Igeres Hakodesh Chapter 1

00:00 Speaker 1 All right, good evening. We’ll begin Igeres Hakodesh with a blessing.

00:04 Speaker 2 We’ll begin with a blessing.

00:08 Speaker 1 In the introduction to Tanya, right at the very beginning, there are several introductions and approbations. The last approbation is by the rabbis who were the sons of the author, the gaon, z”l, whose soul is in Eden. They write: “Since we have agreed to grant permission and authorization to bring to the printing press, as a remembrance for the Jewish people, the written words of uprightness and truth, the words of the living G-d of our master, our father, our teacher and our Rebbe, z”l, written in his own holy handwriting and in his holy language.” What are the things they want to bring to the printing press? All the letters he wrote, whose words are like burning coals that will set hearts aflame to draw close to our Father in Heaven. “And they were called Igeres Hakodesh, for most were letters sent by his holy honor to instruct the people of Hashem in the path they should follow and the deeds they should do.” So this section, Igeres Hakodesh, and, as they go on to say there, Kuntres Acharon, were added to Tanya in the first printing after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, as we’ve discussed several times. This section contains thirty-two letters. That is, the section itself is divided in two: thirty-two letters, and another nine sections, some of which are also letters, called Kuntres Acharon. We’ll talk about that when we get there. As the rabbis, the author’s sons, write there, “And they shall be called Igeres Hakodesh.” What does “they shall be called” mean? These are holy letters, general letters that the Rebbe sent. What does it mean to call them Igeres Hakodesh? Usually, when someone writes a letter—even the Rebbe’s letters—the letter is written because something happened. It addresses something, notes something, tells about something. A letter is always connected to a particular event or time. And although the Rebbe’s letters, of course, each contain timeless instructions and guidance, a letter is still written for a particular occasion. In his letters too, the Rebbe explains the circumstances, the time,

02:41 Speaker 1 the way the dates fall that year, and so on. A letter is written for a particular occasion. The letters the Alter Rebbe wrote for Igeres Hakodesh were guidance and instructions in serving Hashem. They aren’t tied to a particular place or time. Every one of the letters in Igeres Hakodesh is, to use the expression there, a burning coal that sets hearts aflame on the point it discusses. The Rebbe said that we need to examine the order of Igeres Hakodesh itself. Why did the Alter Rebbe’s sons arrange the letters in this particular order? In fact, nearly two hundred letters of this kind from the Alter Rebbe have reached us. There’s a book called Igros Kodesh of the Alter Rebbe in which they’re all printed, and out of those two hundred—it’s a little less than two hundred—there’s a book of the Alter Rebbe’s letters. Each of the Rebbeim has a volume of Igros Kodesh. Today it’s already been printed.

03:41 Speaker 2 Like you can... like this one?

03:43 Speaker 1 Hmm?

03:43 Speaker 2 Yes, they published more, as it says, for the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe. No, that’s just it—I was asking about the Alter Rebbe. It looks the same.

03:50 Speaker 1 It looks the same, yes. Um, there are nearly two hundred letters there of this kind, almost all in this style. Some of the letters that appear here appear there with more details and at greater length. In other words, when the Alter Rebbe’s sons printed Igeres Hakodesh as part of Tanya, first, they selected a few—a very few—out of many, and they actually edited them. They didn’t print them exactly as written. A great deal is omitted. So all of this is intentional: they decided to include precisely these in Tanya and not others.

04:28 Speaker 2 And why is that?

04:30 Speaker 1 Hmm?

04:30 Speaker 2 And why is that?

04:33 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe says we need to examine them and find the reasons. In other words, the Rebbe asks us to try to understand something beyond what’s written: why, and what the connection is. We’ll discuss this more later. I hope, with Hashem’s help, we’ll get to that too. So that’s the first introduction. The second introduction—we need two introductions here—is to this particular letter of Igeres Hakodesh. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came to be. I also want to add something here, as a kind of introduction. Maybe it would be more fitting to say this at a farbrengen, but I think it has to be said. Bear with me for a few more minutes; it won’t be so bad. This letter of Igeres Hakodesh begins, “We open with a blessing.” The Alter Rebbe wrote it, the Frierdiker Rebbe relates, before traveling to his teacher and Rebbe, the Maggid of Mezritch, for the first time.

05:49 Speaker 2 Oh, wow.

05:51 Speaker 1 When the Alter Rebbe traveled to the Maggid of Mezritch for the first time, it was in the month of Tammuz 5524, and he was nineteen years old.

06:05 Speaker 2 Before he was a chossid, I understand.

06:06 Speaker 1 Before he was a chossid, before he knew about Chassidus, and he was nineteen. As we’ll see right here, look at how the letter begins: “I have heard good news, and my soul has been revived. There is no good but Torah, the Torah of Hashem: the completion of the entire Shas in most of the towns and among the groups of our people.” By the time he was nineteen, before he traveled to the Maggid, he already had so many people connected to him, in several cities and towns, that there were groups connected to him. He calls them “our people.” And they already followed him with such devotion that when he told them each group should complete the entire Shas, they sat and studied the entire Shas in a year. And we’re talking about when he was nineteen. When did the Alter Rebbe give that instruction to the people connected to him? So that’s the first letter in Igeres Hakodesh, “We open with a blessing.” The last letter in Kuntres Acharon, “You shall surely rebuke your fellow,” is the letter he wrote a year earlier, when he was eighteen.

07:20 Speaker 2 So we actually begin even earlier.

07:23 Speaker 1 We open Igeres Hakodesh with the letter the Rebbe ended with—the other way around, yes. Now, one of the fascinating things about this letter, which is also written in a sicha of the Frierdiker Rebbe and was related by both the Tzemach Tzedek and the Mitteler Rebbe, is that the Alter Rebbe didn’t write it all at once. Usually, a person writes a letter and sends it. The Alter Rebbe wrote the first part of this letter to the chassidim when he was eighteen, as he was preparing to go to Mezritch. He knew he would stay there for a long time, so he wanted to leave them something—to unite them, bring them together, give them provisions of a sort, something that would sustain them until he returned. He wrote them this letter of Igeres Hakodesh, but not all of it. From the words “We open with a blessing” until

08:27 Speaker 2 the body within the soul

08:28 Speaker 1 until “the aspect of the arms and the body within the soul.” Only that part. When he returned from the Maggid after about nine months—eight months—he had traveled at the beginning of the summer, in Tammuz, and returned for Pesach the following year. Eight or nine months. When he returned... this is how the Frierdiker Rebbe tells it: What happened between his departure and his return? He became a chossid. The Alter Rebbe became a chossid. What made him a chossid? The Maggid revealed to the Alter Rebbe that he had a new soul and that his mission was to transform the world. So when he returned, he wrote an addition to this letter of Igeres Hakodesh, explaining it a little further, and concluded that this work must be done to the point of exhausting the soul. He wrote that when he returned. After that, much water flowed down the Jordan. The Maggid passed away, Reb Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk traveled to the Land of Israel, and the Alter Rebbe became the leader of all the chassidim in Russia. Many years passed. The Alter Rebbe established his famous chadarim. Twenty-five years later, in 5549, the Alter Rebbe wrote another part of the letter, a third part: “And now, this time, I will once again add a further explanation and a twofold request.” In other words, after twenty-five years, the Alter Rebbe wants to return to that foundational letter with which he began his path, and he forcefully demands of the people connected to him those same things written in the letter. So again, this is a classic example of Igeres Hakodesh: it isn’t just a letter tied to some occasion. The Alter Rebbe builds it, and builds it, and builds it—sometimes over decades—one letter. Let’s begin learning it inside. First: “We open with a blessing.” I think I mentioned this last time, but now we can see it inside.

10:59 Speaker 1 That is, it doesn’t say “Chapter 1” here. It says “1,” and it’s set a little farther in. The word “chapter,” which was written at the beginning, was removed. Yes. “We begin with a blessing, to bless and thank Hashem, for He is good. I heard good news, and my soul was revived; there is no ‘good’ but Torah.” What is the good news? “Good” means Torah. I heard news about Torah. What news did I hear? “The Torah of Hashem is perfect”—the completion of the entire Shas in most of the towns and minyanim of Anash. The group reported to the Rebbe at the end of the year that they had carried out the instruction. So the Rebbe tells them: thanks for the past, and a request for the future. Incidentally, this request of the Alter Rebbe is carried out to this very day in every, um, kind of—

11:54 Speaker 2 On 10 Kislev, it comes up everywhere, uh—

11:56 Speaker 1 That’s the instruction for 19 Kislev.

11:58 Speaker 2 Uh.

12:00 Speaker 1 What?

12:00 Speaker 2 They divide up the Shas among all the—

12:03 Speaker 1 The division of the Shas on 19 Kislev—that’s the last letter, and the continuation of this letter. This is where the instruction is. “Thanks for the past, and a request for the future. May Hashem grant and continue to strengthen their hearts among the mighty, year after year, with the might of Torah.” In our way of speaking, the words “the might of Torah,” “the Torah’s might,” don’t strike us as surprising or strange. It’s an expression we’re used to hearing. But the Alter Rebbe says that we must “make known to people the might and powerful strength of the Oral Torah.” What does Torah have to do with might? What is this expression, “the might of Torah”? Why is the Torah called—why is the Oral Torah called might? In general, it’s explained in Kabbalah—I think we’ve explained this already—that the Written Torah and the Oral Torah are a giver and a receiver. The Written Torah gives to the Oral Torah, which receives from the Written Torah. And with regard to the supernal sefiros, Kabbalah explains that the Written Torah corresponds to chochmah, and the Oral Torah to binah. Just as binah takes the point of chochmah and details it, expands it, develops it and explains it, so the Oral Torah develops and expands the Written Torah. Can you hear me like this? Do you know what I mean? No?

13:42 Speaker 2 “And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”

13:43 Speaker 1 Huh?

13:44 Speaker 2 “And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes”—that sentence.

13:47 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly, yes. The Torah says, “And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” Who knows what “frontlets” are? What are they? How do you put them on? Today there’s an enormous number of books, even just in halachah, without Chassidus or Kabbalah, explaining “and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” The Oral Torah explains the— So what are we saying? The Written Torah is chochmah and the Oral Torah is binah. Chochmah is on the right side, correct? And binah is on the left side. What are right and left? Chessed and gevurah. That means that if the Oral Torah is connected to binah, it’s connected to the left side, to the attribute of gevurah. The Alter Rebbe asks: In what way is the Oral Torah’s connection to gevurah expressed? I understand why it’s connected to binah. Why is it connected to gevurah? “King Shlomo, peace be upon him, explained: ‘She girds her loins with strength.’” Who girds her loins with strength?

14:55 Speaker 2 The woman.

14:56 Speaker 1 The woman. “A woman of valor,” right? That’s what we say every Friday night. Yes. “A woman of valor” is, of course, a name for Knesses Yisroel, the wife of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every Jew is considered, so to speak, a wife of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, receiving from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And Knesses Yisroel as a whole, and every Jew in particular, has a head and arms, a whole body. Among other things, there are loins, arms and a head—the main parts of a person. Physically, the loins support the entire body, with the head standing upright upon them. Yes, what do the whole body, the arms and the head stand on? On the base, the loins. And it is the loins that carry the body to its destination. They give strength to the whole body, connect the head to the legs and move the whole body. And as it is with the physical body, so it is with the spiritual dimension of the G-dly soul. In the spiritual dimension of the G-dly soul, in Knesses Yisroel, or in each individual, there are a head and arms, and there are also loins. What are those loins? What are they in spiritual terms, huh?

16:19 Speaker 2 Is it an intermediary that connects them?

16:20 Speaker 1 No, no. A connecting intermediary is between one thing and another. The loins are the base on which everything stands. And here we say that the woman of valor “girds her loins with strength.” So there are loins, and there’s a belt around the loins. Right? Knesses Yisroel has the head and arms, which are fairly easy to understand as contemplation, and love and awe—the emotions. The two arms, the hands, allude to right and left, to chessed and gevurah, love and awe. But there are also loins, on which the whole Jewish body, the G-dly soul, stands, and there’s a belt around them too.

16:56 Speaker 2 What are the loins? What is the belt?

16:58 Speaker 1 What?

16:58 Speaker 2 What are the loins? What is the belt?

16:59 Speaker 1 This is Igeres Hakodesh. This is what we’re about to learn. Just as it is with the physical body, so it is with the spiritual dimension of the G-dly soul. The loins are true faith in the one Hashem. The loins—what gives a person his firm footing—is faith. We’ll come back to this shortly. I’ll say it in advance. I’ll say it from the start. Um, no, I’ll say it later, when we get there. Before explaining why faith supports the head and the legs, we first explain what faith is.

17:56 Speaker 2 It’s just that we say... Oh, okay, let’s write it down.

18:01 Speaker 1 True faith in the one Hashem, Who is the blessed Ein Sof, “Who fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and there is no place devoid of Him,” upward without end and downward without limit. So what is that? What does it mean to believe that Hashem is one? He’s really putting all of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah into one line here, as you say. To believe that Hakadosh Boruch Hu encompasses all worlds and fills all worlds. If He fills the worlds, then He is present within them. He is... right? If He is present within them, He is the life of all the worlds, so there is nothing apart from Him. There is no true existence apart from Him, because the life of everything that exists comes from Him. Right? But someone could still come along and say: Yes, fine, nothing He creates exists without being nullified to Him, but perhaps there is something else that doesn’t come from Him. That’s why He encompasses all worlds. He both fills the worlds and encompasses the worlds, and those are not two separate things. It’s not that there’s a light that fills and a light that encompasses. No, He is the One Who fills and the One Who encompasses. There is nothing besides Him at all. And no place is empty—“there is no place”; “place” means a location, right? In every single place. “There is no place devoid of Him”—there is no place empty of Him. Upward without end and downward without limit. And likewise in the four directions, truly without end. Yes, we’ve already learned that space is defined by six directions: up, down and the four sides. So anything that can be called a place, whether physical space without end or spiritual “space” without end—as we’ve explained several times what spiritual space means—so, uh, in every... in every place that can be called a place, He fills all

20:11 Speaker 1 worlds and encompasses all worlds, and there is no place devoid of Him, and nothing exists apart from Him. And not only with regard to space, but also with regard to time and soul, as is known. Sefer Yetzirah, from beginning to end, is based on—explains—the idea that the entire world is comprised of three dimensions: space, time and soul. Space means location, time means time, and soul means the life of everything. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds with regard to space—there is no place devoid of Him—and also with regard to time: He was, He is and He will be. In everything, He both fills and encompasses. And also with regard to soul, the life of everything, there too He both fills and encompasses. That, then, is true faith in the one Hashem. And this true faith in the one Hashem, believing that Hashem is one and there is nothing besides Him, is what the Alter Rebbe calls the loins. “This faith is called ‘loins,’ for it is what supports and sustains the head.” Why? What is it about faith that sustains and supports the head? He says this: “The intellect that contemplates and deeply reflects”—what is the head? The head is the intellect that contemplates and deeply reflects on the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof in the dimensions of space, time and soul. The head is contemplation. Contemplation of what?

21:59 Speaker 3 I don’t know.

21:59 Speaker 1 Contemplation of Hashem’s greatness. So what have we done? We said: What is faith? Faith means believing that Hashem is one. Right?

22:14 Speaker 3 And what is there in the head?

22:15 Speaker 1 And what is contemplation? Contemplating that Hashem is one. So... what’s the difference?

22:23 Speaker 3 His greatness.

22:24 Speaker 1 In His greatness. Nu, how can you believe that Hashem is one without studying Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah? What is he trying to say here? The point is that if a person does not believe in his heart, he does not believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He doesn’t believe. He was born without belief, or he convinced himself that he doesn’t believe. Now he’ll start studying what Tanya, Chassidus, or Kabbalah says about Hashem’s greatness—that He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and that everything is considered as nothing before Him. Will that move anything in his heart? He’ll study it the way you study material for some assignment. He’ll learn the material, write a paper, and hand it in. It doesn’t obligate him. Right? Contemplation without faith does nothing. Nothing at all. On the other hand, a person might say, “So why do I need contemplation? I believe. I’m a simple person. I believe in Hashem, Hashem is one, and that’s that.” No, that doesn’t work either. We know that a thief at the entrance to a tunnel calls upon Hashem. A person can believe in Hashem with all his heart—that He is one and everything—and it still won’t stop him from acting against Hashem’s command. So you need both. Faith must be the foundation, and when a person believes in Hakadosh Boruch Hu and then contemplates what that faith means—what does “Hashem is one” mean? What does it mean that He encompasses the worlds? What does it mean that He fills all worlds?—then the faith penetrates him. You need both. Faith is the foundation, the base on which the head stands.

24:23 Speaker 3 To contemplate, to strengthen the faith.

24:26 Speaker 1 Contemplation doesn’t— it strengthens the faith. It brings the faith into the body. But if he has no basic faith—

24:36 Speaker 3 Nothing helps.

24:37 Speaker 1 Then contemplation won’t help him. Yes, each depends on the other, but the base, the foundation, is faith. What is contemplation? What is the head? The head is the mind that contemplates and delves deeply into the greatness of His infinite light in the dimensions of world, year, and soul, and into His abundant— That’s one thing, yes, what we discussed earlier. And there’s another aspect of contemplation connected to faith: His abundant kindness and the wonders He has done for us, making us a people close to Him and enabling us to cleave to Him literally. To contemplate the kindness Hakadosh Boruch Hu has done us by bringing us close to Him so that we can truly cleave to Him. As is known—what is the great kindness Hakadosh Boruch Hu has done us? All of this is part of the head’s contemplation. “As is known from the teaching, ‘One hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come.’” When a Jew contemplates that all the life of the World to Come, all of Gan Eden, is only a radiance and an illumination of the level called Shechinah, which dwells within the worlds, and that the entire World to Come was created with just one yud of His name—then all the revelations, vitality, pleasure, and delight of Gan Eden are only a limited illumination, just one yud. But teshuvah and good deeds in this world bring the Jewish people truly close to their Father in Heaven. Not to a yud, not to an illumination, but to His very essence and being, so to speak—to the Infinite itself. So a person contemplates, first, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, in the dimensions of world, year, and soul. And then he continues to contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not simply some great and awesome G-d who creates the world: He has given this to us and brought us, specifically, close to Him. This contemplation brings faith into a person. And as it says... Yes, what is the proof that through Torah and mitzvos Hakadosh Boruch Hu has brought us truly closer to Him than Gan Eden does? So—

27:12 Speaker 1 It says, “His glory is over earth and heaven, and He has raised the horn of His people.” All of earth and heaven receive only His glory, while the horn—the horn means the essence—His very self, He gave to us. And that is what we say in the blessing over every mitzvah. We remind ourselves anew: “Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos.” Through the mitzvos He gave us, He made us holy and brought us close to Him. When a person contemplates these two things, he first contemplates Hashem’s greatness: that He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, in the dimensions of world, year, and soul. He contemplates Hashem’s greatness. Then he contemplates how that same great and awesome G-d, who creates all the worlds and is infinite, brought us specifically close to Him, even though we don’t deserve it. When he contemplates this, “As water reflects a face to a face, so the heart of one person reflects the heart of another.” This is the beinoni’s principal contemplation, as the Alter Rebbe explains later in Tanya, in chapters 46 through 49—four chapters. Love “as water reflects a face to a face”: that is the core of serving Hashem. Yes, contemplating Hashem’s greatness and then how Hakadosh Boruch Hu has brought us close. There are many, many details to this, but it is the foundation on which all of Torah and mitzvos stand. In other words, Torah and mitzvos are expressed through the head and arms—through contemplation, love, and awe. And what brings forth the head and arms? Faith. “To give rise, through this contemplation, to intellectual or natural love and awe: the heart’s cry to Hashem, or fiery sparks and a mighty flame, in a state of ratzo”—a yearning to reach upward. As explained there, this love, the love of “as water reflects a face to a face,” includes all the levels of intellectual love and natural love. Do you remember that phrase from there that we discussed? Why does it include them all? On the one hand, it is something that comes from above, so—

29:29 Speaker 1 It is a natural love. On the other hand, it comes through contemplation. He explains there that it is both kinds of love—all the kinds. So through this contemplation a person gives rise to his heart’s cry to Hashem, to fiery sparks and to ratzo. Afterward comes shov—the return—to have fear of Hashem in his heart and to feel ashamed before His greatness, and so on. This is the aspect of “the left hand pushes away,” as it says about Matan Torah: “The people saw and trembled, and stood at a distance.” That’s how it naturally works. Even in a physical example—I think we’ve discussed this analogy too—when a person longs to approach the Rebbe, he feels that longing as long as he hasn’t reached him. But when he reaches the Rebbe, and is standing there as the Rebbe gives him a dollar, all he wants is for the ground to swallow him up. As long as a person is distant, contemplating Hashem’s greatness and the good He does for us awakens desire, longing, fire—a movement outward. He wants to cleave to G-dliness. But the moment he rises and begins to feel it, he begins to sense Hashem’s exaltedness, and that brings him to awe, to shov. As it says there about Matan Torah, “The people saw and trembled, and stood at a distance.” The moment Hakadosh Boruch Hu was revealed and they saw Him, awe fell upon them and they stood back—a movement of distance, of the left side, of gevurah. These are the arms and the body within the soul. That brings us to the end of the first part of the letter. After offering a blessing and thanks for the completion of the Shas, the Alter Rebbe explains that for a person’s service of Hashem... What is service of Hashem? Contemplation, love, and awe, right? In order to have contemplation, love of Hashem, and awe, there must be faith. Faith is—

32:04 Speaker 1 The foundation that holds everything up. How does this connect to what we wanted to explain? The Alter Rebbe said he wanted to inform those who study the Oral Torah. What does the Oral Torah have to do with it? We’ve been talking about faith, contemplation, love, and awe. Where does the Oral Torah enter the picture? It’s already written in the text, but you have to understand it very deeply to see it there. So when the Alter Rebbe returned from the Maggid, he decided to lay all his cards on the table. He was now going to explain why the Oral Torah is the belt around the waist, and why it is what gives faith its strength. That is really the great innovation of this letter. “But what gives strength and power to the waist, enabling it to support and sustain the head and arms? It is the study of the halachos of the Oral Torah.” When you contemplate what is written here, it is absolutely astounding. First of all, why do we need something else to give faith the strength to support the arms and the head?

33:48 Speaker 4 Something is missing here.

33:48 Speaker 1 What is missing from what we explained earlier? If a person has basic faith and he contemplates, then contemplation strengthens that faith and brings it inside him.

34:00 Speaker 4 He can falter emotionally.

34:05 Speaker 1 Why is something else needed to give it strength? What is he saying here? What gives the loins the strength and power to support the head? Why does faith need something? Someone has to give faith the strength to hold up the head. If something has to give faith strength, that means there is something more fundamental than faith that gives it the strength to hold up the arms and the head. So first of all, why is that needed at all? And second, even if there is a need for it, what does it have to do with the Oral Torah? A person studies halachos in the Oral Torah. Generally speaking, the difference between the Written Torah and the Oral Torah is that the Oral Torah tells you what to do—the halachos. So if he studies halachos, that will give faith the strength to hold up... What exactly is written here? Right? To understand this, we first need to understand that, in their essential nature, faith and contemplation are opposites. Contemplation is the person himself: What do I understand? What do I feel? It all lives within him. These are his feelings and his intellect, his inner vitality. That is his inner self. Faith is outside the person. Faith is not part of the person in that way. The moment a person understands or feels something, it is no longer faith. If he believes, then he does not understand or feel it. Contemplation, by its very nature, and emotion, by its very nature, are internal. Faith, by its very nature, is encompassing; it is outside. So in their essential nature, faith and intellect and emotion are opposites. If so, how is it possible for faith to affect the intellect, or for the intellect to affect faith? They are opposites. There is no connection between them. Yes, is the question clear?

36:25 Speaker 4 Yes.

36:25 Speaker 1 That is why there has to be a belt. There has to be something with the power to connect the two opposites, faith and intellect. And that something is the Oral Torah. Here the Rebbe is going to explain why. The explanation is this: What gives the loins the strength and power to support and sustain the head and arms? It is the study of halachos, which is the main content of the Oral Torah, because the halachos of the Oral Torah are a revelation of the supernal will. Where is the supernal will found? In halachos. The Written Torah is not the supernal will. Specifically the halachos are the supernal will. What does that mean? He says this: “The Torah emerges from Chochmah.” So the Torah does indeed emerge from Chochmah. But the Torah’s source and root are not in Chochmah; they are far, far above Chochmah, in what is called the supernal will of the Blessed One. So where did the Torah emerge from? What is the point from which the Torah emerged and was revealed? Chochmah. That is the point at which the Torah began to be revealed to us. But Chochmah is not the root of the Torah; it is only the point from which the Torah comes out. It is like the opening of a spring, so to speak, where the water comes out. That is not the spring’s source. Its source is in the depths beneath the earth, where it cannot be seen. It is not revealed. The Torah’s true root is not in Chochmah. Its true root is in the supernal will. Fine, where is the supernal will revealed? What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want? He wants us to do this and do that and do something else, and for this to be forbidden and that permitted. Right? That is what He wanted. Where is His will revealed? His will is revealed only in the halachos. So it is true that the Torah, which emerges from Chochmah, reveals the will. But where is the will itself found? Specifically down below, in the halachos. Let’s return to our subject. The Torah emerges from Chochmah, but its source and root are far, far above Chochmah.

39:32 Speaker 1 And this is called the supernal will of the Blessed One. As it is written, “You surround him with favor like a shield.” The... the Torah’s source is called a shield. A shield is something that... ah, sorry. The will is like a shield, like a crown, like a shield that surrounds, a crown above the intellectual faculties in the head. In other words, the intellectual faculties in the head are the Torah itself, and the will is the crown above them. As is known from what is written about the verse, “A woman of valor is her husband’s crown.” And also that same...

40:25 Speaker 4 In Mishnah.

40:26 Speaker 1 That same “woman of valor” that we say—what?

40:29 Speaker 4 That’s not in “A Woman of Valor.” It doesn’t say “her husband’s crown” there.

40:32 Speaker 1 “Her husband’s crown” isn’t there.

40:34 Speaker 4 It’s not written there; it’s in Proverbs.

40:37 Speaker 1 Okay, so regarding “A woman of valor is her husband’s crown”: again, the woman of valor is the Oral Torah, and she is called her husband’s crown. Who is the Oral Torah’s husband? The Written Torah. So if she is only the wife, only receiving from the Written Torah, how can she be a crown, a crown above the Written Torah? She only receives from it.

41:09 Speaker 4 What? So she revealed his will?

41:12 Speaker 1 No. In terms of her root, the woman of valor is higher. The halachos are revealed in the Oral Torah, and the halachos express the will that is above her husband, above the Written Torah. That is precisely why he says, as is known from what is explained about this verse, “A woman of valor is her husband’s crown,” that although she only receives, and is lower, and consists only of the words of the Sages, and so on...

41:40 Speaker 4 What comes from the man.

41:45 Speaker 1 Right. That is how it is in the physical world because that is how it is in the spiritual world. In terms of what is revealed, how things appear outwardly, the husband is the one who gives things their force and does everything. But in practice, when the wife tells him, “Do this,” he does it. She tells him to buy something. “You bought bad tomatoes? Go back to the store.” So he goes back to the store because his wife told him to. There’s no—there’s no one in the world who would dare refuse. That is how it is. It is that way physically because it is that way spiritually. This is no joke. It is not just a saying. That is the reality. Although the Oral Torah only receives from the Written Torah, it is specifically in the Oral Torah that the essence of the supernal will, which is above the Written Torah, is revealed. “Whoever studies halachos every day is assured a place in the World to Come.” After all, in the World to Come, in Gan Eden, the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads and enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah. What does the radiance of the Shechinah have to do with halachos? You might say he studied Kabbalah in this world, studied a lot of Chassidus. He has a lot of light, so he will receive many, many revelations there. I don’t understand what that has to do with halachos. But it is specifically someone who studied halachos.

43:05 Speaker 4 That is the supernal will.

43:06 Speaker 1 Only he can receive the supernal will in the World to Come. Chassidus explains in many places that halachos are called food, and there are garments. No, we won’t go into that now. There are many beautiful explanations. In any case, everything explained in this whole passage we have read so far comes down to this: although we want to explain why the Oral Torah is called a belt that strengthens faith, it is because the supernal will is revealed in the Oral Torah. That will is above the Written Torah; it is His very Essence and Being, above. And that is the meaning of “She girds her loins with strength.” The loins are faith. And what girds faith? What gives faith the strength to connect with a person’s inner faculties? Strength. What is strength? “There is no strength other than Torah”—meaning the Oral Torah. The study of halachos in particular gives strength and power to the loins, girding them and clothing them with strength, to strengthen and fortify the arms—intellectual or natural fear and love, each person according to his capacity. The purpose, the ultimate purpose of... No, no, no, that is not right; I shouldn’t call it the ultimate purpose. The point of serving Hashem is for a person to contemplate in a way that brings him to love and fear. For him to have love and fear, they must be based on faith; otherwise they are nothing, as we explained earlier. But for faith to affect the intellect and descend to the point where he has love and fear, he must study halachos. If he does not study halachos, the supernal will is not revealed within him, and... faith cannot penetrate his intellect and emotions. Elsewhere this is explained at somewhat greater length, with a few more words and explanations on this subject. Why is that, really? What is it about the supernal will that enables it... Why can only it connect these two opposites, faith and the inner faculties? We have learned several times that within... within G-dliness in general,

45:42 Speaker 1 there is the G-dly power that clothes itself within the world, the power of limitation. There is the G-dly light that encompasses the world, the power of the unlimited. And above all of this is the supernal will, for which limitation and the unlimited are the same. Limitation does not pose a problem for it, nor does the unlimited. To it, they are all the same. The physical expression of this is that the space occupied by the Ark was not included in the measurements. There is an Ark; there are boundaries, there is limitation, there is... and at the same time there is no limitation. And the two fit together perfectly. There is no problem. What is the Ark? What does the Ark symbolize? What is inside the Ark?

46:26 Speaker 5 The Tablets.

46:27 Speaker 1 The Tablets of the Covenant. What are the Tablets of the Covenant?

46:28 Speaker 5 Torah.

46:29 Speaker 1 Torah. Yes. Why does Torah have this power to bring together limitation and the unlimited? Because it is the Supernal Will. Torah is, is, is, is part of... I don’t know how to put it. The source of Torah is the Supernal Will, which is above both limitation and the unlimited. So when a Jew studies the laws of Torah, this power to bring together limitation and the unlimited is revealed in him: he can connect faith with his mind and his arms. So everything he explained in this passage was how faith connects... how the belt connects—the belt of Torah law connects faith with the intellect and the emotions. But in the analogy, we said that faith strengthens the loins, which support not only the arms but also the brain in the head. He didn’t explain that. About this he adds in parentheses: “As for supporting and sustaining the head in the soul, namely the intellect that contemplates, etc., regarding this it says, ‘She perceives that her merchandise is good,’ etc.; this is explained elsewhere.” There’s a version that says, “It will be explained elsewhere.” There’s a maamar of the Rebbe from 5723, many, many, many years later, that explains this. How the... ah, meaning an explanation similar to what’s explained here, how Torah laws strengthen the loins so that faith can penetrate love and awe. Along those lines, there’s an explanation there of how this strengthens faith so that it penetrates the intellect in the head as well. It has to do with Arich, with “good” and yesod. The yesod of... No. Another time.

48:20 Speaker 5 We’ll learn it another time.

48:21 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe deliberately put that in parentheses, because it isn’t the main point. He’s talking here about serving Hashem, and serving Hashem means love and awe. “But the time for strengthening and fortifying the arms and the head is the time of the morning prayer.” So for the arms and head to be strengthened at all, you need faith. But when does that happen in practice? There are coals with fire inside them, but you can’t see it. Touch them and you’ll get burned, but when you look at them, you see nothing. Blow on them, fan them, and the fire will flare up. The time to kindle faith, to reveal it, is the time of prayer.

49:12 Speaker 5 That’s the difficulty.

49:14 Speaker 1 “The time of the morning prayer, which is a time of mercy and a time of Supernal favor above.” We’ve discussed this several times...

49:19 Speaker 5 Wait, isn’t mercy at... midnight?

49:22 Speaker 1 What?

49:22 Speaker 5 Isn’t mercy specifically at midnight?

49:31 Speaker 1 I don’t know how to explain why the word “mercy” is used here. Usually it really does say “a time of kindness”—morning is a time of kindness. I don’t know why it says “mercy” here; I can’t explain it. In any case, we’ve discussed several times that the day is divided into periods, and each part of the day has its own time. So the time suited to arousing Supernal kindness, faith, love and awe, is the time of prayer, the morning. “Therefore”—since this is the appropriate time... First we learned its importance, and then we asked: when is the time for this important thing? During prayer. So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is: “Therefore, this is what I ask of those who seek Hashem: let them understand and take to heart together, keeping before their eyes everything I wrote to them last year in general”—that’s the previous Igeres Hakodesh we discussed—“You shall surely rebuke your fellow,” where the Alter Rebbe strongly demands Torah study and prayer—“and in particular regarding concentration in prayer, from the depths of the heart. Day by day they shall seek Hashem with all their heart.” Don’t settle for once a week. “Day by day they shall seek Hashem.” How? “With all their heart and all their soul.” Generally speaking, heart and soul refer to emotion and intellect. “Soul” tends more toward intellect, and “heart” more toward... “with all their heart, with all their soul.”

51:04 Speaker 5 So does neshamah express the heart more?

51:07 Speaker 1 What?

51:07 Speaker 5 Does neshamah express the heart more? Because if nefesh expresses life, does neshamah express the heart?

51:14 Speaker 1 Ah. No, when we speak about the three... It depends what we’re discussing. When we speak about nefesh, ruach and neshamah, ruach relates to the heart, nefesh relates to action, and neshamah relates to intellect. But when we speak about heart and soul, the heart is the...

51:36 Speaker 5 Heart.

51:42 Speaker 1 There are very, very many terms in Chassidus where the same word is used with one meaning in one place and a different meaning elsewhere. I mean within Chassidus itself, not that it means one thing in Chassidus and another in Kabbalah or in Jewish philosophy. Within Chassidus itself, the same word—there simply aren’t enough words. “They shall seek Hashem with all their heart and all their soul, and their soul shall pour forth like water before Hashem, as our Sages say in the Sifrei, ‘until the soul is wrung out.’” Generally, “wrung out” is a term our Sages use when you fill a vessel with liquid until it overflows at the sides and spills a little. Right? In general, serving Hashem should be inward. Nobody needs to know that you have a life of love and awe. Yes. When a child starts making gestures like this with his hands, I don’t know, it’s a sign he’s stopped thinking inside. Love of Hashem should be inward. The Alter Rebbe demands that love of Hashem be so strong that your barrel fills up until it becomes visible outside. There’s no avoiding it. Not that you should try to show it outwardly, but neither should you try to... Serving Hashem should be modest and inward. It will spill outward. “Until the soul is wrung out”—until his soul pours outward.

53:17 Speaker 6 Maybe that’s what Ravitz [?] said.

53:24 Speaker 1 After things had become established, as we discussed at the beginning of the introduction—Chassidus had become an established movement, there was already an orderly system, the Alter Rebbe already had tens of thousands of chassidim, they were already called chassidim, and Chassidus had spread widely throughout the world—the Alter Rebbe wrote the final part of the letter. “And now, this time”—now, this time—twenty-five years had passed.

53:53 Speaker 6 Before they merited Igeres Hakodesh.

53:55 Speaker 1 What?

53:55 Speaker 6 Before they merited Igeres Hakodesh.

53:57 Speaker 1 There were many other letters in between. “And now, this time, I will once again add my hand, with further explanation and a repeated request, laid out before all our fellow chassidim, near and far: let them establish among themselves that on weekdays, businessmen who do not have so much time should not lead the prayers.” Who, then, should lead the prayers on weekdays? Those who have time. In other words, in this final part the Alter Rebbe is saying: I’m not telling you anything new. I’m coming to reinforce and give weight to what I wrote earlier.

54:35 Speaker 6 And to give instructions.

54:37 Speaker 1 What?

54:37 Speaker 6 And to give instructions.

54:39 Speaker 1 Specific instructions.

54:41 Speaker 6 Yes, specific ones.

54:42 Speaker 1 “Only those who have time, or teachers who are supported by their fathers”—they don’t have to earn their own living. Someone supports them. So in their free hours they can...

54:55 Speaker 6 Pray.

54:55 Speaker 1 Pray for longer. “They can extend the morning prayer to at least an hour and a half on every weekday.” Well, that raises a question. It’s a rather excessive demand. The Gemara says that the early chassidim would spend an hour in prayer. So how can the Rebbe demand that people in our generation spend an hour and a half praying?

55:16 Speaker 6 We went through those passages.

55:17 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe... What?

55:19 Speaker 6 What’s that?

55:21 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe explains that when the Gemara says the early chassidim spent an hour, it means they spent an hour on the Amidah.

55:32 Speaker 6 Okay.

55:32 Speaker 1 And the Alter Rebbe demands an hour and a half in shul. [unclear] But pray—don’t race through the prayers. The truth is that with an ordinary weekday Shacharis, if you come to shul, say the korbanos and then pray at a measured pace—not, not, not... without dragging it out—

55:58 Speaker 6 Yes.

55:58 Speaker 1 You pray at a measured pace. It can take an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half.

56:05 Speaker 6 Well, that depends on whether people sing nicely that day.

56:07 Speaker 1 No, no, without singing, without singing, without singing. Think about it: when someone says the... How long does it take to say the morning korbanos?

56:15 Speaker 6 It can take...

56:16 Speaker 1 If you say them slowly, word by word, it takes at least ten minutes, if not more. The whole prayer service, with all the Kaddishes and the Torah reading, can take an hour and a half. The Alter Rebbe says: Don’t rush through it. He’s not saying to drag it out. Take prayer seriously. That means don’t rush. You’ve come to shul; now you’re in shul. It’s not an excessive demand.

56:54 Speaker 6 Yes.

56:54 Speaker 1 At least on weekdays. “And one of them shall lead the prayers, either by lot or according to the wishes of the majority”—whatever suits each place. And he, the one who truly has the time in practical terms, should gather around him all those supported by their fathers and the teachers who can pray at length like him. Please, let this not be changed; others can join for as long as they’re able. All this is on weekdays. But on Shabbos and Yom Tov, when businessmen too have the time and the opportunity to pray at length, directing their hearts and souls to Hashem—on the contrary, the obligation rests on them with even greater force. As it says in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim—it says explicitly in Shulchan Aruch that on Shabbos, the role of leading the prayers should fall to businessmen, while those who are Torah scholars—I don’t remember the exact wording—should take a back seat on Shabbos. It’s actually an explicit ruling.

57:59 Speaker 6 Wait, a question: What does prayer have to do with what we were discussing about the Oral Torah?

58:03 Speaker 1 With...?

58:04 Speaker 6 With what we were discussing about the Oral Torah, that it is connected to faith.

58:09 Speaker 1 He says that the time for strengthening the arms and the head is the time of prayer. And then we begin to talk about prayer. As it says in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim—or as it says in the Torah of Moshe, it says explicitly in the Torah: “Six days you shall work,” and so on, “and the seventh day is Shabbos to Hashem your G-d.” That’s it, entirely for Hashem. There’s a lengthy discussion of this both in the halachic authorities and in Chassidus. But the bottom line, the halachic ruling at least according to Chassidus, and I think also according to the revealed teachings, is that regarding Yom Tov it says, “Half for Hashem and half for yourselves.” Shabbos...

58:50 Speaker 6 Entirely for Hashem.

58:51 Speaker 1 Shabbos is entirely for Hashem. So the day about which this is written—and this is already written in the Torah of Moshe, already written in the Torah—is that precisely those who fulfill “Six days you shall work” are the ones who merit to have Shabbos be entirely for Hashem, to lead the prayers. And therefore they, too, should lead the prayers on Shabbos and Yom Tov, by lot or with the consent of the majority. As I wrote—I looked at the part in parentheses that we’ll learn, with Hashem’s help, in another...

59:20 Speaker 6 Some time.

59:21 Speaker 1 Three, another thirty-two and another nine. How much does that come to?

59:26 Speaker 6 Forty-one.

59:27 Speaker 1 Huh?

59:28 Speaker 6 Forty-one.

59:29 Speaker 1 Another four... another forty-one weeks.

59:31 Speaker 6 With Hashem’s help.

59:32 Speaker 1 If there are no breaks, actually. And, for example: “But I must make my opinion known: if Hashem wills, I intend to send secret agents to all the minyanim to find out and report who is able to, and who has the time to pray at length but is too lazy to do so. He will be judged by being kept at a distance, turned away with both hands when he comes here to hear divrei Chassidus. And from the negative you can infer the positive. May it be pleasant for those who heed this, and may the blessing of good come upon them—and there is no good but Torah.” That’s the announcement, the beginning. This is from the Alter Rebbe. Later there were the Liozna regulations, the Liozna regulations. There were regulations; it’s written in the regulations. There’s a wealth of material on this. The regulations the Alter Rebbe instituted are recorded in several places. These chassidim could come only from this date to that date. Those chassidim, from here to here. These ones were not allowed here. Someone who came could stay only here, and this was permitted to him, that was forbidden, and this was permitted. Really, a long list of regulations. And the Alter Rebbe actually sent secret agents to all the minyanim, and they reported back to him. When people arrived, there were people in charge of keeping order, according to the Alter Rebbe’s instructions: this one may come in, and that one may not.

1:00:49 Speaker 7 What about at a wedding itself? I don’t think there are regulations for weddings.

1:00:52 Speaker 1 For a wedding? Which wedding?

1:00:54 Speaker 7 No, I’m talking about weddings, for example. There are Chassidic groups that have regulations.

1:00:58 Speaker 1 There were.

1:00:58 Speaker 7 Oh, that’s something new in our generation.

1:01:01 Speaker 1 Today.

1:01:02 Speaker 7 The regulations about the... about—

1:01:04 Speaker 1 The number of guests, the format