Optimism with Depth - the Outlook Chassidus Gives to Our Life Reality

00:00 In general, we tend to divide humanity into two broad groups: optimists and pessimists. Optimists are positive people, people with a positive outlook on the world, on life, on the present and on the future. They generally tend to paint the world pink. The world is good and is going to get even better. There’s that famous song that’s become popular lately, “Better and better still,” and it’s a pleasure. On the other side are the pessimists, people with a more negative outlook on life. They see the world deteriorating. They look around and see darkness, and worry about where the world, where reality, is taking us. In every generation, every era, there’s a decline from earlier generations. They look to the future and ask: Where are we headed? Where are we going to end up? They’re very worried. The question is: What does our Torah teach us? How should a Jew view the reality of the present and the future? Do we take the optimistic approach or the pessimistic one? Today we want to study what Chassidus teaches us—Tanya, and Chassidus more broadly—about the right outlook. It’s very interesting when we meet people from both, what shall we call them, both sides, both groups. We notice something interesting: Pessimists generally consider themselves the more realistic ones. “We’re the people who see reality, who see the truth. You optimists live in a fantasy; you live with a false picture. Of course it’s preferable to think that everything is good and sweet, but that’s a very shallow, superficial outlook. It’s easy to paint the world pink, because it’s easier to live that way. You feel good, but you’re not being truthful.” The pessimist sees himself as the realist, the person who can look at the world with honest eyes. And on the

02:23 other hand, of course, optimists will say to the pessimist: “You poor fellow. You live in depression and sadness. When you look at the world that way, you’re always in a state of despair, and that’s not a good direction. It isn’t healthy.” So each side looks at the other and, of course, criticizes it. Where do we stand? What is the right path? Today we’ll learn how Chassidus gives us a perspective. As we’ll see, the perspective of Chassidus is optimistic. Everyone can probably imagine that. But we’ll see that the optimism Chassidus gives us is a deep optimism, an optimism with depth, one that comes from contemplating the truth and the actual reality of the world, of life, and of the human being. This optimism, in particular, springs from an inner depth that really requires study and contemplation. We’ll discover that today and see how it’s explained in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe opens our eyes. As we’ve discussed recently, the Alter Rebbe gives us emotional health, healing for the soul—a healthy, proper inner outlook on reality, on life, and on the human being. Through it, we can find a way to be optimistic people, but optimists with depth, not with a shallow outlook. Before I turn to Tanya, I want to mention something else. By Divine Providence, we’re now close to Yud Shvat. Yud Shvat is the yahrzeit of the Frierdiker Rebbe and the day his son-in-law, the Rebbe of Lubavitch, began his leadership. We’ll speak about the maamar of Chassidus that the Frierdiker Rebbe left us and had printed, which, by Divine Providence, appeared on the day of his passing. It’s the famous maamar beginning “Basi Legani Achosi Kallah”—“I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride”—based on that verse in Shir Hashirim. It’s a wonderful maamar. As the Rebbe always spoke about it, this is

04:58 a maamar that he left us by Divine Providence. It was printed for Shabbos, Yud Shvat 5710, the very Shabbos on which he passed away. The Rebbe therefore viewed this maamar as a kind of testament for the generations. In other words, in this maamar the Frierdiker Rebbe passed on his outlook on the world, especially to our generation. It’s now seventy-five years since the passing of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and this maamar contains profoundly empowering, wonderful, and important messages for the times we live in. From the time the Rebbe accepted the leadership a year later, on Yud Shvat and 11 Shvat 5711, becoming the leader of what is called the seventh generation of Chabad Rebbes, the Rebbe also began with this maamar, “Basi Legani.” From then on, every year the Rebbe would hold a farbrengen about this maamar and deliver a special maamar of Chassidus, explaining it in ever greater depth, developing each chapter with wonderful depth. At farbrengens, he would also devote entire sichos to explaining the lessons this maamar holds for life in our generation. What can we learn from it? In 5732, exactly fifty-three years ago, on Yud Shvat—fifty-three is the numerical value of gan, “garden”—the Rebbe began the farbrengen with the words “Basi Legani.” He explained the first two words of the maamar. The Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamar is expansive, in the tradition of Chabad Chassidus, elaborating wonderfully and offering deep explanations both of the intellectual teachings of Chassidus and of its practical application. It’s a wonderful, extensive maamar spanning twenty chapters. But it begins with two words, “Basi Legani,” and the Rebbe paused to discuss what those words mean. The Midrash tells us what this verse means when it speaks about this world. After all, we know that all of Shir Hashirim is a parable about a bridegroom and bride—Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people. And Hakadosh

07:16 Boruch Hu, the bridegroom, says, “I have come into My garden.” I am here; I have come. So to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself—the primary presence of the Shechinah, in the words of the Midrash. Where am I? In this lowly world, which is My garden. “I have come into My garden”—it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden. So the Rebbe says: Before we get into all the depth of what the maamar comes to explain, if we just pause over these two words, we have an extraordinary, wonderful way to understand how a Jew should view the reality of the world. When we wake up in the morning, open our eyes, and see the world around us—especially if we sometimes also turn on the news to hear what’s happening—everything can look bleak. We live in a jungle. The world is going mad, and growing madder by the day. The lawlessness, the wars, the jealousy, the hatred, the rivalry. What’s happening everywhere in the world, among the nations. Not to mention the one sheep among seventy wolves: day after day we face threats to our very existence, which we all know and feel especially acutely these days. A person might sometimes think: This is the world. The world is a jungle; the world is dark. It’s a lawless place, a place full of wild animals. Yet the Frierdiker Rebbe opens his final maamar—and our Rebbe, too, opens the first maamar with which he began his leadership—and says: Listen, everyone: “I have come into My garden.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells us that this world is His garden. I am here. I came here at the very beginning of creation. And although there were various sins—as the Midrash goes on to explain—that caused the Shechinah to withdraw and become hidden, the Shechinah never changed its purpose or intention. Hakadosh Boruch Hu was always here, even in the most difficult periods of history, when the world was steeped in corruption. A generation

09:36 The generation of the Dispersion, the generation of the Flood, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge—all the sins that took place. The Shechinah always wanted to be here below. And then the tzaddikim came, beginning with Avraham Avinu, generation after generation, until Moshe Rabbeinu brought the Torah down here and Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai. The world has always been in this state: this is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden. We need to look at the world as Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden. A garden is a place of delight. It’s a place where trees and fruit grow, a place where a person goes for a pleasurable stroll. And the fruit in a garden is generally not food you eat just to fill yourself up, like bread. A garden generally has sweet fruit. In fact, we’re coming up to the fifteenth of Shvat—Tu BiShvat, the New Year for Trees. So this really connects with the time of year. The idea of the garden is to see the world as Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s garden, a place where Hakadosh Boruch Hu says: “This is My delight. This is where I love to stroll, where I am, where I meet the human being, the choicest and crowning glory of creation. And together we create; together we act.” We develop this wonderful garden when a Jew in this world fulfills mitzvos, learns Torah, and battles his yetzer. He makes this world into a garden for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He brings the greatest delight, and that is what brings about the revelation of the Shechinah. This has been the work of the Jewish people throughout the generations. Its final revelation, the culmination of this work, will be with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, when we will see with our own eyes how this world is the wonderful garden in which we give Hakadosh Boruch Hu the greatest nachas. And this is the message the Frierdiker Rebbe wanted to impart to the chassidim specifically in the last generation, during the darkest times. And then the Rebbe began to speak

11:43 about who the Frierdiker Rebbe was. If we look at his life, if we reflect on the Frierdiker Rebbe’s personal life—just imagine: he was close to seventy when he passed away. If we reflect a little on the life of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the previous Rebbe, we see that, on the surface, his life was extremely difficult. He lived through some of the darkest periods in history. Just imagine: the Frierdiker Rebbe was born in 5640, 1880, and when he assumed the leadership, after his father, the Rebbe Rashab, passed away in 5680, 1920, that was the beginning of Communist rule in Russia, with all the troubles and harsh decrees that people suffered there. And the Frierdiker Rebbe fought like a lion to sustain Jewish life through those most difficult times. He was imprisoned several times, again and again, culminating in his harshest imprisonment, as is well known, when he was taken into custody and tortured under threat of death. His body remained broken for the rest of his life after that imprisonment, until he was able to leave Russia. He reached Europe, countries that were more normal—Latvia, for example, and then Poland—and then World War II began. The Frierdiker Rebbe was right in the lion’s den and had to flee. Through tremendous miracles, he managed to escape the clutches of the Nazis, may their names be erased, and arrived in America with his body broken. There he lived his final ten years. You might think that when he reached America, he had found a place to rest. But we know that when the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America, he found it to be a spiritual desert, a place of great materialism and physicality—not in any positive sense for a Jew who observes Torah and mitzvos. And then the Frierdiker Rebbe, despite all his physical difficulties, fought to establish and build institutions,

14:08 Torah institutions and educational institutions, both in America and beyond, throughout the world. If we look at the Frierdiker Rebbe’s life, it was, on the one hand, a hard and bitter life. Yet his outlook on life was extraordinarily optimistic. “Basi Legani”—in his final maamar, his final words, which he passed on to the generations—he says: “Listen, Jews, Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells us that this world is a garden. This world is a wonderful place. Here we can do the most wonderful things. We create, build, develop, and plant Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wonderful garden. ‘I have come to My garden’—because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here in this world even before we begin our work, and He is here together with us. For a Jew becomes a partner in the work of creation, as our Sages say. A Jew has the power to work on this world and transform it into Gan Eden, because that potential is already present in the world. Our task is simply to bring it from potential into actuality.” Interestingly, at that same farbrengen we’re discussing, on that Yud Shvat, the Rebbe also gave another example, a very interesting one from our history, involving the Rambam. We all know the Rambam and his books in every field: his great work of halachah, Mishneh Torah, also known as the Yad Hachazakah; the Rambam’s Commentary on the Mishnah; Moreh Nevuchim; and all his other wonderful books. The Rambam was an extraordinary figure. In Part Three of Moreh Nevuchim, there are several chapters in which the Rambam argues with major philosophers of his time or earlier times. He writes that there were philosophers—and are philosophers—who spoke about life, its meaning and its realities, and wrote that human life is essentially hard and bitter. It’s a pessimistic view of life. They claimed that our world is a world of ruin.

16:21 Our world is a world of darkness. As the Rambam relates there, one of the great philosophers—I think he was an Arab, but in any case, one of the great philosophers of his time or earlier—went so far as to write that if a person lived according to reason, he would prefer not to live in this world. If we looked at life logically, a person goes through far more difficulties, far more troubles and suffering. Moments of pleasure, moments of contentment, moments of happiness are just a drop. That was this philosopher’s claim. The Rambam argues against him and says that this is a grave mistake. On the contrary, human life in this world is full of happiness, contentment, and sweetness. He gives a whole explanation of how the opposite is true, and how people actually bring much of their distress and suffering upon themselves. A person gets himself into trouble and then complains. He cites the wonderful verse in Mishlei: “A person’s foolishness distorts his way, and his heart rages against Hashem.” In other words, through his own foolishness, a person twists things around, gets confused, and lands himself in all kinds of problems, all kinds of messes and nonsense that he then suffers from. And then he complains: Why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu making my life difficult? If a person doesn’t go looking for all kinds of dangers and ways to complicate his life, getting into all kinds of risks, both physical and spiritual, then his life should, in fact, be a happy one. So the Rebbe spoke about this passage in the Rambam and said: Look, if we consider the Rambam himself and read what he says about his life—there are the well-known letters the Rambam wrote describing his life—the Rambam did not have an easy life at all. From childhood, the Rambam was persecuted, he was

18:14 He had to flee the place where he was born, in Spain, and go from one country to another. After that he had troubles, including a brother who passed away. These are all well-known stories. We won’t go into the Rambam’s biography now, but the Rambam had a very difficult life. Even at the height of his career, when he was at the sultan’s court in Egypt, you might think he lived a happy, comfortable life there. But even then, the Rambam describes how he couldn’t rest or catch his breath for a moment. He didn’t have a single moment to do what he really wanted to do. The Rambam was a man of wisdom, a man of science, and people constantly interrupted him with all kinds of things that, to him, were like nonsense. It caused him both physical and emotional distress. And yet, when you look at the Rambam’s writings, whichever of his books you read, you always find a healthy outlook—an optimistic, positive view of life and reality. What’s the secret? The secret lies in these two words: “I have come into My garden.” Who says “I have come”? Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If a Jew knows that before anything else—before I came into this world, before I began my life, before all of existence—Hashem had already come, He was here before me, He is here. And what does it mean that He is here? He is present in every part and every detail of reality. Once I have “I have come,” I also have “My garden.” Then I can see the world as a garden. My task is simply to reveal the beauty deep within it, to look at the world from that perspective and reveal its beauty. Here we’ll talk about Tanya and see what kind of contemplation is really needed, what a person needs to contemplate and think about so that we can look at the world as it is right now and see

20:16 the world with an optimistic outlook—and also look toward the future with optimism, so that a Jew can live with trust, faith, and joy. When we talk about being optimistic, I would divide it broadly into three areas: being optimistic about ourselves; being optimistic about our surroundings, about the people around us with whom we share our lives; and being optimistic about the reality of the world and creation. What does the Alter Rebbe teach us in Tanya? First of all, when you look at yourself, the Alter Rebbe teaches us that every Jew, in their essence, has “an actual part of G-d above.” And here we come to realistic optimism, not false or imagined optimism. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, “Yes, I know you also have an animal soul.” That’s part of where we come from, too. In fact, if you look at Tanya, the Alter Rebbe begins the book with the subject of the animal soul. Every person has an animal soul, and the animal soul is self-centered, egotistical, and has negative traits. But that is not your essence. There is a G-dly soul, “an actual part of G-d above”—a part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, within us. That is our true reality. Once a person recognizes and is aware of their inner, true reality, of the G-dly part within them, they know that the animal part is not who they are. It is an outer layer. This is what the Alter Rebbe teaches us through the idea of the kelipah, the shell. One of the things the Alter Rebbe introduces in the first chapter and returns to again and again is that reality is G-dly. There is a kelipah—in the language of Kabbalah, the realm of kelipos. The animal soul comes from kelipah and the sitra achra. There is a shell around it, but your task is not to focus on the shell. It is to break through the shell, go beyond it, reach the fruit deep inside, and discover the beautiful fruit there. So first of all, within myself. The same

22:40 applies to another Jew. The Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya what true Ahavas Yisroel is. True Ahavas Yisroel—how can a Jew really love every Jew without making calculations? Sometimes this is hard to understand. How can I love a person whose behavior, as I know, is corrupt, behavior that is not good morally or in practical terms? They may act in all kinds of ways, and so on. How can I love every Jew equally? “Love your fellow as yourself.” I love myself, my essence, who I am. How can I love another person, someone who really does not strike me favorably, whose behavior I don’t exactly see as making me want to be their friend? How can I love every Jew, from the smallest to the greatest, from the wicked to the righteous, with unconditional love? The answer is that if you look at a Jew’s inner being, we are all one. “We are all sons of one man.” We all have one Father. All Jewish souls are “an actual part of G-d above.” We all come from the same Father. We are all brothers, so in our essential being, we are truly all one. A person’s behavior is the outer part; that is the shell. Our task is to look at a Jew beyond their shell, to look at their inner being, to value the soul above the body. And if you value the soul above the body and see the person from the perspective of the soul, you can unite and connect with every Jew as an equal. There is no one you look at as above you or below you. We are all friends. We are all “as one man, friends,” as the verse in Shoftim says. The same is true of our view of the world. What does the Alter Rebbe teach us

24:43 in Tanya about how to view the world? Of course, this is a very extensive subject, but the point in a nutshell is what the Alter Rebbe tells us in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah and in several chapters of Tanya itself, in Likkutei Amarim. He explains it in chapter 20, chapter 21, and chapter 33. In several places in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains the subject of Hashem’s oneness. The Baal Shem Tov revealed that Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not merely create the world five thousand seven hundred and some years ago. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings creation into being, gives it life, sustains it, and creates it at every moment. There is a G-dly power in every detail of creation, and the world is constantly renewed, something from nothing, by Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself at every moment. If we can look at the world, contemplate it, and come to this awareness, this understanding, that “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens”—Hashem’s word is present in the heavens and in the earth, in soil, dust, stones, water, in every detail. There is a G-dly power there, and that is its true essence. In the words of Tanya, “If the eye were permitted to see,” we would not see physical matter as a separate existence, because we would see the truth: all physical existence is one with the G-dly power that brings it into being at every moment. So how can this world be a dirty world? A coarse world, a materialistic world—when it is entirely G-dly power? That raises the question: if so, why don’t we see it? Why does reality appear otherwise? And the question is even more difficult. The Alter Rebbe himself writes in Tanya, citing Kabbalistic works, that our world is a world of kelipos and the sitra achra. It is a world full of evil, where the wicked prevail. All the deeds of this world are harsh and evil. These are expressions in Tanya that he brings from earlier Kabbalistic works, the writings of the Arizal, and so on. How is that

26:53 How do these two things go together? The answer is in Tanya itself: it is the kelipah, the outer shell. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world with an inner dimension. That is “I have come into My garden”: the G-dly light, the world’s inner dimension, its beauty and goodness. But He wrapped it in an outer shell, an outer mask of darkness and evil. Yet even the evil itself is not truly evil. It, too, has a spark of goodness within it, a G-dly spark. The evil is only an outer covering. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do this? The Alter Rebbe explains that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to reveal the wonderful inner strengths of the king’s son. The Alter Rebbe brings a parable from the Zohar about a king’s son. He is a gifted, wonderful son, destined to inherit the throne. The king gives him the finest education and everything good. Then, at a certain point, he puts him to the test. He places him in a very difficult situation, facing corrupt people who try to draw him into something improper. But the king’s purpose is not, G-d forbid, to cause his son to fall. Does he want to bring him to ruin? G-d forbid—just the opposite. The king truly believes in the strengths of his only son. He knows his son has tremendous strength, and he knows that when his son withstands the test, it will strengthen and toughen him and reveal his extraordinary abilities. That, in particular, brings his father the king the greatest delight. The Alter Rebbe says something more in Tanya: even the corrupt people whom the king stations there to interfere—even

28:55 to them the king says: “I am placing you here not so that you will succeed in bringing my son down. Your success will not be in dragging him into the mud, G-d forbid. On the contrary, your success will be when my son understands the hint, grasps the message, and withstands the test. That is where your success lies, and that is where you, too, will receive your reward.” The Alter Rebbe tells us: this is the garden of life. This is the healthy way to look at things. You could call it an optimistic outlook, but it is optimism rooted in depth. A Jew needs to get up in the morning and reflect. When you wake up and open your eyes, even before you say Modeh Ani Lefanecha, you say: “Here I am, coming into His garden.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu was already here before I woke up. He is here, and because He is here, creation and all of reality are His garden. The darkness we see in the world, as we said, is the outer shell. But the moment I pay attention to the truth, to what is within, and look through those glasses—the glasses of the author of Tanya, of the Frierdiker Rebbe who wrote the maamar Basi Legani, of the Rebbe who taught us how to look at the world, and of the Rambam—I can see differently. They taught us, not superficially but with profound understanding, to open our eyes according to the Torah and see ourselves, the people around us, and all of creation around us. To look for the spark of goodness, the good part, the light that is good. Then our whole reality changes. This optimistic outlook gives us a life of happiness, joy, and freshness in the present. It also gives us hope and joy about the future. That is the source of the right way of thinking, of what is called “Think

30:57 good, and it will be good.” Because that is really how it is. Once a Jew grasps this point and sets himself on a path of thinking good, things truly become good. And not only good in the ordinary sense: we can then see how evil itself turns to good, how darkness itself turns to light. This is what the Basi Legani maamarim explain: the purpose of our lives in this world is not only to bring light and goodness into it, but also to transform darkness into light. In the language of the Zohar, “to transform darkness into light”—to turn bitterness into sweetness. When a Jew puts on the right glasses, the ones the Torah gives us, he can truly change his perspective and look at the world with eyes that see the truth. That is being realistic, not fooling ourselves. We must know that there is a kelipah; I have a kelipah within me, a very powerful animal soul. We must know that there is a kelipah in the world and in another Jew, too, and see the darkness around us. But we must also know that the kelipah is only a shell. Inside the shell is a fruit—and not just any fruit, but the wonderful, infinite G-dly light. “And G-d saw the light, that it was good,” it says at the beginning of creation. And at the end of creation, on the sixth day, what does it say? “And G-d saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Pay attention to what the Torah is telling us. On the sixth day, after Hakadosh Boruch Hu created man—and according to the Midrash, even after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, since the Gemara in Sanhedrin says that it happened on the sixth day—at the very end of that day, just before Shabbos, before “The heavens and the earth were completed,” what does He say? “And G-d saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very

32:47 good.” There is a wonderful Midrash that says: “Good” refers to the good inclination; “very good” refers to the evil inclination. What does that mean? How can the evil inclination be called “very good”? But that is what we learned today. Even evil serves as a kind of preparation, opening something up for us. It is there so that a Jew can break through it and transform it. Then he discovers that out of darkness comes a great, wonderful light. This is especially so in these final times. In these last days, when a Jew faces this test, he discovers the light within the darkness. That enables him to stand firm and not be shaken by the difficulties and tests we encounter, materially and spiritually, in these last moments. A Jew stands firm with this conviction of “I have come into My garden”—with the resolve to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu, transform darkness into light, reveal within the world the light that is good through Torah and mitzvos, and illuminate the world with their light. Then we will merit, speedily in our days, to see the building of the Beis Hamikdash and the great transformation: this entire world becoming a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, His garden. As the verse says, “And all flesh shall see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken,” and “Hashem will be King over all the earth; on that day Hashem will be one and His name one.” And in the words of the weekly parsha, Parshas Beshalach, the parsha of the Song: “Hashem will reign forever and ever.”