s air too. What’s the difference? A person can talk and talk and talk and talk without getting tired. But when a person blows, how long can he keep going? Have you ever tried to blow up one of those children’s swimming pools?

20:50 Speaker 5 A nightmare.

20:51 Speaker 1 … It’s exhausting; it’s hard. After blowing a few times, a person gets tired. Why? It’s the same air coming out of the same mouth, from the same person. Because “one who blows, blows from within himself.” When a person blows, he puts his strength into it, his innermost vitality—he puts himself into it, so he gets tired quickly. And if the Torah describes Hakadosh Boruch Hu placing the soul in a person by blowing, it means that He placed His innermost vitality—Himself—within that person. Just as a person, when he blows, brings out, so to speak, something of himself, so too, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed the soul within us, He placed Himself within us. The Alter Rebbe asks: “And although He has no bodily form”—how can we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu blew, that He has a mouth? He has no body or bodily form. “But the Torah speaks in human language to make this understandable to the ear.” Just as blowing brings out our innermost vitality, so our souls, so to speak, come from His innermost vitality. For, by way of analogy, there is a great difference in a human being between the breath that comes from his mouth when he speaks and the breath that comes out when he blows. The breath that comes out in speech contains only a very small measure of strength and vitality. It is an external aspect of the living soul within him, and that is why he can speak a great deal without tiring. But the breath that comes out when he blows with force—“one who blows, blows from within himself”—contains an inner strength and vitality from the living soul, and so he gets tired. So the Torah speaks in human language. That’s the first part of the explanation. Every Jew has a soul, and my soul comes from the innermost Divine vitality. We learn this from the words “And He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.” In just this way, by analogy—though the distinction is infinitely greater—there is an immense difference

23:12 Speaker 1 above between all the hosts of heaven, even the angels, who were created from nothing into something. Let’s make a brief aside before we continue reading inside. In the next passage, the Alter Rebbe explains and emphasizes the difference between the human soul and all other created beings. What is he trying to tell us? At first glance, I might say—and anyone might say—“My soul comes from the innermost Divine vitality; it’s the loftiest thing there is.” But there are things that seem far loftier: spiritual worlds—Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah—and the angels there. How can you say my soul is loftier than the angels? They never stop; they are utterly nullified, they love Hashem and sing His praises without pause. They are refined, and they have no yetzer hara. How can you say my soul is higher than the angels? My soul comes from the innermost vitality, while the rest of the world, all the other worlds—even the angels—do not. So the Alter Rebbe gives a simple explanation of the difference between the human soul and the angels, and between it and all other created beings, even the angels. There is an immense difference above between all the hosts of heaven, even the angels: all the hosts of heaven, including the angels, were created from nothing into something, and they live and exist through the external aspect of the vitality and flow that the Ein Sof, blessed be He, bestows to sustain the worlds. How were all the other created beings—even the hosts of heaven, even angels—created? “By the word of Hashem the heavens were made.” What does “by the word of Hashem” mean? Through speech. And we said that speech is only the external aspect. This aspect is called “the breath of His mouth,” by way of analogy, as it says, “and by the breath of His mouth, all their hosts.” The vitality that sustains all the worlds is clothed in the letters of the Ten Utterances. The Ten Utterances are speech, and they are vessels and channels of transmission, and so on, as explained in Likkutei Amarim, Part Two, chapter 11. If you remember, we learned that not so long ago. So there is

25:52 Speaker 1 an immense difference above between the vitality with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu sustains all the worlds, including the angels, and the human soul. The human soul is something entirely different. The soul—

26:06 Speaker 6 The whole difference is that one is speech and the other is blowing, right?

26:09 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:09 Speaker 6 Okay, but blowing seems harder. So is that what makes it loftier?

26:14 Speaker 1 It’s not because it’s more—

26:15 Speaker 6 Speaking—it’s not as though the point is to speak for an hour.

26:18 Speaker 1 It’s not because it’s harder.

26:19 Speaker 6 So what is it because of?

26:21 Speaker 1 The fact that blowing is hard shows us—it’s a sign for us—that the innermost vitality is coming out.

26:31 Speaker 6 Okay, so it’s not, like, about how fast it is.

26:34 Speaker 1 Not because of the difficulty. The difficulty is a sign that the innermost aspect is involved here.

26:38 Speaker 6 That we exerted ourselves, so to speak.

26:39 Speaker 1 We exerted ourselves. Why? Because we had to bring something out of ourselves.

26:44 Speaker 6 Okay.

26:44 Speaker 1 So too when Hakadosh Boruch Hu blew the soul into us. That means the soul is something from Himself, from His very Self. It isn’t external; it isn’t speech. It is He Himself. It isn’t one of the Utterances.

26:52 Speaker 6 When you speak, too, there’s something of yourself in it. But it’s easier for you to speak for an hour than to blow out your breath.

27:01 Speaker 1 Exactly. When I speak, too, I express something of myself. And we spoke a lot about this in previous classes: there are two kinds of speech. Sometimes a person says what he understands—that’s intellectual speech. And usually, most of the time, a person says what he feels; he expresses the feelings in his heart. But even when he speaks about what he feels, what moves him, what he enjoys, he is speaking about his feelings, describing his feelings. And even when he speaks about what he understands, about his intellect, that still isn’t his essence. It’s only intellect and emotion, not the essence of his soul. And because these are only his faculties, his external faculties—and even those external faculties are expressed outwardly—he doesn’t get tired. It isn’t him himself. Maybe we can explain just how external it is. There are many ways to explain it, many examples. Say I want to move this cup over here. I take the cup itself, this very cup, right? And I move it over here. Yes? Before, it was here; now I’ve moved it here. Give me another cup. Yes? Now imagine that I want to move this cup over here. What do I do? I take this cup. Has anything happened to that one? I’ve moved a different cup; I haven’t moved it. Right? When a person says something, understands it and explains it, can he later explain that very same thing in different words?

29:10 Speaker 7 Yes.

29:10 Speaker 1 No problem, right?

29:12 Speaker 7 Yes.

29:12 Speaker 1 And someone else might explain it in a completely different way, in an entirely different style. Right? How is that possible? It’s a different cup. How do you move the same thing if you take a different cup? How do you convey the same idea with different words, with a different vessel? Because the letters are only vessels through which the idea is conveyed. The words aren’t the idea. The words aren’t the feeling, either.

29:48 Speaker 7 It’s as though there’s coffee in both cups. So what I moved was the coffee.

29:51 Speaker 1 The cup is only a vessel. I simply took the coffee, poured it into this cup and carried it in that. I could also pour it into another cup, or carry it in a large cup or a small one. The vessel itself doesn’t matter. Right? Speech is external, but the coffee itself is the thing itself. Okay? So when Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the soul, He gave us Himself, His very essence. All the other worlds are only speech—even the angels. But it says in line fourteen, “And the human soul was drawn initially from the inner aspect of the vitality and flow that the Ein Sof, blessed be He, bestows,” as it says, “And He blew into his nostrils.” But all of that was above. It says—we skipped this; I skipped it deliberately—that there is an immense, exceedingly great difference above. Above, where the soul was formed, so to speak, there is an immense difference. Up there, someone in the world of Beriah or Atzilus—I don’t know where—can see: this is an angel, which comes from the external aspect; this is a soul, which comes from the inner aspect. Up there the difference is perfectly clear. But afterward the soul descended through concealed levels. Now, it’s true that it descended through letters as well, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu created man, blew the soul into man, through the utterance “Let us make man.” That too was through letters. But the soul only passed through the letters. In other words, what do all the other created beings have? What sustains them? The letters themselves. With the human soul, there is Divine light within the letters. There is the idea itself. It’s like the difference when someone picks up a book or a page and reads it, yes? A small child can read it too, if he knows how to read, but he won’t understand a single word. A five-year-old who has just learned to read,

32:16 Speaker 1 Give him a text to read, an educational text, and he’ll read it. He won’t understand a word. He can write it out too, but he won’t understand a word. All the other created beings have only the vessel, only the exterior, only the letters. The human soul, true, also passes through the letters, but inside it, the essence passes through; G-dliness passes through inside it. Still, because it passed through the letters in order to become enclothed in a body in this lowly world, the soul, as it is down here, is enclothed in a body, and you can’t see its source and root. And that is why the angels are called elokim in Scripture. The soul in the body, we said, is a part of the Name Havayah, the Name spelled yud, hei, vav, hei. Right? None of you, and I haven’t either, have ever heard someone call a person the Name Havayah. There’s no such thing. You call him a person; you don’t call him Havayah. That’s Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You don’t call a person Hashem’s Name. Right? But—

33:36 Speaker 8 There’s something in Kabbalah about the partzuf, isn’t there?

33:39 Speaker 1 I’m talking about a physical person, an ordinary person.

33:43 Speaker 8 Yes, I was—

33:43 Speaker 1 There’s no such thing. But angels are called elokim. How can you call an angel elokim? He’s only an angel. He’s only a messenger. How can you call him elokim? Why do you call him by Hashem’s Name? Because in an angel, the Name Elokim, which is the name that gives him life, is revealed. You look at an angel and you see Elokim. With a soul, it isn’t like that. You look at a soul and you see a body, a physical body. You don’t see Elokim or Havayah or—you see only a body.

34:22 Speaker 8 Right.

34:22 Speaker 1 So he says that this is precisely the point. Let’s read it inside. “The angels are called elokim in Scripture,” as we see in these three verses. One verse says, “For Hashem your G-d is the G-d of gods.” In that verse, the word elokim appears three times, in its different forms: “your G-d,” “the G-d of,” and “gods.” There’s another verse in Tehillim: “Give thanks to the G-d of gods.” In that verse it appears only twice. “The sons of G-d came to present themselves”—that’s in Iyov. Here it appears only once. All three verses are talking about angels, but here it appears three times, here twice, and here once. The difference is that there are angels in the World of Beriah, lofty angels who resemble souls, and for them it’s appropriate to say elokim three times, because there’s... I don’t want to get into that now and confuse you. There’s a good, satisfying explanation, but because time is short, we won’t go into all the surrounding explanations. There are lower angels in the World of Yetzirah, for whom it’s appropriate to say the Name Elokim only twice, and still lower angels in the World of Asiyah, for whom it’s appropriate to say the Name Elokim only once. But even the very lowest angels, the angels called ofanim in the World of Asiyah, are called elokim. You can see the G-dliness in them openly. By contrast, the soul, which is far, far higher than they are, does not visibly appear to be G-dliness. What’s the difference? He explains it this way: “For the life they draw is from the external aspect, which is the aspect of the letters alone; and the Name Elokim is external relative to the Name Havayah, blessed be He. But the human soul, which is from the inner aspect of the life-force, is a part of the Name Havayah, blessed be He.” Let’s explain. Look at it this way. The difference between souls and angels isn’t that one is called... It isn’t a question of revelation, of one being more revealed and the other less revealed. That’s not the difference. The difference is in their essence. When a person wants to explain something to his friend, he thinks about how to

37:15 Speaker 1 explain it, and then he explains it. So what passed to the other person? My understanding was with me before, and now it has passed to him. But can a person transmit himself outward? How? What would he give? It isn’t possible. Everything a person can give through thought, speech, action, or activity is only through the garments of the soul. He himself can’t take his own self and give it. What could he give? He can’t transmit his feeling to someone else. It’s impossible. There is one place where he can. In procreation, a drop comes from the father and mother and later becomes a child. The child is a continuation of the parents. It isn’t someone else; it’s the same person. First it was the father and mother, and then it descended, contracted, and became physical until it became something actually material. And from that drop, a new person then developed. What does “new” mean? He isn’t new; he’s a continuation of what came before. Anything else one person gives another is only a revelation. When I want to explain to someone else how moved I am, I can explain and explain and explain. Will he feel what I feel? He can’t feel what I feel. Right? I can’t bring the feeling itself out. Even though a person singing, speaking, or painting looks very impressive and beautiful, while the act of procreation seems repulsive and impure and so on, in all those other beautiful things, only the external aspect passes outward. It isn’t the inner essence. The essence of the person doesn’t pass through them. Where does the person’s essence, he himself, go outward and give rise to something new? Only in procreation. There’s no other way. Similarly, that is the difference between angels and souls. With the angels, Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke. It’s only

39:58 Speaker 1 speech. The speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu created angels. Souls are He Himself. So yes, Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed out the soul, and it descended and contracted until it entered a physical body. You don’t see a soul here at all; you see—I don’t know what you see. You see a physical person, and... you don’t see a soul here, you don’t see life here, you don’t see G-dliness here, you don’t see anything. But only here is the very essence of G-dliness. All right, is the difference clear? “For the Name Havayah indicates the inner life-force, which is far, far above the aspect of the letters.” The explanation of the matter—I know how much patience you have. In explaining this, there are two more things we need to understand. Up to this point, after a brief introduction, the Alter Rebbe has explained that the essence of the human soul is the Name Havayah; it is G-dliness. Now we need to understand where that is. The Name Havayah has four letters: yud, hei, vav, hei. What have you told us? You’ve told us that these letters are our life. The life of each one of us is the four letters yud, hei, vav, hei. Where? I don’t see letters in myself; I don’t feel letters. Where are they? The Alter Rebbe explains this in two stages. First he explains what the four letters are Above, and then he’ll explain where these four letters are within us. So he begins: “The explanation of the matter is as is known from Eliyahu’s statement: You are the One Who brought forth ten arrangements, and we call them ten sefiros, with which to govern hidden worlds, etc. You are wise, but not with a knowable wisdom; You understand, but not with a knowable understanding, etc.” These are the ten sefiros, and all—

42:18 Speaker 1 The ten sefiros are included in and alluded to by the name Havayah, blessed be He. So that is our first indication. Where are the four letters in our soul? The four letters of Hashem’s name are the general framework; they contain the ten sefiros. How? The yud of the name Havayah, which is just a point, alludes to His wisdom. The wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is concealed and hidden before it expands and becomes revealed as comprehension and understanding. So what is a yud? A yud is a point. Of all the letters, the yud is the smallest; it is like a point. What does it allude to? It alludes to the sefirah of chochmah. Why chochmah? Because chochmah is the point of an idea, without all the explanations around it. What, in practical terms, were you trying to say? And the tip of the yud—he adds in parentheses—alludes to the supernal will, blessed be He, which is far, far above supernal chochmah, as is known. We’ll explain that another time. After that point, that chochmah, that yud, expands and becomes revealed as comprehension and understanding for the hidden worlds, it is included in and alluded to by the letter hei. The hei extends widthwise, indicating and alluding to a fuller explanation and understanding, and also lengthwise, indicating a drawing down and an influence from above to below, to the hidden worlds. So the letter hei has a horizontal line and a vertical line. The horizontal line alludes to expanding the explanation. First, chochmah is the point of the idea; the horizontal line is the explanation, the details, the broader reasoning. The vertical line means bringing it down through analogies and examples, so it isn’t left up above, and it becomes understandable—even an ordinary person can understand it. So the hei indicates expansion lengthwise and widthwise—sorry, widthwise and lengthwise. Then, when this influence is drawn still lower, to the revealed worlds—like a person who wants to convey his wisdom to others through speech, for example—this drawing down is included in and alluded to by the letters vav and hei. For the vav

44:53 Speaker 1 indicates a drawing down from above to below. A vav has a shape like a yud at the top. Have we talked about this before? Huh? Have we talked about the shapes of the letters? I don’t remember. We have. Do you remember or not?

45:13 Speaker 9 No. But...

45:18 Speaker 1 When you write a vav, you start by making a yud, right? Then you extend it downward. What is a vav? A vav is a yud that has been extended. The shape of the vav shows a drawing down. So in Hashem’s name, first there is the yud, the point of the idea. Then there is the hei, its expansion sideways and downward. And then there is the vav, which brings it down from above to below. What is the difference between the hei and the vav? We said that the hei also has a part that brings it downward. There is a difference between a person explaining something to himself and explaining it to others. Once he has grasped a certain point, he wants to—wait, wait—he starts thinking and searching through books, and he explains it, keeps explaining it. He hasn’t gone outside; he is explaining it to himself. Right? Expanding on it more and more. He also brings it down to his middos, to his feelings, and is moved by it. All of that is inside. No one outside knows about it. But when a person takes it, after he has understood it well, and starts talking about it, he has taken it beyond his own domain. He has brought it outside. That is a descent to another person. It is a completely different kind of descent. Before that, up to the stage of speech, all the descents were within the person himself. He had not gone outside. Speech is a different kind of drawing down; it has gone outside. But since we said earlier that speech is connected to emotion, what does a person speak about? A person speaks only of what is in his heart. So the letters vav and hei are connected. Vav is emotion. Emotion comprises six middos: chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, and yesod. So emotion is the six middos. And the middos, the emotions, lead to speech. The letters yud and hei, then, show understanding and comprehension as they are within, while the letters vav and hei show

47:28 Speaker 1 emotion and speech as they go out to another person. For the vav indicates a drawing down from above to below. And this drawing down, through His attribute of kindness and goodness and His other holy attributes, is generally included in the number six, as it is written, “Yours, Hashem, is the greatness,” and so on, up to “Yours, Hashem, is the kingdom,” but not including the kingdom. Why not including it? Because His attribute of malchus is no longer a middah. Malchus is the word of Hashem, as it is written, “Where the word of a king is, there is authority.” And malchus is included in and alluded to by the final hei of the name Havayah. So what do we find? All ten sefiros are included in four letters: yud, hei, vav, hei. Yud is chochmah. Hei is binah. Vav is the six middos, and the final hei is malchus. All right? So far, that is the sefiros above. “For the inner source of speech is the breath that rises from the heart and divides into the five points of articulation,” and so on. I want to skip ahead a little. I can see that you’re, well, a little... I’m going to line seven. In the lines we’re skipping, the Alter Rebbe finishes explaining how all ten sefiros are included in and alluded to by the four letters. At line seven, he begins to explain how this works in the human soul. “And precisely so, by way of analogy, allowing for an infinite distinction, in the soul of man.” The human soul is the G-dly soul, about which we said at the beginning of the chapter, “He breathed from within Himself.” And what did we say earlier? What is “within Himself”? What is the inner being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? It is His name: the supernal sefiros, the G-dly light. It has the form of ten sefiros. And if our soul was hewn from and drawn into the body from those ten sefiros, then it must be that even as it exists now within the body—even though it has descended and contracted and looks the way it does—it still has those same four letters and ten sefiros. And therefore our soul has a level of concealed intellect, alluded to by the letter

50:05 Speaker 1 yud, which has the potential to come into revelation, to understand and grasp His truth and greatness. So the soul has its yud: the power of understanding, the G-dly soul’s capacity to grasp G-dliness, to sense G-dliness. And the yud has the potential to emerge into the hei, so that the explanation is expanded. Each person according to his capacity, according to the breadth of his intellect and understanding. And as he deepens his intellect and broadens his knowledge and understanding to contemplate His greatness, his understanding is alluded to by the letter hei, which has width and also length, indicating a drawing down from above to below: to give rise, through his understanding and contemplation of Hashem’s greatness, to love and awe. And what are love and awe? Those are already the middos. That is already the letter vav. And their offspring arise in his mind and the hidden recesses of his heart, and afterward become revealed in his heart. From this comes true service through engaging in Torah and mitzvos, with voice and speech or with action, which are the letters vav and hei, and so on. So what is true service? True service of Hashem? True service of Hashem is when a Jew studies Torah and performs mitzvos. Because the moment he studies Torah and understands it, his soul is revealed. What is Torah? Torah is His wisdom, the ten sefiros. When he studies and understands and fulfills it in practice, his soul is revealed; his soul finds expression, expression. Now he is a person. Now his true inner essence has been revealed: the soul that gives life to the body, the soul, the innermost part of the soul. Everything that gives life to the body and acts is the animal soul. But the true inner being of a Jew, what truly gives him life within, is the G-dly soul. That is the soul. You never see it; it is never revealed. The entire essence of the soul is that it was drawn from those ten sefiros, from G-dliness. The ten sefiros are G-dliness; they are Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. When is that revealed? When he studies and understands and performs mitzvos, especially when he performs mitzvos with his voice

52:53 Speaker 1 And speech. Now there’s a question about this: What about contemplation? If a person’s true service—how did he put it? “The true service in the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvos is in voice and speech.” Because as long as something remains in thought, it hasn’t yet been put into practice, so it isn’t yet real. According to this, we might think that our soul down here has only the vav and the hei. If true service is only through voice, speech, and action, which correspond to the vav and the hei, then what about the yud and the hei? Do I have no yud and hei in my soul down here, only a vav and a hei? So he immediately adds, at the end of the chapter: “And contemplation, to understand and comprehend His truth and greatness, is also drawn from the Torah, for the Torah proceeds from Chochmah and from the aspect of the yud of the name Havayah, etc.” In other words, contemplation and Torah study complete the picture: we have the yud and the hei as well. So let’s sum up what we’ve covered, what’s still missing, and what we need to complete now. In this chapter, the Alter Rebbe began explaining teshuvah. At the start of the chapter, he asked what the Zohar means when it says there are two kinds of teshuvah, lower teshuvah and higher teshuvah, connected to the two heis of Hashem’s name. And how can there be sins for which lower teshuvah doesn’t help, and only higher teshuvah does? To understand that, we need to understand what a sin is: what does sin damage in a person’s soul? And to understand what sin damages in a person’s soul, we first need to understand my connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the first place. From there until the end of the chapter, he explained the connection of

55:09 Speaker 1 a Jew with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And what was the central point of the explanation? Each of us has a soul, and it isn’t just called a “G-dly soul” because that’s a nice name. It’s called a G-dly soul because our soul is literally a part of G-d above. Divinity comprises ten sefiros, and those ten sefiros, represented by the four letters of the name Havayah—yud, hei, vav, hei—are themselves within me, within my animal soul. They are the engine, the inner fire, that gives life to a Jew. Unlike non-Jews, unlike all other created beings, and even unlike angels, a Jew’s true life is Torah and mitzvos. When a Jew studies Torah and fulfills mitzvos, he lives.

56:16 Speaker 10 There are the... four. Is there a general principle from Rabbi [unclear], right?

56:20 Speaker 1 One second. So from this, he’ll explain in the next chapter what happens when a Jew sins and interrupts the—if his life, his physical life, flows from his connection with Divinity, what happens when he sins, when that connection is broken? He’ll explain this at length in the next two chapters, chapters 4 and 5. And once we understand properly what sin does to that connection, to that name Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei—what it does below and what it does above—we can begin to do teshuvah in chapter 6. Hmm?

57:15 Speaker 10 I didn’t understand.

57:15 Speaker 1 I skipped over—I see that I skipped over a lot of points along the way, but all right. Boruch Hashem.