Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 6

00:01 Speaker 1 Racheli, come, let’s see what this looks like here.

00:03 Speaker 2 We’re going to learn chapter 6. Do you want to take some sheets?

00:07 Speaker 1 Oh, chapter 4.

00:10 Speaker 2 We haven’t learned chapter 6 yet.

00:13 Speaker 1 Mom, it’s hot already.

00:15 Speaker 3 Yes, one second, thank you.

00:20 Speaker 2 Chapter 6 is the third and last one. We said that at the beginning of Igeres Hateshuvah, in the first three chapters, the Alter Rebbe explained the mitzvah of teshuvah according to the revealed dimension of Torah: teshuvah means returning to Hashem, not atoning for the past or repairing one’s sins. Things like that—not self-mortification or fasting, but teshuvah. It means returning to Hashem. Then, in chapter 4, he began explaining that to understand the mitzvah of teshuvah, we have to look at the word teshuvah itself: its letters spell “tashuv hei”—“the hei shall return.” This refers to the letter hei in Hashem’s Name, which needs to return. Teshuvah means “tashuv hei.”

01:04 Speaker 1 The final hei.

01:06 Speaker 2 The final hei or the first hei. So he says, yes, there are two heis in Hashem’s Name. When the second hei returns to its place, that’s called teshuvah tata’ah, lower teshuvah; and when the first hei returns to its place, that’s called teshuvah ila’ah, higher teshuvah. All right, we need to understand what that means. How do we do teshuvah, and what’s the difference between higher and lower teshuvah? To understand that, the Alter Rebbe said we first need to understand what a sin is and what damage it does to the soul. Before explaining how to do teshuvah, he first explains what sin does, what it damages, what it causes. The Alter Rebbe devotes three chapters to this as well—chapters 4, 5, and 6. Chapter 6 is the last of these three chapters in which he explains what sin is and what it causes. What was in the first two chapters? He began them with a question about the Gemara. The Gemara says that someone who commits sins carrying the severe punishments of kareis or death at the hands of Heaven actually dies physically before age fifty, or by age sixty. And the Alter Rebbe says: We see many people who live long, pleasant lives, even though we see that they are liable for these severe punishments. So what—is what the Gemara says not true? What’s the explanation? To understand this, we need to understand the nature of sin and what it causes. So he began to explain. Sin damages the soul. What does sin do to the soul? First we need to explain how the soul gives life to the body. In chapter 4 he explains how the soul gives life to the body: the soul is literally a part of G-d above, yet it descends below to give life to the body. He explains this in two stages. Chapters 4 and 5 are two stages in this explanation,

02:55 Speaker 2 whose general point is that the soul has two levels. There is a level described as being like breath, and a level of the soul described as being like a rope. Sometimes we say that the soul that gives life to the body is like breath—as in, “One who blows, blows from within himself”—like the breath a person blows out. And sometimes we say—thank you very much—and sometimes we say that the soul is like a rope, with one end, its upper end, above and the other end tied below to the body. He explained the difference between the two analogies. When we say the soul is like breath, we’re speaking about a very lofty level of the soul, its source: the soul as it exists on its own above. It’s something very subtle. Because it’s so subtle, even the slightest thing can obstruct it—just as with breath that a person blows out, even the thinnest barrier prevents it from getting through. Likewise, any sin a person commits, even the smallest sin, even a violation of a rabbinic enactment, immediately cuts off the breath, and the soul cannot enter the body. Then he explained that there is another, lower level of the soul, at which the soul is called a rope. At this level too, one end is tied above, but its other end extends down below. Regarding this level, he said that when a person sins, it isn’t like a barrier that stops the soul from entering the body altogether. Rather, the sin damages one of the strands—one of the soul’s 613 strands. Every sin causes damage, and if it’s a very severe sin, it can even sever the rope completely. This explains... So, through these two analogies, the Alter Rebbe explained why a person dies when he commits a sin. If it’s a severe sin, since... Perhaps I should mention one more thing that’s important for what follows here.

05:29 Speaker 2 What’s the difference between a Jew and all other created beings? The Alter Rebbe explained at length that all other created beings are created from speech, from the external aspect of speech. Remember that? We said that when a person speaks, there are the physical words he says—the movement of his lips, the air coming out of his mouth, the movements of his organs of speech—and there’s the intent behind what he wants to say, what he feels, the feeling he wants to convey, the meaning and content of his words. So speech has an inner aspect and an external aspect. By analogy, so to speak, this applies to Hakadosh Boruch Hu as well: “By the word of Hashem the heavens were made.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the whole world through speech, but there’s a difference between how He created man with the utterance “Let us make man” and how He created all other beings. All other beings were created from the external aspect of speech, so to speak, from the physical aspect of Divine speech. The soul of the Jewish people, in its origin and source, is breath—like breath before it even reaches the mouth, when it’s still united with the person inside. And even when it is drawn down through speech, at which level it is already like a rope, we’re not talking about the physical aspect of speech but its inner aspect. So the entire rest of the world, all other created beings, live, come into being, and continue to exist through the external aspect of speech. A Jew receives his life from his soul, which, even when it is down here in the body, is literally a part of G-d above. True, it descended through many levels, but it remains literally a part of G-d above. That’s the difference. So because a Jew’s life-force comes only from his soul, a Jew cannot live from the kelipos; his life-force comes from his soul. Therefore, when he commits a severe sin, that life-force departs, and so he

07:32 Speaker 2 dies. That was the general explanation in the previous two chapters—4 and 5. But that left us with a question. We see that in reality, that isn’t what happens. We see many people, many Jews, who commit even severe sins and go on living. So in this chapter the Alter Rebbe will explain why, and through that we’ll see the depth of teshuvah and its connection to the lower hei, and so on.

08:09 Speaker 4 Wait, does this relate to how they can then live another forty or fifty years?

08:14 Speaker 2 No, no, no. A person can live until age forty or fifty even if he has committed a sin, from the kista dechayusa, the trace of life-force that remains in the body. He can continue living. He spoke about that.

08:27 Speaker 4 What the Rebbe was... will say—uh, the Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe will say—is actually a different answer.

08:32 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, something else. The Alter Rebbe addressed the point you’re making: we might say that a person can live from that life-force. No. The writings of the Arizal speak of a surrounding level of the soul that enters the soul. No, one cannot live from that. A Jew can live only from the soul that enters the body, from the Divine soul, which is what he lives from. When that is cut off, he has no life-force. If he lives until age fifty, even after committing a sin at age twenty, that’s from the trace of life-force. That can sustain him for a few more years, but only until age fifty and no longer, or until age sixty and no longer. If people live longer, it’s for another reason. The overall point of this chapter—the answer, before we go on and look at the text—is that there’s a third level of the soul. Not just breath and not just a rope.

09:22 Speaker 4 Does that rhyme too? Just kidding.

09:24 Speaker 2 Rather, a rope. When we say that the soul is like a rope, there are two ways of looking at it, two levels, and we’ll see that in the text. At the third level, it can give life to the body even...

09:38 Speaker 4 That’s actually the lowest level?

09:39 Speaker 2 The lowest.

09:40 Speaker 4 Ah, okay.

09:41 Speaker 2 The highest is the breath. That’s like a person’s breath while it’s still united with his heart, before he speaks—just what he wants to say, so to speak. Then there’s the way it actually comes out in speech, when his intent is already expressed outwardly, and there’s a lower level.

09:54 Speaker 4 Wait, is that like what will be... like how, first of all, now, uh, is there some explanation for why it’s specifically the lowest level, the highest level?

10:01 Speaker 2 Uh, that’s definitely connected, and it’s definitely discussed in the chapter itself, yes.

10:06 Speaker 4 Okay.

10:07 Speaker 2 Yes. That is essentially what teshuvah is about. We’ll see it toward the end of the chapter. Chapter 6. Now, what we said—that when a Jew commits a sin, it cuts the rope and he cannot go on living—applied when the Jewish people were on a higher level. When was that? When the Shechinah dwelled among the Jewish people. Where? In the Beis Hamikdash. When the Beis Hamikdash stood, Jews were on such an elevated level that their physical bodies lived directly from their souls. At that time, their bodies received their vitality only through the G-dly soul.

10:59 Speaker 4 So what, they didn’t sin at all?

11:01 Speaker 2 Someone who committed such a sin would die.

11:03 Speaker 4 What, for even one sin?

11:08 Speaker 2 Someone who committed a sin that... that carried the penalty of kareis or death at the hands of Heaven.

11:12 Speaker 4 How could that be...

11:13 Speaker 2 But they said it doesn’t matter...

11:15 Speaker 4 That the G-dly soul is what gives them life.

11:17 Speaker 2 Nobody’s free choice is taken away.

11:20 Speaker 4 He didn’t know what that was, uh... But wait, didn’t we say in the previous chapter that this applies to every sin, not just kareis and death at the hands of Heaven?

11:27 Speaker 2 So I said there’s a difference between the soul as it is on the level of breath—

11:32 Speaker 4 Ah, okay.

11:34 Speaker 2 —where, indeed, every small sin interrupts the connection, and the soul as it is on the level of speech. Speech can pass even through a wall, and then the soul is called a rope, and that rope is made up of 613 strands, and so on. So their bodies received vitality only through the G-dly soul, from the inner dimension of the flow that the blessed Ein Sof bestows through the blessed Name Havayah, as explained above. After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the entire world, but He gives life to the rest of the world through the outer dimension of that flow, while the Jewish people received it directly, through the soul, from the inner dimension of G-dliness. But after they descended from their level and, through their deeds, brought about the mystery of the exile of the Shechinah—here, now... One second. At this point the situation changed, and a Jew can now receive vitality even after committing a sin. But before the Alter Rebbe finishes the sentence that I just completed for him, he introduces an entire subject in the middle. Why? First of all, what does it mean that the Jewish people, through their deeds, brought about the mystery of the exile of the Shechinah? How can a person commit a sin down here and cause Malchus of Atzilus to go into exile? How did I earn that distinction? That... yes? What importance does... The question is clear, right? So, first of all, the Rebbe—uh, the Alter Rebbe—doesn’t even try to explain it. He says it’s written: “Because of your transgressions, your mother was sent away.” We learned in chapter 52 of Tanya, if anyone remembers, how the Shechinah descends to give life to the worlds. There he gives several names for Malchus of Atzilus: Knesses Yisroel, and quite a few others. One of the names of Malchus of Atzilus is “mother,” “the mother of the children.” Why is she called the mother of the children? Because she is the source and root from which the souls of the Jewish people are born. So the Rebbe says that the Alter Rebbe isn’t bringing this just as proof that this is how...

13:56 Speaker 2 ...it is—that if I sin, then “because of your transgressions, your mother was sent away.” It’s also an explanation. Why does the Shechinah go into exile when I sin? Because she is “your mother.” I have a connection to her. Since she is the mother of our souls, there is a connection when our souls sin. They’re connected. Yes, she is Malchus of Atzilus, but there is a connection. So the deeds of the Jewish people brought about the mystery of the exile of the Shechinah, as it says, “Because of your transgressions, your mother was sent away.” And what is this mystery of the exile of the Shechinah? It sounds very impressive, right? We committed sins and the Shechinah went into exile. What does it mean for the Shechinah to go into exile? What did that cause, and how does it relate to our question of whether a person can or cannot go on living? So he explains what “your mother was sent away” means: the flow from the level of the lower hei, mentioned above, descended. The lower hei is?

15:02 Speaker 5 The lower h...

15:03 Speaker 2 Malchus, Malchus of Atzilus. Right? We’ve spoken many times about how the Name Havayah corresponds to the ten sefiros of Atzilus.

15:10 Speaker 5 Chochmah, Binah, the seven middos, what?

15:12 Speaker 2 Right. Chochmah, Binah, the middos, Malchus.

15:15 Speaker 5 Zeir Anpin.

15:18 Speaker 6 That’s not the middos.

15:20 Speaker 5 Ah, Chochmah, Binah.

15:22 Speaker 6 Maybe it’s...

15:25 Speaker 5 No, Zeir Anpin is the six middos. Malchus isn’t...

15:31 Speaker 2 The sefiros on the middle line aren’t always counted at all, and sometimes Malchus isn’t counted either. It depends on what we’re discussing. For this question of how the... It depends on whether we’re arranging the sefiros and discussing them in terms of their content or in terms of the order of their unfolding. It depends on whether we’re discussing the sefiros in terms of what they bestow or in terms of... It depends on which aspect of the sefiros we’re discussing. There are many different ways of approaching this. When we discuss the sefiros as they unfold from the Name Havayah, then we have the partzuf of Chochmah, Binah, the middos, and Malchus.

16:11 Speaker 5 It isn’t there.

16:11 Speaker 2 Hmm?

16:11 Speaker 5 Daas isn’t there.

16:13 Speaker 2 Either it isn’t there—I don’t remember—or it’s included in the intellect or in the middos. I don’t know.

16:19 Speaker 5 Hmm, sometimes it’s counted among the middos.

16:24 Speaker 2 Yes. On the one hand, Daas is the root of the middos, as it says there in chapter 3 of Tanya. On the other hand, it’s an intellectual faculty. No, that isn’t relevant right now. What matters now is that “your mother” is Malchus of Atzilus, and she is connected to us because she gives birth to our souls. Therefore, when our souls sin, she is sent away. What does “sent away” mean? That her flow descended—the flow from the level of the lower hei mentioned above. Generally, the normal way she bestows vitality is, as we said, that her outer dimension brings all created beings into existence, while her inner dimension reaches the soul of a Jew directly and gives it life. But when Jews sinned, her flow descended, level by level, lower and lower, until it became enclothed in the ten sefiros of Nogah. What are the ten sefiros of Nogah? We know them from elsewhere. They bestow vitality, through the constellations, all the hosts of heaven, and the spiritual ministers over them, upon every physical living being in this world. It’s explained elsewhere—in quite a few places—that since the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, all physical things in the world receive their vitality and come into existence through kelipas Nogah. We saw that in Tanya too, near the beginning, in chapters 6, 7, and 8, and later in chapters 36 and 37. Whenever it discusses the kelipos, it also mentions this point: that all the beings in the world actually receive their vitality from kelipas Nogah, which stands between holiness and the kelipos. What happened when the Jewish people sinned? Instead of Malchus of Atzilus giving life to the Jewish people—who served Hashem and included great sages, prophets, and tzaddikim—her flow descended and now gives its vitality to the kelipos, to kelipas Nogah. Ah, yes, and that kelipas Nogah also bestows vitality upon all plant life, as our Sages say, “There is no blade of grass below that does not have a constellation...” and so on. And then what happens? This is now—

18:49 Speaker 5 Are the constellations within kelipas Nogah?

18:51 Speaker 2 What?

18:51 Speaker 5 The constellations—are they within Nogah?

18:54 Speaker 2 Yes. The constellations and the spiritual ministers. Yes. And here he finishes the sen—here he finishes the sentence that we put aside in those parentheses, which aren’t actually written here. Right? So when they sinned, Malchus’s flow descended because of their sins. And where did it descend to give its vitality, instead of giving it to the realm of holiness? To the kelipos, to kelipas Nogah. Then even the sinner and the transgressors among the Jewish people can receive vitality for their bodies and animal souls, just like other living creatures. Just as all animals live from kelipas Nogah, a Jew’s body can also live from kelipas Nogah. Hey, how is that possible? A Jew’s body is such that it has no place in the kelipos. It cannot receive vitality from the kelipos. Look elsewhere in Tanya: the physical body of a Jew resembles the bodies of the nations of the world in its physical substance. Why does it resemble them? Why isn’t it the same? What’s the difference? The difference is that they look exactly alike, but the body of a non-Jew is like the body of an animal, a plant, or an inanimate object: it receives its vitality from kelipas Nogah. A Jew’s body receives its vitality from G-dliness. But if it can receive its vitality only—if a Jew can live only from G-dliness, only from the soul, then what does this mean? How can he suddenly receive it from kelipas Nogah? It’s because the soul descended and became enclothed in kelipas Nogah. When a Jew receives vitality from kelipas Nogah, it is only as though he receives it from kelipas Nogah. He still receives it—a Jew, even in exile, can receive his vitality only from the holy soul—but not directly. It comes through being enclothed in kelipas Nogah. Then he is just like other living creatures, as it is written, “They are compared to beasts; they have become like them.”

21:08 Speaker 7 But he isn’t really like an animal.

21:09 Speaker 2 What?

21:10 Speaker 7 He isn’t really like an animal. I mean, this vitality becomes enclothed in a person, right? It comes through being enclothed. I didn’t understand.

21:22 Speaker 2 Hmm.

21:23 Speaker 7 The vitality... the vitality of animals.

21:25 Speaker 2 Yes.

21:26 Speaker 7 Is in kelipas Nogah. Right?

21:28 Speaker 2 Wait, one second. What are you saying?

21:34 Speaker 7 The vitality of animals comes through kelipas Nogah, right?

21:36 Speaker 2 Yes.

21:37 Speaker 7 But that’s not the same as a Jew. A Jew does, in fact, receive his life-force through—at its source, in principle, through his true soul, but in fact—

21:46 Speaker 2 But only—but, but only as the soul—during exile, only as the soul is clothed in kelipah.

21:51 Speaker 7 Okay, so it’s as though it’s in kelipas nogah.

21:53 Speaker 2 In kelipas nogah. So it’s true that the life-force really comes from the soul, but he can’t feel that. It’s clothed in kelipah.

22:03 Speaker 7 So it’s not really like an animal.

22:05 Speaker 2 It’s—really, it’s not like an animal, but in his experience and in practice it’s exactly like an animal. And that’s why he can continue living physically.

22:18 Speaker 7 Okay.

22:18 Speaker 2 We’ll soon see exactly why he really can continue living. I won’t ask that question now. We won’t focus on it yet. So up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has explained the question he asked at the beginning of chapter 4. What did we ask? We said it as we went along at the start of the lesson. We want to understand what a sin damages, in order to understand what a sin damages. So how is it that the Gemara says someone who sins is dead? What was the explanation? The explanation is that sin really does cause damage, and sin really does make it impossible for him to live. But what happens? Because of the exile, when the influence of the Shechinah became clothed in the kelipos, a Jew, too, can receive from the kelipos, like non-Jews and animals and all the other created beings, so he can live. But that still doesn’t explain what the Alter Rebbe says there: we see many such people living pleasant lives. Fine, so he can go on living. Okay, he has a way to live. But why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why should he live better? What has he done to deserve it? Because he committed sins, therefore—and how does that work? After all, what sort of life-force is he receiving from the kelipos? Precisely when he receives—the soul’s life-force is concealed, restricted, and clothed in kelipas nogah, and suddenly we say he lives pleasantly? So he explains—and on the contrary, this is where he begins explaining that “on the contrary”: that one can even live pleasantly. When a Jew receives his life-force through kelipas nogah during the exile, he receives it with even greater strength and power. It’s precisely in that situation that he can receive more material abundance. What’s the explanation?

24:21 Speaker 7 But I didn’t quite understand that.

24:22 Speaker 2 Hmm?

24:23 Speaker 7 Okay.

24:23 Speaker 8 Because then, in effect, he’s cleansing the sin?

24:24 Speaker 7 Apparently not.

24:26 Speaker 8 Because then, in effect, he’s cleansing the sin.

24:29 Speaker 7 No, because that’s already the World to Come.

24:31 Speaker 2 The explanation is fairly long. We’ll go through it. It’s not just two lines.

24:38 Speaker 8 Tali, you say something too.

24:40 Speaker 7 I have nothing to say.

24:43 Speaker 2 Why isn’t it good? Because we’re about to see a few more lines.

24:46 Speaker 7 Bottom line, it’s good, isn’t it?

24:47 Speaker 2 Why is it good? Yes. You’re saying it’s good, and we want to say it isn’t good. Because—because to receive—the meaning is, as we’ll see in the text in a moment, that a person who receives his... receives his life-force from the kelipos, from the sitra achra, from what opposes G-dliness. His life comes from a source of death and impurity.

25:16 Speaker 7 Okay.

25:17 Speaker 2 He cuts himself off from G-dliness, and now he has a little material comfort.

25:21 Speaker 7 Okay.

25:22 Speaker 2 But he cuts himself off from true life forever. Both now and afterward.

25:31 Speaker 7 Wait, and now, even during exile, is it possible to receive the soul’s higher life-force? Like...

25:37 Speaker 2 We’ll see that right away.

25:38 Speaker 7 Okay.

25:41 Speaker 2 Why can someone live pleasantly during the exile? On the contrary, with even greater strength and power. The explanation follows what is set out in the holy Zohar on Parshas Pekudei. It explains there that all the abundance and life-force flowing to a person down here at the very moment he does what is evil in Hashem’s eyes—whether by deed, speech, or thoughts of sin, and so on—where does he receive his life-force from? After all, he has just committed a sin, and his soul is cut off. Where does he receive life-force from? He receives it—all of it flows to him from the chambers of the sitra achra. He is receiving life-force now. The moment a person commits a sin, he’s still alive. What keeps him alive? He can’t live from holiness. He’s acting against Hashem. He now receives his life-force from the chambers of the sitra achra. What did we just hear? That’s no longer from kelipas nogah; it’s from...

26:36 Speaker 8 So how did it get there? From the sitra achra?

26:38 Speaker 2 Hmm?

26:38 Speaker 8 Okay. I think that...

26:41 Speaker 2 Kelipas nogah is a separate matter. For that, you don’t need the sins of the Jewish people. Since the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, the whole world has lived through kelipas nogah.

26:50 Speaker 8 Okay.

26:51 Speaker 2 But the moment the Jewish people sin, they draw down the... So, generally speaking, even if he doesn’t sin, he receives his soul—his life-force through kelipas nogah. But if he sins, he draws his soul and the root of his soul into the very chambers of the kelipos.

27:11 Speaker 7 But that’s only while he’s sinning, not afterward.

27:14 Speaker 2 Hmm?

27:15 Speaker 7 That’s only while he’s sinning, not afterward.

27:16 Speaker 2 Unless he does teshuvah. Yes.

27:20 Speaker 7 Okay.

27:21 Speaker 2 All of it flows to him from the chambers of the sitra achra, which are described there in the holy Zohar. There’s an enormously lengthy discussion there in the Zohar on Parshas Pekudei, and in several other places, about all those chambers of the kelipos. A person has free choice whether to receive his influence from the chambers of the sitra achra or from the chambers of holiness, from which all good and holy thoughts flow. It depends on him. If he chooses now to think good and holy thoughts, then at that very moment his life-force begins to flow from the chambers of holiness. And if he chooses otherwise, it comes from the chambers of the sitra achra. It’s up to him where to receive his life-force from. But we need to clarify something: how can he receive life-force from the chambers of the sitra—from the chambers of holiness? We said that...

28:15 Speaker 7 Everything passes through.

28:16 Speaker 2 Everything passes through kelipas nogah now, during the exile.

28:20 Speaker 7 What is kelipas nogah?

28:22 Speaker 2 So when there’s, when there’s... We said that during the exile, the Shechinah clothes itself in kelipas nogah to give it life. When one thing is clothed in another, that can happen in two ways. In one way, what matters most is the outer garment. You see the outer garment; you don’t see what’s clothed within it so much. And there’s the opposite way. For example, when a person speaks, the idea or feeling is clothed in speech. When someone speaks to us, we don’t pay attention to the speech at all. We pay attention only to the content. There’s the outer garment: the speech, the words and sentences. We don’t really hear them at all. We pay attention...

29:09 Speaker 7 We pay attention to what’s doing the clothing, not to the garment.

29:11 Speaker 2 We pay attention to what’s clothed within, to the content.

29:16 Speaker 7 To what’s doing the clothing.

29:18 Speaker 2 To the—to the content, the content, not the external form. Yes. So that’s a kind of enclothing in which the content is what matters, and the external form isn’t felt at all. But, for example, when intellect is clothed in emotions, yes? Once an emotion is born, there’s no intellect here. He isn’t thinking. He feels; he loves, he hates, he’s happy, he... It’s emotion. There’s no intellect here now, even though the intellect shines within the emotion and gives it life, and so on. But what do you see here? You see only the garment. You don’t see its inner content at all. It isn’t felt. Yes. So when we speak about enclothing, which kind of enclothing is it? In the same way, these two possibilities also exist in how the soul gives life to the body during the exile. The soul gives life to the body only by being clothed in kelipas nogah. There’s no other way. There are no shortcuts. You can’t bypass it; that’s the route. But when his life-force comes through this enclothing, what is felt? Is it the kelipah that’s felt? Or is only the G-dliness felt, while the kelipah is merely an outer garment that no one pays attention to? That depends on his choice. A person has free choice whether to receive his influence from the chambers of the sitra achra or from the chambers of holiness, from which all good and holy thoughts flow, and so on. Why? Because G-d made one thing opposite the other. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu made chambers of holiness, He made chambers of kelipah. And where do the chambers of the sitra achra draw their sustenance and life-force from? They receive and draw their life-force from the enclothing and successive descent of the influence of the ten sefiros of nogah, which includes both good and evil and corresponds to the Tree of Knowledge, and so on, as is known to those familiar with the hidden wisdom. He’s saying this: the kelipos cannot receive

31:37 Speaker 2 life-force directly from holiness. Holiness wants holiness. It doesn’t want what opposes it, the kelipah. The kelipah has nowhere to get it from.

31:47 Speaker 7 They don’t connect. It doesn’t connect.

31:48 Speaker 2 No, that doesn’t connect. They have no access at all. They can’t receive vitality from there. That’s simply understood. Kelipas nogah is a mixture of good and evil. Because it is a mixture of good and evil, the realm of permissible things, it does not oppose holiness. And because it does not oppose holiness, it also contains good. So through contractions, concealments, and veils, the holiness is no longer felt there. But it can still receive vitality from holiness in a way that is enclothed within it, in one form or another. Yes. Once kelipas nogah has received vitality, since it doesn’t oppose holiness, it also doesn’t stand in the way of transgressions. So the sitra achra can receive vitality from there, again through contractions, concealments, and veils. But some trickle of vitality can reach the kelipos, the sitra achra, from kelipas nogah. What does that mean? The kelipos have nothing to live on. They’re suffocating. Every created being needs something to keep it alive. It needs some kind of snorkel, an air tube, blood, something. They have no source. Kelipas nogah barely, barely, barely receives anything after contraction upon contraction and more and more concealments and veils. It receives something hair-thin, next to nothing. And the impure kelipos need that nothing of a nothing to exist. They have nothing to live on. So they’re constantly craving. They’re constantly hungry. The kelipah says, “Give, give! Give me!” The kelipah is always hungry. Why is it hungry? It has no vitality. It’s that simple. Yes. What does that lead to? Keep that point in mind. What have we said here? We’ve said two things. That is, in this passage, from the start of the explanation of “on the contrary, even more so,” the Alter Rebbe has said two things. First, that when a Jew commits a transgression, he draws the Shechinah’s flow down to the three impure kelipos. And second, that the impure kelipos

34:09 Speaker 2 have nothing to live on.

34:12 Speaker 9 Well, when a Jew commits a transgression, he... Yes.

34:16 Speaker 2 Yes, we’ll see it now in the text. “Now, it is written, ‘Yaakov is the rope of His inheritance.’” It says—remember, we discussed this in the previous chapter?—that the soul is called a rope. By way of analogy, a rope has one end above and its other end below. Do you remember the wording of the analogy in the previous chapter? There’s a small difference here.

34:45 Speaker 9 Maybe “ropes.”

34:47 Speaker 2 There it said, “one end is above and its other extremity is below.”

34:52 Speaker 9 And here it says, “its other end.”

34:53 Speaker 2 Here it says, “its other end is below.” So let’s pay attention to that. How does he continue? “If a person pulls its other end,” the lower end of the rope, “he will move”—it will move, yes—“and draw after it its first end as well, as far as it can be drawn.” Excuse me. What did we learn in the previous chapter? That when a person commits a transgression, it severs the rope. So there is no longer an extremity down below; it has been cut off and disconnected. So what do you mean by saying this? No, there’s an end here. It’s not only an end; it’s still connected, despite the transgression. So much so that pulling it down pulls the upper end. What’s going on? The Alter Rebbe is explaining, within these words, what lies behind this. There is a third level of the soul, a lower level than the rope. It too is called a rope, but not like that rope. When we spoke about the rope in the previous chapter, it was a rope with one end above, while down here there was an extremity. When you call something the extremity of something else, it knows it’s the extremity. It knows it comes last; it senses the end above. So although it is only an extremity, it is connected. It feels... it feels that it is Jewish. It has some point of bittul, something. Something is present there; it senses something. It has some desire for G-dliness. And there is a lower level: the soul has descended so far through contractions that the part of the soul within the body is like an end in its own right. It senses itself and doesn’t sense at all that it has a part above. Why call it an “end”? The Alter Rebbe is saying something remarkable: their beginnings are embedded in their ends, and their ends in their beginnings. Precisely this lowest part of the soul, the part that doesn’t fe... that is so

37:23 Speaker 2 low that it is seemingly disconnected. It isn’t really disconnected; it is part of the soul, it is a rope. But it is so low and so coarse that transgressions do not damage it. It does not feel the transgressions. Transgressions damage the rope; they prevent anything from passing through it. They sever the rope. But when the soul has descended and become so coarse that it has become this sort of physical soul, transgressions no longer damage it. And precisely because the soul is at such a low level, it is the soul’s end, and therefore it has a special bond with the soul’s upper end as it exists above. So when you move this end below—yes, it’s an end, but not in a positive sense; it’s an end in a negative sense—moving it also moves the end above. “And precisely so with the root and source of a person’s soul, from the level of the lower hei mentioned above”: its source, the soul’s upper end, is the lower hei, malchus of Atzilus. It isn’t part of the worlds; it is G-dliness. “And through his evil deeds and thoughts, he draws its flow down into the very chambers of the sitra achra, so to speak, from which his thoughts and deeds receive their vitality. And because he is the one who draws the flow to them, he takes a share at the head; sufficient for the understanding.” That is why he lives comfortably. He can receive much more. There’s—

39:10 Speaker 10 So these kelipos are basically giving me life, and I’m giving you a lot?

39:15 Speaker 2 They don’t give him much, but they receive a thousand times, a million times as much. I don’t know. They receive something they’re not used to receiving. It’s worth it for them to give to him so that he’ll keep committing transgressions.

39:27 Speaker 10 But they don’t have any.

39:28 Speaker 2 Huh?

39:29 Speaker 10 They don’t have any.

39:30 Speaker 2 What do you mean, they don’t have any?

39:32 Speaker 10 Life. I mean, what—what?

39:34 Speaker 2 The person who commits a transgression—his own soul—has now committed a transgression and is inside the kelipos. Who is inside the kelipos? The holy soul. And what is the holy soul? Malchus of Atzilus. True, it’s only its end. Fine, excellent. For them, that’s excellent. Yes. It’s so worthwhile for them that they’re prepared to tempt him into committing transgressions and give him every material good in the world. Just stay with us. It’s worth it. Simple arithmetic.

40:03 Speaker 10 So that makes the test much harder.

40:14 Speaker 2 But this is a very beautiful explanation. Yes, so it seems we’ve tied up all the loose ends. We understand why, then...

40:21 Speaker 10 That surprised us.

40:22 Speaker 2 Why, back when the Beis Hamikdash stood, someone who committed a transgression could live only until the age of fifty or sixty. This explains why it isn’t like that today, and it explains why the wicked prosper and live comfortably. And apparently, we’ve wrapped up the whole story. The Alter Rebbe says: No, no, no, no, no.

40:41 Speaker 10 Right.

40:42 Speaker 2 It doesn’t work that way. Look at what he said earlier. Many people commit transgressions, and... so many people commit transgressions. The entire Jewish people live in exile. It would seem that the entire Jewish people should be on top. If there are so many Jews committing transgressions, even serious transgressions, then the Jewish people as a whole should rule the world and have gold and silver in abundance. That isn’t the reality.

41:15 Speaker 10 Why everyone?

41:16 Speaker 2 Huh?

41:16 Speaker 10 Why everyone?

41:16 Speaker 2 Here and there, you can see an individual whose wicked path succeeds. But look at the Jewish people as a whole. The explanation doesn’t fit.

41:23 Speaker 10 Only the wicked.

41:25 Speaker 2 Huh?

41:25 Speaker 10 It’s not there, not among the wicked.

41:29 Speaker 2 This is what our Sages meant when they said, “We cannot account for the tranquility of the wicked,” and so on. Specifically “we”—meaning in the time of exile, after the destruction. So there are two explanations here. The Rebbe gives two explanations of the answer. The question is clear, yes? So the Rebbe offers two explanations of how the Alter Rebbe intends to answer it. The first explanation simply says: We have no explanation. In principle, it’s true—the Jewish people should be on top during exile. Why isn’t that so? It isn’t just our question. Our Sages already asked it. “We cannot account for it,” yes. Our Sages already said that we don’t know the reason. That’s one explanation. On a deeper level, it really is the explanation you gave: when the Beis Hamikdash stood, there was such a revelation of G-dliness. Someone else here said this earlier too. How could they sin? Yes. Such a revelation of G-dliness: they saw prophets, sages, tzaddikim, the Beis Hamikdash; they saw miracles with their own eyes. How? How, how, how could a person sin? When the Beis Hamikdash stood, someone who sinned was truly wicked. He was thoroughly wicked.

42:50 Speaker 10 He had time to be wicked.

42:50 Speaker 2 As it says, wicked with his whole heart. During exile, when a Jew is wicked, why does he commit transgressions? Things are hard for him. There’s concealment, and troubles here and troubles there. What do you expect? Is that a wicked person? It isn’t.

43:09 Speaker 10 What?

43:10 Speaker 2 No, that’s not a truly wicked person. I mean, “We cannot account for the tranquility of the wicked” nowadays, in exile. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, when someone was wicked, at least for a time, he got what was coming to him. Today, though, we cannot account for either the tranquility of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous. Neither one.

43:32 Speaker 10 So we’re in the middle. If this is the middle, I don’t know what is.

43:36 Speaker 2 I once heard something at a farbrengen in Bat Yam, decades ago, where Zimroni Tzik, a"h, was leading the farbrengen. This was before I was married, and... he started talking: This needs to be done, that needs to be done, this isn’t working, that isn’t good, this isn’t right, things are like that. He spoke that way for fifteen minutes, half an hour, I don’t know. He was speaking out of genuine pain. Zimroni sighed and said, “The situation is a potato. We need to make fries.”

44:15 Speaker 10 Okay.

44:15 Speaker 2 And we’re continuing on line nine. “We cannot account for”—specifically now, in exile after the destruction, we cannot account for the tranquility of the wicked, and certainly not for the suffering of the righteous. This is, so to speak, a form of the exile of the Shechinah. This is the exile of the Shechinah. After all, we asked at the beginning: What happens when someone commits a sin? All right, he committed a sin—so what happened? No. He channels vitality into the chambers of the sitra achra. When a Jew commits a sin, with his own hands, or through his thought or speech, he gives vitality to the kelipos. He is the one sustaining them. So people ask: Why are there, I don’t know... non-Jews who want to kill Jews? And why are there illnesses? And why is there—I don’t know—but why, and why, and why? The Jewish people are the source of the world’s vitality.

45:12 Speaker 10 So why do they want to kill them?

45:13 Speaker 2 The source of the kelipos’ vitality—the reason they have so much vitality and strength—comes from our sins. That’s on the physical level. We’re not even talking about what happens when a Jew descends into the kelipos and receives his vitality from there, may Hashem protect us. Then how will he learn Torah, and how will he understand, and how will he connect, and how will he have feelings of love and awe? We’re not even talking about that. This is on the physical level. All the evils in the world stem directly from a Jew’s sin. A Jew commits a sin, and his soul enters the chambers of the sitra achra and gives them vitality. “And this is, so to speak, a form of the exile of the Shechinah: to channel vitality into the chambers of the sitra achra, which His soul abhors.” Now we can understand what teshuvah is. Once we understand what a sin does, we can understand teshuvah. “And when a person does proper teshuvah, he removes from them the vitality he had drawn to them through his actions and thoughts.” Just as he brought the lower hei down into the kelipos through his actions and thoughts, when he chooses the opposite and returns in teshuvah, he takes the hei out of there, removes the flow of the Shechinah’s vitality from the kelipos, and returns it to its place. “For through his teshuvah, he returns the flow of the Shechinah’s vitality to its place”—where it belongs. And that is teshuvah: the letters of the word mean “the hei returns.” The lower hei within it returns from its state of exile. So what is teshuvah? “The hei returns”: a Jew regrets his sins and decides to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Who returns to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? His soul. His soul comes from Malchus of Atzilus. When he returns to holiness, Malchus of Atzilus returns there. As it says—and where does this idea come from? The Alter Rebbe says that just as he brought a verse to show that a person’s actions cause the exile of the Shechinah, he also brings a verse for the way back, for teshuvah. As it says, “And Hashem your G-d will return with your exiles.” That word “with”—like people say today, yes, lawyer Danny and—

47:35 Speaker 2 Avraham, yes, Danny and Avraham, with Avraham, yes, “and” and “with.” So “Hashem your G-d will return with your exiles” means together with your exiles. It doesn’t say He “will bring back.” As our Sages say: “It does not say ‘He will bring back,’ but rather ‘He will return.’” It doesn’t say that Hashem will bring back your exiles; it says that He returns—He returns together with you. What does “together with you” mean? You are the one who brings Hashem, the Shechinah, back from exile. You are the one who takes Her out of exile. So after we’ve understood in depth—as much as time and the subject allow—the meaning of sin and the meaning of teshuvah, there’s just one little detail we haven’t covered yet.

48:27 Speaker 10 How do you do teshuvah?

48:28 Speaker 2 How do you do teshuvah? So...

48:31 Speaker 10 With positive and negative mitzvos.

48:32 Speaker 2 Chapter seven. No, chapter seven is lower-level teshuvah, and from chapter eight onward—

48:38 Speaker 10 And onward.

48:38 Speaker 2 We begin, we begin to climb.

48:40 Speaker 10 Wow!