Igeres Hakodesh Chapter 5 (Part 2)

00:00 Speaker 1 That the mundane will give thanks.

00:01 Speaker 2 Good, good evening. We’ll begin. We’re up to Igeres Hakodesh, letter 5, “And David Made a Name.” We started it last week—actually, the whole of last week was a kind of introduction to the material we’re going to cover, yes.

00:17 Speaker 1 Last week.

00:20 Speaker 2 The entire previous class was really, uh...

00:23 Speaker 1 Oh, you saw.

00:25 Speaker 2 That was the first section according to the division of the daily Tanya study. So, in the entire previous class we studied only the first section, which is a sort of introduction to understanding the letter. I’ll go back—first, let’s review the questions: What is the Rebbe going to explain here? We’ll review it briefly.

00:47 Speaker 1 There’s the question of why specifically the father is the father of the daughter.

00:51 Speaker 2 Yes, right, right, right, right. That’s where it’s explained. Right. Let’s briefly review the content and the background, and then we can start studying the letter itself. So, it goes like this. There’s a verse, “And David made a name.” David returned from one of the wars, and Scripture says that he made a name. What does “a name” mean? The commentators say he made a name for himself. There’s another interpretation: he made a good name for the Jewish people—he made a name, a good name. The Zohar also cites this verse and explains it in an entirely different way: “And David made a name” doesn’t mean he made a good name for himself or for the Jewish people, but that he made the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As it were, Hakadosh Boruch Hu has no name, and King David made—makes—the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Zohar connects this to some verses that come afterward, continuing the same subject: “And David administered justice and charity to all his people.” In other words, according to the Zohar, David’s making a name isn’t connected to the wars he fought; it’s connected to the charity he gave afterward. By giving charity, he made the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s what the Zohar says. And of course, it’s very puzzling. Why does Hakadosh Boruch Hu need someone to make Him a name? Doesn’t Hakadosh Boruch Hu have a name unless someone makes it? And how does charity make the name? What does King David have to do with it? This whole passage of the Zohar needs explanation. And we’ll see later, at the end of the letter, that like most of the letters in Igeres Hakodesh, this letter too deals with the virtue of giving charity. When we understand what it means that

02:49 Speaker 2 through charity we make the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it will give us great enthusiasm for giving charity. So, as usual, we’ll leave the question aside for a moment and begin to... The Rebbe begins explaining a certain idea, and by the end it will be clear how that idea answers the questions he asks at the beginning. What does he start explaining? There’s a verse, “For with Y-H, Hashem is the Rock of worlds,” and our Sages expounded on this verse. What does “with Y-H, Hashem” mean? Uh, how does it go there? “Trust in Hashem...” I don’t remember the words of the verse. The Jewish people need to trust in Hashem. Why? Because “with Y-H, Hashem is the Rock of worlds.” What does “the Rock of worlds” mean? Why is “worlds” plural? What does “Rock” mean? What does it all mean? So the commentators explain it there. The Midrash explains that one of Hashem’s names is Y-H, and with this name Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the worlds. It says “worlds” in the plural—two worlds. Which worlds did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create with the letters yud and hei? With the letter yud, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the World to Come; and with the letter hei, Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates—created, creates—this world. That’s how the Midrash explains it. And the Rebbe asks about this very point: What does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds—the World to Come with the letter yud and this world with the letter hei? What’s the explanation? And he began to explain. To explain what it means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the worlds with yud and hei, he began explaining how Divine life-force flows down to give life to the worlds. The source and beginning of that Divine life-force is the letter yud. We’ve already learned this many times in this class; we’ve mentioned many times that the letters of Hashem’s name, Y-H-V-H, correspond to the ten sefiros, right? We’ve mentioned it

05:00 Speaker 2 many times. And the letter yud corresponds to the sefirah of Chochmah.

05:04 Speaker 4 The first yud... Oh, yes.

05:05 Speaker 2 The yud at the beginning—Chochmah. After all, it’s Chochmah, Binah, the middos, and Malchus. So the letter yud corresponds to the sefirah of Chochmah, and Chochmah is the beginning of revelation. It’s the first revelation from the level of Eden, the beginning of the revelation of Divine life-force. And the Alter Rebbe says that from that letter yud, which is Chochmah of Atzilus, life-force flows to the worlds in two ways. One way is that the inner life-force of G-dliness, the inner life-force of the yud of Chochmah, is revealed in Binah. Yes? We know this from the faculties of our own souls too, right? Chochmah and Binah are “two friends who never separate”—two friends who always go together. Right? There’s no such thing as Chochmah without Binah, and no such thing as Binah without Chochmah. What does Binah always understand? The concept that comes from Chochmah. And when a person has a point of understanding, an insight of Chochmah, where does it become revealed? In Binah. There’s never such a thing as Chochmah without Binah. It doesn’t happen.

06:15 Speaker 4 It can’t be revealed?

06:17 Speaker 2 What?

06:18 Speaker 4 It can’t... After all, it isn’t revealed.

06:21 Speaker 2 What can’t be revealed?

06:22 Speaker 4 Can’t Chochmah go for a moment without being revealed?

06:26 Speaker 2 It can... Oh, it can remain unrevealed, but it can’t be revealed without Binah. Chochmah is revealed through Binah.

06:33 Speaker 4 Oh, okay, fine.

06:34 Speaker 2 That’s what I mean. Whenever you see Chochmah, you see Binah. You see Binah, you... You never see them separately. We understand intellectually that they’re two separate faculties. There’s the faculty of Chochmah and the faculty of Binah, which are even opposites. They have different characteristics, and a lot is explained about this. But it’s only our intellect that divides them into two distinct kinds. When we see something intellectual in the world, they always go together. There’s the vitality, the thing being understood, and there’s the explanation of it. They never, never, never go separately. Right? So that’s one way Divine life-force is revealed in the worlds: the Divine life-force itself descends into Binah and is felt and revealed there. That’s one way. There’s another way, which he discussed at length. We spent most of the previous class on it: the idea of “the father founded the daughter.” Right? The father gives birth to the son. Remember we talked about this? Uh, he gives birth to the daughter, yes.

07:31 Speaker 4 Yes, we said we’d explain why specifically that, but...

07:34 Speaker 2 Yes. We won’t go over the whole thing at length here, but the main point is that the middos, the emotions, are born from the mother, from Binah, while the letters, speech, are born from Chochmah. And he explained at length why you can’t say that speech in a person—the letters of speech—has its source in the intellect, and you can’t say its source is in the emotions, and you can’t say it just happens on its own. Rather, we have to say that the foundation of the letters is specifically in Chochmah. Who here was at the last class?

08:12 Speaker 4 I think I was.

08:13 Speaker 2 Huh?

08:14 Speaker 4 I think so.

08:16 Speaker 2 Do you remember the explanation in general terms? We don’t need the whole...

08:19 Speaker 4 I remember.

08:19 Speaker 2 Huh?

08:20 Speaker 4 I remember.

08:20 Speaker 5 The last class was around Hakafos, you know. Yes, last year.

08:30 Speaker 4 Okay.

08:30 Speaker 5 That’s it, yes.

08:31 Speaker 4 I mean, a week ago it was Simchas Torah.

08:33 Speaker 2 We say “last year.”

08:35 Speaker 5 Right.

08:37 Speaker 2 Okay, fine, then we’ll go over it too. What can we do? It’s a fundamental point.

08:42 Speaker 4 Um, the letters just come out. You don’t think about how you think.

08:46 Speaker 2 Right. When... Yes, when you—

08:48 Speaker 4 We were away for a month, and you were here.

08:52 Speaker 5 No, no, we—there was a class, there was a class.

08:54 Speaker 4 No, there was a class. No, I mean I was at Orot Haaretz; they were at Orot Ha—

08:57 Speaker 2 There was, there was one time—an aside—I used to give classes to women, uh, before... Were you at those classes? That was—

09:09 Speaker 5 On Pirkei Avos.

09:09 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s right, exactly. So, in one of the classes—there aren’t many sichos of the Rebbe on Pirkei Avos. I mean, every year it’s the same sichos. So in one class I mentioned to them, “Nobody remembers this, but we spoke about it last year.” And Chedva said to me, “If you’d given birth, you wouldn’t remember either.”

09:33 Speaker 4 Chaya’s, one girl who [unclear]. Chaya, when were you born?

09:37 Speaker 2 Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came into being.

09:40 Speaker 4 The healthiest.

09:41 Speaker 5 I got some too. Whoever got some today.

09:43 Speaker 4 Oh, that works out perfectly.

09:45 Speaker 2 All right, come, come, let’s gather... yes. “And Saul heard the sheep.” Let’s bring our attention back. It goes like this: speech, the letters of speech—what is their source? We can’t say that the source of the letters of speech is intellect. Why? Because nobody thinks about how to move their lips or tongue or palate to pronounce the letters. It doesn’t come from—

10:19 Speaker 4 It is connected to intellect, because a baby doesn’t speak because he—

10:22 Speaker 2 He understands.

10:24 Speaker 4 Yes, but because he’s little. It’s only once a baby has tasted grain that he says “Abba.”

10:30 Speaker 2 One second. This isn’t a matter of understanding or comprehension. Its source isn’t intellectual. Intellect is something else. I understand how a baby learns to walk: he tries to move his leg and... yes, he practices until he can do it. Speech doesn’t work that way. He wants to speak, the time comes, and he starts speaking. Even a little baby who’s beginning to talk doesn’t plan it. He doesn’t try playing with his tongue and moving it this way and that. When he wants to say “b,” he says “b.” Right? In other words, the source of the letters isn’t intellect. So we might say, fine, if it isn’t intellect, what is it? It must be emotion. What would that mean? Emotion comes from the heart: the moment breath comes out of the heart—yes?—the emotion, or even the physical breath, comes out, reaches the mouth, and produces the letters. But how could that be? All that comes from the heart, from the lungs physically, is air. How does it come out as “b” one time, “g” another time, and “tz” another? So clearly, the source of speech can’t be either the physical breath or intellect. Where does it come from, then? The answer is that the letters come from Chochmah, from Eden, from a level preceding intellect. Not intellect in the sense of understanding and comprehension, but something very deep within the essence of the soul: the inner dimension of Chochmah, the level of Eden. That is what our Sages meant when they said that the soul is full of letters. We also mentioned—this isn’t written in Tanya, but it is written elsewhere and explained in Chassidus—that this is why a person is called a “speaking being.” At first glance, a person’s advantage over an animal is that he has intellect. He can think. So why name the human being for speech? Because the source of human speech is actually much higher than that of intellect. That’s what he explained earlier.

12:35 Speaker 2 So the point of what we learned last time was to understand what it means that David made a name for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and what that has to do with tzedakah. First we need to understand the verse, “For with Yud-Hei, Hashem formed worlds”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the World to Come with the letter yud and this world with the letter hei. To explain this, he first introduces two kinds of flow from Supernal Chochmah. There is an inner flow that is felt in the worlds, felt in Gan Eden. Someone in Gan Eden feels, delights in, and enjoys the Divine light. He feels that life-force. And there is another flow that also comes from Chochmah, but comes in an entirely different way: as letters, like the letters of speech, which in a certain sense conceal and cover over the idea being expressed. That is, if a person speaks to someone who doesn’t understand the language, the listener won’t understand a thing. The idea contained within the letters is hidden in them. All the more so with written letters: if someone hasn’t learned the shapes of the letters, they’re just ink marks on a page. They mean nothing to him. Yes, speech—the letters in themselves—has an aspect of concealment. So from that same point in Chochmah come two kinds of influence. One is felt and becomes invested in our intellect and emotions, our inner faculties; and the same is true Above, in the Divine realm. The other comes through concealment, and that is called letters. That was last time. All right? Good. Now we’ll pick up where we stopped. It’s on page 55.

14:42 Speaker 6 I wrote that down at the beginning.

14:55 Speaker 2 So now he continues discussing the letters. We’re leaving the yud for a moment and continuing to examine these letters, which also come from intellect, but in a concealed way, so that the life-force in them isn’t felt. “But the letters”—the letters we’ve been discussing—“have an aspect of matter and form.” All the letters, each individually and all together, have matter: what the letter is made of. First, take the physical letters of speech. They’re made of air, or however you want to describe it, and produced by the movements of the lips and the organs of speech. And then there’s their content: what they mean. The same applies to written letters. There’s what they’re made of—ink on parchment, when written that way—and there’s their content, what they say. So the matter of the letters is what they’re made of; the form of the letters is their meaning. Every letter has its matter and its form. And the for—

16:06 Speaker 6 The form is always the same, and the matter changes.

16:10 Speaker 2 What?

16:11 Speaker 6 The form is always the same, but the matter changes.

16:17 Speaker 2 No. If I understand what you’re asking, then no, it isn’t right to say that the form stays the same and the matter changes. The form changes too. Um...

16:26 Speaker 6 Is that the vowel points, [unclear]?

16:28 Speaker 2 No, those are breaths; we’ll read about that further on too. Um... In everyday language, we call something a shape. It has a round shape, or a square shape, or a triangular shape. Right? When you think about this deeply and give it some thought, it’s a little hard to grasp, but you can. It’s a somewhat deep point, but we need to understand it. Why? We tend to feel that shape is something physical. Right? What’s the difference between this and that? This one is round and that one is square. Right? It seems entirely physical. The truth is that form is something spiritual, entirely spiritual. A particular material having a shape is only a physical expression of its spiritual form. Let’s give an example. We’ve given this example before, but it’s a good one. What is a table? Someone asks, “What is a table? What shape does a table have?” Everyone immediately says, “A flat top with four legs.” Right? Now ask them, “Wait, if it has only three legs, does it no longer have the form of a table?” Of course it does; it can have three. And if it has only one leg, is it no longer a table? Of course it’s still a table. Anyone can see that it’s a table. Yes, but it’s square and has le... legs. Excuse me, if it’s round, is it no longer a table? Of course it is.

18:15 Speaker 6 Some kind of flat top with something—

18:16 Speaker 2 So it’s a flat top with something underneath holding it up. Well, then what’s the difference between a table and a chair? That’s exactly the same definition. But it’s clear to me that this is a table and that is a chair. I don’t need anyone to explain it. I see the form of a table, and I know it’s a table, without any definition. Why is it so hard, perhaps even impossible, to define what form is? Because form really is something spiritual. And although we are made of... of earth, our essence is actually spiritual, so we can grasp spiritual things. That’s why, when we see something—its form—we can immediately distinguish that it has the form of a table, even though by the definition we gave, it looks exactly like a chair. But I know it’s a table. Why? Because I grasp its form. All right?

19:13 Speaker 6 Spiritual.

19:13 Speaker 2 The spiritual form.

19:13 Speaker 6 But non-Jews also know it’s a table.

19:15 Speaker 2 What?

19:16 Speaker 6 Because they also...

19:16 Speaker 2 Who said non-Jews don’t have a soul? We talked about that.

19:22 Speaker 6 Idol worshippers.

19:23 Speaker 2 Hm? The soul of idol worshippers, right. The soul gives life.

19:28 Speaker 6 Okay.

19:34 Speaker 2 That was just an illustration to make the point that form is... When Chassidus speaks of form, it means the spiritual form of a thing, while matter is what the thing is made of. Now, what a thing is made of may be physical, or there may also be spiritual matter. But every entity we discuss has its own matter and form. Even the letters of Divine speech, the letters that create the world, have their matter and their form. Those letters of “Abba founded the daughter,” which conceal and cover over—those too have matter and form.

20:14 Speaker 6 What’s the matter? What’s the form?

20:16 Speaker 2 Hmm?

20:17 Speaker 6 What’s the matter? What’s the form?

20:18 Speaker 2 He immediately continues with the next word, which we haven’t read yet: “The letters have an aspect of matter and form, called their inner and outer dimensions.” At every level, in everything we discuss, there’s the inner dimension of the thing and its outer dimension. The outer dimension is called its matter, and the inner dimension is called its form. Take a cup we’re holding. Its outer dimension isn’t only what it’s made of, right? It’s also what it looks like: it’s round, it’s flat, it holds things, and so on. That’s its outer dimension. What’s its inner dimension? It’s meant to hold a drink. Its purpose, its function, what it’s all about—that’s its form. Since its form is that of something meant to hold a hot drink, it’s made of a certain material and has a certain shape, and so on, in the physical sense. All right? So with anything, its purpose, its aim, the intention within it—that’s its form, its inner dimension. What it’s made of or what it looks like is its outer dimension. The Divine letters that create the world also have matter and form, an inner and an outer dimension. So he continues: “Although the source of all the letters is in the origins of the intellect and the soul’s will,” that source accounts only for “the form of the different articulations of the twenty-two letters”—their form. “But the matter and substance of their formation, the outer dimension of the letters, is the breath that comes from the heart. From it comes a simple sound that emerges from the throat and is then divided into twenty-two sounds and the articulation of the twenty-two letters through the five known points of articulation.” Here’s what that means. What, so to speak, are the matter and form of the letters made of? The matter of the letters is actually feeling, the breath of the heart. Then it takes on physical form and comes out as sound, as physical air, and then it reaches the five points of articulation in the mouth. But what happens? What makes it, at those five

22:44 Speaker 2 points of articulation, come out in one form one time, another form the next time, and yet another form after that? It’s the form that comes from the origins of the intellect, not from the breath of the heart. It enters the sound and gives it its form, its particular form. Aleph-ches-hei-ayin come from the throat, gimel-yud-chaf-kuf from the palate, and so on; daled-tes-lamed-nun-tav, beis-vav-mem-pei, and the articulation of the breath. So up to this point, that covers all the letters. Right? Good. There’s an exception. How is the breath itself articulated, before it encounters the tongue, the throat, the palate, or any of the points of articulation? The breath itself. The articulation of the breath itself, pure, as it were—unmodified, original, fundamental—is the letter hei. Hei is the only letter of all the letters that you can say without the air meeting anything along the way.

23:49 Speaker 6 You can keep going, too.

23:52 Speaker 2 Ah. Ah. Something stopped it there in the throat.

23:57 Speaker 6 Isn’t it included among the five points of articulation?

23:59 Speaker 2 What?

23:59 Speaker 6 Isn’t it one of the five points of articulation?

24:01 Speaker 2 Yes, ah, from the throat.

24:04 Speaker 6 Sorry.

24:04 Speaker 2 It’s in—it comes from the throat, but it isn’t stopped there.

24:09 Speaker 6 Okay.

24:13 Speaker 2 It’s the only one. And about this, the Zohar said, “A light letter with no substance to it.” It’s something that doesn’t yet have a form. You can’t feel it. It isn’t just light; it has no... it hasn’t yet taken on a form. No, it hasn’t been shaped. It’s the breath of the—and that same letter hei is really the breath of the heart. So it is the source of the matter and substance of the letters before they’re divided into twenty-two. That’s why our Sages said that this world was created with a hei. Why? Because the World to Come was created with a yud. There, the Divine life-force is felt. In our world, the Divine life-force is concealed and hidden. Why is it concealed and hidden? Because this world was created from letters, and as we said earlier, although the letters have their root in the origins of the intellect, their function is to conceal the intellect. Right? So our world was created from letters. But what is the source of the letters that created this world? The letter hei. And the letter hei doesn’t have the inner dimension. The letter hei is only the matter of the letters, and because—what, what do we find? That the World to Come—

25:34 Speaker 6 The letter hei is the matter, not the form.

25:37 Speaker 2 No. That’s what we were discussing earlier: the letter hei is the breath of the heart. It’s the matter within which the form is clothed.

25:45 Speaker 6 It’s the most abstract.

25:47 Speaker 2 What?

25:47 Speaker 6 It’s the most abstract.

25:47 Speaker 2 It’s the most abstract, and that’s why the form can be clothed within it—because it’s abstract.

25:52 Speaker 6 It can become this, or that, or that, or that—the matter contained within it. So the hei, too, is the underlying matter.

25:57 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s the modeling clay. You can give it any shape you want. Right? So the World to Come was created with a yud, meaning that the Divine life-force is felt there in the intellect and emotions of the souls and the angels. And this world was created with a hei, meaning it was created only from the matter of the letters. So he asks a good question: Which letter hei creates this world? The hei that is the matter of the letters, the breath of the heart. Right? Now, the hei that is the matter—which sefirah did we say it belongs to? Speech.

26:47 Speaker 6 Malchus.

26:48 Speaker 2 Malchus. Right?

26:50 Speaker 6 That’s the—it came out.

26:51 Speaker 2 So that’s the lower hei. But our Sages said, “For with Yud-Hei, Hashem formed the worlds”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the World to Come with a yud and this world with a hei. Which hei?

27:01 Speaker 6 The one next to it.

27:02 Speaker 2 The hei next to it. And this whole explanation is a very nice explanation, but it’s an explanation of the wrong hei. All right? So before we go on, we need to solve that puzzle too. “Now, although it is the lower hei”—this breath of the heart, the matter of the letters, is the lower hei; it is Malchus, the last letter of Hashem’s name. “And our Sages expounded this with reference to the verse ‘For with Yud-Hei’”—that is, the first hei. The reason is that the source and beginning of our lower hei, the beginning of its emergence from concealment into revelation, come from the concealed yud. So first we need to recall: our hei, the lower hei, which is really the source and root of the letters—what does it actually do? What is its source and root? “The father founded the daughter.”

28:06 Speaker 6 Which is the yud.

28:07 Speaker 2 Its ultimate source is in the yud. Right? Let me put it this way. It isn’t directly from the yud. It’s true that “its source and the beginning of its emergence from concealment into revelation, from the concealed yud, are bestowed and drawn down from the upper hei, which extends in length and breadth, indicating Binah: the expansion of the concealed intellect into revelation and comprehension, with a broad understanding. Its influence ends in the heart.” Let me put it this way. It’s true that the form of the letters comes from the yud, but how does it get there? First the yud is clothed within Binah, and a person begins to understand. After he understands, feeling awakens in him, and once he has feeling, he begins to speak. So where does the lower hei receive from? From the yud, but through the upper hei and the vav—through Binah and the emotions. All right? And where does the revelation from the yud begin? The lower hei is the end of that revelation. But where does the revelation begin? With the first hei. And as it says in Tikkunim, “Binah is the heart,” and through it the heart understands. Binah is in the heart; it influences the heart, and the heart understands through Binah. The influence of Binah is within the heart, and then breath comes out from the heart. What comes out? What it received from Chochmah through Binah. “And from there emerges the breath,” the source of the revelation of breath—our hei—“the source of the revelation of the substance of the letters of speech, which emerge through the five points of articulation in the mouth, from concealment into revelation.” And the written form of the lower hei also extends in length and breadth. But there’s a difference. What kind of expansion is the first hei? The yud is a point, and the hei is an expansion. What’s the difference between the expansion of the first hei and the expansion of the—both are expansions. What’s the difference? Well? What’s the difference between the hei, the expansion of the intellect, and the hei, the expansion of Malchus?

30:41 Speaker 6 The first one is still inside, while the last hei already goes outward.

30:45 Speaker 7 Into more of a form.

30:46 Speaker 2 In the intellect there is expansion. Of course there is. What kind of expansion is there in the intellect? Length, breadth, and depth. With an idea, you can understand the same thing more deeply, and then more deeply, and then deeper still, right? There is such a thing. And you can also bring an idea down, just the opposite: another analogy, another explanation that’s more accessible, simpler. An idea has length—I mean depth—understanding it on a higher level. And it can also be understood on a lower level, brought down and simplified. It has breadth too: another explanation, and another explanation, and another explanation, and another explanation, without adding height. Right? There are students who see someone sitting at a farbrengen—some people know how to lead a farbrengen. He takes hold of a subject, and, you know, for an hour and a half, three hours, even four hours—I’ve seen it. He sits there talking about something, takes hold of an idea, talks and talks, explains, tells stories, all around that same idea. Another explanation, another—the Rebbe’s sichos, you can see this clearly in them. He isn’t introducing a new idea, he isn’t going deeper, and he isn’t making it any simpler either. Another explanation, another explanation, another explanation, expanding it across its breadth. So intellect has depth, length, and breadth. That’s the expansion of the intellect.

32:07 Speaker 7 Isn’t there an upward movement too?

32:08 Speaker 2 What?

32:09 Speaker 7 So the point is that there’s no ascent upward?

32:11 Speaker 2 There is upward too. Depth is upward.

32:13 Speaker 7 Okay.

32:14 Speaker 6 But there are people

32:15 Speaker 7 who bring it down like this, and people who do it like this.

32:19 Speaker 2 That’s another matter. That’s true. People really do differ greatly in their intellectual qualities, and when you look at it, you can see it very clearly. Some people have a wonderful gift for explaining things. He isn’t especially deep, and he doesn’t have a good memory. But when he explains something, you can’t fail to understand it. Right? There are people like that, who know how to simplify, to bring an idea down—not necessarily deep people—to bring it down and down and down. Then there are people you can tell are geniuses. You know they can delve into something endlessly, but you can’t understand what they want from you. They don’t have that gift. They only have the ability to delve deeply, or a greater ability to delve deeply. So there are many differences: sharpness, depth. There’s a lengthy discussion of these things elsewhere, too. In any case—

33:07 Speaker 7 All of this goes into the first one, the hei.

33:10 Speaker 2 That is the first hei, the hei of the intellect. But the lower hei also has three lines. What is the lower hei? The garments. The garments also include action—a person’s actions. There are thought, speech, and action: what comes outward. So those are three lines too. The form of the lower hei, as it is written, also has extension in length and breadth. This indicates the extension of His blessed sovereignty, His sovereignty over all the worlds—above, below, and in all four directions: extension in the dimension of space, extension in the dimension of time, extension of the garments. These extend and are drawn from the letters of the word of Hashem, as it says in Koheles, “Where the word of a king is, there is authority.” It’s discussed elsewhere too; we won’t go over it now. And to understand a little of the nature of this—the letters of speech in G-dliness, which has neither a bodily form nor a soul’s form: as we’ve already explained, all this discussion of speech has been about letters as they exist for us. What do “letters” mean in G-dliness? That has already been explained at length and in brief in Likkutei Amarim, Part II, chapters 11 and 12. It’s explained there. The main point was that the letters are Divine forces that create the world, and that is explained there. Set that aside. In any case, here he spoke only about the analogy, and for our purposes it’s understood. But this raises—so where have we gotten to so far? Why was the World to Come created with a yud? Because there, G-dliness is felt. Why was this world created with a hei? Because it was created from the substance of the letters. Right? There’s a difficulty. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t work. Why not? Was only this world created from the substance of the letters?

34:54 Speaker 7 The other ones too...

34:55 Speaker 2 All the worlds were created from Malchus. Even the emanated beings of Atzilus were emanated from Malchus. Everything begins with Malchus. Without Malchus, there’s nothing. Why does he speak specifically of the hei? Why did our Sages say that this world was created with a hei? All the worlds were created with a hei. The life-force in all the worlds comes from the yud, and the substance of all the letters of the worlds comes from the hei—seemingly. Right? So there’s another stage in understanding this. Overall, this Igeres is very orderly: it asks a question, explains, asks, explains, asks, explains, and reaches a conclusion. “But the explanation of the matter...” Why did our Sages say that this world in particular was created with a hei? It’s true: everything we’ve explained so far applies to all the worlds, not just this world. For all those wise of heart know that there is a multitude of worlds and chambers beyond number, as it says, “Is there any number to His legions?” In other words, from the question you understand—there are only four worlds? “Is there any number to His legions?” And in every chamber and legion there are thousands upon thousands and myriads upon myriads of angels. That means thousands upon thousands and myriads upon myriads of angels in each legion. But the legions are endless. Right? What does a multitude of worlds mean? Aren’t there four worlds? Huh? Aren’t there four worlds? What does a multitude of worlds mean? With everything, there is a general category and its particulars. There are general worlds. The World of Beriah is a general world in which the hei, the Binah of G-dliness, shines. But within it, there are endless legions of worlds, individual chambers, and in every chamber there is a vast multitude of angels—thousands upon thousands and myriads upon myriads, and so on and so on. There’s another expression elsewhere that is often quoted in Chassidus. It says, “Great is our Master, and abundant in power.” So, “Great is our Master.” Who is “our Master”? “Our Master” refers to Malchus, a term of lordship. Right? “Abundant in power”—the numerical value of “rav ko’ach” is reish, lamed, vav. Do the calculation later. I checked it.

37:38 Speaker 2 It works. Why does it come to 236? Reish, lamed, vav. There is an entire body of literature from the period of the Midrashim, the period of the Zohar or earlier—something like twenty or twenty-five books from that era—called Maaseh Merkavah, Pirkei Heichalos, Sefer Heichalos, and various others like them. And throughout that literature, the same three or four Tannaim appear prominently: Rabbi Yishmael, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Nechunya ben Hakanah, and perhaps one or two others. It describes how they ascend to the higher worlds and how they see Hakadosh Boruch Hu. All of that—the entering into the innermost chambers? Huh? Entering into the innermost chambers. That’s what it’s about. Yes. We have about twenty or twenty-five books today that deal with this, and they are quoted here and there in Chassidus. But Pirkei Heichalos is one of the books written by Rabbi Yishmael the Kohen Gadol. There he relates that he ascended on high and saw... he reached the curtain, went behind the curtain, and saw the Creator of the Beginning. He saw—he saw the Creator of the Beginning. He describes what He looked like: the size of His hands, His width, His height, His height from the throne upward, from His feet downward—all of it in numbers. Right? So among other things, he writes that the full stature of the Creator of the Beginning, from His feet up to His hair, comes to 236,000 parsas. That’s the wording. Sorry. And in the Kabbalah of later years, it’s explained that this 236 is made up of the four Divine Names. You’ve surely heard of them: 72, 63, 45, and 52. The Name of 72, the Name of 63, the Name of 45, and the Name of 52. What is 52? Have we covered things like this or not? Earlier? Huh? I don’t know. No, it has to do with spelling out the letters. Right. When you write the Name

39:48 Speaker 2 Yud-hei-vav-hei. Yes. Right? You write the yud as yud-vav-dalet. You write the hei as hei-alef. Right? Spelled out. You write the letters in their expanded form, right? Then, when you add up their numerical values, you get 45. So it’s called the Name of 45. When you spell out the Name Havayah, the Name yud-hei-vav-hei, using alefs, it’s called the Name of 45. Why? Because its numerical value is 45. But you can also write hei as hei-yud. You don’t have to write hei-alef; hei-yud is also a valid way to write it. Also hei-yud-alef. Wait. Right? Yes. So if you spell out the yud, and you spell out the hei with a yud, you get 72. That is the Name of 72, the Name of 72. It has a different meaning. And along these lines there is the Name of 63 and the Name of 52, and various other things. This isn’t the place to study Kabbalah, and it’s not as though I understand much of it either. In any case, the Kabbalah books explain that this number—“Great is our Master, and abundant in power”—“our Master” refers to lordship, to Malchus. He is great; He is not divided into anything, and He is called the Creator of the Beginning, who created the Beginning. What is the Beginning? It is the entire order of hishtalshelus, created through the Name Havayah—but the Name Havayah on four levels: 72, 63, 45, and 52. Add them all together and what do you get? 236. 236. All right? So, in any case, it isn’t just 236; it’s 236,000 parsas. Now, how did we arrive at that number? What do the thousands mean, and what are parsas? In short, these are chambers and... as it says here, “Is there any number to His legions?” First, then, there’s a detailed account of how they’re counted. “Is there any number to His legions?” “And all those wise...” That was just an aside, for...

41:51 Speaker 2 To slip something in on the side to make it interesting? No, it has nothing at all to do with the content of the letter. “And all the wise of heart know that the multitude of worlds and chambers is beyond number, as it is written, ‘Can His troops be numbered?’ In every chamber and troop there are thousands upon thousands and myriads upon myriads of angels.” Yes, and levels of nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah without end. In other words, every particular level we’re talking about, every troop, every individual angel, has nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah. Not only Jews? What? Not only Jews. Certainly not. And every partzuf. Don’t ask me right now what a partzuf is. But non-Jews don’t have that. Huh? Non-Jews don’t have that. Every level and category—even among the kelipos there is such a thing, only for them it works differently. And there are levels of nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah without end. It isn’t that there’s nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah, and that’s it. At every level there is nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah. “And in every world and chamber among the many chambers of Atzilus”—so in each one in Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—“all these multitudes, one after another, without end,” all of it truly flows and is drawn from the many combinations of the twenty-two letters of Hashem’s speech alone. They, too, divide into countless combinations, without any end or limit, as it says in Sefer Yetzirah, where it does a little calculation with the letters: “Seven stones build five thousand and forty houses.” We’ve spoken about this several times too. Let’s mention it again. Take two letters and you can make two words out of them. Alef and beis can be written as av or ba. Right? That’s two words. With three letters you can already make six combinations. That’s one times two times three. With four letters, I already don’t know how many it is, and with seven letters

44:00 Speaker 2 you can already make five thousand and forty. Five thousand and forty combinations. “From here on, go and calculate what the mouth cannot express,” and so on. The “and so on” hints that if we ultimately carry out this calculation—one times two times three—all the way to twenty-two letters, we’ll get a huge number, but it isn’t... endless. I can’t say a number like that aloud.

44:30 Speaker 8 The 231 gates, forward and backward.

44:34 Speaker 2 A little more, yes. The 231. Right. So on that—how can you say it’s endless? All created beings are created through those letters. In the end, the number of combinations of the letters is limited. Right? The explanation for that isn’t here; it’s over there, where he mentioned earlier, in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, which we studied not long ago, that besides combinations, there are also substitutions. A substitution means that instead of an alef, you take a tav. Right?

45:05 Speaker 8 Atbash, [unclear].

45:07 Speaker 2 Yes, Atbash or other letter ciphers. And how many of those are there? How many ways can you substitute one letter for another?

45:18 Speaker 8 Lots.

45:19 Speaker 2 If there are twenty-two letters, you can pair one with every other letter, one with every other letter, one with every other letter. So how many are there?

45:25 Speaker 8 Two hundred—

45:27 Speaker 2 Bottom line, it comes to 231. The 231 gates. All right, those are the 231 gates, except that the 231 gates go forward and backward, because each pairing can go one way or the other. Right? So that comes to four hundred and sixty-two. Right? But when you take—yet it doesn’t end there, because you have the combinations, and each combination can come with any of the substitutions. But you can also have a substitution of a substitution, and a substitution of a substitution of a substitution, and a combination of a combination.

45:59 Speaker 8 With a repeated letter—

46:00 Speaker 2 And a repeated letter. Look, the word Abba has two of the same letter. Right? So there are many like that. In short, from just twenty-two letters, twenty-two Divine powers, come all the endless multitude of troops, angels, chambers, worlds, and so on and so on. Why did we get into all this? Because we wanted to explain. Look, here he did ask: Why are you telling me that the World to Come was created with a yud and this world was created with a hei? Why? Because in the World to Come they perceive G-dliness, while in this world they don’t perceive G-dliness. This world was created from the physical aspect of the letter, so they don’t perceive the letters. If it had been created from the spiritual aspect of the letters, they would perceive them. No, it was created from the physical aspect. But that explanation doesn’t work. All the worlds were created from the physical aspect of the letters, not just this world. So to explain this question—why our Sages said that this world was created with a hei, speaking of the lower hei, even though they expound it in relation to the yud, to the upper hei—he began by explaining that all the wise of heart know of the multitude of worlds and chambers, all of which come from the letters. All right? So we explained—he explained that at length. Let’s go on. Now that we’ve understood that all this multitude is drawn from those same twenty-two letters, let’s continue. Also on line twelve: “Although among the levels and ranks of the angels and souls there are many different levels and ranks without end, each higher than the next.” So how can you tell me that they all come from the letters? The letters are all on the same level. Alef, beis, and gimmel—all of them. So how can there be a greater seraph in one case and a lesser seraph in another? The letters are all the same letters. How are there created beings on different levels? “It all comes about according to the substitutions of the combinations and the permutations of Atbash and so on,” as it says in chapter 12 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, which we studied

48:03 Speaker 2 there at length. I’ll give just one example as a reminder, and that will be enough. It will also clarify the point.

48:08 Speaker 8 And va’ed and echad—echad.

48:09 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. We say, “Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”—that is Hashem’s unity. And “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever” also expresses Hashem’s unity. In both sentences we’re saying that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is alone in His world and there is none besides Him. Right? When a person says, “Hear, O Israel: Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” what does he mean? Hashem is the only one. There is none besides Him. Right? When he says, “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever,” what does he mean? Hakadosh Boruch Hu is alone in His world, the only one who runs the world. There is no one else. It’s the same thing, the same content. Why do we say it twice? Why do we say it in different words? What’s the difference? Chassidus explains that this is the difference between yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah, the higher and lower forms of unity, and it is expressed in these letters. Where do we see that? Chassidus explains, also in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, that the word echad, “one,” and the word va’ed, “ever,” are the same word. Echad indicates unity. Va’ed also indicates unity. How can that be? Take the alef of echad. Hakadosh Boruch Hu took the alef of echad—wait, alef belongs to the letters alef, hei, vav, and yud, the letters used to indicate vowels. So He replaced the alef with a vav. Then He took the ches of echad. Ches is one of the guttural letters, so He used an ayin in place of the ches, which is also a guttural letter. And the daled of echad is a large daled, an enlarged daled. So in its place He used a smaller daled, an ordinary daled. There is a difference in meaning between a large daled and a small daled. So echad and va’ed are the same word, with the same general content, but it has been changed to a lower level. And that’s how it is with all the substitutions. With each substitution of letters, there is

50:03 Speaker 2 a descent in the level of Divine vitality, and that causes lower or higher beings to be created from that combination. This explains how all the beings in all the worlds are created from the same twenty-two letters through combinations, substitutions, and permutations. And that holds true for all the worlds. Really, this was just the detail. How can you tell me all the worlds were created with a hei? After all, hei is just one letter. Yes, it is one letter, but it is the source and root of all twenty-two letters. It is the breath from which all the letters are formed. How can you tell me all the worlds were created from the same letters? After all, there are enormous differences between their levels. That’s through combinations and—so I understand: through combinations and substitutions. Right. Now we understand how all the worlds can be created from the letter hei. I understand that already. But why did our Sages say that this world was created with a hei? The whole explanation has been telling us that all the worlds were created with a hei. How does that answer my question? So now comes the answer.

51:25 Speaker 8 All right.

51:26 Speaker 2 Hmm? But that’s on line five.

51:31 Speaker 8 Wait, we’ve finished. We’re on line two.

51:33 Speaker 2 What? But in general, they are all endowed with wisdom and understanding and know their Creator, because—uh, because their life-force comes from the inner dimension of the letters that extend from the supernal Chochmah, as explained above. In all the worlds, it’s true that everything is created from the twenty-two letters, and everything comes from the hei they have in common. They all sense the life-force. But there is a difference between all the higher worlds we’ve been discussing and this lowly world. This lowly world has life-force within it; otherwise it would not have been created. A body cannot exist without a soul. Is that clear? Is it clear to everyone that a body cannot exist without a soul?

52:23 Speaker 8 Without a person.

52:24 Speaker 2 What?

52:24 Speaker 8 Without a person.

52:26 Speaker 2 Just as, with a person, there can be no body without a soul, so it is with everything else. Even a stone could not exist without a soul, without the soul that a stone has. This means that this lowly world, with the life-force within it, is too limited to contain and bear the light and life-force of the form of the letters and their inner dimension. This world is too limited to contain it. The form of the letters cannot shine into it and influence it without being clothed and concealed, the way that life-force shines into and influences souls and angels. There is life-force in this world, but because the world is so limited and constricted, and the life-force is so hidden, it cannot be revealed here. Only the radiance and influence of the life-force of the form reaches this world through the substance and body of the letters, their outer dimension—the breath that divides into the seven “breaths” in Koheles. Do you know the seven “breaths” in Koheles?

53:34 Speaker 8 “Everything is breath of breaths.”

53:36 Speaker 2 Yes. Koheles, the book of Koheles, begins: “Breath of breaths, said Koheles, breath of breaths; everything is breath.” So there are seven breaths there. “Breath” is one, and “breaths”—the minimum plural—is two. So “breath of breaths” is three. Right? Okay? “Breaths” means more than one. How many? Two. So “breath of breaths” is one and two, which makes three. “Breath of breaths, said Koheles”—“breath of breaths” is another three, and “everything is breath.” So altogether that’s six. But the breath is the breath of the heart. There is only one breath of the heart. How did we get to seven? We understood how breath divides into twenty-two letters. But what does it mean that it divides into seven breaths? The grammarians counted seven vowel sounds: patach, kamatz, tzeirei. I don’t know exactly how to count them, but the grammarians and the Kabbalists count seven main, basic vowel sounds. The same breath can take seven different forms. These are the seven breaths on which the world exists and stands, as the Zohar writes. The world stands on these seven breaths, as it says in the holy Zohar. And it is that same breath, the utterance of Hashem’s mouth, that is clothed in this world. So what is clothed in this world? Only the breath. Right, it has seven breaths. This breath has seven forms, but it is only the breath, only the substance. It does not include the form of the letters. We do not see the form. It is clothed in this world and all its hosts to give them life. And within it—within it—is truly clothed the form of the letters, the speech and thought from His holy attributes, His will and His wisdom, and so on, which are utterly united with the Ein Sof, blessed be He. Utterly. But we do not sense it. This is what the Arizal meant when he said that the outer dimension of the vessels of Malchus of Atzilus, alluded to by the hei of Hashem’s name Havayah, descended and became a soul for the World of Asiyah. And it also says in Tikkunim that the upper hei nests in Atzilus, and so on, while the lower hei nests in Asiyah. Now, we won’t explain the whole matter, because of the shortness

55:48 Speaker 2 of time, the depth of the subject, and the limits of our understanding. But the point he makes in these few lines is that Divine life-force is indeed everywhere. Without Divine life-force, nothing can exist, and that life-force comes through the letters. But in the higher worlds, the Divine life-force is felt. So the souls, angels, and other beings there sense G-dliness; they understand, grasp, and delight in it, and so on. In this world, we sense only the substance. That is why G-dliness is revealed here only through kabbolas ol, only through action. In the spiritual worlds, one does not need kabbolas ol in order to believe. He senses it; belief does not require kabbolas ol there. Right? And down here, G-dliness is present—He exists, He is here—but it is hidden and concealed, and we have to work to reveal Him. That is what he said.

56:56 Speaker 9 There, they are in a state of complete nullification of evil.

56:58 Speaker 2 What?

56:59 Speaker 9 There, they are in a state of complete nullification of evil, whereas here one has to bring about that nullification.

57:03 Speaker 2 Here, yes. It is not just nullification, not just nullification. Nullification is a result of what they sense. They sense it.

57:11 Speaker 9 But—

57:12 Speaker 2 What? Yes, but the nullification felt in the higher worlds is a result of their reality.

57:26 Speaker 9 Exactly.

57:26 Speaker 2 The nullification is a result. Because he senses G-dliness and lives and breathes it, he is therefore nullified. Here, because he does not sense it—does not sense anything—he is not nullified, and so he has to work on himself. But it is here, within. If it were not here, it would not help for a person to... You cannot invent G-dliness. The very fact that a person can believe—that a person can believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. An animal cannot believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Nor can a stone. Right? Inanimate matter cannot. Only a human being. Why?

58:02 Speaker 9 You mean only a Jew?

58:03 Speaker 2 What?

58:04 Speaker 9 Do you mean only a Jew, or all human beings?

58:08 Speaker 2 In principle, only a Jew.

58:09 Speaker 9 Because there are many people who do, in fact, believe in G-d.

58:12 Speaker 2 True, but not in the same way.

58:13 Speaker 9 Definitely not in the same way?

58:15 Speaker 2 What?

58:15 Speaker 9 They are different from us, after all. Right? I mean...

58:19 Speaker 2 Yes. It is explained that a non-Jew can believe only in the light that fills all worlds, in the light that encompasses all worlds, in the name Elokim. But with the name Havayah—it’s like Pharaoh saying, “Who is Havayah that I should listen to His voice?” He has no problem with Elokim. The name Havayah is a little difficult for him; he cannot grasp it. The light that fills all worlds—that, too, involves faith, and it can be a high level of faith. But faith in the light that encompasses all worlds, which is above the worlds, and so on—that is where... True faith can exist only in a Jew. How can such a thing exist in a Jew, or, to make a distinction, in a non-Jew? Because it is here! If G-dliness were not present here, what would he believe in? In other words, it is true that it is hidden and concealed, but it is present. If it were not present, how could you believe in something that does not exist? Right?

59:19 Speaker 9 And we still haven’t answered why specifically the...

59:21 Speaker 2 Huh?

59:21 Speaker 9 What?

59:22 Speaker 2 So this has not yet explained anything about the question. Our whole question, what we are trying to find out, is why this world in particular was created with a hei. If so, with a person down here, for example, someone who is very wise... What, is that it? Enough for today?

59:41 Speaker 9 I think that, like, either the answer is [unclear], or...

59:47 Speaker 2 Oh.

59:48 Speaker 9 Until the end.

59:49 Speaker 2 There is still more here to understand, yes.

59:51 Speaker 9 So I think it would be good to stop.

59:53 Speaker 2 Okay.

59:54 Speaker 9 Now, I hope this time it’s okay. Ready?

59:57 Speaker 10 Ready.

59:58 Speaker 9 A lot went into it.

1:00:00 Speaker 2 [unclear]

1:00:02 Speaker 9 I want to understand it too.

1:00:04 Speaker 10 Oh, and then I think it’s, like...

1:00:07 Speaker 9 I’m saying you should explain what you said we wouldn’t understand.

1:00:10 Speaker 2 These lines? Certainly, yes.

1:00:16 Speaker 9 One detail.

1:00:21 Speaker 2 Actually, I hadn’t planned to explain this. It is explained later in the letter. We are in Igeres Hakodesh, letter 5. Later there is Igeres Hakodesh, letter 20, where these lines are explained at length. But the point is that—we have spoken about this several times—at every level of G-dliness, and in the World of Tikkun generally, everything is complete. Complete means that it contains everything. The human being is the foremost of created beings because he has a head, feet, a body, a heart, a brain—he has everything. He is a complete structure, and that means not only that he includes everything, but that every part of him includes everything. The intellect also has the root of the heart within it, and something that can receive from what is above intellect, the essence of the soul. The heart, besides being a heart, also gives outwardly and receives from the intellectual faculties, and so on. Generally speaking, every vessel we discuss has three characteristics. I always pick up this coffee cup because it is the most readily available vessel here. Every vessel, both physical and spiritual, has three characteristics. First, what was it made for? What was it made for? For what goes inside it: to hold the light within it, its purpose. The coffee inside is already the light, but what holds the coffee is the inner surface. To hold the coffee, you do not need the whole thing. You need only the inside. Now, suppose I had a vessel made up only of the inside, only the part that holds what is in it. How would I use it? How would I use it? I need some way to hold it. How could I do anything with it? So every vessel also has an outer side: how it presents itself outwardly, how

1:02:42 Speaker 2 You hold it—how it functions, how it presents itself outwardly. So a cup has an inner side, which is its purpose, and an outer side, by which you hold it. Right? Besides that, because it’s meant for hot drinks, it’s made of paper. If it were made of plastic, it wouldn’t hold up, right? So with every vessel, there’s also the question of what it’s made of. Every vessel has its essence—what it itself is—what it’s needed for, and how it’s used. These are called the vessel’s inner dimension, its essence, and its outer dimension. Okay? And just as this is true of every physical vessel, it’s also true of every spiritual vessel. In our case, the world of Atzilus has the light, the name Havayah, the G-dly light that shines in the world of Atzilus, and it has the vessels through which that light is revealed. So, for example, it says Havayah Elokim, right? Or E-l Havayah, or, I don’t know, Havayah Adnai. The name Havayah goes together with all the other names. Why? Because the name Havayah itself is the light, the very essence of G-dly vitality, while all the other names are associated with the vessels. As for the vessels, for example, the name E-l is in chessed; it says the name Elokim is in gevurah; Elokim Chayim is in binah, and so on. So what follows from what we’ve explained is that when we speak about the sefiros in the world of Atzilus, we aren’t speaking about the lights. The light is one; the light is the name Havayah. We’re speaking about the sefiros and the vessels of the world of Atzilus. Okay? Broadly speaking, the world of Atzilus has ten general vessels: chochmah, binah, daas, chessed, gevurah, and so on through malchus. So when the light of Hashem is revealed in chochmah, when it becomes enclothed in chochmah, it becomes G-dly chochmah. And when that same light of Hashem becomes enclothed in binah, there is G-dly binah, and so on, with what chochmah and binah and chessed each mean, and all the...

1:05:07 Speaker 11 Okay, we have to run.

1:05:09 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:05:10 Speaker 11 Something came up for me. Sorry.

1:05:12 Speaker 2 That’s okay.

1:05:13 Speaker 11 I’m sorry.

1:05:13 Speaker 2 So can we stop the recording?

1:05:14 Speaker 11 No, no, keep going, keep going. Remind us.

1:05:16 Speaker 3 No, actually, stop them. Continue next week. Danina[?], next week at home, with Hashem’s help, okay?

1:05:20 Speaker 11 Okay.

1:05:21 Speaker 3 So come on time; we’re starting at eight-thirty.

1:05:23 Speaker 11 Bye, thank you very much.

1:05:25 Speaker 2 With full energy.

1:05:26 Speaker 11 Bye.

1:05:28 Speaker 3 Bye.

1:05:28 Speaker 2 Should we continue or stop? It’s not—it doesn’t make sense. Let’s finish it all the way through.

1:05:33 Speaker 11 Okay.

1:05:35 Speaker 2 So it turns out that malchus is, in essence, a vessel for G-dliness. Right? Good. Now, we said that every vessel has its inner dimension and its essence, so malchus too has the vessel’s inner dimension and its essence. But malchus itself, since this is G-dliness, is an integrated structure that contains everything. So within malchus itself there is chochmah of malchus, binah of malchus, daas of malchus—all ten sefiros as they exist within malchus. Right? And each of the individual vessels, each of the ten individual vessels of malchus, has its own inner dimension, essence, and outer dimension. So how many vessels are there in malchus?

1:06:18 Speaker 11 Why?

1:06:19 Speaker 2 Thirty vessels. The ten sefiros within malchus, each of which has its inner dimension, its essence, and so on. Is that clear so far? These are called the thirty vessels of malchus. When the light of Hashem descends to create the created beings, what descends to create them? G-dliness is revealed in Atzilus; in the worlds, there is no revelation. How is the light revealed in the worlds? Only through the thirty vessels of malchus of Atzilus. When malchus of Atzilus, which is the mouth, is speech—

1:06:59 Speaker 11 G-dliness is in all the worlds, right? Even in this world.

1:07:03 Speaker 2 Yes, but the worlds are created beings. In the worlds, what’s felt—no, not now, okay. In the end—the bottom line, broadly speaking, I don’t want to get into it; that’s a whole other subject. In Atzilus, these aren’t created beings; it’s G-dliness. Even the vessels are G-dliness: “He and His vessels are one.” He is one with them. The vessels of G-dliness create worlds; the vessels of Beriah don’t create worlds. The vessels of G-dliness, of Atzilus, create worlds. So what are we saying here? What serves as the soul of all the created beings in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah? Only the vessels of malchus. The thirty vessels of malchus are the ones that descend through speech. Through the letters, they descend and become the soul of the created beings in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. Why did he explain this? To say that G-dliness is revealed in all the higher worlds. What does it mean that G-dliness is revealed? What gives them life? The vessels of Atzilus give them life. True, they’re only vessels, but they’re vessels of Atzilus. It is within them just as a person’s soul gives life to the body: the soul is revealed in the body. The body feels the soul, right? The soul acts within it. It operates the lungs, the blood, the mind, the emotions. The soul is revealed in the body. The body isn’t a soul, but the soul becomes enclothed in it in a completely revealed way. It’s like the soul becoming enclothed in the body. The body feels it, and it feels the body, and they join together. In the same way, the vessels of Atzilus, the thirty vessels, give life to all the worlds, just as the soul gives life to the body. Consequently, G-dliness is felt. What G-dliness do they feel? Only the outer dimension, only malchus, only the vessels, only the letters, only speech. Fine, but they feel it. Whereas—

1:09:23 Speaker 2 In this world, we don’t feel anything, and that’s the point... Well, we didn’t get an answer. What was the question? Why was this world specifically created with a breath? We’ve more or less already gotten an answer to that: in the higher worlds, G-dly vitality is felt—that’s called the yud—whereas in this world it isn’t felt. Why? Because it was created from a breath. But weren’t all the worlds also...? No. The World to Come was created with a yud, and this world was created with a hei. He already answered that too: although all the worlds were created with a hei, the higher worlds were created with a hei in which the form is felt, because the thirty vessels of malchus of Atzilus enter their hei. The vitality within the hei is felt. Here in this world, although it too was created from the hei, the vitality is hidden inside, and we don’t feel it. Which question was that—why specifically...? If all the worlds were created with a hei, why did they say that this world was created with it specifically? We said that; we discussed it. This world was created with a hei because in this world we feel only the matter. We feel only the matter. What? We did have the question of “specifically,” right. We settled that answer. It’s settled from every angle. There’s nothing left there. If it isn’t clear, then what is there to ask? So we didn’t quite understand the answer, but we’ve settled that point. He asked why it says, “With Kah, Hashem formed worlds”: the World to Come was created with a yud, and this world was created with a hei. He explained it at length and finished the explanation. What was the explanation? By “the World to Come,” does he mean the aspect of the creation of Yetzirah? Yes. The higher worlds were created with a yud. They were created with a hei. Right, they were created with a hei, but the yud is felt in them. The form is felt in them. Why do we say this world was created with a hei? Because only in this world is there just the hei. We don’t feel the form; we feel only the matter of—

1:11:28 Speaker 2 the letters. That’s why it says it was created with a hei. That’s an explanation of the words of our Sages. Well? So how does it connect? Does tzedakah make a name? What does this have to do with the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? How does all this connect? It’s a very beautiful, lengthy, deep explanation and so on. But with so much explanation—we lost the forest for the trees. We lost our way in the forest. The question he came to answer is why it says, “And David made a name,” which the Zohar says means that through tzedakah we make a name for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Fine, I understand how this world was created. But where does it connect? Yes. That’s what we’re still missing at the end of the Igeres. Wow, wow. But that answer made your day.