Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 5

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay, today we’re learning chapter 5 of Igeres Hateshuvah. To remind ourselves where we are: we said that the Alter Rebbe explains the subject of teshuvah itself in chapter 7. That’s where the main subject of teshuvah is, and from there he goes on to further details and deeper aspects of teshuvah. The first six chapters, chapters 1 through 6, are preparation. In other words, for us to understand what teshuvah is at all, know how to do teshuvah, and have it take root in our hearts, we first need six chapters of preparation. Those six chapters are also divided into two parts. The first three chapters are just about understanding what teshuvah is. Before we even start talking about how to do teshuvah, we first have to ask: what is teshuvah? The Alter Rebbe—

00:53 Speaker 2 Teshuvah.

00:55 Speaker 1 No, teshuv hei is already about how to do it. That comes at the end.

00:58 Speaker 2 Oh, that’s already chapter 7?

00:59 Speaker 1 That’s already about how to do teshuvah; it comes at the end. In simple terms, the Alter Rebbe spends three chapters explaining something that isn’t so simple. Teshuvah means returning to Hashem. In other words, what do most people say teshuvah is? Regret, correcting the past, atoning for sins. And the Alter Rebbe explains that all these concepts—atonement, correction, correcting the past, refining the soul, and so on—are not directly what teshuvah is. They’re called the completion of teshuvah. Teshuvah means returning to Hashem from now on. From today, I am a servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. From today, I have kabbolas ol. From today, I keep mitzvos and don’t commit transgressions. It’s just that for teshuvah to be complete, I also need to regret the past. And teshuvah makes it possible to correct the past, even to become as beloved to Hakadosh Boruch Hu as before the sin. But that isn’t the essence of teshuvah. The essence of teshuvah is returning to Hashem. That’s what he explained in the first three chapters. Then we began explaining: to return to Hashem, what could make me want to return to Hashem? Who needs to do teshuvah? Simply put, someone who has committed transgressions. Someone who follows the right path, a beinoni, who makes an effort—he doesn’t need to do teshuvah. Teshuvah, in its most basic sense, is primarily for transgressions. So who needs to do teshuvah? Someone who commits transgressions. Why would someone involved in transgressions, who actually commits them, G-d forbid, suddenly feel a desire to return to Hashem? Until today I did these things; from today, no more. Why would that sort of resolution suddenly enter his heart? Why such a firm resolution? Clearly, for a person to do teshuvah, he needs to contemplate the damage caused by sin. As long as a person doesn’t

03:24 Speaker 1 understand what his sins cause, what he’s doing to himself, what he’s doing to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, what he’s doing to the purpose of Creation, and so on—as long as he doesn’t understand what it means to sin, why would he want to do teshuvah? He understands it’s forbidden, so he tries not to do it. But for a firm resolution to take hold in his heart, he needs to understand what sin does. To explain that, the Alter Rebbe divides it into three chapters. We learned the first one—chapter 5—rather, chapter 4, the first of those three, last time. There the Alter Rebbe explained that the first step in understanding the damage sin does to a person’s soul, and the damage sin causes in general, is to understand the difference between a Jewish soul and all the other created beings in the world. Remember we spoke about that?

04:23 Speaker 2 I think so.

04:25 Speaker 1 A Jewish soul comes from the innermost aspect of G-dliness. “And He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life.” A Jewish soul is not a created being. Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed it from His innermost self. When a person speaks, there is the speech—the physical words, the air and the movement of the lips. There are even the words themselves, what you hear. And then there is the intention, the breath of the heart: what did he mean to say? What was in his heart? What is the content of his speech? All created beings were created from Divine speech, from the outer aspect of speech. A Jewish soul was created from the breath of the heart, from the innermost aspect of G-dliness. So how can that be? Even the angels have a revelation of G-dliness, and there’s no comparison between an angel and a human being. Even the greatest tzaddik in the world doesn’t come close to an angel’s love and awe. How can you say the angels come only from the outer aspect? The answer is yes, in terms of revelation, the angels have more revelation. But a revelation of what? What is revealed to the angels is the outer aspect of G-dliness, the outer aspect of Divine speech. Angels are created something from nothing. Before they were created, they did not exist. Nothing means zero. A Jewish soul is a continuation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is an extension of Him Himself. And that is why, as he explained at length, our souls have ten faculties: chochmah, binah, daas, chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, yesod, and malchus. Because these are the ten Divine faculties. What is G-dliness? G-dliness is the world of Atzilus. What is the world of Atzilus? Ten sefiros. Those ten sefiros themselves descend to become a Jewish soul. It isn’t someone else; it is Him Himself. So that’s what he explained in the previous chapter, with many, many details: there is an essential difference between a Jewish soul and all other created beings, even angels. All of them, without exception,

06:51 Speaker 1 were created from the outer aspect of speech. They are created beings, something from nothing, whereas the soul of the Jewish people is eternal and is the very essence of G-dliness. That’s what he explained in the previous chapter. Now, that isn’t enough. Why isn’t it enough? Because even if the soul is G-dliness, what does that do for me? The soul is G-dliness, but I live in a physical world, I live in a physical body, and I deal with physical matters. So the soul is G-dliness. What of it? Right. In this chapter he continues to explain—and we’ll see the details in a moment—that the G-dly soul is what gives life to a Jew’s body.

07:48 Speaker 2 Because it’s only here.

07:50 Speaker 1 What?

07:51 Speaker 2 The Alter Rebbe introduced this idea. No one spoke about it before the Alter Rebbe.

07:54 Speaker 1 I don’t know. I don’t know whether it was an innovation of the Alter Rebbe’s, but the Alter Rebbe explains it and shows it from the verses. Let’s look inside. “Now, the extension and descent of the G-dly soul into this world”—up above, it is a soul. I understand that. Up above, it is one with G-dliness. It is the four letters of Hashem’s Name. It is the ten sefiros. I understand. But its descent and extension into this world—and not just into this world in general, but to become enclothed in a person’s body, to give life to a physical body—“comes from the innermost aspect and source of speech, which is the supernal breath, alluded to in the lower hei, as mentioned above.” A person could ask: why are you telling me that all created beings were created through speech, while the soul comes from “And He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life”? Doesn’t it say, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”? Man, too, was created through speech. It’s an explicit verse. Yes, says the Alter Rebbe—

09:00 Speaker 4 That’s not the actual creation of—

09:01 Speaker 1 What?

09:02 Speaker 4 But that isn’t the creation of man himself.

09:03 Speaker 1 Then what is it?

09:04 Speaker 4 It isn’t the creation.

09:06 Speaker 1 “Let us make man” isn’t the creation?

09:07 Speaker 4 It isn’t the creation of the body, I mean.

09:14 Speaker 1 The body. All the more so. You’re saying that isn’t the creation, that only the making is the creation of man. So why am I saying it has anything to do with the soul at all? That’s a good question. I can’t answer it right now, but everywhere, the statement “Let us make man” is treated as the speech that creates man.

09:37 Speaker 4 One of the Ten Utterances?

09:40 Speaker 1 No, no, it says, “And G-d said, ‘Let us make man.’” That is one of the Ten Utterances. And in Chassidus, wherever it speaks about the creation of man, it says that man lives from the utterance “Let us make man.” I don’t know right now; I’ve never thought about it. We need to think about it. At any rate, the Torah seems to say that man was created through speech and action, and that “He blew” refers only to the soul. But man was made through— So what are you trying to say? Seemingly, just as all the other creations were created through speech, he too was created through speech. But he also has the “He blew.” So what’s the difference? What’s the essential difference? It means that even in the creation of the soul as it exists below, there is a difference. The soul was drawn down into this world to be clothed in a human body. It was drawn from the inner dimension of speech, not the external dimension of speech. All the other creations, as we saw in the previous chapter, were created from the external dimension of speech. But it doesn’t say that the soul was created from the inner dimension of speech; it says it was drawn from the inner dimension of speech. Why? What’s the difference? There’s a big difference. We just said it a moment ago. We mentioned in the previous chapter that the soul has ten sefiros, right? Ten sefiros, ten faculties that evolved from the ten sefiros. And the ten sefiros, the ten faculties in the soul, are divided broadly among four letters. Do you remember that we discussed this? Remember? Yes.

11:28 Speaker 4 I think so.

11:30 Speaker 1 We said that the four letters, yud, hei, vav, hei, the four letters of Hashem’s name, are the source of the ten sefiros. The yud corresponds to chochmah. The first hei is binah. The vav is the six middos, and the final hei is malchus. So all ten sefiros come from the name Havayah, the name yud-hei-vav-hei. And just as the soul above, at its source, has ten sefiros, so too the soul below, as it is within our body, reflects the ten sefiros and the four letters of yud-hei-vav-hei. So why do you say here that the soul was drawn into the body from the hei? Why would the soul have only the hei? The soul has all ten sefiros and all four letters, not just the hei.

12:35 Speaker 5 So that’s the...

12:37 Speaker 1 That’s the precise wording here: the soul was drawn.

12:41 Speaker 5 Oh! Wow.

12:44 Speaker 1 It was drawn into the body. It was drawn down into this world through the hei, through speech. But its source and root are not speech; they are the ten sefiros. Ah, good. In other words, it’s exactly like the analogy: when a person speaks, there is the speech itself, and within that speech is the content, the meaning the person wants to convey. A person can express the same idea in these words or in other words, even in another language, right? Or at another level: explain it to a young child, explain it to an adult, explain it in public, explain it in different styles—all while conveying the same idea. Right? So there is the speech itself, and there is the content within it. It’s true that the soul was drawn into the body through the hei. What is the lower hei?

13:39 Speaker 5 Malchus.

13:39 Speaker 1 As we said, that is malchus. And malchus is speech. “Malchus is the mouth; we call it the Oral Torah.” Speech, the word of Hashem, is the final hei. So yes, the soul was drawn down through speech, but speech is not its source. Speech only conveys the content. What is that content? The ten sefiros. The essence of the soul is the ten sefiros, not speech. That is not the case with all the other creations. What do they have? Speech itself is their source. It doesn’t just draw them down; it is their source, their root.

14:16 Speaker 5 So how does the analogy fit here, where this content can be expressed in several different ways of speaking, in several different forms? How does that work in the analogy? Is it simply an analogy specifically for the soul? Is there some analogy that would help us understand how the other creations are drawn from this speech?

14:40 Speaker 1 We could probably find one, because this is an analogy brought in Chassidus. I imagine we could, but I don’t want to just make something up. What’s brought in this context goes in the opposite direction. It isn’t meant to show how the soul can be expressed in different ways, but precisely the opposite: to show that the content can be—that speech... the content has no direct connection to the letters. The external and inner dimensions of speech are two distinct things. So yes, the soul was drawn down through speech, but what was drawn down through it? The essence of G-dliness. And that is the essential difference between the soul and all the other creations: even after the soul descends below, it is literally a part of G-d above. All the other creations, even the very highest creations above, are only the external dimension, only speech. They are created something from nothing; they are not a part of G-d. We learn this from the verse, as it says in line four: “And He blew into his nostrils a soul of life, and man became a living being.” The verse itself says, “And He blew into his nostrils a soul of life.” What did we say “He blew” indicates? The inner dimension. “And man became a living being.” What is the soul that gives life to the body? The very soul about which it says “He blew,” not another one. “One who blows, blows from within himself.” This is very interesting. If you remember the first chapter—why does he bring it as though it were part of the verse? What? He sort of brings it as a continuation of the verse. I didn’t understand. “And He blew into his nostrils a soul of life, and man became a living being”—that is the verse. And he explains, “One who blows, blows from within himself.” That is the wording of the Zohar. But it’s interesting that in the previous chapter he began with this. Want to understand what a Jewish soul is? “And He blew into his nostrils a soul of life,” and “One who blows, blows from within himself.” What about the end of the verse, “And man became a living being”? He didn’t mention it in the previous chapter, because there we weren’t discussing

16:58 Speaker 1 how the soul is within the body. There we first wanted to understand what the soul is. Once we understood what the soul is, what “He blew” means, what the ten sefiros are, what the four letters are—that’s... okay. Now, from the second half of the verse, which is brought here, we learn one further point: that the very soul we were discussing is what gives life to and acts within the physical body, unlike all the other creations. And this is what another verse means when it says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the rope of His inheritance.” This verse also has two parts: “Hashem’s portion is His people.” Who are His people? The Jewish people. They have a portion of Hashem. And that very portion of Hashem is the rope that descends and holds, enlivens, and sustains His inheritance—the body below. Why do we need two analogies for this? The first analogy, “He blew”—the Torah gives two analogies. In one place the Torah describes the soul with “He blew into his nostrils,” and in another it calls the soul “the rope of His inheritance.” Because there are two aspects to the soul. From “He blew,” we learn that the soul comes from the inner dimension of G-dliness. What do we learn from the soul being compared to a rope? It means that, like a rope, one end is tied above and its other end is below. What does that mean? The plain meaning of “He blew” is to teach us that, by way of analogy, when a person blows toward a certain place, if something obstructs and interrupts the space between them, the breath of the person blowing does not reach that place at all. So that’s a new lesson from the word “He blew.” We want to understand what “the rope of His inheritance” means. To explain that, the Alter Rebbe first explains “He blew.” Earlier we understood “He blew” to mean that the soul comes from the inner dimension, right? There is another lesson in the word “He blew.” What’s the difference between blowing and speaking? When a person speaks, even if you put up a wall, someone behind the wall can hear. But

19:34 Speaker 1 when a person blows—goes “phew”—even if you put a sheet of paper here, the breath won’t reach the other side. Right? Even though one comes from the inner dimension and the other from the external dimension. Speech is only the external dimension, as we said. We discussed that at length, right? Yet speech can pass through the wall to the other side. But the soul comes from the inner dimension, and the inner dimension is like blowing. If even the thinnest thing interrupts the breath, then, because it comes from the inner dimension, it cannot pass through to the other side. So if a person does—if something interrupts and prevents the G-dly breath, the inner dimension of G-dliness, from reaching the person’s body, then it doesn’t reach it. What could—

20:30 Speaker 6 Wait, but what would separate the soul? It’s the soul that gives the body life.

20:34 Speaker 1 Then he would die, because there would be nothing giving him life. Right?

20:42 Speaker 6 Wasn’t the soul there already?

20:44 Speaker 1 What?

20:45 Speaker 6 The soul is what... the body helps it create the barrier, that sheet of paper, as it were—

20:51 Speaker 1 The Rebbe said something very, very, very striking here. The G-dly soul gives life to the physical body, and because it comes from the inner dimension, and the inner dimension is like blowing, if there is a transgression, it’s like a sheet of paper interrupting the breath, and the soul cannot give life to the body. Therefore, when a person commits a transgression, he dies. That’s what it says here. Are you with me? Just stay with what’s written. That’s all.

21:22 Speaker 6 No, I’m just trying to understand. If the soul gives him life, then how—where exactly did the sheet of paper get in between? The soul is already inside the body.

21:30 Speaker 1 Oh! That’s the question. What is that sheet of paper that blocks it? Let’s see. Just like this: if something forms a barrier between a person’s body and the higher breath, which is his soul, then the Rebbe doesn’t continue the verse. But that’s what it says. But is that really a question? After all, we know that nothing physical or spiritual can form a barrier before Him. What is the soul? We said it’s the higher breath—the inner intent, the innermost Divine will, the ten supernal sefiros. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to come down here to... Can anyone stop Him? What does this mean? And the Rebbe proves it from several—from four verses, four sources. Yes: “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” That’s a verse. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in heaven and on earth. What could stop Him? Could a person do something that would place him outside heaven and earth? Another verse: “The whole earth is filled with His glory.” Hmm? And that isn’t enough? The Rebbe brings another proof: “There is no place devoid of Him, in the heavens above or on the earth below.” That proof combines a—

23:09 Speaker 6 From the—

23:10 Speaker 1 A statement in the Zohar and a verse. And a fourth proof: “He fills all worlds,” and so on. So the Alter Rebbe brings four proofs here that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere and nothing can block Him. Why do we need four proofs?

23:30 Speaker 6 Because there are four letters.

23:32 Speaker 1 Because our soul has four letters. So...

23:37 Speaker 6 Not in the soul itself—because the soul is made up of Y-Sh-M-H, or because of Y-H-V-H?

23:44 Speaker 1 Y-H-V-H. The essence of the soul is Y-H-V-H; it’s just that it descends like a breath all the way down. But it’s the higher breath, that same Y-H-V-H, those same ten sefiros that descend and unfold and find expression in the human soul, as we discussed at length in the previous chapter. That is what gives a person life. So if this is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, actual G-dliness, what does it mean that there could be... Look, for each letter individually we have a proof in Likkutei Levi Yitzchak on the Zohar. He explains how each verse relates to each letter, and the entire soul comes down. No matter what sins a person commits, He is present even when the person sins. Nothing can form a barrier or cut it off. So what is the problem with committing sins, really? If, even when a person sins, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is still within his soul, and the soul is there and shines, then everything is fine. So he says this: What is the problem, then? As it says in Yeshayahu, “But your sins have separated you from your G-d.” It isn’t from above downward. From Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s side, nothing forms a barrier; but from your side below, it certainly can. What’s the difference between above downward and below upward? We’ve talked about similar things several times already, but the key to the explanation here is that the Alter Rebbe uses the word “barrier.” Usually, when you want to say that something can’t get through, you say there’s a wall separating it, cutting it off. Why use this particular word, “barrier”? It alludes to the laws of a chatzitzah, an intervening substance, in the Shulchan Aruch. In the laws of immersion, when a person immerses in a mikveh, for the immersion to be valid so that he emerges pure, there are two laws. One law is—what?

25:46 Speaker 7 The whole body has to be in the water.

25:47 Speaker 1 The whole body has to be in the water. Not even one hair can stick out. That’s one law, but it isn’t enough. If the whole body is in the water but there’s something on the body that forms a barrier, even a little bit of dirt, it forms a barrier.

26:00 Speaker 7 Yes.

26:00 Speaker 1 Then the immersion—he hasn’t immersed; it’s as if it doesn’t count. Ah, but if that dirt is something insignificant, then it does count. Right?

26:14 Speaker 7 It’s something that isn’t...

26:16 Speaker 1 If it’s someone who’s used to it—he’s a painter, and he has a paint stain, a visible paint stain.

26:22 Speaker 7 It doesn’t count.

26:24 Speaker 1 If he’s a painter and it doesn’t bother him, then it does count. The immersion is valid.

26:30 Speaker 7 It counts, like washing your hands.

26:32 Speaker 1 Huh?

26:32 Speaker 7 Washing your hands.

26:33 Speaker 1 Like washing your hands—it’s the same laws of intervening substances. Yes. So there are two laws: first, the whole body has to be in the water. Second, even if the first condition is met, if there’s a barrier, the immersion isn’t valid—provided that the intervening substance is considered significant.

26:53 Speaker 7 It’s not insignificant.

26:54 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, even down below. He is present, He is present. But from the person’s side below, it depends on the status of the barrier. If the intervening substance is significant, the immersion has not worked for him. So it forms a barrier; the breath doesn’t reach him. Something gets in the way. Why are sins considered significant, something that forms a barrier?

27:27 Speaker 7 To sever a rope.

27:28 Speaker 1 Because that is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose. Of His own free choice, Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose to love mitzvos and hate sins. That is what He chose. We don’t know why.

27:42 Speaker 7 That’s the only answer you...

27:43 Speaker 1 And once Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose that sins are something He hates, that they are objectionable to Him, He gave them significance. Therefore, if a person sins, then, since Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave sins significance—because He chose that they should form a barrier—from that moment they become a barrier. When a person sins, there is something intervening. So although Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present on His part, the person cannot receive the life-force.

28:15 Speaker 8 And therefore,

28:17 Speaker 1 From above, do “your sins separate” your G-d from you? Not at all. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, as we say, “in the heavens above and on the earth below.” But from the person’s side below, “your sins” do separate you, down below, from your G-d. And the reason is that they—sins—are contrary to the supernal will, and the supernal will decreed that sins form a barrier, that they are objectionable to Him. He hates them. Blessed is He, who gives life to everything, as it says, “Whatever Hashem desired, He did in heaven and on earth.” This He desires to be, and this He desires not to be. And this also raises a question, because we said earlier: What is a barrier? We said it’s something that gets between the source and the body. Right? Between the hei, which is the root from which the soul is drawn, and the body. So now the sin separates them. Seemingly, he asks: Why does a sin interfere with the flow from the lower hei into the body? What do sins interfere with, as we said? The supernal will. Right? Where is the supernal will? The will is above Atzilus. So why should the will... Sins oppose the will. Seemingly, they don’t oppose the flow of the soul into the body. They don’t come between them.

29:51 Speaker 8 But if there’s no will, there won’t be any flow.

29:53 Speaker 1 Huh?

29:53 Speaker 8 But if there’s no will, there won’t be any flow.

29:56 Speaker 1 So that’s what we said earlier, in parentheses. These are the Rebbe’s words; that’s right. As explained above in the previous chapter, chapter 4, the supernal will is the source of the flow from the name Havayah and is alluded to by the tip of the yud. We said the ten sefiros are yud, hei, vav, hei. The first begins with the yud, with chochmah. But the yud itself... I assume no one here has ever written a mezuzah.

30:25 Speaker 8 No.

30:25 Speaker 1 But, uh, when—

30:26 Speaker 8 I didn’t know; I didn’t understand either.

30:27 Speaker 1 Ah, yes. But when you write a mezuzah, generally there’s no halachah about the order in which you write the parts of a letter. Take an alef, for example. You’ll get to it. Write it from top to bottom or from bottom to top. Start with the yud at the top, with the upper part or the lower part. Write it with a quill, with a reed, with a feather, with your finger. You’ll get an alef. Right? There’s no required order, no particular significance. But when you write Hashem’s name, halachah does prescribe an order: the sequence in which you write the letters matters. You have to start with the yud. You can’t write... Any other word in the Torah, you can write from the end to the beginning. I have a friend who, uh, uh, is right-handed. He doesn’t live in Afula. He lives in Hebron, in Kiryat Arba—may he live to 120; he moved there a few years ago. Uh, he’s right-handed and he’s a sofer. He started writing a Torah scroll in the Arizal script, and he found that he had a lot of letters sticking together. As he wrote, the letters would touch.

31:35 Speaker 8 Half a page.

31:35 Speaker 1 Huh?

31:36 Speaker 8 Half a page.

31:37 Speaker 1 Yes, because when he writes, he can’t see the letter he wrote before. Right? So the letters touch. What did he do? He started writing the Torah scroll from the end to the beginning.

31:48 Speaker 8 Oh my goodness.

31:48 Speaker 1 He wrote the entire Torah scroll from end to beginning. He went ahead, and it came out beautifully, so he wrote two or three scrolls that way. Then, a few years later, he came to write mezuzos. The first mezuzos he wrote came out all crooked, because a mezuzah has to be written in the proper order; you can’t write it from end to beginning. He was so unaccustomed to that that all the letters came out crooked. He’s a good friend of mine. So with a Torah scroll, you may write everything out of order, but Hashem’s name, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, has to be written in order: the yud, then the hei. More than that, even within the letters themselves, you can’t write the yud any way you like. First the little tip, then the point, then you draw it out. There’s an order. Why? Because Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei is the source of the flow of life to all the worlds, to our soul and to all the worlds in general. So it begins with the tip: the tip, the point, the supernal crown. From there it descends to the yud, to chochmah, and from chochmah it flows into the hei. And you do this in the actual writing: when you write the hei, you begin with the shape of a yud, a little yud. Then you take the ink and spread it this way and that way. You take the yud and extend it, and then the vav. This happens quite literally in the physical writing.

33:04 Speaker 9 When writing a mezuzah, is it permitted to leave the name Havayah for later?

33:07 Speaker 1 No, it’s forbidden. Forbidden. There’s a famous story about that. Not for now.

33:12 Speaker 9 With tefillin too, no?

33:12 Speaker 1 With tefillin too, correct. It’s a special law for tefillin and mezuzos, yes. It says “and you shall write them,” and it says that “they must remain in their proper order.” They have to be written in order. All right. In any case, Hashem’s name, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei, isn’t just the four letters. There’s also the tip, and the upper tip of the yud, where the name Havayah begins, alludes to the supernal crown. So it’s true that sins oppose only the tip, not the entire order of the flow. Yes, but if they form a barrier at the crown, at the beginning, then nothing can follow afterward. So that was the brief note there in parentheses. After explaining at length what the soul is, what its essence is, and that it also gives life to the physical body—and that when a person commits a sin, his soul ceases to shine in his body—the Alter Rebbe explains the meaning of sin, which is what we wanted to get to: “This is the meaning of kareis: the cord through which life flows from the name Havayah, blessed be He, which extends from the lower hei as explained above, is cut and severed.” As it says in Parshas Emor: “That soul shall be cut off from before Me; I am Hashem.” Kareis applies only to what comes from inwardness, to an inner flow. That is why a non-Jew who commits a sin, even a very, very severe one, is not liable for kareis: his life comes from the external aspect, and the external aspect is speech. Even when sins are committed, that does not prevent speech from passing through a wall.

35:10 Speaker 9 Then why is a non-Jew who commits a sin liable to death? Yes.

35:12 Speaker 1 What?

35:12 Speaker 9 Why is a non-Jew who commits a sin liable—or is that not kareis?

35:14 Speaker 1 Being liable to death is not the same punishment from Heaven. Non-Jews also have punishments, including punishments from Heaven, but this is not the particular punishment of kareis. The sins he commits do not—he forfeits his right to exist, but they do not prevent the Divine light from continuing to give him life, because he lives from the external aspect. The only being in all the worlds whose actual life, both physical and spiritual, comes directly from the Divine light, from Divinity itself, is a Jew. There is no other living being like that in the world. That is why only when a Jew commits a sin is the source of his existence cut off. “As for other sins that do not carry kareis”—not every sin carries kareis; some are less severe—“they nevertheless blemish the soul, as is known.” Here—“And a blemish is like a nick in a knife.” Here the Rebbe emphasizes, clarifies, that the Alter Rebbe wants to rule out another kind of blemish, as in the expression “imparts a detrimental taste.” Yes? There was something tasty here, a dish prepared just right, and someone threw something into it that imparted a detrimental taste. The thing they threw in did not remove anything from the food; it added something. It added a taste, but one that spoiled it. Right? That is not what is meant here. The blemish a sin causes to the soul does not mean that the sin adds something, sticking some dirt onto the soul. That is not the problem. If it merely stuck some dirt onto the soul, you could clean it off. But the sin cuts away; it diminishes the light, the life-force that gives life to the soul. “Like a nick in a knife. By way of analogy, it is like a thick cord woven from 613 thin strands. So too, the cord through which life flows, mentioned above, comprises the 613 mitzvos, and when one transgresses, Heaven forbid, one of them”—one of the mitzvos—“the thin strand is severed, etc.”

37:42 Speaker 10 Wait.

37:42 Speaker 1 What is it?

37:43 Speaker 10 This analogy, no?

37:44 Speaker 1 What?

37:44 Speaker 10 He already gave the analogy of the cords in Tanya, didn’t he? That, essentially, in—

37:49 Speaker 1 “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance,” on the previous page.

37:52 Speaker 10 No, I’m talking about the... analogy of the cord, where each mitzvah is like a strand, and essentially... [unclear]. Something like that, no?

38:03 Speaker 1 I don’t remember, but it could be, because it’s the same idea.

38:06 Speaker 10 Because he—he had this analogy by heart, didn’t he?

38:08 Speaker 1 It could be in chapters 18, 19, where he talks about—24, twen—

38:14 Speaker 10 So that’s essentially—

38:15 Speaker 1 Gimmel, dalet.

38:16 Speaker 10 And essentially he cuts it short.

38:18 Speaker 1 Here he explains it. There he stated it; here he explains it. What does “etc.” mean? “The thin strand is severed, etc.” What does “etc.” mean?

38:28 Speaker 10 The continuation of life. He doesn’t want to go on with it.

38:34 Speaker 1 In the body, our physical body, there are organs that are just—just organs, Heaven forbid. Right? And there are organs on which life depends. If a person, Heaven forbid, injures a finger, even loses one of his... he remains alive. But without a head, or without a heart or a liver and so on, without vital organs, one cannot live. There are organs one cannot live without for even a moment. There are organs one cannot live without for more than a few minutes. Right? So just as physically a person has organs on which life depends, some more vital and some less vital, the same is true of the cord through which life flows to the soul. Some mitzvos are less critical, and there are mitzvos where, even though it is only one mitzvah, the cord is cut. The connection cannot continue to exist.

39:28 Speaker 10 Those are essentially the mitzvos whose violation carries kareis.

39:30 Speaker 1 What?

39:30 Speaker 10 Those are essentially the mitzvos whose violation carries kareis.

39:32 Speaker 1 Those are the mitzvos whose violation carries kareis or death at the hands of Heaven. Those are two different categories, but yes, basically.

39:38 Speaker 10 You see this with Torah scholars too.

39:38 Speaker 1 Hmm?

39:40 Speaker 10 With a Torah scholar too.

39:42 Speaker 1 Is that on the next line? “Yet even in a person who is liable to kareis or death, a trace of his Divine soul still remains within him, and through this he can live until fifty or sixty years of age, but no longer.” A person who committed a sin carrying kareis can continue living until the age of fifty, as it says in the Gemara, and a person who committed a sin whose punishment is death at the hands of Heaven can continue living until sixty, I think—or I may have reversed them; I don’t remember. Right? So in any case—

40:29 Speaker 10 He writes “kareis and death” here, apparently because there are—

40:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

40:32 Speaker 10 In mathematics, [unclear].

40:35 Speaker 1 So kareis and death at the hands of Heaven are two categories of sins for which one is liable to death, because both affect vital organs, the central strands of the cord through which life flows. Now a question. If we said that all of a Jew’s physical life comes through the cord of his soul, then what? Excuse me, I’ve seen someone commit a sin carrying kareis, and he continues—

41:09 Speaker 10 Eighty.

41:09 Speaker 1 Not until eighty, but until fifty or sixty—how does that work? So he says, this is what the Alter Rebbe says: from the moment that the Divine soul was here, it is no longer present. But through inertia, through the energy it put into the body, he can continue living until fifty, but no longer.

41:34 Speaker 10 The moment—

41:35 Speaker 1 Wait, that’s in the next chapter. One second. That moment will come in the next chapter; we’ll get to it shortly. One second. Is everything clear so far? The Alter Rebbe says—

41:44 Speaker 10 Yes.

41:44 Speaker 1 What—what it says here?

41:46 Speaker 10 Okay.

41:46 Speaker 1 What it says here is that a Jew’s physical life comes from his soul, sins oppose the Supernal Will, and his soul comes from the inner aspect. Therefore, if he commits a sin, he cannot live. But I’ve seen someone commit a sin. Fine, it was a minor sin, so it did not sever the cord. He won’t—I’ve seen someone commit a serious sin. Yes, he too can live until fifty or sixty; through inertia, he can continue living. That’s it so far. One second, one second.

42:17 Speaker 10 Is that, um, with a warning given by a beis din, or does that not—

42:20 Speaker 1 What?

42:21 Speaker 10 Does that include a warning given by a beis din, or is that unrelated?

42:24 Speaker 1 Let’s stop there. Okay, that’s clear. Before we get to the questions, the Rebbe notes something at the end, in parentheses, that the Alter Rebbe adds. He says this: If you study the writings of the Arizal, you’ll see that when a person’s soul is cut off, the moment the punishment of kareis takes effect, the encompassing aspect enters him. After all, the soul has an inner part and an encompassing light. So the Arizal writes: True, when a person’s soul is cut off, its inner light ceases, but the encompassing light does not. It is encompassing; sins don’t affect it. So seemingly, some people wanted to ask the Alter Rebbe: Why would he live only until age fifty? Why does he go on living after committing the sin? Because the encompassing light enters him. Until now he lived from the inner light; now he lives from the encompassing light. The Arizal wrote that the inner light departs and the encompassing light enters. Fine, then: he lived from one until now, and now he lives from the other. He has something to live on; he can go on living. The Alter Rebbe says: No. It doesn’t work that way. Why not? Because it’s an encompassing light. Something encompassing cannot give life. Can a person live on a smell?

43:53 Speaker 10 No.

43:53 Speaker 1 To live, you have to eat. Something has to enter you and become one with the body. For the soul to give life to the body, it has to enter the body, be enclothed within it, and have chochmah, binah, and daas, so it can become enclothed in the body’s limbs and give them life. The encompassing light remains encompassing; it cannot give life to a body. So what did the Arizal mean? He concludes: What was the Arizal talking about? He meant up to age fifty. Even a person who committed a sin punishable by kareis continues to live until age fifty or sixty. During that time, the encompassing aspect shines within him, and that has significance—but it has nothing to do with physical life. Or another possibility: the Arizal was speaking about our times, as explained below. What does “as explained below” mean? As we’ll explain—

44:56 Speaker 11 In the next chapter.

44:57 Speaker 1 In the next chapter. Good.

44:58 Speaker 3 So does that mean he isn’t atoned for it? It isn’t atoned for him?

45:01 Speaker 11 I don’t know what that has to do with it.

45:04 Speaker 1 Huh?

45:04 Speaker 11 I don’t know what that has to do with it.

45:05 Speaker 1 Teshuvah is what we’ll discuss when we get to chapter seven.

45:07 Speaker 3 At the end of the chapter.

45:09 Speaker 1 Not at the end of the chapter.

45:10 Speaker 11 No!

45:10 Speaker 1 That’s the beginning. Chapter seven is the beginning, not the end. Chapter seven begins the explanation. Up to chapter seven, the point is only to explain the contemplation that leads to teshuvah. Clearly, after learning something like this, we now relate to sin in a completely different way.

45:28 Speaker 3 You have to admire [unclear], because someone wrote this a little [unclear], because he—

45:31 Speaker 1 Until now—

45:32 Speaker 11 It’s so popular.

45:34 Speaker 1 Until now, until now, we thought that sin really was something terrible. It goes against Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and it really isn’t good. But—excuse me—this is my life. Once a person grasps the message of this chapter, the way they relate to a sin changes.

45:55 Speaker 11 Really, it seems—

45:56 Speaker 1 Now, about the question everyone asks—and it’s no coincidence; you’re not the only one who jumped in. Everyone who sees this immediately raises it, and it’s an obvious question. I know plenty of people who committed sins punishable by kareis or death at the hands of Heaven, who even did so repeatedly, and who are still living out their years pleasantly. They’re not just living out their years—they’re living well, as they say. So, excuse me, does that mean what’s written in Tanya isn’t true, G-d forbid? Of course it’s true. But we have one more chapter to learn, and then we’ll move on to the subject of teshuvah.

46:29 Speaker 11 Wait, but what about someone who commits the sin after age fifty?

46:33 Speaker 1 Hmm?

46:33 Speaker 11 Someone who committed the sin after age fifty.