Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 7

00:01 Speaker 1 Good evening. We’re up to chapter 7 of Igeres Hateshuvah. In this chapter, the Alter Rebbe adds another dimension to the subject of teshuvah.

00:14 Speaker 2 Now he explains how to do teshuvah.

00:16 Speaker 1 It’s more than how to do teshuvah. It really feels like another level, as though there’s something more about teshuvah that we hadn’t known before. So, actually, I want to tell you the whole picture from the beginning—what we’re going to learn—because the chapter itself is very easy. But there’s a sicha of the Rebbe that explains what the Alter Rebbe wants to say here.

00:48 Speaker 2 That’s the difficult part.

00:50 Speaker 1 It isn’t a difficult part, but... He says—he says it like this. Already in chapter 1 of Igeres Hateshuvah, the Alter Rebbe tells us what teshuvah is. Teshuvah comes from the word “to return”—to return to Hashem. What does it mean to return to Hashem? A person sinned, committed a transgression. Why did he stumble and transgress? Because he cast off the yoke of Heaven. If he had the yoke of Heaven upon him all the time, he wouldn’t transgress; he wouldn’t stumble.

01:21 Speaker 2 Why did he cast off the yoke—the yoke of Heaven? Why are we saying that here, when you say that?

01:27 Speaker 1 Um, a person who... What does it mean to cast off the yoke of Heaven? Let’s understand what casting off a yoke means in simple terms. A person is standing before a king. There’s a king here, a flesh-and-blood king, and the person is standing before him. He knows that this king forbids wearing shoes; he only allows sandals. That’s what this king allows—just as an example, yes? The person won’t stand before the king in shoes. If I know the king says shoes are forbidden, then when I stand before him, I won’t stand there like that. Right? Now, if this person loves the king, respects him, and observes the king’s commands, then even when he can’t see the king, when he’s far away, he still won’t wear shoes. Why? Because the king says it’s forbidden. But if he couldn’t care less about the king, then when the king is right in front of him, he has no choice. Once he’s far away, though, he casts off the yoke of the king’s rule and wears shoes. He does the opposite of what the king wants. The yoke of the king’s rule means that a person feels at all times as though the king is standing before him. If a person feels that the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is standing before him, he won’t transgress even when he can’t see the King. Clear?

02:47 Speaker 2 Clear.

02:48 Speaker 1 Good.

02:49 Speaker 2 Excellent, thank you.

02:51 Speaker 1 So every transgression comes from casting off the yoke of Heaven. That’s where it starts. So what does it mean to do teshuvah? To accept the yoke of Heaven. That’s what he says in the first chapter.

03:02 Speaker 2 To sing Shema Yisroel with Hashem.

03:03 Speaker 1 Hmm?

03:03 Speaker 2 To sing Shema Yisroel with that.

03:06 Speaker 1 And about this he says: Wait—how do you know that teshuvah means only returning, that doing teshuvah means only accepting the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of the mitzvos? There are people who say that doing teshuvah means repairing past sins. Teshuvah means confession. Teshuvah means self-mortification and fasts. People say all sorts of things about teshuvah, so why do you say it’s just this one thing? He devotes another two chapters there to proving that it isn’t so. The essence of teshuvah is accepting the yoke of Heaven. That is teshuvah. He then explains what teshuvah is: returning. Doing teshuvah means returning and accepting the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of the mitzvos. But wait: for this to be real for a person, for him to truly accept Hashem’s yoke—if it’s a flesh-and-blood king, he’s physically afraid of the king. But if it’s the King of kings, why would he feel moved to accept His rule? What will make a person’s teshuvah genuine? He explains: If a person knew what his sin causes—when he sins, when he transgresses, what it damages and what it brings about in the world—he wouldn’t transgress. So the Alter Rebbe goes on, in the three chapters we learned, to explain what happens when a person sins: it brings his soul down into the kelipos, it brings the flow from the Shechinah down into impurity, and it gives vitality to all the terrible things in the world. It causes all the bad things, and it is the opposite of holiness. So when a person grasps that even the smallest transgression he commits brings his soul and the Shechinah—Hakadosh Boruch Hu—down into the kelipos, a feeling of accepting the yoke of Heaven is awakened in him. And this is called

05:11 Speaker 1 doing teshuvah. Right? That’s what we learned. So, seemingly, nothing is missing from our understanding of teshuvah. What is teshuvah? When a person returns to Hashem, he won’t transgress anymore, because he has accepted the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of the mitzvos, and he has returned to Hashem. And how does he reach that point? By contemplating what sin causes. That’s it. But the Alter Rebbe says, at the start of our chapter, chapter 7: “However, the true and direct path to the level of lower teshuvah, the lower hei...” Wait, excuse me. Was what we said before not the true and direct path? What were we just talking about? If he contemplates what his sin caused, it genuinely matters to him, he genuinely does teshuvah, and he genuinely becomes aroused. Why suddenly call this the true path? Wasn’t what came before true and direct? What is the Alter Rebbe adding here? The point is this: A person can be aroused to teshuvah, genuine teshuvah—yes, he genuinely does teshuvah and genuinely understands the damage his sin caused—but it still may not be true. It says about truth that truth is something everlasting. If he was genuinely aroused because he contemplated and thought about it, but afterward the feeling passes, then the very fact that it passes means it isn’t true. If it were true for you, it wouldn’t end. So there is a path of teshuvah that is proper teshuvah, as we learned, but it isn’t lasting teshuvah. There is another path of teshuvah that is true, that keeps this feeling permanently in a person’s heart, so he will never cast off the yoke of Heaven. That’s one point. In addition, there can be teshuvah that is sincere, as we learned, and also enduring—it lasts all the time—but it is a crooked path, not a direct path.

07:13 Speaker 1 What does it mean that it isn’t a direct path? What’s the difference between a straight path and a crooked one? A straight path is how things should be: a person goes the way he’s supposed to. What’s a crooked path? He takes a route; he starts at the same point, reaches the same destination, and has the same goal, but he travels a winding road. That’s called a crooked path, right? In our case, what is a crooked path of teshuvah, and what is a straight one? When a person does teshuvah, he accepts the yoke of Heaven. What brought him to it? Did sin cause you to draw closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? That isn’t a straight path. A straight path is when a person stays on course, observes Torah and mitzvos, and everything is as it should be. He doesn’t need to travel all sorts of winding routes to return to Hashem.

08:19 Speaker 4 Excuse me, but this world is a world of tests. You understand? A person... A person needs to go straight, but this world is full of tests and temptations. I mean, it’s a physical world.

08:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

08:32 Speaker 4 There’s no perfection in this world, and from within that perfection—within this imperfection, the imperfection of this world—we need to work and believe in Hashem, as you say.

08:43 Speaker 1 Right, right. So how does a person truly awaken himself so that his kabbolas ol of the kingdom of Heaven will be genuine and constant, not something fleeting? And so that he won’t have to get to the point where—obviously, when a person commits a sin and then realizes it was wrong, it pains him and stirs him deeply. How can a person reach that same awakening without committing sins? There is a way called the straight path, through which a person can awaken himself to do teshuvah without committing sins. All right? So this is really another level, another stage in teshuvah. First we explained what teshuvah is and how to do it. But for the teshuvah we discussed to be true and straightforward, to endure forever, and for a person not to have to go through all kinds of twists and turns involving sin to reach it—that’s what our chapter is about. Chapter 7: “Now, the true and straight path to the level of lower teshuvah, the lower hei mentioned above.” If you remember, we learned in the previous chapter, the last one, that when a person does teshuvah, it restores the flow from the Shechinah to its proper place. Maybe we should say a few more words to remind ourselves and clarify this. Then it will be simpler. We learned in chapter 4 of Igeres Hateshuvah, a few chapters ago, that a person’s soul comes down through the sefiros, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, from the sefiros of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, the wisdom in a person comes down from the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the understanding in a person comes down from the understanding of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and so on. Only a person—only a Jew has a soul like this, which comes down from there. We learned this at length in chapter 4, with quite a few details. When a person commits a transgression, which of the soul’s faculties commits it?

10:59 Speaker 4 The last sefirah?

11:01 Speaker 1 Not the last sefirah. We’re talking about the holy soul.

11:03 Speaker 4 Oh, the soul. I don’t know. What?

11:06 Speaker 1 Only malchus—the faculty of action, a person’s lowest faculty. We’re talking about an actual sinful act. Not that he plans or wants or feels something wrong, which is also not good, but actually taking something and doing what is forbidden—that involves the faculty of action. Right? Now, the faculty of action in a person is the malchus within him. Where does it come down from? From the malchus of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We said that too, right? And we also discussed how the ten sefiros correspond to the four letters yud, hei, vav, hei: chochmah, binah, the emotional attributes, and malchus. Right? So malchus, the last sefirah, is the final hei of Hashem’s name, and it is connected to a person’s faculty of action, because that faculty comes from there.

11:56 Speaker 4 That’s why it’s the world of Asiyah.

11:58 Speaker 1 That’s separate.

11:58 Speaker 4 Oh.

11:59 Speaker 1 Let’s leave the worlds aside for now. We’re talking about a person’s soul.

12:02 Speaker 4 Okay.

12:02 Speaker 1 The sefiros and a person’s soul. Let’s leave the worlds aside on this point. So when a person fails in an action, which faculty, which part of the Name, does he bring down into the kelipos along with him? The faculty of action associated with Hashem’s name, which is the Shechinah, the lower hei. And when he accepts the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven upon himself—what is “kingdom,” malchus? It’s that very same malchus. Yes? So when he accepts that yoke and returns, promising himself, with a genuine feeling, that he will no longer sin, his malchus, his faculty of action, returns to its proper place. What does that bring about Above? The faculty of action of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the lower hei, also returns to its proper place, directing its flow toward holiness and not toward the kelipos. That’s the process of teshuvah we explained. And for it to be genuine, he says there are, in general, two things—two paths—that make a person’s teshuvah genuine. These are the two aspects of “true” and “straight.” The first path is to arouse supernal mercy from the source of mercy for his soul and his G-dly soul. Now, mercy in general, supernal mercy—sometimes we say, “Our Father, merciful Father, have mercy on us,” and sometimes we say “Father of mercy.” Sometimes we call Him the merciful Father, and sometimes the Father of mercy.

13:44 Speaker 5 What’s the difference?

13:46 Speaker 1 What’s the difference? Go ahead, sir.

13:51 Speaker 5 Yes.

13:51 Speaker 1 When we say “merciful Father,” it means a father who is himself merciful. Mercy describes him. Yes? When we say “Father of mercy,” we’re not saying that He is merciful; we’re saying He is the father of mercy. Do you understand the difference? Yes? All right?

14:12 Speaker 5 Yes. No, it’s just that it sounds familiar to me, so I don’t know...

14:15 Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Merciful Father and mercy—

14:19 Speaker 5 I never said that.

14:20 Speaker 1 Father—

14:20 Speaker 5 I never said that. I told you I know it.

14:22 Speaker 6 I’m telling you, he says it all the time. “Bring him the merciful Father.” That’s why you’ve heard it.

14:28 Speaker 5 No, the father of the...

14:30 Speaker 6 Oh, right.

14:33 Speaker 1 So in spiritual terms, “merciful Father” refers to G-dliness as it is vested within the sefiros, while “Father of mercy” refers to the root and source of mercy. You know, among the attributes there is mercy and abundant kindness—or, to put it in simpler, more Chassidic terms, with less Kabbalah: “merciful Father” means limited mercy, while “Father of mercy” means infinite mercy. An infinity of mercy. And when a Jew does teshuvah, what does doing teshuvah mean? He needs to arouse supernal mercy. What is supernal mercy? Mercy from the source of mercy, from the level of “Father of mercy”—the infinite mercy of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Mercy for what? For his soul and his G-dly soul. Why does his soul, his G-dly soul, need mercy? Because it has fallen “from a lofty roof,” from the Life of life, blessed be He, “into a deep pit”—the chambers of impurity and the sitra achra. Now, even when someone falls... The Aramaic expression is “from a lofty roof into a deep pit.” What is igra? Igra means a roof. And beira means a well, a pit. So igra rama is a high roof, and beira amikta is a deep pit. Even an ordinary fall from a roof into a pit can cause serious harm. But a fall from a high roof into a deep pit is a devastating fall, and that is what happens to the soul. How does it happen to the soul? Where did the soul fall from? It fell from the Life of life. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the source of life for all created beings, and we learned that the soul does not come from the external aspect of G-dliness that gives life to all the worlds, but from the inner aspect of G-dliness. It comes from the Life of life, that which gives life to all life. That is the soul’s root. And when a person sins, where does it fall? Not just into a pit, but into a deep pit. It doesn’t merely fall into this world, which is a great enough fall; within this world, it falls into the kelipos, the sitra achra, and the three impure kelipos. So when a person sins, his soul descends from the Life of life, from the very inner essence of G-dliness, and crashes

17:08 Speaker 1 into the chambers of impurity and the sitra achra. So clearly, when a person contemplates the magnitude of that fall, it should arouse mercy in him for his soul—quite literally, compassion for his soul. And not only for the soul, but for the soul’s source as well. What is the soul’s source? Where does the soul come from? What is its source?

17:36 Speaker 7 Its source is in the Source itself.

17:37 Speaker 1 Its source is in the Source itself: the Shechinah, the lower hei.

17:41 Speaker 7 If I say “the lower hei,” I mean the Source itself.

17:44 Speaker 1 From the lower hei?

17:45 Speaker 7 The Shechinah is of the... Someone once explained to me that the Shechinah isn’t Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It’s, like, the...

17:58 Speaker 1 It depends what we’re talking about. When a baby is born—let me explain. When a baby is born, when do we start saying there’s a baby here? When it’s born? Before that it’s already moving and even kicking.

18:22 Speaker 7 When the baby is in the womb.

18:24 Speaker 1 There’s a baby in the womb, but it begins at some point, right? So what was there before it began? It came from the mother. But before it began, where was it? Did it have an existence—can you say it existed before it began?

18:42 Speaker 7 Of course.

18:44 Speaker 1 So that’s what we’re saying about the soul. The root of the soul’s source, before... Of course it comes from G-dliness; obviously it comes from G-dliness. But what is the first point from which the soul begins to develop? From this point on, you can say, “Oh, here’s a soul.” True, it’s not yet a fully formed baby, with 248 limbs and 365 sinews. No, it’s only a point of a soul. But there is already a point there that we can speak about. Where does it begin? That’s the lower hei; that’s the Shechinah. That’s why the Shechinah is called “the mother of the children,” because it gives birth to souls.

19:16 Speaker 7 Oh.

19:17 Speaker 1 Of course the soul has a root, and a root of that root, higher and higher, all the way to infinity. But where does it begin to take the form of a soul as we know it, with the faculties of sight, hearing, speech, and so on? That begins from—the first point is there.

19:34 Speaker 7 That’s malchus?

19:36 Speaker 1 Malchus.

19:36 Speaker 7 Of Atzilus?

19:36 Speaker 1 Malchus of Atzilus. In letter 20 of Igeres Hakodesh, G-d willing, when we get there. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came to be.

19:45 Speaker 7 Amen. I’ll tell you something, Rabbi: you give me so much strength. I’m—I’m shattered.

19:52 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. So a person needs to arouse compassion for the source of his soul—not only for his soul that has fallen, but for its source. Why should I care about its source? Why does he need to arouse compassion for its source? The Shechinah below—he fell into sin, and his soul fell into the kelipos. Why does he need to arouse compassion for the source of his soul, for the Shechinah? Because we said earlier, “Yaakov is the rope of His inheritance”: one end of the rope is tied below, and the other end is above. When he falls below, he drags all of it, all the G-dliness, along with him into the kelipos. It’s a rope; the two ends are connected. “Let him return to Hashem, and have compassion on Him.” And it really is a startling idea to say that when an individual sins, he draws the entire stature of the Shechinah into the kelipos. What? What? We need to have compassion on Hakadosh Boruch Hu? I sin, and I need to have compassion on Hakadosh Boruch Hu? That really is a remarkable thing to say. So the Alter Rebbe, as usual, doesn’t leave the question unanswered. He immediately brings an explicit verse and says that it is written, “Let him return to Hashem, and have compassion on Him.” What does “have compassion on Him” mean? It should have said, “Let him return to Hashem,” and Hashem will have compassion—

21:15 Speaker 8 On the person.

21:15 Speaker 1 On the person. So what does “have compassion on Him” mean?

21:18 Speaker 8 On Him.

21:18 Speaker 1 He should have compassion on Hakadosh Boruch Hu: the person should return to Hashem and have compassion on Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Meaning, he should arouse compassion for the influence of Hashem’s Name Havayah, blessed be He, which has descended step by step into the impure chambers of the sitra achra to give them life, through a person’s deeds, schemes, and evil thoughts. Where do we find an explicit verse saying that when a person acts or thinks—not only when he does something, but even when he has bad thoughts—he draws the Shechinah into the chambers of the kelipos? It says, “The King is bound in the channels,” and it is explained—

21:56 Speaker 8 “Bound” means tied.

21:56 Speaker 1 Hmm?

21:57 Speaker 8 “Bound” means tied.

21:58 Speaker 1 “Bound” means tied.

21:59 Speaker 8 But a person also goes through things in life, through obstacles. Surely—so surely sometimes he’ll have bad thoughts.

22:05 Speaker 1 That isn’t a given at all. A person has control over himself and needs to make sure he doesn’t have bad thoughts.

22:11 Speaker 8 That’s true, but you understand that a person is always going through some kind of difficulty.

22:15 Speaker 1 Then he needs to deal with it.

22:17 Speaker 8 It’s very hard.

22:18 Speaker 1 True. Nobody said it was easy.

22:19 Speaker 8 These are enormous battles.

22:21 Speaker 1 Nobody said it was easy. And right now I’m explaining how to do that, and we’re in the middle of it. How does someone who has already stumbled and actually committed a sin deal with it? What should he do? He had bad thoughts, and then he went ahead and acted on them. What does he do now? That’s what we’re discussing.

22:35 Speaker 8 I’m sorry to interrupt. I want to tell you something sad. Why am I telling you this? Because right now I don’t have... because my children are in military prison right now, and that’s why I’m saying it. When they take a mother’s children from her—her children are the best thing she has. So how can I not think about them? How can I think good thoughts when I, when I, when I—

22:55 Speaker 1 You’re right. You’re one hundred percent right, and I understand you, but I don’t have an answer. What we’re studying here now, in general terms, are the ways a person needs to reflect and think in order to do teshuvah.

23:12 Speaker 8 Okay.

23:12 Speaker 1 On an individual level, each person has particular things to consider about how to conduct himself in one situation or another. But for that, everyone has a mashpia, a rabbi. He needs to go to his rabbi and consult him. These really are very difficult questions.

23:26 Speaker 8 I do have a Rebbetzin, sort of; I speak with her on the phone, but...

23:29 Speaker 1 Okay, very good. All right.

23:32 Speaker 8 It’s terribly hard.

23:34 Speaker 1 So, it says in... I’ll get to that in a moment. And concerning the exile of the Shechinah, as discussed above, the appropriate time for this is during Tikkun Chatzos, as it says—

23:44 Speaker 8 Wait, so how does “bound in the channels” relate to “the channels of the brain”?

23:47 Speaker 1 We didn’t explain “the channels of the brain”?

23:49 Speaker 8 No.

23:49 Speaker 1 It says in the Zohar, “The King is bound in the channels.” The Zohar explains that it means the channels—the channels of... How do you say that word?

23:57 Speaker 8 Channels.

23:58 Speaker 1 The channels of the brain. These channels—when you water a flock, there are troughs into which you put water, and the water runs through the troughs. Those troughs are called channels, because the water runs through them. So the holy Zohar says that this verse speaks of a person’s thoughts, which are compared to water running through the pathways of the brain. And when those thoughts are not good thoughts, not holy thoughts, but thoughts of sin or of things like, I don’t know, lashon hara, or things one is forbidden to do, things one shouldn’t do—then the holy Zohar says, the verse says: Who is bound, who is imprisoned in those channels, in those pathways of the brain? Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the King. He is bound in the channels. But what does the King have to do with it? I’m the one thinking bad thoughts. It isn’t Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it isn’t the Shechinah. Yet the verse says, “The King is bound in the channels.” Which channels? The channels of the brain. When a person thinks bad thoughts, who is tied up and bound there in his channels? The King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Therefore, when a person returns and wants to arouse compassion, he needs to arouse compassion not only for his soul but also for the Shechinah. And when is the appropriate time for this? During Tikkun Chatzos, as it says in the note in the Siddur; see the lengthy discussion there. You don’t have a Siddur im Dach here, do you?

25:45 Speaker 9 A Siddur Torah Or.

25:46 Speaker 1 I was planning—no, no. I was planning to bring it just to show you the book. Well, if we stop here, allow me to put in a plug for what’s called “a home full of books.”

25:59 Speaker 9 No problem. I’ll read the rest to the children.

26:01 Speaker 1 …

26:03 Speaker 9 Tell me, can you—

26:03 Speaker 1 One—

26:04 Speaker 9 Show us something in the Tanya?

26:08 Speaker 1 When people talk about the Alter Rebbe’s books of Chassidus, everyone knows to say Tanya, and their next thought is Torah Or and Likkutei Torah. Right? The Siddur im Dach is a little less...

26:20 Speaker 9 Siddur Torah Or.

26:21 Speaker 1 No.

26:21 Speaker 9 No? Then what about Siddur Torah Or?

26:24 Speaker 1 Siddur Torah Or is another matter. That’s also by the Alter Rebbe.

26:26 Speaker 9 Okay.

26:28 Speaker 1 The Siddur im Dach predates Likkutei Torah.

26:33 Speaker 9 So?

26:34 Speaker 1 Likkutei Torah was printed in 5608 by the... by the Tzemach Tzedek.

26:41 Speaker 9 Likkutei Torah.

26:44 Speaker 1 5597? I’m mixing things up at the moment. It was printed by—Likkutei Torah was printed by the Tzemach Tzedek. Before that, during the Mitteler Rebbe’s time, the Mitteler Rebbe took the Alter Rebbe’s siddur, Siddur Tehillas Hashem. Today we call it Tehillas Hashem; back then it had a different name.

26:59 Speaker 9 What was it?

27:00 Speaker 1 Seder Tefillos Mikol Hashanah. And he printed in it, for each psalm, for each section of the prayers, maamarim of Chassidus explaining that section. Maamarim of the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus, in the same style as the maamarim in Likkutei Torah and Torah Or. So it’s quite a thick book. It has now come out in a wonderful new edition, with references, and it’s a pleasure to learn from. Toward the end of that siddur, there’s Tikkun Chatzos, following the same order as in our regular siddur, except that... And there’s something there on Tikkun Chatzos; it isn’t exactly a maamar. There’s a Chassidus maamar there called “A Note on Tikkun Chatzos”—that’s the name of the maamar. It’s not very long, perhaps a quarter of a page, something like that. There he explains what the Alter Rebbe says here: when a person wants to arouse compassion for his soul, which descended into the kelipos because of his sins, and for the Shechinah, which descended—the influence of the lower hei, which fell into the kelipos to give them life—

28:11 Speaker 9 What are kelipos? I...

28:13 Speaker 1 I’ll explain, I’ll explain, I’ll explain. Let me finish the sentence. I’ll explain what kelipos are too. Just a second. This is going to be a long class.

28:21 Speaker 9 No, I’m curious about it.

28:25 Speaker 1 Maybe we can leave that question for another time?

28:26 Speaker 9 I feel bad asking. Yes. It’s quite fascinating. I’m following closely.

28:31 Speaker 1 So he explains there that the appropriate time to arouse great compassion is during Tikkun Chatzos. Why? The time of Tikkun Chatzos is especially suited to it. Just as there’s a time especially suited to an awakening of chessed, and that is why Shacharis was established then. Why? Because Shacharis is about awakening a person’s love of Hashem. Love is the result, the quality that flows from chessed. So when this is a time of chessed in the world, you should think and reflect on love of Hashem, and so on. The appropriate time to arouse compassion for Hakadosh Boruch Hu is Tikkun Chatzos. That’s what he explains there at length, using terms from Kabbalah. It’s an interesting little note.

29:13 Speaker 9 What about the maamar?

29:14 Speaker 1 It’s a short maamar, not a long one.

29:16 Speaker 9 No, if it’s short, I really must study it carefully.

29:18 Speaker 1 And that’s it. That’s what it says there in Tikkun Chatzos: “The crown of our head has fallen. Woe to us, for we have sinned.” Because we sinned, the crown of our head has fallen. What’s the connection? Hakadosh Boruch Hu fell because I sinned? Yes. And that is why Hakadosh Boruch Hu is called “an insulted King” in Pirkei Heichalos.

29:56 Speaker 9 What is Pirkei Heichalos?

29:57 Speaker 1 I’m not sure right now whether Pirkei Heichalos means the section on the chambers in the Zohar at the end of Parshas Pekudei, or a book explaining it, or a book by the Arizal. I simply don’t remember.

30:14 Speaker 9 A book of Kabbalah.

30:16 Speaker 1 Yes, but I don’t know whether it’s Kabbalah in the style of the newer Kabbalah of the Arizal, or the Kabbalah of the Zohar and the Midrashim. I simply don’t remember right now. But there Hakadosh Boruch Hu is called an “insulted King,” as the Ramak wrote. The Ramak was from the time of the Arizal. Because there is no greater insult than taking the King and putting His head into a toilet. There is no greater insult than that. What does that mean? Could I take the... It’s like in the physical world. In the physical world, could a person take a king? He’s just an ordinary person. He’s going to go up to the king, with all his guards and advisers, grab the king’s head and put it into a toilet. Is such a thing possible?

31:00 Speaker 9 No.

31:01 Speaker 1 It’s not possible. Why not? Because the gulf between an ordinary person and a king is immense. And what are we telling him? We’re telling him that when you commit a sin, even the smallest sin, that’s what you do. To the crown of our heads, to the King, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself: you take Him and bring Him down there, and force Him to give them life—to the kelipos. And especially when he contemplates—of course, when a person thinks about what is happening to the King now, he is filled with compassion for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Especially when a thoughtful person contemplates the greatness of the Infinite One, blessed be He. It’s enough for him simply to think about what he has done to the King, without contemplating His greatness. But if he also contemplates the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that He is infinite, that He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds—and that he caused this fall to that very Hakadosh Boruch Hu, then all the more so will he feel much deeper regret and much greater compassion. Each person, according to the measure of his intellect and understanding, will feel very, very distressed about it. All this is the way of truth. Why is it called the way of truth? There are two kinds—we said—or before the two kinds, we said that accepting the yoke of Heaven is the lowest faculty of the soul, the faculty of malchus within a person. Right? We spoke about that. Kabbolas ol. Let’s take an example: you want to understand what kabbolas ol is? A servant. A servant is someone whose whole role is kabbolas ol. He doesn’t do what he wants; he does what he’s told. Right? Yes. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of servants. There’s a servant who “prefers to be free of restraint.” What does that mean? He’s comfortable without discipline. He isn’t looking to serve his master; he’s looking to rest. When someone stands

33:11 Speaker 1 over him with a whip, threatens him, or he knows he won’t get food, or whatever it may be, then he works—but he’s constantly looking for a way to get out of it. And all the work he does is for his master. He was told to do it? He does it. He doesn’t—he has no... But he doesn’t do it with joy or love. Right? Still, he does the work. If you ask, bottom line, does he do it or not? He does. A faithful servant is... He has the yoke of Heaven upon him. Like the other servant, he also does what the master says. He does the very same thing.

33:48 Speaker 10 And he does it with—

33:49 Speaker 1 He does it with joy and love for his master. Why does he love his master? Because his master treats him well, because he respects his master. I don’t know—he has some reason to love his master. Eliezer, Avraham’s servant, greatly respected Avraham; he was a faithful servant. Moshe Rabbeinu was a faithful servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There can be a servant who truly has kabbolas ol, but his kabbolas ol doesn’t come from fear, compulsion, or something external. His kabbolas ol comes from within. He wants it. So clearly, that kind of kabbolas ol is called true kabbolas ol. If it’s an external kabbolas ol, the moment the external factor—the king—stops watching him, it’s all over. But if it’s because he loves his master, then Avraham can send Eliezer abroad, put all his possessions in his hands, and... he knows everything will be fine. He knows that even if Eliezer is beyond the mountains of darkness, he will remain loyal to him. He isn’t worried. Why isn’t he worried? Because Eliezer’s kabbolas ol comes from love. Right? In terms of the soul’s faculties, this is called “malchus has nothing of its own.” Have you ever heard that saying? The moon has no light of its own; it receives its light from the sun. What does it mean that malchus has nothing of its own? What builds malchus, what builds kabbolas ol, is the inner faculties—the other faculties of the soul: chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod. In other words, a person’s feelings, his inner life. When a person’s actions come from his inner feelings, they are actions of truth. That is true kabbolas ol; that is true teshuvah. It isn’t

35:53 Speaker 1 something that will pass. If his teshuvah comes only from something external—he sinned, and now he realizes he was wrong, and something prompted him—then, at that moment, he’ll be stirred. But if it comes from contemplation, from his feeling compassion for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and loving Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and wanting to do good for his soul and for Hakadosh Boruch Hu—if it comes from chesed, from something within him—then it will last. Then it will be true. But being true still isn’t enough, because we said that even when a person’s kabbolas ol, his teshuvah, is genuine, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a straight path. It can be crooked, coming about through sins. So we want the kabbolas ol to be not only genuine but also on the straight path. For that, there is another way. “And the second: to crush and subdue the kelipah and sitra achra, whose entire vitality is only a quality of coarseness and self-exaltation.” So the first way is to arouse compassion for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the second way is to crush the kelipah and sitra achra. Where did we learn about crushing the kelipah and sitra achra—do you remember? This isn’t a test; it’s just a ques—

37:16 Speaker 11 Yes.

37:17 Speaker 1 Hmm?

37:18 Speaker 11 Yes, at the beginning of the last maamar.

37:20 Speaker 1 Twenty-nine, yes. Twenty-nine, thirty, right. I’m asking because this is a good way to learn: as a person studies, he tries to remember, “Wait, where did I learn that? Where was it...?” That helps the ideas sink in and puts them in order in his mind; it makes connections. He remembers the subject better. It reminds him of what came before, and he connects it all. It sinks in. A person wants—we’re learning so that it will affect us. For it to affect us, we need to contemplate. To contemplate, we need to connect things, to connect the ideas. “And the second: to crush and subdue the kelipah and sitra achra, whose entire vitality is only a quality of coarseness and self-exaltation, as it is written, ‘Though you soar like an eagle,’ and so on, ‘from there I will bring you down.’” It’s only that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it permission and the ability to exalt itself; it doesn’t have that power on its own. “And crushing and subduing it to the very dust is its death and nullification.” And how do we crush it? Fine, so I need to—what is the second way of crushing it? How do we crush it? How do we do that?

38:20 Speaker 11 Through a broken heart.

38:21 Speaker 1 That is, through a broken and contrite heart, and by being lowly and loathsome in one’s own eyes, and so on. Since the sitra achra is the animal soul within him—we spoke about that, right?—when he crushes the sitra achra, he crushes his—he crushes himself, crushes the animal soul within him, and then the G-dly soul is revealed as a matter of course. And as it says in the holy Zohar on the verse, “The sacrifices of Elokim are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.” It’s very interesting. Usually, with sacrifices... Every place a sacrifice is brought in the Torah, without exception, it says, “a pleasing aroma to—

39:08 Speaker 11 “Hashem.”

39:09 Speaker 1 “To Hashem—to Hashem.” Every place a sacrifice is mentioned, the name Havayah is mentioned there. There is no place that speaks of a sacrifice to Elokim. It doesn’t say that. Here the Alter Rebbe says that crushing is a sacrifice, an offering to the name Elokim. What’s the difference? Well, that really is the difference. In terms of compassion—which is associated with the name Havayah, the attribute of tiferes—drawing down G-dliness, drawing down kindness from above to below, that truly is “a pleasing aroma to Havayah.” But when we’re talking about—that really is drawing down from above to below. But when we’re talking about going from below to above, refining the body and breaking the animal soul, then it is “the sacrifices of Elokim.” That calls for force, for gevurah. Because every sacrifice—the Alter Rebbe says this immediately—every animal sacrifice is offered to the name Havayah, the attribute of compassion. But to the name Elokim, the attribute of judgment, in order to break the sitra achra, we don’t offer an animal sacrifice. Rather, breaking and removing the spirit of impurity and the sitra achra—that is the sacrifice to Elokim. A sacrifice to Elokim isn’t an animal; it is breaking the power of impurity, breaking the animal soul.

40:29 Speaker 11 Okay.

40:30 Speaker 1 And this is “a broken spirit.” How is the spirit broken? The sitra achra is broken when the heart is broken and crushed. It says—uh, how does the verse go? He quoted it earlier. “The offerings of G-d are a broken spirit; a broken and crushed heart.” That’s how it goes. “The offerings”—what are the offerings of G-d? A broken spirit. How is the spirit broken? Through a broken and crushed heart. He continues in the next section. And how—how are we doing on time, by the way?

41:02 Speaker 11 It’s eighteen now. Nineteen.

41:08 Speaker 1 All right. Okay. No, that’s fine. How does the heart become broken and crushed? How do we do that? “In our generations, when we lack the strength to fast extensively, this is achieved to a very small degree through self-mortification and fasting,” as King David did. As our Sages said about the verse, “My heart is hollow within me,” he killed his evil inclination through fasting. So King David could kill his inclination with a fast. For us, that’s impossible. “But the primary way to subdue the heart, to make it broken and crushed, and to remove the spirit of impurity and the sitra achra, is, in our generations, to be among the marei dechushbana”—people who take stock of themselves. Mar means “master.”

41:41 Speaker 11 Okay.

41:41 Speaker 1 Marei—mar means “master,” also among—huh?

41:44 Speaker 11 Yes, you said that. I don’t know Arabic.

41:48 Speaker 1 It’s from the Yemenites’ “Mori.”

41:51 Speaker 11 I’m not Yemenite.

41:54 Speaker 1 Marei means “masters.” To take stock of oneself with deep understanding: to focus one’s mind and understanding for an hour each day or night, before Tikkun Chatzos, and contemplate what one has brought about through one’s sins—the exile of the Shechinah, as explained above. The appropriate time for this is at Tikkun Chatzos. And also, uh, he has not only caused the exile of the Shechinah; he has also torn his soul, his G-dly soul, away from the Source of Life, blessed be He, and brought it down to a place of impurity and death. As though he has affected both the source—the Shechinah—and his own soul, bringing it into the chambers of the sitra achra. His soul becomes a vehicle for those forces of impurity, receiving sustenance and vitality from them to pass on to his body, as explained above. As he discussed in chapter—uh, I think it was chapter 4, chapter 5—when a person sins, instead of receiving his life from the chambers of holiness, he receives it from the chambers of impurity and the sitra achra. This is what our Sages meant when they said, “The wicked, even in their lifetimes, are called dead.” In other words, their lives are drawn from a place of death and impurity. Because otherwise, what does it mean that the wicked are called dead while they’re alive? Why call him dead? He’s alive. Wicked, yes. Why is he dead? Because the source of his vitality is death. He receives his life—his physical life—from where? From the place of death. And he adds in parentheses that the verse “The dead do not praise Hashem,” and so on, “is not, G-d forbid, a case of mocking the helpless.” Right? After all, you’re not allowed to perform mitzvos in a cemetery.

43:43 Speaker 11 Tehillim.

43:43 Speaker 1 Tzitzis, Tehillim. You’re not allowed to perform mitzvos inside a cemetery. Why? It’s mocking the helpless. Mocking the helpless is an affront to their Maker. It’s as if you’re saying, “Hey, I can perform mitzvos and you can’t,” right? That’s mocking the helpless. That’s why you’re not allowed to perform mitzvos there, in the cemetery. Right? So how can—when we say, “The dead do not praise Hashem,” clearly the verse cannot be speaking about people who are literally dead. What does the verse mean? Uh, “You dead people can’t praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but I can”? Of course that isn’t its meaning. Rather, it’s speaking about someone who is alive but cannot praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and although he’s alive, the verse calls him dead. How—why does the verse call him dead? He’s alive. So what if he’s wicked? Why call him dead? Rather, it refers to the wicked, who are called dead even in their lifetimes. What does “dead” mean? That the source of their lives is impurity. What does that mean in practice? “They are troubled by distracting thoughts while they remain in their wickedness and do not desire to repent, as is known.” When someone receives his life from the source of death and impurity, where would thoughts of holiness come from? Where would a desire to observe mitzvos come from? Where would anything holy and pure come from? He receives all his vitality from that kelipah of impurity. Where would holy things come to him from? So even while he’s alive, he is called dead, because his entire life is drawn from there. Mm. But that still isn’t enough. It still isn’t enough. What have we been discussing? We’ve been discussing someone who commits sins that sever his soul, bringing him down into the three impure kelipos. It’s not as though every one of us, every day, I don’t know, commits forbidden relations and sheds

45:53 Speaker 1 blood and who knows what else... You’d storm out in anger. What do you want from us? Right? Okay, these things are true, but let’s keep things in proportion, right? This isn’t talking about us. So how can you call this the direct path by which anyone who hasn’t committed such sins can arouse great mercy for the Shechinah? If I haven’t committed sins like that, then at least I haven’t—wait, but are we talking here about sins punishable by kareis? About descending into the three impure kelipos and having one’s soul severed? That’s what he was discussing in general; that was the subject. Those are the severe sins. Yes. Okay, because those are the sins of the three— So he says about this: even someone who has not committed a sin punishable by kareis can make this reckoning. Even if he has not committed a sin punishable by death at the hands of Heaven, such as emitting semen in vain and the like, but has committed only other, lighter sins—this reckoning applies to him too. Even though—why? Because those sins, even the lighter ones, still damage the soul and the G-dly soul, like the analogy above of fraying and severing thin cords. So many sins together can cause damage like a single prohibition punishable by kareis or death. True, he hasn’t committed the severe sins, but he has committed enough smaller sins for them to accumulate, and together they have the same effect. And even repeating one sin very many times has this effect. As the prophet compared sins to a cloud that darkens the sunlight, as it says, “I have erased your transgressions like a thick cloud, and your sins like a cloud.” Why—what’s the point of saying both “a thick cloud” and “a cloud”? What’s the difference between them? One is denser. A thick cloud is dense. An ordinary cloud is one the sun passes through; you can see the light through it. “I have erased your transgressions like a thick cloud” refers to severe sins, which separate

47:57 Speaker 1 the innermost aspect of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Supreme King—uh, sorry—between the innermost flow of the Divine Name, blessed be He, and the G-dly soul. It’s like a thick, dark cloud separating the sun from the earth and those who live on it. “And your sins like a cloud” refers to lighter sins that a person tramples underfoot, which separate like a thin, wispy cloud, by way of analogy. Now, in this analogy, if a person places thin, flimsy partitions in a window against the sunlight, but puts up very many of them, they block the light as much as one thick partition, or even more. The same is true in what the analogy represents: all the sins that a person tramples underfoot. All the more so those sins that, as our Sages famously said, are actually like idol worship, forbidden relations, and bloodshed. And what are those? The three... What are the lighter sins? Lashon hara and deceiving someone? He lists them; he doesn’t leave us guessing. Such as looking away from someone in need of tzedakah. A poor person asks for tzedakah and... “I didn’t see him, I didn’t hear him, I was busy, I don’t happen to have my wallet in my pocket, I got held up,” and so on, right? As it says, “Beware lest there be a base thought in your heart,” and “base” refers to idol worship. So someone who looks away from a person in need of tzedakah is considered like an idol worshipper. And someone who speaks disparagingly of another person—exactly today’s Rambam, tomorrow’s chapter in the daily study—uh, someone who says something negative about another person that is true. He isn’t lying. He’s saying bad things about someone else, true things. That is lashon hara, which our Sages said is equivalent to idol worship, forbidden relations, and bloodshed. And anyone who gets angry—“What, me, angry? I’m not irritable. People upset me; they make me angry,” right? Anyone who gets angry is as though he worshipped idols, and so on. And likewise, someone who is arrogant—our Sages also said of him in the Gemara that he is like someone who worships idols. And there are many more like these.

50:23 Speaker 1 In the Gemara. So it turns out that a person does not have to actually commit the severe transgressions. There are also many minor mitzvos that a person tramples underfoot. True, in practical terms, a beis din does not punish him, and he is not subject to kares. But spiritually, it has the same effect as kares: it brings his soul down into the kelipos and brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu into the chambers of impurity. And Torah study is equal to them all, as our Sages said: Hakadosh Boruch Hu overlooked idolatry and so on—the three transgressions—but did not overlook neglect of Torah study. That is why the recital of Shema before bed includes accepting upon oneself the four forms of death imposed by a beis din. Because, seemingly, for what is a person liable to the four forms of death imposed by a beis din? Only for the severe transgressions in the Torah. Why was it arranged in the siddur for every Jew to say every day, “I accept upon myself that if I caused a blemish in this or that, I am liable to this form of death imposed by a beis din, and another form, and another…”? What happened? Did you commit every severe transgression in the Torah today? No. But fear of Hashem is not just about the severe transgressions. It is about tefillin, tzitzis, prayer. We will get to that in another two lines. Maybe a line and a half; I didn’t count. Ah, before we get to the details of tzitzis and tefillin: it says there, “I accept upon myself” the forms of death imposed by a beis din—stoning, burning, execution by the sword, and strangulation. Those are only for the severe transgressions in the Torah. A person does not commit those every day. Why does he need to confess every day, “I have sinned, I have sinned”? What happened? What? What? Wait a second. Yes? What happened? Because our Sages said that even when a person commits minor transgressions that he tramples underfoot, they carry the same weight. They have the same spiritual effect of bringing holiness into the kelipos as the severe transgressions. True, in practical terms he is not punished. Fine. He is not liable to death imposed by a beis din, not liable to kares, not liable to death at the hands of

52:19 Speaker 1 Heaven. Spiritually, it is the same thing. But that is still not a sufficient answer. Why? Because ultimately, that is only true spiritually. I did not actually commit those transgressions. So the Alter Rebbe says: No, there is another reason. Besides the fact that, according to the mystical teachings, anyone who blemishes the letter Yud of Hashem’s name is considered as though he had become liable to stoning; anyone who blemishes the letter Hei is considered as though he had become liable to burning; the letter Vav, to execution by the sword; and the final Hei, to strangulation. You are already tired, so I won’t explain how each one relates to its particular subject. But the central point is: all of this… What are the 613 mitzvos? Why do we have 613 mitzvos?

53:15 Speaker 3 How do they—

53:15 Speaker 1 No, where did that number come from?

53:17 Speaker 3 Corresponding to the limbs.

53:18 Speaker 1 Yes, right, they correspond to the limbs. And where did the limbs come from? Because the soul has 613 mitzvos. So where, where… Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Where does this number, 613, come from?

53:30 Speaker 3 It’s the number of the sefiros, isn’t it?

53:32 Speaker 1 Right. We spoke about this once; we can go over it. There are… without Malchus. Malchus, as we said, is not part of the middos. It has nothing of its own. It only receives from all of them. It is not, it is not, it is not an entity, it is not…

53:49 Speaker 3 Yes.

53:49 Speaker 1 It does not stand on its own, right? It only receives. So there are nine sefiros without Malchus. And each of the sefiros contains all the others. Right? There is Chessed within Chessed, Chochmah within Chochmah, Binah within Chochmah, and so on.

54:05 Speaker 3 So we get eighty-one.

54:07 Speaker 1 Nine times nine.

54:09 Speaker 3 Eighty-one.

54:09 Speaker 1 Eighty-one. When they are all interincluded, there are eighty-one, right? And every vessel—this is a coffee cup, right?—has an inner side, which holds the coffee. Right? It has an outer side, which I hold. You cannot put the coffee on the outside; the outside is for holding it. And it has the material it is made from. This one is made of paper. Another could be made of something else. So every vessel has three aspects: its inner side, its inner content, what it is meant for; its outer side, how it extends outward, how it relates to what is outside; and what it itself is. Right? So we have eighty-one vessels of the sefiros, and each has its own essence—what it is; what is inside it, the soul within it; and how it manifests outwardly. So eighty-one times three—what does that give us?

55:06 Speaker 3 Two hundred—

55:07 Speaker 1 Two hundred and forty-three aspects. And since all Divine flow is a matter of bestowal, and bestowal is Chessed, and Chessed has five aspects—I am not explaining why now; that is another subject in Kabbalah. I just do not want to confuse you this time. So we add to the… to the two hundred and forty-three another five aspects of Chessed, which go with the head and direct all two hundred and forty-three. So altogether that is?

55:43 Speaker 3 248.

55:45 Speaker 1 248. Two hundred and forty-eight. All right? So the limbs of a person’s soul, the mitzvos, and, uh, the limbs of the body all come from that same point.

56:01 Speaker 3 But those are only the positive mitzvos.

56:02 Speaker 1 The positive mitzvos, the positive mitzvos. They all come from the same point. Consequently, each mitzvah is connected to and dependent on one of the middos. That is what we understood, right? And all the middos together comprise the ten sefiros, right?

56:23 Speaker 3 Right.

56:23 Speaker 1 And the ten sefiros are the four letters Yud, Hei, Vav, Hei. Right? In other words, each and every mitzvah is connected to and comes from one of the letters of Hashem’s name, right? So ultimately, the bottom line is that it does not matter which transgression a person commits: he blemishes Hashem’s name. He takes that aspect of Hashem’s name and brings it down. Therefore, according to the mystical teachings, even a person who did not actually commit a transgression, but simply did not make enough effort to fulfill a mitzvah, is also liable to a form of death imposed by a beis din. That is why the four forms of death imposed by a beis din, which we mention in the Shema before bed, truly apply to everyone. And that is why this contemplation—the true and straight path for a person who needs to break his own coarseness—does not require him to commit a transgression punishable by death at the hands of a beis din in order to do so. Even a person who has never committed a transgression in his life, a beinoni, or even a tzaddik, even a complete tzaddik: this matter of breaking his own coarseness, the true and straight path, applies to everyone.

57:39 Speaker 3 How does that apply to a tzaddik?

57:41 Speaker 1 What?

57:41 Speaker 3 How does it apply to a tzaddik?

57:43 Speaker 1 The word chet, “sin,” also means a shortcoming. He could have done more, so he caused a blemish. A very subtle blemish—subtle, subtle. Even subtler. He could have done more in this mitzvah, which comes from Hashem’s name.

57:55 Speaker 3 It is hard to be a tzaddik.

57:57 Speaker 1 I did not say it was easy. It is hard to be a beinoni, too. Being a beinoni is harder. Ah, “Besides the fact that, according to the mystical teachings”—let’s read the text inside—“besides the fact that, according to the mystical teachings, anyone who blemishes the letter Yud of Hashem’s name is considered as though he had become liable to stoning; one who blemishes the letter Hei, as though he had become liable to burning; the letter Vav, as though he had become liable to execution by the sword; and the final Hei, as though he had become liable to strangulation. And one who neglects the recital of Shema blemishes the letter Yud; tefillin, the letter Hei; tzitzis, the letter Vav; and prayer, the letter Hei,” and so on. The point is that this applies to all the mitzvos. “From this, a discerning person can understand the other transgressions and sins, while neglect of Torah study is equal to them all.” So that brings us to the end of chapter one of Igeres Hateshuvah. The first part of Igeres Hateshuvah speaks about lower-level teshuvah, teshuvah for transgressions. The Alter Rebbe structured it this way. We described it as three levels. What is lower-level teshuvah? Returning to Hashem. That is the first chapter, with two accompanying chapters. Then the main point of teshuvah is to understand what the sin causes. That takes another three chapters: two chapters, an introduction, and chapter six, which explains it. In chapter seven he sums it all up: for it to be true and straight, it must be accompanied by compassion for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and by breaking one’s own coarseness. That makes a person’s teshuvah genuine and straight. Now, before we move on to the next chapter, we need to recall what we said in chapter one. When he began the subject of teshuvah, he said, “In order to…” I do not remember the exact wording. “In order to explain thoroughly the matter of true teshuvah, teshuvah in its fullest truth”—I do not remember exactly—“we must first introduce what lower-level teshuvah is.” What do you hear in that?

59:46 Speaker 3 I have no idea.

59:47 Speaker 1 That for there to be higher-level teshuvah, there must first be lower-level teshuvah. In the next chapter we will see that it is not only a prerequisite: higher-level teshuvah is also part of lower-level teshuvah. Even though they are two completely different levels, two completely different matters, there cannot be higher-level teshuvah unless it also contains lower-level teshuvah. And lower-level teshuvah is not complete if it does not lead to higher-level teshuvah.

1:00:21 Speaker 3 So basically, the first part is about lower-level teshuvah, and the second part is about higher-level teshuvah?

1:00:25 Speaker 1 Not exactly. Chapter eight is about higher-level teshuvah, and afterward it discusses both of them together.

1:00:30 Speaker 3 Okay. Well done.