Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 8

00:00 Speaker 1 Good evening. We’re up to chapter 8. I hope you remember: in the previous chapters, the Alter Rebbe explained what teshuvah tata’ah is. He didn’t call it teshuvah tata’ah; he talked about how to do teshuvah. To begin with, for teshuvah to be genuine and inward, for it to truly take hold of a person so that he really regrets what he did and truly accepts the yoke of Heaven upon himself—

00:33 Speaker 2 What did we say, essentially? Why is that?

00:36 Speaker 1 Right. First, he has to understand what the sin damages in his soul, and what it damages in the realms above. So over several chapters, the Alter Rebbe explained at length that when a person sins, he damages his soul and brings it down into the kelipos, and then he receives his life-force from the sitra achra. If we were living in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, he would physically have departed this world. It’s only that now, for other reasons, that isn’t what happens. He can receive his life from the sitra achra—which, really, I don’t know whether it would be better to live that way or to stop living. That’s as far as what happens below. And as for above: since the soul of each of us descends from Hashem’s Name, from its four letters, from the Shechinah, it follows that when a person goes down into the kelipos, he brings the flow from the Shechinah down to the kelipos with him. So what results? All the bad things in the world, the things the kelipos produce—all the evil and cruelty, the things that are the opposite of Hashem, illnesses, and so on—all the life-force of the bad things in the world comes from where? From a Jew committing sins, so that the flow of holiness, instead of reaching its proper place, goes to strengthen the side of the sitra achra. When a person contemplates this at length, and particularly when he contemplates the greatness of Hashem—that through his sins, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, as it were, descends, and the person brings Him down into the kelipos—when he understands what he has done, it makes him truly grieve, truly regret it, and truly accept the yoke of Heaven upon himself. Then, in chapter 7, the Alter Rebbe explained that by contemplating all these things, he can awaken two responses within his soul that will make this acceptance of the yoke of Heaven enduring: he awakens great compassion for his soul from the Source of compassion, and he humbles his

02:43 Speaker 1 soul. Through these two things—the true and straight path of awakening great compassion for his soul and for the Shechinah above, and humbling the kelipos, his animal soul, his natural soul, his yetzer hara—through this—

03:00 Speaker 2 Wow, an evil spirit. A yetzer hara in me, wow.

03:05 Speaker 1 Good evening. Through this, the flow from the Shechinah returns to its proper place. So the Alter Rebbe has finished explaining what teshuvah is, how to do teshuvah, and how a person can make his teshuvah genuine: how he can truly accept kabbolas ol, and how that kabbolas ol can be genuine and inward from then on. He’ll want to keep the mitzvos because he feels how important it is, not because he’s being forced. The point he hasn’t yet explained about teshuvah is what it accomplishes above. In chapter 8, he begins to explain what a person’s teshuvah accomplishes above, what Divine flow it brings about; and later in the chapter, as a continuation of that, he’ll explain the two levels of teshuvah. So let’s look inside. “And after deeply contemplating all the above”—what the previous chapters explained about what sin causes—“he will be able to ask in truth, from the depths of his heart, ‘According to Your abundant mercies, blot out my transgressions,’ and so on.” Why will he then be able to ask sincerely, from the depths of his heart? Because only after he deeply contemplates all the above will the great compassion for the G-dliness in his soul, and compassion for the root of his soul above, as explained earlier, become truly fixed in his heart. Once he really understands it in depth, it can touch him personally—the damage he causes. If you simply come to someone and say, “Listen, the sin you committed brings your soul down into the kelipos, and it also causes the Shechinah to send its flow to the sitra achra,” well, okay. It doesn’t... For it to touch his heart, he really has to study everything written there in those three or four chapters, at length and in depth, slowly, and contemplate it—contemplate

05:21 Speaker 1 what it means. And then it will truly touch his heart, and he’ll be able to ask, “According to Your abundant mercies, blot out my transgressions.” His request will be sincere, and he’ll really care. That verse, “According to Your abundant mercies, blot out my transgressions,” is from Tehillim. But when do we say it?

05:46 Speaker 4 In Shema.

05:47 Speaker 1 We say it in the bedtime Shema, in Tikkun Chatzos, for those who... who used to say it. And...

05:54 Speaker 4 So that’s why we say it with Shema?

05:56 Speaker 1 That’s the reason it’s said in the bedtime Shema, yes. Because in the previous chapters, the Alter Rebbe said that the appropriate time to contemplate the great compassion and awaken it is Tikkun Chatzos. So because Tikkun Chatzos is the time to contemplate these things, they placed the verse “According to Your abundant mercies, blot out my transgressions” at a time suited to awakening that feeling in a person’s heart. And through this—when he genuinely does teshuvah, contemplates it, and sincerely asks for compassion for his soul—he awakens supernal compassion from the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which are drawn from the supreme will of Hashem, blessed be He. We said that genuine teshuvah is when a person awakens compassion from the Source of compassion, called Av Harachamim. We said there is ordinary compassion, called Av Harachaman, and there is supernal compassion, called Av Harachamim. We explained this a little more last week, the previous time. So if his compassion—if he truly has compassion for his soul and truly has compassion for the Shechinah—comes from a genuine place, and he truly feels the pain, then it really awakens the source of supernal compassion. What is that source? The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. And the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy are drawn from a place called, in Kabbalah, the supreme will. This concept of the supreme will is alluded to in the tip of the yud. We said that Hashem’s Name has four letters, right? Yud, hei, vav, hei. Those four letters are the source of all flows and all Divine emanations, and they are also the source of the soul. When a person sins, commits some transgression, every transgression affects a particular mitzvah. And where do the mitzvos come from? From the four letters of Hashem’s Name. So when a person commits a transgression, he damages not only his soul above; he damages one of the four letters. And that’s why, in the bedtime Shema,

08:28 Speaker 1 the four letters are mentioned. Remember we spoke about that? So if he has damaged one of the four letters, how can he repair it?

08:42 Speaker 5 Teshuvah.

08:43 Speaker 1 Yes, of course, through teshuvah. But what is it about teshuvah that repairs the damage to Hashem’s Name, the source and root of the Torah, the Shechinah, and his soul? That’s a different question. If the letters themselves—the source—have been damaged, and now something is lacking, right, it needs to be replenished. Where can that come from? It can’t come from the letters themselves; the letters themselves are damaged. So if it’s not only his soul that was damaged when he sinned, but the root of his soul—and then the root, or the very first source, of the letters of Hashem’s Name itself—how can it be repaired? That’s why the Alter Rebbe said here that when a person awakens great compassion, and this awakens the great supernal compassion, the source, so to speak, of that supernal compassion is not in the four letters, but in the tip of the yud of those four letters. We’ve discussed this several times. Let’s first put it as an analogy using written letters below. When you write the letters of Hashem’s Name, every letter begins with a yud, and then you extend it sideways, lengthwise, upward or downward until it becomes a vav or a hei, and so on. That means all four letters originate in the letter yud. And where does the yud itself begin? It begins at its tip; it has a tip on it. And where does that tip begin? At the point on the tip. That’s how it is physically. Why is it that way physically? That’s how it’s written—because that’s how it is spiritually. The four letters of Hashem’s Name, yud-hei-vav-hei, allude to chochmah, binah, the emotional attributes, and action in the soul. Where does all of that begin? In the yud of the soul, in the soul’s chochmah. And where does the soul’s chochmah begin? Where does it come from? It comes from the soul’s encompassing powers, from the powers above it, from the soul’s power of will. And that power of will in the soul, which is connected to the Divine will, has its root above—higher than the four letters.

11:10 Speaker 1 So when a person... Now we’re going back to the text. When a person awakens compassion for his soul, if it is great, genuine compassion, it awakens the genuine, great compassion Above—that is, the supernal will Above, the point that is beyond the four letters. And because it is beyond the four letters, beyond Hashem’s name, it can be drawn down from there and repair the blemishes in Hashem’s name. Okay?

11:38 Speaker 5 It’s not that when a Jew commits many sins, he brings down the crown—though, in practical terms, he brings down the whole of Hashem’s name.

11:47 Speaker 1 So we said that, generally speaking, every sin a person commits is a sin in action. We say that someone “does” a transgression, and the whole concept of action relates to the last letter, the letter hei. That’s why we say that a transgression blemishes the letter hei. The final hei is what is called the Shechinah, and it is what descends into the kelipos, and so on.

12:16 Speaker 5 So the point of the yud, the yud and its point, can’t descend?

12:19 Speaker 1 Right, but of course the letter hei is not separate from the rest.

12:24 Speaker 5 But that’s not...

12:25 Speaker 1 When it descends, it also blemishes all the others. It’s the one that is blemished and falls, and...

12:32 Speaker 5 They are blemished, but they don’t fall.

12:35 Speaker 1 No, they aren’t blemished in the same way, right. And the yud—the point on the yud—is not blemished at all. For Hakadosh Boruch Hu, from the perspective of His essence and being, the whole matter of “this is right and that is wrong,” “this is kosher and that is pure”—all of that comes from right and left, from a place where there are distinct lines.

12:56 Speaker 5 Does it matter what—why the sin? It’s as though it blemishes...

13:00 Speaker 1 So we’ve said several times, we’ve spoken about how in every sin...

13:05 Speaker 5 In response to my questions, you only talk about sin.

13:07 Speaker 1 In every transgression a person commits, and in every mitzvah a person does, there are two aspects. There is the particular aspect of that mitzvah: here Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted this done. Here He wanted tefillin; here He wanted Shabbos; here He wanted a sukkah; here He wanted a lulav; here He wanted something else. There is the particular aspect of each mitzvah, and there is the aspect shared by all the mitzvos: Hashem wanted it. So what difference does it make to me whether He wanted this or wanted that? It is His will either way. From the perspective that every mitzvah is His will, they are all His will. When you ask, “What is the will?” then here it is one thing He wants, here another, and here a third. That’s when you ask what He wants. But when you ask, “Where did He express His will?”—He expressed it here, and He expressed it here. He wanted all of it; there’s no difference. Every mitzvah has these two aspects. Is that clear?

13:56 Speaker 5 Yes. So what does that mean?

13:57 Speaker 1 So it follows that when someone commits a transgression, every transgression also has these two aspects. In every transgression, there is the blemish the person caused in that particular matter, in that particular flow of Divine energy, which is something specific and unique to each mitzvah. Here he didn’t perform... he neglected a positive mitzvah. Here he violated a prohibition. Here he neg...

14:17 Speaker 5 I understand why we said that, ultimately, they’re all sort of equal...

14:20 Speaker 1 Yes.

14:20 Speaker 5 ...the transgressions. But still, they really do attach significance to... There are some punishments, and there are severe punishments, depending on the transgressions.

14:31 Speaker 1 So the difference between the punishments comes from the inner light, from the particular intent in each mitzvah. But the Alter Rebbe already said at the beginning, in chapter one of Igeres Hateshuvah, when we started learning, that when a person commits a transgression, no matter which one, he needs to do teshuvah for all the mitzvos. He committed a transgression involving—I don’t know what, some matter. He didn’t wash his hands before eating. Right? A transgression of a rabbinic law. He needs to do teshuvah for Shabbos too, and for tefillin, and for Yom Tov, and for Pesach, and for the mitzvos—for everything, for every single mitzvah. Why? Because the very fact that he committed a transgression—where does it come from? It comes from his rebellion against the sovereignty of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And when it comes to rebellion against His sovereignty, there is no difference at all. Once a person casts off the yoke of the King, he may fail here or he may fail there. But the problem isn’t limited to the particular thing in which he failed.

15:33 Speaker 5 So you can’t say that slipping on one level is like becoming addicted to it—that’s the point? From the perspective of the light, there’s no difference between them all.

15:41 Speaker 1 From the perspective of which aspect? If we’re talking about a particular flow of Divine energy that needs to be repaired, then certainly, if one kind of light was drawn down here, that kind of light needs to be repaired. If a different light was drawn down there, a different light needs to be repaired. But when we’re talking about repairing the rebellion itself—the very fact that he can commit a transgression at all—there is no difference between one transgression and another. If he can commit this transgression, he can commit another one too. In practice, he committed this one. Why did he commit the transgression? How did he reach a point where he could commit any transgression at all? Because he doesn’t feel the yoke of Heaven. If a person is standing before the king—the king is right there before him—and the king says it’s forbidden to go through a red light, okay? The king made a law. When the king is there, he won’t go through the red light; the king is watching him. But if the king has gone home and he’s in a hurry, then he will go through it. Right? Why? Because at this moment he isn’t under the yoke of the king’s sovereignty. So the fact that he actually failed in this particular transgression at this moment presents two problems. One is that he violated the king’s command: the king said to do one thing, and he did another. That’s a particular problem. But there’s also the basic issue that right now he didn’t accept the yoke of Heaven upon himself, and as far as that failure to accept it goes, it makes no difference which mitzvah is involved.

17:09 Speaker 6 But even if he does accept the king’s sovereignty, there’s still a difference between this matter and another; they’re not entirely the same.

17:17 Speaker 1 No. From the perspective of the will, there’s no difference.

17:24 Speaker 6 Surely it matters whether he rebelled or whether he went through a red light.

17:27 Speaker 7 [unclear]

17:31 Speaker 1 In what respect is there a difference? It’s true that there is a difference, but with regard to what? With regard to the particular matter, there is certainly a difference. But with regard to rebellion against the king’s sovereignty, what is the difference? Here he rebelled against the king’s sovereignty, and there he rebelled against the king’s sovereignty. What’s the difference?

17:50 Speaker 6 There are extreme cases.

17:51 Speaker 1 Huh?

17:52 Speaker 6 There are extreme cases.

17:53 Speaker 1 Extreme cases only matter when we’re talking about the content, not the rebellion itself. In the rebellion itself, there is no difference at all between the lightest things and the most serious things. Here he did the opposite of what he was told, and there he did the opposite. What’s the difference? There is none. Maybe we need to think about this more. Apparently I’m not explaining it well enough.

18:16 Speaker 6 No, no, it’s probably not just you. Probably. Let’s put the question this way. Why? All right, go on.

18:34 Speaker 1 So because he... When he reflects on this properly, as he should, he can truly awaken great compassion. Then the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy are drawn down. And because the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy are truly far above even the name Havayah, far above the world of Atzilus—they come from the inner dimension of the worlds, from the inner dimension of G-dliness—when that level is drawn down into the worlds, it repairs all the blemishes. That is why the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy cleanse, uh, all the blemishes, as it says: “He bears iniquity and transgression and cleanses.” Do you know that verse?

19:22 Speaker 6 “And sin—and cleanses.”

19:23 Speaker 1 Oh! I was waiting for that question. The verse says, “He bears iniquity and transgression and sin—and cleanses.” The Alter Rebbe quotes the verse but leaves out the word “and sin.” “He bears...” The Thirteen Attributes repair iniquity and transgression, “and cleanses”—but there’s no “and sin.” There’s something else to notice first in that same sentence. The Alter Rebbe says that the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy cleanse all the blemishes. What does the word “all” add? The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy cleanse the blemishes. What does “all the blemishes” mean?

20:00 Speaker 7 Even those that already fall into the category of...

20:02 Speaker 1 Even intentional sins. Generally, an iniquity a person committed inadvertently doesn’t cause a blemish so high up, so the teshuvah for it doesn’t need to be so deep, and he doesn’t need to awaken the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy for it. But when a person deliberately does something against Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that is a much greater casting off of the yoke. Maybe that’s what you meant earlier? That there are two levels in casting off the yoke itself: when a person sins inadvertently and when a person sins deliberately. But here the question isn’t which transgression he commits; it’s why he commits it. So those really are two levels of kabbolas ol. Does he cast off the yoke only a little? He doesn’t feel the King’s presence, so he fails. If he knew and was aware, he wouldn’t do it. Or does he simply disregard the King, and that’s why he does it deliberately? Of course, there is a big difference in the nature of the rebellion if, inwardly, a person doesn’t intend to act against Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

21:19 Speaker 7 Even though it’s not—it’s not the act itself.

21:22 Speaker 1 One second. That’s about the act itself; that’s another matter. In terms of a person’s rebellion, there’s a big difference: did he rebel deliberately or inadvertently? If he rebelled deliberately, he rebelled against the King. He’s doing it to provoke Him. He’s saying, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to do this, so I’ll specifically do the opposite.” That’s a very serious rebellion. But if a person doesn’t want to sin—he’s a mitzvah-observant Jew, and he has kabbolas ol, but he stumbled—then we ask: Why did you stumble? How could that happen? If the King had been before you, you wouldn’t have stumbled. All right, true. If he had contemplated that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, observes every action, sees him, examines and searches his heart and mind, and stands over him at every moment, then certainly he wouldn’t have sinned. So even if he stumbled inadvertently, there is certainly an element of rebellion here. But it isn’t rebellion meant to provoke; it isn’t a deliberate sin. The novelty of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy is that they rectify even deliberate sins. What does that—

22:32 Speaker 7 A person says, “Oh, I didn’t grasp it”—as though the only thing I grasped was that it wasn’t right.

22:39 Speaker 1 Right. It’s true that it wasn’t right, and it’s true that he must be held accountable for it. But the rebellion certainly isn’t the same kind of rebellion. And that’s why, when it’s possible to bring a korban in the Beis Hamikdash, a sin offering atones only for inadvertent sins. It doesn’t atone for deliberate sins. Even a korban. That’s what wisdom says, and from the perspective of wisdom and prophecy, even a korban won’t help. The Torah says to bring a korban and be atoned for. Atoned for what? For inadvertent sins, not deliberate ones. A person committed a sin deliberately. What good will bringing a korban do? Do teshuvah. Ah! So teshuvah does help. How can it be that a korban doesn’t help, but teshuvah does? That’s what he’s saying here. Teshuvah touches the depths of a person’s soul. It genuinely matters to him. He arouses great mercy for himself, and that arouses the great mercy Above. And when the great mercy Above is aroused, it rectifies all the blemishes—including deliberate sins, even what a korban cannot atone for.

23:44 Speaker 7 Does it also rectify what we’re beginning with?

23:48 Speaker 1 No. Who said anything about merits? We’re talking about rectifying the blemish.

23:51 Speaker 7 One second. I see the letters of Hashem’s name, and there’s something there about merits, or something like that.

23:58 Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no.

23:59 Speaker 7 That won’t help us.

24:00 Speaker 1 That wasn’t discussed. That wasn’t discussed.

24:02 Speaker 7 One second. So in practice, no, absolutely not.

24:09 Speaker 1 Teshuvah—

24:10 Speaker 7 Especially of [unclear].

24:11 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe explains the word teshuvah as “to return.” What does it mean to return? The lower hei fell into the kelipos. It must be returned to its place, so that its influence goes toward holiness. My soul descended and now receives its vitality from the kelipos and the sitra achra. It has to be brought back into the domain of holiness—to return, to bring back the hei, to bring the soul back to its place. That is teshuvah: to return, to bring back. How do you do that? By contemplating the sin and pleading for mercy on yourself. How do you make it lasting and genuine? Contemplate it. Think about it until it truly touches your heart. Arouse great mercy in earnest, and it will truly become fixed in your heart. Then you’ll have yiras Shamayim all the time. You’ll see the King before you, and you won’t go back to doing— The soul will return to its place, the letter hei will return to its place, the Shechinah will return to its place. You won’t commit sins anymore, and that’s the end of it. Done. All right? So through the Thirteen Attributes, we cleanse all the blemishes, as it says: “He bears iniquity and transgression, and cleanses.” And that’s actually why he skips over, omits, the word “sin” here.

25:21 Speaker 7 Because “sin” refers only to an inadvertent sin.

25:22 Speaker 1 Because “sin” refers only to an inadvertent sin. Here we’re talking about teshuvah that arouses the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which rectify even deliberate sins.

25:30 Speaker 7 Even transgression?

25:31 Speaker 1 Even transgression. And again, this brings about a return, so that from now on the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy—the supernal will—descend and are revealed below. That brings about a situation where there is no longer—there will no longer be any nourishment for the external forces and the sitra achra from the influence of the lower hei, as explained above. We said that when a person commits a sin, it draws down the influence of the Shechinah. After all, my soul—remember?—“Yaakov is the rope of His inheritance.” My soul has its source in the Shechinah.

26:05 Speaker 7 Which of the ropes?

26:08 Speaker 1 We explained that in chapter 4.

26:10 Speaker 7 Two ropes.

26:12 Speaker 1 The soul, as it is in the body, gives life to the body below. Now, about this it says, “Yaakov is the rope of His inheritance.” What is the rope? It’s the soul as it is bound to the body and bound to the four letters of the name Havayah Above. So just as Above there are four letters, which are ten sefiros, each person’s soul also has four letters, which are ten—the ten powers of the soul. So when a person, with his soul, descends into the kelipos, he pulls the rope Above into the kelipos, drawing it down into them. And when he does teshuvah, he returns to his place, and the influence of the Shechinah also returns to its place. Not only does it return to its place, but from then on the external forces can no longer draw nourishment from the influence of the lower hei. What does it mean that there’s no influence? It says that the transcendent light blinds the eyes of the external forces. The external forces, the kelipos—where can they draw nourishment, take vitality, from? I think we mentioned this, perhaps briefly. Once more: when Hakadosh Boruch Hu bestows something by His will, He creates a particular form of influence, in the shape of a letter, that directs the influence here. They can’t take it from there. Where would they take it from? Hakadosh Boruch Hu directed it to that point. And if He formed a whole combination of letters, a word—I don’t know which word—then that holy combination, say, tefillin: tav, peh, yud, lamed, yud, nun, is holy, and the light goes here. The external forces can’t take it from here. So where can they take it from? They can take it from what Kabbalah calls the backs of the letters, from the spaces between the letters. When there are letters, combinations of words, there has to be a space between one letter and the next. If they’re touching, it’s invalid. It isn’t kosher. Right? There has to be a space, and they can draw nourishment from the spaces, from what’s in between. The moment the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy shine, that supernal light

28:19 Speaker 1 descends and, so to speak, fills those gaps, and that blinds the eyes of the external forces. No, they can’t draw nourishment anymore. That’s in the language of Kabbalah. In my own words, I’m describing what Kabbalah says in somewhat pictorial language. What it means is that letters are a limitation. Letters are vessels. When you feel the content within the letter, when you feel the holiness, the external forces can no longer draw nourishment from it. As long as you see only the thing itself, only the physical reality, you can interpret it in all sorts of ways, pull it this way, pull it— You can cut corners. But once the G-dly influence is felt in the mitzvos a person performs—for example, a person does a mitzvah. It doesn’t matter which mitzvah. He feels the content of the mitzvah; the G-dliness is felt within it. The external forces can’t draw nourishment from it. Maybe I’ll give a more tangible example. A person gives tzedakah. Right, it’s simple. If he gives tzedakah just because he knows that, generally speaking, you’re supposed to give tzedakah, and someone comes by and he gives him tzedakah, it will give him a feeling—a nice feeling of self-importance. “I gave tzedakah. I’m righteous. I’m…” Right? Then the tzedakah itself can lead to that. This is called nourishment for the external forces. Right? But if, while giving the tzedakah, he contemplates that he is now fulfilling Hashem’s mitzvah and that G-dly holiness is present and rests here, he won’t feel self-important. This is called the transcendent light blinding the eyes of the external forces. All right? And he notes in parentheses that through this, the lower hei returns to its place to be united with yud-hei-vav, as explained above. And in fact, we’ve already discussed this point in everything we’ve just said at length: action—the hei represents action, right? Yud-hei-vav represent feeling, so to speak. So when a person’s actions are permeated

30:31 Speaker 1 With feeling. Why is he permeated with feeling? Because he has kabbolas ol, because he contemplated it, and so on. So just as his actions are permeated with feeling, the hei of the Shechinah is joined to the letters yud, hei, and vav. The Shechinah returns to its place. And the very same thing happens down here: just as his teshuvah has an effect Above, in G-dliness, it has exactly the same effect below, in the divine soul within him. In his actions, his kabbolas ol is felt; the King is felt. He senses the King in everything he does, wherever he is. So once again, “your sins do not separate you.” And as it says, “and cleanses”—yes, that’s the end: “Who bears iniquity, transgression, and sin, and cleanses.” What does “cleanses” mean? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu cleans away the evil that has clung to his soul, and that evil is no longer there. It isn’t, it isn’t, it’s not... Then, when he learns Torah, it will penetrate his mind, and when he performs a mitzvah, it will penetrate his feelings, and so on. “And cleanses” applies to those who return. The moment a Jew does teshuvah—“In Your abundant mercy, erase my transgressions”—and it is truly fixed in his heart, Hakadosh Boruch Hu cleanses his soul, washing and cleansing it of its soiled garments. What are soiled garments? They are the external forces, as the Gemara says, “It wraps itself around him,” and so on. There in the Gemara, when a person commits a sin, it, so to speak—ah, this is the Gemara’s wording—wraps itself around him until the day of his death. The sin surrounds the person, the soul, as though wrapping it in some kind of evil that prevents the person from feeling the divine holiness. So here we need to stop for a moment and ask a simple question. We said that teshuvah means returning, from the word “return.” What was damaged? The soul, the Shechinah, descended into the kelipos. We did teshuvah; it returned to us. So why speak of

32:53 Speaker 1 lower teshuvah and higher teshuvah? It fell, and now it has returned. What are these two levels of teshuvah? I mean, what other teshuvah can we talk about? What is there that still hasn’t returned? It fell and it returned. That’s it, right? Apparently, from here to the end of Igeres Hateshuvah, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain the second aspect of teshuvah, higher teshuvah, which is the essential teshuvah. “And once a wind has passed over them and purified them”—like a wind that passes through and clears away all the clouds, all the garments that covered the soul—“then their souls can return to Hashem, blessed be He.”

33:49 Speaker 8 Why? We’re now—

33:50 Speaker 1 We said in chapter 4 that the soul, as it gives life to the body, has undergone an immense descent compared with how it was before He breathed it forth. The soul as it is down here is only the foot of the soul, the lower end of the rope. Sometimes it’s called the head. A person doesn’t feel the higher part of himself at all. He feels, “I, and nothing besides me.” So what did we mean earlier when we spoke about it returning? Where does it return to? Does it return to where it was before? Where was it before? Enclothed in the body. Is that the soul’s source? The soul’s source is far, far above, before Hashem. You did teshuvah and restored things to their natural state—is that teshuvah? That’s merely repairing the damage you caused. That isn’t really teshuvah at all. The essence of teshuvah is that “the spirit returns to G-d Who gave it.” Where was it when He gave it? Before it descended into the body. Only after a person has finished repairing the damage can he begin to do teshuvah: to return the soul to the spirit—the spirit to G-d Who gave it. To ascend higher and higher to its source and cleave to Him, blessed be He, in a wondrous union, as it was united with Him in absolute unity before He breathed it forth with the breath of His mouth to descend below and be enclothed in a person’s body. So higher teshuvah means that a person, here as a soul in a body, feels the same closeness to G-dliness that the soul had when it was connected to and included in G-dliness, before Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed it down here. Higher teshuvah. To be here in a body.

35:58 Speaker 8 We leave it at that.

35:59 Speaker 1 And for him to feel as though he hasn’t yet been born.

36:04 Speaker 8 So, as it says, then he does teshuvah, and he reaches that point, and it becomes higher.

36:09 Speaker 1 A letter says—

36:10 Speaker 8 That completes the teshuvah, but—

36:12 Speaker 1 Wait. According to this explanation, higher teshuvah has nothing to do with lower teshuvah. Even a person who has never committed a sin has to return the spirit to G-d Who gave it. What difference does it make whether he committed a sin or not? That’s something incidental. It’s a mishap, a mishap along the way. It shouldn’t have happened at all. Teshuvah has nothing to do with sins.

36:47 Speaker 8 So why does he connect it to sins? Why does he connect it to sins?

36:51 Speaker 1 Someone who has already—

36:52 Speaker 8 That’s why the Alter Rebbe wants to call them baalei teshuvah.

36:55 Speaker 1 Huh?

36:55 Speaker 8 That’s why the Alter Rebbe wants to call Chabadniks baalei teshuvah instead.

37:00 Speaker 1 Right, teshuvah is a path in serving Hashem, but we’ll soon see that it goes much deeper, because that isn’t what we’re talking about. That isn’t the point. “As an analogy”—what does that mean? Before that, though: “before He breathed it forth.” As an analogy, when a person blows with the breath of his mouth, before the breath leaves his mouth, it is united with his soul. When a person blows, there’s breath... See? Here’s breath. Here’s speech. But before he blew, before he started speaking, the breath was united with his soul. It was part of his very being. So too with a soul: before Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed it into a person’s body, the soul was completely united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with His Essence and Being. And that is what a person needs to feel while he is here, in a body. That is the meaning of higher teshuvah, and this is complete teshuvah. What does “complete teshuvah” mean?

38:06 Speaker 8 Complete? Nothing is missing anymore.

38:10 Speaker 1 Come, let me give you... What does “this is” refer to? What? What?

38:18 Speaker 8 What can you say about higher teshuvah? That’s what he’s talking about.

38:21 Speaker 1 No. From the beginning of Tanya until here, what has the whole discussion been about? How many lines dealt with lower teshuvah, right? Just the last few lines dealt with higher teshuvah. What does it mean for “the spirit to return to G-d Who gave it”? Apparently, that’s unrelated. What does “this is” mean here? Higher teshuvah is complete teshuvah. What is teshuvah? Teshuvah for sins. The whole time, we were talking about teshuvah for sins. True, that seems unrelated, and suddenly it’s being discussed here. He has now spoken about teshuvah. Higher teshuvah—what about it? “And this higher teshuvah is complete teshuvah.” Complete with respect to what? Sins. In other words, with these words the Alter Rebbe is saying that as long as a person has not done higher teshuvah, his lower teshuvah is incomplete. Higher teshuvah is what completes lower teshuvah.

39:16 Speaker 8 As long as he doesn’t feel that light which somehow gives life to his body—that’s the soul. It has nothing to do with teshuvah.

39:22 Speaker 1 And that is what we need to understand.

39:23 Speaker 8 Okay.

39:25 Speaker 1 What’s the connection, seemingly? Teshuvah means I fell and I returned. That was hard work.

39:35 Speaker 8 Right, but now higher teshuvah will keep you from falling in the first place.

39:39 Speaker 1 Lower teshuvah will also keep a person from ever falling. If he feels the yoke of Heaven, he won’t commit sins.

39:47 Speaker 8 Fear is different from love. “Never” isn’t something guaranteed by it.

39:53 Speaker 1 That’s true. So what? Could you bring some water, please? Yes, thank you.

40:01 Speaker 8 “Never” is something you have to sustain at every moment.

40:04 Speaker 1 Even when a person performs... No, no, thank you. No, not coffee. Even when a person performs mitzvos out of fear, we aren’t talking about fear born of coercion. There’s external fear and inner fear. He fears G-d; he fears the King; he has kabbolas ol. He doesn’t cast off the yoke. If, within his kabbolas ol, he contemplates Hashem’s greatness, he will understand Hashem’s greatness. He understands how much damage a sin causes. He understands and feels that when he does something wrong, he doesn’t want to do it. True, that is teshuvah out of fear, but it’s enough to keep him from ever committing sins—and it comes from an inner feeling, an inner feeling of fear. So what is she saying? Isn’t that a feeling? True, one can perform mitzvos out of love as well. So what? Does that mean fear is lacking? Why is this called lower and that called higher?

41:13 Speaker 8 Of course it’s lacking.

41:14 Speaker 1 What?

41:17 Speaker 8 When a person acts out of fear, he doesn’t do it with joy, and we have to serve Hashem with joy.

41:22 Speaker 1 The point is that these are two completely different movements of the soul. A movement of fear—no, let’s not talk here about fear and love. Okay, it isn’t accurate to put it that way. One movement is kabbolas ol, which is the idea of lower-level teshuvah, and the other is higher-level teshuvah, in which the soul cleaves to its source and root. Those are the two movements, right? Kabbolas ol, and cleaving and connection. What’s the difference between them? The analogy given in Chassidus for these two movements, in physical terms, is the difference between a servant and a son. A servant can be a faithful servant. He can love his master and do everything his master wants out of love and fear, and he will never transgress. He recognizes his master’s greatness. He’ll do everything. He’ll never commit a sin.

42:21 Speaker 8 But a servant has no choice.

42:21 Speaker 1 No, we’re not talking about that kind of servitude. We’re talking about a servant who loves his master and doesn’t do it because he has no choice.

42:28 Speaker 8 It doesn’t change what he does. Good for him that, even though he has no choice, he...

42:31 Speaker 1 But.

42:32 Speaker 8 There, and...

42:33 Speaker 1 No, I always use the example of Eliezer, Avraham’s servant. Did he spread his master’s teachings because he was afraid? Because he had no choice? Of course not. He drew from his master’s teachings and shared them with others. “Eliezer of Damascus”—he drew from his master’s teachings and shared them. Avraham Avinu gave him all his property, everything he owned. Take it; it’s all yours. How did he dare? He knew there was no prohibition. He knew him; he knew what his purpose was. Eliezer was utterly devoted. When we say that Moshe Rabbeinu was a faithful servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, does that imply some kind of shortcoming? Was he going to rebel against Him? That’s simply not possible. A servant doesn’t have to be... There are servants... The essential difference between a servant and a son is that a servant isn’t a son. A son is connected to his father. A servant isn’t connected in that way; the bond isn’t inherent.

43:31 Speaker 8 Maybe it’s...

43:32 Speaker 1 He isn’t his father.

43:34 Speaker 8 Maybe it’s more that the father has a stronger connection to his son than to his servant.

43:39 Speaker 1 A son can’t stop being his father’s son.

43:44 Speaker 8 Right, and neither can a faithful servant.

43:46 Speaker 1 No, he isn’t connected in that way. They can sell him to someone else. His master can die. A son is his father’s son. The bond between a son and his father is an essential bond. The son is a continuation of his father—“a son is a limb of his father.” He isn’t someone else. So there’s an enormous difference between a servant who burns his master’s wheat because he’s angry with him and a son who burns his father’s wheat because he’s angry with him.

44:20 Speaker 8 And the son had been a servant.

44:24 Speaker 1 Afterward, when they do teshuvah for what they’ve done, do the son and the servant feel the same way? They’re two different things. The son is connected; he’s part of his father. He hurt his father; he hurt himself. This isn’t someone else. With the servant, it’s something altogether different. A servant’s bond is only kabbolas ol; he’s connected to his master through what he does. The son is connected to his father through his soul. These are two different things. Lower-level teshuvah is teshuvah for the deed. Higher-level teshuvah is a feeling of connection to G-dliness. True, when lower-level teshuvah is genuine, there’s feeling in it too, and that feeling shines through in his actions. He has kabbolas ol, and he’ll never commit a sin. True. But that isn’t all that’s required. What’s wanted is for a Jew, down here in a body, to feel connected to his Father in Heaven. That’s higher-level teshuvah: for G-dliness to shine in his soul, for him to feel like a son of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to feel that he belongs. Not because of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s greatness, but because he himself belongs there. That’s who he is; that’s his Father. Do you understand the difference? And about this he says... So it isn’t... Let’s say a son sinned against his father, yes? And this son, um, catches himself and does teshuvah. How does he do teshuvah? Like a servant. Now he does what he’s supposed to do. He still doesn’t feel the connection to his father. Is that called doing teshuvah? Okay, so what—now you won’t rebel against your father anymore? What are you, a servant? Is that your connection to your father, that you won’t do what he tells you not to do? That’s it? That’s where it ends? As long as the son doesn’t feel connected to his father, he isn’t... he isn’t there. That’s why the Alter Rebbe says that higher-level teshuvah isn’t something that stands on its own. If a Jew sinned, committed a transgression, acted deliberately,

46:51 Speaker 1 or even inadvertently—committed a sin against Hakadosh Boruch Hu—lower-level teshuvah isn’t enough. That isn’t complete teshuvah. It’s complete teshuvah only when he—only when a spirit passes over him and purifies him, and he feels G-dliness in his soul. He connects to the very essence of G-dliness; he feels connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Only then can we accept that his teshuvah for the deed was complete. And regarding this, “this union and this teshuvah are the level of higher-level teshuvah that follows lower-level teshuvah.” As it says in the Zohar, in Raya Mehemna—that’s a section of the Zohar; we spoke about it once—in Parshas Naso: “And higher-level teshuvah is to engage in Torah with love and fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” What is higher-level teshuvah, according to the Zohar in that context? A person studies Torah with love and fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, if he studies Torah without love and fear, studying because he has to study, then that isn’t higher-level teshuvah. Higher-level teshuvah is when he studies Torah with love and fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; when, as he studies, he feels Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the holiness, the G-dliness, his connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now, why does the Zohar say this specifically about Torah? Why not about mitzvos? Seemingly, the Zohar could say the same thing: higher-level teshuvah is observing mitzvos with love and fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why does it say it about Torah?

48:43 Speaker 9 Okay, but someone can observe them with love and fear. It’s as though he subordinates himself to Him. And then, as it were...

48:49 Speaker 1 No, love and fear means that he engages in Torah out of an inner feeling of connection to G-dliness. Let’s call it that. Okay? Love and fear are an inner feeling.

49:01 Speaker 9 Yes, no.

49:02 Speaker 1 So leave that aside for now.

49:03 Speaker 9 It reminds me of where it said that...

49:05 Speaker 1 Okay, there’s the nullification of the self. Fine, okay. The sense of self remains; there’s someone who loves. That’s what you meant. Fine, that may well be so. Let’s put that aside for a moment. Love and fear are an inner feeling. Why does he study and—and—why does he observe mitzvos? Why does he study Torah out of an inner feeling? That expresses his higher-level teshuvah when he observes mitzvos. Why say it about Torah? Say it about mitzvos. It’s exactly the same thing. He observes them. Seemingly, the Zohar should have said: he studies Torah and observes mitzvos with love and fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why does it say it only about Torah?

49:39 Speaker 9 Hakadosh Boruch Hu—each one.

49:40 Speaker 1 What?

49:41 Speaker 9 Torah.

49:41 Speaker 1 But why does the Zohar say Torah? Why does it emphasize Torah? Why doesn’t it say Torah and mitzvos?

49:49 Speaker 9 I wasn’t here earlier. I had it in the Haggadah. We said that the difference between love and fear is that, essentially, each one is best in its own area.

50:01 Speaker 1 What are you referring to? What we discussed today?

50:03 Speaker 9 What I’m saying now. That love is exactly what he’s doing. I mean, there’s love and fear in a servant too.

50:12 Speaker 1 So I said, I said, don’t bring love and fear into this. Even though perhaps it’s true and perhaps it’s related. We aren’t talking here about love and fear. Lower-level and higher-level teshuvah—we weren’t talking about love and fear. Lower-level teshuvah is about a feeling of kabbolas ol, and higher-level teshuvah is about connection.

50:27 Speaker 9 Okay, but what we said...

50:28 Speaker 1 It’s true that kabbolas ol is more...

50:31 Speaker 9 What we’re trying to say is that this doesn’t diminish the value of what we had before. Whether it’s this way or that way doesn’t make a difference.

50:38 Speaker 1 But we said it does make a difference, because we’re not saying that lower-level teshuvah is fear and higher-level teshuvah is love. That isn’t the subject. Lower-level teshuvah is a feeling of connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu like a servant’s, and higher-level teshuvah is a connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu like a son’s connection to his father.

50:57 Speaker 9 Teshuvah.

50:57 Speaker 1 So of course higher-level teshuvah is incomparably loftier than lower-level teshuvah. And then...

51:03 Speaker 9 That’s why.

51:04 Speaker 1 And this is what the Alter Rebbe taught us: for a Jew, lower-level teshuvah without higher-level teshuvah isn’t enough. He hasn’t reached the end of the road; his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu hasn’t yet been revealed.

51:18 Speaker 9 Right.

51:21 Speaker 1 Okay. And for this he brings a proof from the Zohar. What does the Zohar say higher-level teshuvah is? That he engages in Torah with love and fear. Why? So I’m asking—not the Alter Rebbe; I’m asking—why does the Zohar emphasize Torah and not mitzvos? The reason for this is explained.

51:47 Speaker 9 That you need to come out of the Torah. It’s as though it’s all included in Torah.

51:52 Speaker 1 There is a fundamental difference between Torah and mitzvos. Mitzvos are connected with action, with doing. Torah is connected with thought, study, understanding, with a person’s inner life. So when we speak about teshuvah for one’s actions, teshuvah for the lower hei, teshuvah tata’ah concerning the actual performance of mitzvos, it makes sense to speak of teshuvah tata’ah. But when we speak about teshuvah ila’ah, about inner feeling—where is a person’s inner life, the feeling within his inner faculties, expressed? In Torah, in Torah study. So when we speak about teshuvah ila’ah, we are speaking about the higher part of a person, where his inner feeling is more fully expressed. That concerns Torah primarily, rather than mitzvos. That is why he says: What is teshuvah ila’ah? To engage in Torah study. True, it applies to mitzvos too, but the main expression of teshuvah ila’ah is specifically when he studies Torah with love and awe. The Zohar immediately continues, saying that then, when a person studies Torah with awe and love, with inner feeling, that person is called a son of Yud-Hei. “Son of Yud-Hei” gives us binah. Yud-Hei are the first two letters of Hashem’s Name, which are more closely connected with Torah, while Vav-Hei is the lower part, connected with action. When a person studies Torah with love and awe, he is called a son of Yud-Hei.

53:59 Speaker 10 What, then, does “son” mean in connection with binah?

54:01 Speaker 1 Here is the idea. First, in general, the sefirah of binah is called “the mother of the children.” We already saw this in the first part of Tanya, in the opening chapters. Why is binah called the mother of the children? Because when a person uses his understanding to contemplate the greatness of Hashem, the emotions are born. So binah is the mother. Chochmah and binah are father and mother, and the emotions born from them are the children, the sons. But here it says that when a person studies Torah with inner feeling, he himself is called the son of binah. In general, when a person—let me start again.

54:52 Speaker 10 Once he activates the feeling, he becomes the source of the feeling.

54:56 Speaker 1 He himself becomes the son. It is not that his contemplation gives birth to children—to feelings within him. When he studies Torah with a connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he himself becomes the son. What does it mean that he himself becomes the son? What is the plain meaning of that? The explanation is wonderful. The Rebbe says it here very briefly, really in the language of Kabbalah, giving hardly more than a hint. This point will be explained at greater length in the next chapter. But the essence of it, very briefly, is this: Usually, the process by which emotions of holiness are born is that a person contemplates, and then a feeling is born. That is the general pattern. For the intellect to give birth to a feeling, it has to descend from its own level. As long as intellect remains intellect, it is not connected to the person. By its nature, intellect looks upward, toward the subject it wants to understand. That is what intellect seeks. Now tell the intellect: Come down and think about how this affects me, what it means to me as a person, to my feelings. The intellect has to leave its usual state and descend, to change and penetrate the emotions. If it succeeds, it descends, its nature changes, and it becomes emotion. Then a feeling awakens. A moment ago, the person did not love Hashem; now he loves Hashem. Now he has a feeling of love. Right? There is a feeling here. And within that feeling there is intellect. Where is the intellect that gave birth to it? It is here, but concealed. After all, if he had not contemplated, there would be no feeling. Right? So it is there—but can we see the intellect? No. Why? Because the intellect descended and changed into the substance of feeling. Is that clear? Good. Sometimes it does not happen that way. Sometimes the reverse happens. There is—

57:28 Speaker 1 Sometimes a person becomes so deeply attached to an intellectual idea, so immersed in it, that his contemplation is profound enough to take hold of his entire being. It takes hold of his feelings too, and the feelings are drawn upward, changing into something intellectual. Precisely the reverse.

57:54 Speaker 11 As though it is a kind of enthusiasm, a drive to understand the idea completely. That is what someone is trying to—

58:03 Speaker 1 When a person becomes absorbed in intellectual contemplation, he thinks about the idea, contemplates it, pictures it to himself—not just until he understands it, but until the idea takes hold of him. Then it takes hold of all of him, and his feeling ceases to be feeling and becomes intellect. The feeling—instead of—

58:26 Speaker 11 How does the feeling express itself within the intellect? Is it the desire, the attachment?

58:32 Speaker 1 A few analogies are given for this. One is about a person who—there is a story about the Rebbe Rashab. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that he once went with the Rebbe Rashab to an exhibition of paintings. And—what? [unclear], yes. The Rebbe stopped before a large painting and stood there, absorbed in it, for several hours. You might wonder: What is he looking at? He must know the painting by heart already. What—there are several paintings—it was not just a matter of surprise. There is such a story about horses in a war. There are a few stories like this. A person enters into it so completely that the painting draws him in. Now, if we come and ask him, “What do you see there? What is there for you? What are you looking at?”—what is the answer? There is no one to ask. He is not here. The painting has drawn him in. The person is no longer here. The subject has drawn the whole person into it, and he is no longer here. Of course, a level of attachment to G-dliness like that is called complete self-nullification. It means that a person is in a physical body yet feels his soul as it was before it was breathed into the body. Of course, this is a very lofty level. This is teshuvah ila’ah in its fullest form. And this is what it means that he himself becomes a son of Yud-Hei. He becomes so immersed in Torah study—Torah takes hold of the inner side of a person, and he studies it with a feeling of connection, love and awe—that he himself becomes a son of Yud-Hei. His very being, his feelings, are drawn in and become part of his connection to G-dliness. And he adds to this in parentheses—sorry, before the parentheses. In the parentheses he answers a question. Seemingly, we could ask: Our Sages said that in the place where baalei teshuvah stand, even completely righteous people cannot stand. Right?

1:00:41 Speaker 3 Because baalei teshuvah actually feel their root, their source.

1:00:45 Speaker 1 First of all, that is what our Sages said.

1:00:47 Speaker 3 Yes.

1:00:48 Speaker 1 Now, what we have learned here—a Jew studying Torah with love and awe—is that something that applies to baalei teshuvah?

1:00:54 Speaker 3 No.

1:00:55 Speaker 1 And if a tzaddik studies Torah with love and awe—a complete tzaddik who has never sinned, like the Lubavitcher Rebbe—are baalei teshuvah greater than him? He is now feeling the soul as it is in its source and root. Yet our Sages said that baalei teshuvah stand in a place where completely righteous people cannot stand. So at this point, when a Jew studies Torah with love and awe and connects to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through teshuvah ila’ah, what is the difference between a baal teshuvah who committed sins and a complete tzaddik who never did? Are we saying that here, too, someone who committed sins reaches a higher level than a tzaddik? How can that be? He answers this in parentheses: “And the advantage of baalei teshuvah over completely righteous people in this”—in this matter—“is as stated in the holy Zohar, Parshas Chayei Sarah: They,” the baalei teshuvah, “draw themselves toward the King with a greater desire of the heart and with tremendous strength.” True, it is the same movement as that of a tzaddik. But how can you compare a tzaddik’s yearning to the yearning of a baal teshuvah? A tzaddik does not have the cry of the heart that a baal teshuvah has.

1:02:12 Speaker 3 [unclear].

1:02:13 Speaker 1 For both of them, it is a love of delight. But that cry, those flames of fire born of having felt distant—that belongs to baalei teshuvah. So even when we speak of teshuvah ila’ah, which in general is the service of tzaddikim, baalei teshuvah have an advantage over tzaddikim here too. That concludes the first chapter. Now we have chapters nine and ten—another four chapters in which the Alter Rebbe will continue to clarify the subject of teshuvah ila’ah.

1:02:48 Speaker 3 Thank you very much. [unclear] [?]. [unclear].