Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 12

00:01 Speaker 1 Today we’re learning chapter 12, the last chapter of—uh, Igeres Hateshuvah, and in fact it’s also the last chapter of Tanya. I’ll say a little more about that at the end.

00:14 Speaker 2 If there’s time.

00:16 Speaker 1 There will be, there will be. It’s a short chapter.

00:20 Speaker 2 This may be the—

00:21 Speaker 1 Let’s begin this way. In the previous chapter we spoke about a Jew who has reached the level of teshuvah ila’ah, higher teshuvah. His soul has already been cleansed—“a spirit has passed over it and purified it”—and he’s in a state of cleaving to and longing for G-dliness. That’s what interests him. Thank you very much. And the Alter Rebbe says there, in the previous chapter, that in a certain respect, someone at the level of teshuvah ila’ah is on a higher level than a beinoni, even though he has sinned. Because with a beinoni, well, it can be— We make a distinction there. Maybe let’s start differently. Let’s recall that an ordinary person cannot have “joy lodged in my heart on this side, and weeping lodged in my heart on that side.” A person cannot simultaneously feel the joy of his G-dly soul and bitterness over his animal soul. It doesn’t work, because the two are connected. If the G-dly soul is happy, the animal soul cannot be subdued; it, too, is a little happy, and vice versa. Only a beinoni, whose G-dly soul is separate—he has already separated it from his animal soul—can be upset with his animal soul and rejoice in the joy of his G-dly soul. That’s written in chapter 34 of Tanya. He says that, beyond this, someone at the level of teshuvah ila’ah can rejoice not only alongside sadness over the body, alongside bitterness over the body’s very physicality and coarseness, but even while he is upset about sins committed by the animal soul. That is the distinction of someone at the level of teshuvah ila’ah. Then he goes further: when a person is in such a state of teshuvah and longing for G-dliness, and is confident that Hashem has forgiven him, that will add tremendous joy to his service of Hashem. Why will it add tremendous joy to his service of Hashem?

02:57 Speaker 1 Because he knows that he once sinned—“my sin is before me always”—and he is one hundred percent certain that Hashem has forgiven him. So when Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings suffering upon him, it’s clear: Hakadosh Boruch Hu has already forgiven him. Why, then, is he suffering now? Clearly, the suffering is only to atone for the sin. We said that atonement is not the same thing as teshuvah. Atonement comes only after Hakadosh Boruch Hu—teshuvah is when Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives. A person asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu for forgiveness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives him, and after forgiving him, Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings suffering upon him to repair the sin, the damage he caused through his sin. So if he has done teshuvah, knows himself that he has done teshuvah, has asked for forgiveness, and then sees suffering come upon him, he is completely certain that all this suffering is only to repair his sins. So he rejoices in it. That was the substance of the previous chapter. But here’s the thing: this very point needs to be explained in a little more detail, and that is what the Alter Rebbe does in this chapter. Why? Because it’s all very well in theory to say that when suffering comes upon me, I’ll rejoice in it because I know it atones for sin. But it’s very easy for a person to reason: Okay, suffering has to come. Why now? Let it come in the World to Come. Suffering in this world is hard; it interferes with serving Hashem. It’s painful. There it’s suffering of the soul. We’ll get through it, somehow. But why are You troubling me here in this world, right now? Why does the suffering have to come now? And why in this particular form? And why does it have to be so severe? Hakadosh Boruch Hu is compassionate and gracious, abounding in mercy and kindness, and does so much good—and [unclear] You have to bring me

04:50 Speaker 1 suffering to repair the sin. All right, I’ll accept suffering. But why does it have to be so severe? And so on. A person can come up with all sorts of arguments. We need to explain more deeply what this joy is about. Why should we rejoice so much in suffering? Even though we know it atones for sin, we still need a fuller explanation of what there is to rejoice about. And that’s what the Alter Rebbe does in this chapter. He begins chapter 12: “And the reason for rejoicing in bodily suffering.” Yes, to explain and understand this more deeply. So he says: “Because it”—meaning bodily suffering—“is a great and immense good for the sinning soul.” First of all, it is both a great good and an immense good. That is, it is good both in quantity and in quality. The suffering a person experiences in this world, compared with the suffering he would experience, G-d forbid, in the World to Come, is an immense good for the soul in terms of quantity: with a little suffering in this world, he can be spared a great deal of suffering. And it is good in quality, too: mild suffering in this world can spare him severe suffering in the World to Come. It is great and immense, both in quantity and in quality. That’s also what he goes on to say: suffering is a great good for the sinning soul, “to cleanse it in this world and save it from being cleansed in Gehinnom.” To cleanse the soul. We’re not talking about the body; we’re talking about cleansing the soul. In other words, just as the soul entered the world without sin, it should leave without sin. The body isn’t particularly concerned with whether the soul has a sin or doesn’t have a sin, whether it has a blemish or doesn’t have a blemish. The body wants to eat and drink. It wants... the concerns of the soul don’t trouble it very much. So knowing that, through suffering, one’s soul will leave the world without sin, just as it

07:03 Speaker 1 entered without sin—that is primarily a benefit to the soul.

07:07 Speaker 3 But won’t the soul also receive the body’s punishment?

07:09 Speaker 1 Who?

07:10 Speaker 3 No, the soul will receive the body’s punishment.

07:12 Speaker 1 The body will receive the punishment. Yes, it comes to save the soul. It’s the soul that can rejoice in that. The body says, “Why should I rejoice because she benefits? What do you want from me?” Right. So he says more than that. Suffering in this world saves the soul. It doesn’t just cleanse the soul in this world, so that it leaves this world clean; it also saves it from being cleansed in Gehinnom. Now, cleansing in Gehinnom involves suffering. The body understands very well what suffering is, even though we’re talking about suffering in Gehinnom. So when you tell a person, “Listen, the suffering there is greater than the suffering here,” he understands—that, the body understands very well. So he has said four things here: that suffering in this world is both a great and an immense good, both in quantity and in quality, both for the soul and for the body. That’s how he begins the chapter. And in parentheses he adds: particularly in our generations, when we are unable to fast the number of fasts prescribed in the Arizal’s practices of teshuvah, which are needed to cleanse the soul and save it from cleansing in Gehinnom. I’m sure you all remember that frightening chapter, chapter 3, with all the... Yes, do you remember?

08:27 Speaker 3 I remember the daily lessons that—uh, twice a year, when they get to the end of Igeres... uh, Kuntres Acharon, there.

08:35 Speaker 1 Uh, no, no. In chapter 3 of Igeres Hateshuvah. We learned it a while ago. He explains there at great length that there are various practices of rectification: for even the smallest sin, you have to fast two hundred and fifty fasts; for that one, a hundred and fifty fasts; for this one, such-and-such; and for that one, such-and-such. Before you know it, you’re up to thousands, tens of thousands of fasts for—for, uh, every little thing. And then he says there that since in our generations it isn’t possible to fast, there’s a way around it, there’s a way around it: at least fast half-days, fast once. A whole chapter there deals with all those fasts. He sums up the Alter Rebbe’s own words from the middle of that chapter: in our generations, we are unable to fast so much. And here we’re told that a little mild suffering in this world frees us from the need for all those fasts.

09:29 Speaker 3 But that’s like saying to a child—how do you put it? To a little baby, uh, to a small child in kindergarten: “The scrape you got on your knee isn’t so terrible compared with someone else who has a serious illness.” He doesn’t understand that. It hurts him. He doesn’t care that someone else is in more pain.

09:44 Speaker 1 That’s why we’re explaining it. So far we’ve only stated it; we haven’t explained it yet.

09:50 Speaker 3 Hmm?

09:56 Speaker 1 Where does it actually say that suffering in this world is an immense good, for both the body and the soul? Where do we see that? The Alter Rebbe said it, but where is it written? So he immediately brings a source: “As the Ramban, of blessed memory, wrote in his introduction to his commentary on Iyov.” There the Ramban writes that even seventy years of suffering like Iyov’s—Iyov did not suffer for seventy years; the whole story of Iyov took place over one year, I think. But even seventy years of suffering like Iyov’s are of no comparison at all to one hour of the soul’s suffering in Gehinnom, “for fire is one-sixtieth,” and so on. In other words, fire in this world is one-sixtieth of the fire in the World to Come. So again, here too the Alter Rebbe returns to the same principle: the suffering of Gehinnom is beyond comparison, both in quantity and in quality. We read this but didn’t notice the apparent contradiction. First he says that Iyov’s suffering is of no comparison to the soul’s suffering in Gehinnom. No comparison, right? And in the same breath he says that fire is one-sixtieth. Sixty times as much is sixty times as much, but it isn’t beyond comparison. Why does he first say “beyond comparison” and then say “only sixty times as much”? When we speak about the soul’s suffering, the soul’s suffering in Gehinnom is beyond comparison to bodily suffering in this world, because suffering of the soul is far, far more severe. You can’t compare it to bodily suffering. So the quality of suffering in Gehinnom is incomparably more severe than bodily suffering in this world. He then says that not only is its quality incomparably more severe, but its quantity is also greater, just as fire here is one-sixtieth of the fire in the World to Come. So once again he

11:51 Speaker 1 returns to this point: the suffering in Gehinnom is incomparably severe, both in quantity and in quality. So how does this actually work? If cleansing a sinful soul really requires such terrible suffering in Gehinnom, how can the suffering a person goes through here over a short time take the place of all that suffering? How does one stand in place of the other? Rather, it is because “the world is built through kindness.” It says in the teachings of Kabbalah that this world, our world, was built with the attribute of kindness, while the spiritual worlds were created with the attribute of severity. So because our world was created with the attribute of kindness, minor suffering in this world takes the place of severe suffering that comes through the attribute of severity. And through light suffering in this world, one is spared harsh judgments in the World to Come. To explain this, he first gives an analogy: “Like the movement and shifting of a shadow on the ground by one tefach when the sun’s sphere moves two thousand mil across the sky,” and so on. When the sun moves two thousand mil across the sky, the shadow on the ground moves one tefach, eight centimeters. So that’s the analogy, yes? How one tefach of suffering in this world can save a person from two thousand mil of suffering in the World to Come—and more than that, infinitely more. In the analogy, the difference between above and below is only two thousand times. Not two thousand times. Yes, two thousand mil compared with one tefach is much more than two thousand times. A tefach is eight centimeters; a mil is about a kilometer. That’s not two thousand, it’s...

14:08 Speaker 4 A journey.

14:10 Speaker 1 It’s many times more. I don’t know; I haven’t done the calculation. But in what the analogy represents, the difference between suffering here and suffering there is much greater than in the analogy. Why? Because the World to Come, compared with this world, is part of the chain of descent of the worlds, from the loftiest heights down to this physical world. So there is another contraction and another contraction. We’ve never studied this at length here, but it’s one contraction after another after another, so that the distance between the physicality of this world and the spirituality of the higher worlds is beyond comparison altogether, far more than in the analogy. Actually, here we need to stop and ask a question before continuing with the next words. What were we trying to say with the analogy? We wanted to say that through light suffering in this world, a person is spared severe and extensive suffering in the World to Come. That was the point we wanted to make. But what did we actually say? The analogy says exactly the opposite. It says that something great in the World to Come is expressed here as something small. Right? It doesn’t say that something small here is expressed there as something great. That isn’t what the analogy says. Both in the analogy and in what it represents, the sun’s great movement causes a small movement here. An abundance of spirituality in the higher worlds produces a little spirituality, a little physicality here. But we want to say exactly the opposite: that a small movement in this world causes a great movement in the World to Come. That seems to be the opposite of the analogy. Yes.

16:03 Speaker 4 That the influence comes from below, not from above.

16:05 Speaker 1 What?

16:06 Speaker 4 That the influence.

16:06 Speaker 1 That the influence comes from below, not from above. Yes. So that means—as we know from what is written in the holy Zohar—that in reality it works not only from above downward; below also affects above. Where is this written in the holy Zohar? We know it from the ascent of the higher worlds through an awakening from below, through offering a single bird, a young dove, or a handful of a meal offering. A person takes something very, very small from the animal or plant world and offers it on the altar, and it says that this adds lights in Atzilus and moves all the higher worlds upward. So we see from the holy Zohar that it works in both directions. Not only does the higher world affect things here; even a very small thing in this world affects and adds to all the higher worlds, truly without end. And the Alter Rebbe adds here: “And so it is with all practical mitzvos, as is known from the Arizal.” It isn’t only what the Zohar says, that a korban brings about the ascent of the worlds. Every small mitzvah that a Jew performs draws down those same revelations, those same lights. How is it put in the language of Kabbalah? It adds lights in Atzilus; it has an effect above. “And this is what our Sages said about the verse, ‘And you shall sanctify yourselves...’” Where do we know this from the Sages? Where did they say it? This is what our Sages said about the verse “And you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy”: when a person sanctifies himself a little from below. How does he sanctify himself? He performs a mitzvah; he takes a coin and gives it to tzedakah. He has sanctified himself—“Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us.” He performed a small mitzvah, and performing that small mitzvah in the physical world has an effect. Our Sages said that he is sanctified greatly from above. In other words, one small action, one small movement of his in the physicality of this world, brings about a great, incomparably greater movement in the spirituality of the World to Come, and so on. “As explained above regarding ‘Who has sanctified us with His commandments,’” and so on—the level of sovev kol almin, and so on. I think we also spoke about this in the previous

18:37 Speaker 1 chapter. “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came to be.” If you remember, we discussed this toward the end of Tanya, in those last chapters, chapters 46 through 49, on the love described by “As water reflects a face back to a face, so the heart of one person to another.” The analogy there... The general idea is that a person should picture a great and exalted king coming down to a poor, lowly person lying in a refuse heap. The king takes him into a room, cleans and washes him, dresses him, and embraces and kisses him, and so on. What it represents there is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the mitzvos and the Giving of the Torah—the Torah and mitzvos. The Torah is like a kiss: it is an inward transmission that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us, mouth to mouth, heart to heart. And the mitzvos are encompassing—the embrace.

19:50 Speaker 4 The Torah.

19:51 Speaker 1 The Torah is inward. A person studies and understands.

19:54 Speaker 4 Wait, so the mitzvos are the embrace, and the Torah is the kiss?

19:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

19:58 Speaker 4 Okay.

19:59 Speaker 1 Generally speaking. In the particulars—well, both Torah and mitzvos have both aspects. But speaking generally about Torah and mitzvos, the Torah’s primary aspect is the kiss, an inward transmission, while the mitzvos...

20:10 Speaker 4 It says that the Torah embraces.

20:12 Speaker 1 Both inwardly and outwardly. But that isn’t its primary aspect. Torah is also a mitzvah, but its primary aspect is an inward transmission.

20:20 Speaker 4 No, chapter 5.

20:21 Speaker 1 In chapter 5 it says that although the Torah is primarily something inward—it is nourishment—it is nevertheless both nourishment and a garment for a person’s soul, not just nourishment. Yes, it is also a garment; it is also an encompassing light. The Torah is primarily nourishment, something inward, an inward flow. A mitzvah is primarily a garment, an encompassing light. So there he writes about that encompassing light drawn upon a person when he performs a mitzvah. What does “encompassing” mean? It means something you don’t feel; it surrounds you. Yes. What is this thing you don’t... It refers to the light that encompasses all worlds. What did the person do, after all? He performed a mitzvah. What did he do? He took something, did something physical, said something—and the encompassing light was drawn upon him from above: “You shall sanctify yourselves and be holy.” You do one small act, and it sanctifies you. So just as our Sages said regarding mitzvos and what they accomplish Above, and as they said regarding the offerings, that a small thing has an effect Above, an effect utterly beyond proportion—the Alter Rebbe says exactly the same thing applies to punishment, not only to reward. When a person receives a punishment that amounts to next to nothing down here, it saves him. It doesn’t just save him; it takes the place, completely, of all the vastly more severe and difficult punishments he would otherwise have had to receive Above. So he should be very happy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not only forgiven his sin, but is taking the trouble to cleanse him here in this world instead of in the World to Come. That is what he goes on to say here, immediately after the parentheses: “And precisely so it is with reward and punishment.” In other words, just as this applies to reward, it also applies to punishment—“the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah.”

22:14 Speaker 1 And so on, as explained elsewhere. So a person should be happy. Now it’s much clearer than it was in the previous chapter. We said that someone who has trust is one hundred percent certain. To him it’s obvious, it’s clear that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has forgiven him, and therefore he’s happy. So even when Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings him suffering, he’s happy. But it’s something quite different when he thinks about the tremendous good in Hakadosh Boruch Hu bringing him suffering in this world: it cleanses him. It doesn’t merely spare him suffering in the World to Come; it cleanses him completely, in a way that is out of all proportion. Who knows how long it would have taken Above, or what he would have had to go through? Here, a little mild suffering cleanses him. That adds tremendous joy to his service of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe concludes the Tanya: “For one who understands, knowledge comes easily, and one who reflects on a matter will find good.” I’ve said several times that this line is the end of the Tanya, even though Igeres Hakodesh and then Kuntres Acharon follow it. Why do we say the Tanya ends here? Well, when the Alter Rebbe first wrote the Tanya, it had developed over a very long period. At first, the Alter Rebbe simply gave various pieces of advice in yechidus to people who came to see him. Later, the Alter Rebbe himself began collecting that advice and writing it down for himself.

23:55 Speaker 4 He said the maamar “Ki...” at the Mitteler Rebbe’s wedding.

24:01 Speaker 1 Wait, wait, one second. That was later. That’s true.

24:03 Speaker 4 Okay.

24:04 Speaker 1 Later, the Rebbe began saying the entire Tanya, all of its content, in order, from the time he founded the chadarim—or a year or two afterward. Over quite a few years, each time he said another topic as a continuation. Then the Alter Rebbe said it a second time. The third time the Alter Rebbe said the whole Tanya in public was the occasion you’re describing from Hayom Yom. There are two stories in Hayom Yom. Three stories in Hayom Yom. Ah, it began with—the first chapter he said... Ah, that is, the first three chapters of Tanya, chapters 1, 2, and 3, were a maamar of Chassidus the Alter Rebbe said on the birthday of—when the Tzemach Tzedek was born. And the last chapter, the last part of the last chapter, the Alter Rebbe said when the Mitteler Rebbe turned twenty, on the Mitteler Rebbe’s birthday when he turned twenty. Some time later, uh...

25:00 Speaker 4 Wait, if that’s so, how much older is the Mitteler Rebbe than us?

25:05 Speaker 1 How much exactly? I can’t work out the calculation right now.

25:07 Speaker 4 Toldos, 5533.

25:10 Speaker 1 The Mitteler Rebbe is the Alter Rebbe’s son, and the—the Tzemach Tzedek—

25:13 Speaker 4 He’s a grandson.

25:13 Speaker 1 He’s a g-grandson. The Rebbe began the Tanya on his grandson’s birthday, when his grandson was born, and finished it when the Mitteler Rebbe turned twenty. That’s about three or four years, something like that. I don’t remember the exact years right now.

25:27 Speaker 4 Something like that. You can read it with the... simply.

25:29 Speaker 1 You can open Hayom Yom at the beginning and look at the lineage with all the exact dates. I can’t keep track of it right now.

25:34 Speaker 4 Fifteen years. Almost sixteen years.

25:40 Speaker 5 No, no, no.

25:42 Speaker 4 Why not?

25:43 Speaker 5 Well, for most people it doesn’t happen that the grandson is older than the...

25:45 Speaker 4 He isn’t older. 5533 is the Mitteler Rebbe.

25:47 Speaker 1 No.

25:48 Speaker 5 No.

25:49 Speaker 1 The grandson isn’t older, yes, that’s right. And... even after the Alter Rebbe finished saying the Tanya for the third time, he still hadn’t printed it; he had only said it. Then people began writing it down. He began writing it, people began copying it, each chapter separately as well. It came out in pamphlets. This is called the first edition of Tanya, which circulated in manuscript and in pamphlets—like the way they distribute Dvar Malchus and things like that today, except that back then they copied it by hand. Only once people began copying it and distorted versions began appearing, so that there was no choice, did the Alter Rebbe decide to print it. Then the Alter Rebbe printed the Tanya. The first printing was on 20 Kislev 5557. It caused an enormous stir everywhere, and the opponents began raising their heads because of the Tanya’s publication.

26:38 Speaker 5 That was several years before the accusation.

26:41 Speaker 1 What?

26:41 Speaker 5 The accusation was several years earlier.

26:43 Speaker 1 The accusation began because the Tanya was printed.

26:46 Speaker 5 Oh, it took time before they agreed to print the Tanya?

26:49 Speaker 1 No, the Tanya was printed in 5557.

26:52 Speaker 5 Right, but—

26:53 Speaker 1 The imprisonment was in 5559.

26:55 Speaker 5 Not the imprisonment. The accusation concerning Shaar Ben Poras was after the imprisonment.

26:58 Speaker 1 Oh, that was something else. Unrelated. No, no, that has nothing to do with this accusation. And the opponents, in 5557, when the Rebbe printed the Tanya, no longer knew what to do. They began going wild and making accusations to the authorities, and two years later it culminated in the Alter Rebbe’s imprisonment. And... after the Alter Rebbe was released from prison in 5559, they printed the Tanya again. Now, there are enormous differences between the first and second printings. In the Tanya’s first printing, when the Alter Rebbe printed it in 5557, he printed only Likkutei Amarim and Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. That was it. There was no Igeres Hakodesh, no Kuntres Acharon, and no Igeres Hateshuvah either. None of that was there. The Alter Rebbe included Igeres Hateshuvah in the Tanya later, when he printed it again after his release from prison. That was the first time Igeres Hateshuvah was printed. Now, even the Igeres Hateshuvah the Alter Rebbe printed in 5559 was not the Igeres Hateshuvah we know. There is a first edition of Igeres Hateshuvah, and that is what was printed then. After that there were several more printings, and only in 5566, another seven years later, in the printing that year, did the Alter Rebbe divide Igeres Hateshuvah into chapters for the first time. Originally it was a letter. The whole Igeres Hateshuvah was one letter.

28:32 Speaker 6 Did it go up to about a certain chapter within it?

28:33 Speaker 1 Huh?

28:34 Speaker 6 In the first edition, did it only go up to a particular chapter, or was it all simply combined?

28:38 Speaker 1 Um, some things were discussed at greater length, others more briefly. The content of the topics was there, but it was completely—when the Alter Rebbe printed the Tanya in 5566, he already printed the Igeres as we know it, with twelve chapters, though still with enormous differences from what we have today. After that, more and more changes continued to be made over more than a hundred years, until in 5566 the Tanya took the form it has today. In any case...

29:08 Speaker 6 5566?

29:11 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe passed away in 5573.

29:14 Speaker 6 So how could it have taken a hundred years to reach this form?

29:17 Speaker 1 From 5566 to 5666, which was the last printing—less than a hundred years. Now, when... That’s regarding Igeres Hateshuvah. When were the two additional sections, Igeres Hakodesh and Kuntres Acharon, added to the Tanya? Only after the Alter Rebbe’s passing. His sons wanted to print their father’s letters, so they attached Igeres Hakodesh to the Tanya. But as far as the Alter Rebbe was concerned, the Tanya ends with these words. This is the end, the conclusion. So now that we understand the background, we need to consider how the Alter Rebbe actually concludes the Tanya. He says: “Knowledge comes easily to the discerning, and one who gives thought to a matter will find good.” This verse contains all ten sefirot. “Knowledge” is the sefirah of daas. “The discerning” refers to the sefirah of binah. “One who gives thought” refers to chochmah. So daas, binah, chochmah go from below upward: daas, binah, chochmah. “A matter” refers to speech, which is malchus, and “good” is the sefirah of yesod, which contains all six sefirot within it. So “Knowledge comes easily to the discerning, and one who gives thought to a matter will find good” contains all ten sefirot. What does it say? What is the verse telling us? That knowledge comes easily to the discerning. When is contemplation easy? When will contemplation become easy for you? Fix your mind firmly on it, and contemplation will become easy. All of avodas Hashem, all three sections—that is, the first section of Tanya, which speaks about love and awe, about the emotions; the second section of Tanya, which speaks about faith; and the third section of Tanya, which speaks about teshuvah—it all comes through contemplation. Contemplation is difficult, but if you fix your mind firmly on it, then knowledge comes easily to the discerning, and one who gives thought to a matter will find good.