There's No Room for Despair! | 3 Points from Tanya for a Life of Joy

00:00 The dream of every one of us is to have a life of peace and tranquility—a successful life, a happy life, and above all, to feel that we are on safe ground. That’s true materially: life in this world, livelihood, health, nachas from our children, everything going smoothly. And it’s true spiritually, in our service of Hashem: that I should want to learn, want to daven, that we should have love of Hashem and fear of Hashem, and joy in our daily service of Hashem; that we should feel secure on our path, in a life of Torah and mitzvos. That all sounds wonderful, but we know reality isn’t quite like that. We know things don’t come so easily; they don’t go smoothly. Every one of us faces challenges, including material challenges of all kinds. We always daven and ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to give each and every person a happy life, an abundant life in every respect: children, livelihood, health, peace at home, good shidduchim. May we all have an abundance of good, materially and spiritually. But in the reality of life, we all face challenges—and in our spiritual lives, all the more so. Each of us wants to be a tzaddik. We want to be whole; we want a life of peace and tranquility. We want the yetzer to stop chasing us, disturbing us, and bringing us down at every turn into all sorts of things we ourselves don’t want to be involved in. We want to feel more secure in our service of Hashem, but we know that day to day, it doesn’t work that way. We’re in a battle, and it isn’t an easy one. Sometimes, too, a feeling of despair overtakes us: I’m not getting anywhere. I try and try. I get up in the morning feeling eager: Today will be different. And I go to sleep at night having resolved: Tomorrow will be completely different; I’ll have a good, successful day. We make good resolutions, sometimes at different points in our lives, at different times. Maybe it’s at the beginning of the year

02:20 or the beginning of a new period, or some occasion comes around and we say: That’s it. Enough. We’re starting a new chapter. I’m driving away the yetzer hara. It won’t bother me anymore, and I’m making a firm resolution. And then we fall again, and again, and all sorts of thoughts come back—confusion, distracting thoughts, troubling thoughts, and setbacks in our service of Hashem. It’s deeply discouraging. How do we manage to stand strong and not fall into that terrible thing called despair? We all know despair isn’t right. We all know there’s no place for despair. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov always said—and this is his famous saying—“There is no despair; one must not despair.” A Jew doesn’t give up. Chassidus speaks a great deal about this. But the question is: What exactly is the message? What exactly is the point I need to tell myself that will give me the strength not to despair? Today I especially want to talk about despair in the spiritual sense: the despair that can overtake us in our service of Hashem when things don’t go as smoothly as we want, when we keep returning to and falling into the same desires, cravings, and thoughts. What is the point I’m meant to hold on to? How do I keep myself strong, avoid falling into the arms of despair, and, on the contrary, serve Hashem with joy and gladness of heart? First of all, we’ll discuss a few points today. We’ll divide them into three: two points from the Tanya, and a third from a maamar of the Alter Rebbe connected with Purim, which is just around the corner, so we’ll talk about that. I think these three points are vitally important. They give us something to reflect on and think about that can lift us up. Before we delve into what the Tanya teaches us, I want to begin with an important introduction: the great mistake we make in wanting to reach

04:35 a place of safety. We think our dream in life is for the day to come when the battle will be over. A day when everything will go smoothly, when I’ll no longer have desires or cravings, when I’ll no longer have battles—when I’ll simply get up in the morning full of enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm will stay with me all day. I love Hakadosh Boruch Hu, I stand in awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and I’m happy in my service of Hashem. In reality, it isn’t like that, and it may never happen. That sounds stark, but this is precisely where we begin to learn what the Alter Rebbe teaches us in the Tanya. It’s something wonderful that we need to reflect on so we can understand ourselves. It’s one of the foundations of the Tanya that the Alter Rebbe teaches us. Everyone knows that the Tanya is called Sefer Shel Beinonim, the Book of the Beinonim. In fact, that was its name before it came to be called the Tanya. The Alter Rebbe didn’t call his book Tanya—that’s the popular name—but Sefer Shel Beinonim, as he writes on the title page. What does “the Book of the Beinonim” mean? The Alter Rebbe explains it at length. We won’t go into all the details now. The main point is that the Alter Rebbe teaches us that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created most human beings, most of the Jewish people—almost all of them—not with the purpose of being tzaddikim. The Alter Rebbe cites what the Gemara says in tractate Bava Basra. Iyov said, “You created tzaddikim; You created resha’im.” The well-known question is: What does it mean, “You created tzaddikim; You created resha’im”? Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t create people as tzaddikim or resha’im. Whether a person is a tzaddik or a rasha depends on their choice. A person must choose: “And you shall choose life.” This isn’t something decreed upon us from Above, G-d forbid. Hakadosh Boruch Hu

06:37 gives a person free choice. But the Alter Rebbe explains, in a remarkable way, that these are two different things. There is being a tzaddik or a rasha in one’s actions, where everyone has free choice; and there is being a tzaddik or a rasha in one’s soul. There are different kinds of souls. Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates two kinds of Jewish souls. Some souls were created for a particular purpose. They are exceptionally lofty souls, very special souls that came into the world for a very special purpose: the souls of tzaddikim. Here we mean true tzaddikim, what is called a “tzaddik, the foundation of the world.” Avraham Avinu, Moshe Rabbeinu, Yosef Hatzaddik—the souls of tzaddikim throughout the generations. In every generation there are always the lofty souls of its tzaddikim, souls born with a special nature, a special role, and a special purpose. That is one kind. But most souls are what we call the souls of beinonim. When the Gemara says, “You created resha’im,” the Tanya tells us, it doesn’t mean resha’im in the ordinary, straightforward sense of the word. It means people who face a battle—exactly what we’re talking about today. People born into a daily inner battle. We have a G-dly soul; we have an animal soul. There is a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara, and there is a daily battle at every moment. This battle is a struggle over one’s very existence, because the G-dly soul stands firm. At every moment, it wants to take complete control of the body—of thought, speech, action, emotions, and intellect—so that the Jew will be wholly devoted to Torah and the service of Hashem. But on the other side is the animal soul, which wants the exact opposite: to interfere, to intrude everywhere, and to take control of the mind, the heart, the limbs, the emotions, the thoughts, the words, and the actions. It’s a fierce battle. Shlomo Hamelech describes it in Koheles: “There was a small city with few people in it, and there was”

08:48 The wise but poor child is a metaphor for the yetzer tov, the G-dly soul. Then there is the old and foolish king who wants to conquer the city—a metaphor for the yetzer hara. And the battle is extremely difficult. This is the battle an ordinary person faces in life. The Alter Rebbe says something remarkable. A person falls into depression or despair, into discouraging thoughts, because he thinks: Why do I still have these thoughts? Why do these thoughts still cross my mind? How can I still have desires and sometimes want things that are forbidden, things that are wrong, things I know Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not want? How can that be? And we start reproaching ourselves, beating ourselves up, and saying: Who am I, a piece of garbage, to be caught up in such low things? The Alter Rebbe says this is a fundamental mistake. It is a mistaken way of looking at things. It is because we sometimes imagine that we are on the level of a tzaddik. The Alter Rebbe says something remarkable: these thoughts come from arrogance. The very thought that I am supposed to be a person without a battle comes from thinking you were born on a different level, in a different league. We were born for precisely this purpose. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created you this way deliberately, and this is what He wants. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us to be fighters, people who fight the yetzer hara day after day. On the contrary, this battle gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu the greatest delight and nachas: when a Jew has a thought, a desire, a craving, and overcomes it. Every time we overcome something, every time we exercise self-control—not thinking a negative thought we should not think, not looking where we should not look, not listening to what we should not hear, whether it is something in thought

10:53 or speech or action—the nachas it gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu is extraordinary. The Alter Rebbe quotes the Zohar: every time a person restrains his thoughts, speech, or actions, even the slightest restraint of our wants and desires causes tremendous nachas Above. And that nachas, in the words of the Zohar, brings about a revelation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu throughout all the worlds. An extraordinary revelation of G-dliness takes place each time a Jew restrains himself, even just once, with a single thought. This gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu the greatest nachas. The Alter Rebbe goes on to say in Tanya, chapter 27: “Therefore, a person’s heart should not fall.” A person should not become dejected because he has battles, because he has not managed to transform his heart and his desires so that they are entirely holy, because he has a struggle, desires, ups and downs. “For this he was created, and this will be his service all his days, in this battle.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants this battle. He takes delight, so to speak—the greatest nachas Hakadosh Boruch Hu has is when a person succeeds in overcoming the yetzer, time and again. The analogy the Alter Rebbe gives for this is interesting. The Zohar discusses the story of Esav and Yaakov. Yitzchak Avinu asks them to bring him delicacies, to prepare him food, a meal. The Zohar says these delicacies have their simple meaning: the story of Yitzchak asking for food, Esav going out to find it, and Yaakov coming first and receiving the blessings. But the Zohar also interprets the whole story as referring to the soul and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Zohar notes that “delicacies” is plural. There are two kinds of delicacies in the physical world, two kinds of food. Some foods are naturally sweet and tasty, and there are foods

13:11 that need to be made sweet. These foods are inherently bitter or sharp, and you have to work on them, season them in a special way, to make them pleasing to the palate. And we see that often, when a person really wants to revive himself, it is precisely these foods—the sharp foods, the foods that were bitter and were made sweet—that truly invigorate him, giving him much more strength and energy than foods that are naturally sweet. The Rebbe explains that the same is true of what we are discussing. There are, so to speak, two kinds of delicacies for the holy Shechinah, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes a very special pleasure in sweet food. Sweet food is the sweet Jewish tzaddik. There are tzaddikim who were born tzaddikim, who attain the ultimate goal of serving Hashem through the service of tzaddikim, and this gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu nachas. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu has a special nachas when darkness is turned into light, when bitterness is turned into sweetness through the battle itself. This Jew has a powerful yetzer hara; he has a fire within him. Nevertheless, he makes the spiritual prevail over the physical. He overcomes himself, holds back, controls his impulses. That strength gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu immeasurable nachas, like the sharp foods that revive a person. So that is the first point. We simply need to begin to understand what is going on here. Once a person knows the purpose of creation, once he knows exactly what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants from us and where we are meant to get to—once he knows that the goal in life is not to sit on a hill, at ease in mind and body, with the battle over and everything fine and good, but quite the opposite: the battle itself is the goal, and each and every moment of it is what brings such great nachas to Hakadosh

15:14 Boruch Hu—then a person should be joyful and glad of heart. Each time I faced a test and managed to withstand it, whether in thought, speech, sight, hearing, or any other area; each time I managed to make the spiritual prevail over the physical, whatever the particular action was, I brought tremendous nachas to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I broke the power of kelipah, the power of evil, and brought light into the world. This is what I live for, and it should give a person the greatest joy in serving Hashem. Then the Alter Rebbe tells us a second point. Later in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe makes another point. As we discussed, there is the G-dly soul and the animal soul. The pure neshamah is literally a part of G-d Above. It descended here below from beneath the Throne of Glory. The neshamah is literally a part of G-d Above, something supremely precious and wonderful, and it descended into this physical world. “The soul You have given me.” Every morning we say: “It is pure. You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me, and You preserve it within me.” The G-dly soul descends and becomes enclothed in an animal soul, in a material, physical body, dust from the earth, and that is where the battle begins. What is the purpose of creation? Who made us this way? Did we make ourselves? No. Hakadosh Boruch Hu did. He takes the pure neshamah, which is, so to speak, a part of Him, a part of G-d Above, and He Himself brings that neshamah down into this world. Now we need to begin contemplating the purpose of creation. Why should the pure neshamah, which is pure and is not supposed to suffer, be there? What is it doing down here in this physical world? The Alter Rebbe says: “The neshamah did not descend into the world for its own sake.” For its own sake, it could remain Above, beneath the Throne of Glory, in Gan Eden, enjoying

17:15 “From the radiance of the Shechinah,” as the Gemara says. The soul above is in the best possible state. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu take the soul and bring it down into a body? It wasn’t for the soul’s own sake. The soul doesn’t need any correction for itself. It is already perfected; it is complete. There is a purpose to creation. What is that purpose? This is where the Midrash comes in. The purpose of creation is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants a dwelling in this physical world. The Midrash tells us that the entire purpose of creation is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose—wants, desires, to use the Midrash’s word—that this physical world become a dwelling for Him. We cannot make this physical world a dwelling for Hakadosh Boruch Hu through any wonderful, profound feelings. We can do it only through the physical actions that Hakadosh Boruch Hu prescribed in the Torah: observing the Shulchan Aruch, fulfilling the mitzvos, or, in the language of the Zohar, doing good deeds. The only way, so to speak, to bring the Shechinah to dwell here, to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu into this world, is through the good deeds a person actually does. A person could sit all day contemplating, occupied with lofty intentions, with tremendous devotion and supernal unifications. He could contemplate lofty intentions drawn from the secrets of Kabbalah. But if, in actual practice, he doesn’t take a pair of tefillin and put them on, doesn’t wear tzitzis, doesn’t eat kosher food or observe the mitzvos of Shabbos through action, doesn’t say the words of davening with his mouth—then, for all his lofty intentions, he has missed the main point. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants a dwelling here in this physical world. Knowing this tells us that the goal is not total victory, where your heart is transformed into a pure, holy heart that loves only Hakadosh Boruch Hu day and night. There, as we said, there is a battle, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes delight in the battle itself. What

19:27 is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s true desire, though? It is the daily work of thought, speech, and action. Working on our thoughts, speech, and actions is in our hands. Every single one of us has the ability to do it. You don’t have to be a tzaddik for that; you don’t need to be a tzaddik. Every person has control over his actions and his words. In everything to do with thought, speech, and actual action, we have free choice. We don’t always have a choice about our feelings. I would like my feelings to be pure, but they aren’t, and that is where the battle begins. Our deeper, more spiritual dimensions require a great deal of work and effort. Of course a person has to exert himself, to try, to work on himself. That calls for personal, inner work: contemplation, learning, inner refinement. Gradually distancing oneself from material desires and transforming them into spiritual desires. There is certainly a process there too, but that is not where the spotlight should be. That should not be the ultimate goal. The goal is work in actual practice. Good deeds—as the Zohar explains at length, the entire purpose of a Jew’s soul coming down here into this physical world is to provide oil. There is a wick: the body. There is the light; the flame is the Divine light, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the holy Shechinah that rests upon us. What connects the Shechinah and the body is oil. What is the oil? Good deeds. Actual action. Actually learning Torah, actually fulfilling mitzvos. Doing and doing and doing and doing. That is where we should invest ourselves. When a person begins to understand the purpose of creation, if that is the purpose, then what are you despairing over? Why do you fall into depression because you haven’t succeeded—because you don’t have the desire, the perfect love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? That is not where you need

21:40 to be focused. What happens is that when a person is focused on himself, he thinks: What do I want? How do I look? How would I like to look? I put myself at the center of my own spiritual life. I want to be a tzaddik. I want to be holy. I want to be perfect. I want to be pure. I would like to be Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Baal Shem Tov, the holiest of the holy. The “I” is at the center, and then we begin the battle with despair and depression, because we don’t reach that level. But that is not where you are supposed to be at all. Who asked you to be all those things? You need to learn from the tzaddikim. We need to learn from our holy forefathers. We need to learn from the holy tzaddikim. But this desire that I should be that holy person does not come from the right place. Our desire should be: What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want? What gives Him pleasure? What brings Him satisfaction? Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling here below, in this lowest world. That is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. And when I put the emphasis there, a Jew feels tremendous joy over every good deed he does. Every mitzvah and every— And it is precisely there that the entire purpose of creation lies: bringing about the supreme will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, refining the physical world, adding more mitzvos and more action to this physical world, doing a favor for a fellow Jew through actual deeds. That is where we fulfill the purpose of creation, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s joy becomes our joy. And here comes a third point, a wonderful point that the Alter Rebbe discusses in one of the maamarim for Purim. It is very, very interesting how it appears in the Purim story, but it is actually a verse in Yeshayahu, and it applies throughout the year. In Yeshayahu 63, the prophet says: “For Avraham does not know us, and Yisrael

23:39 does not recognize us, for You are our Father.” That is the verse. “For You are our Father, our Redeemer.” It is speaking about the days of Moshiach. When Moshiach comes, this is what will happen: the Jewish people will say these words. “Avraham does not know us, Yisrael does not recognize us, for You are our Father.” The question is: What is the message here? What does it mean that Avraham does not know us and Yisrael does not recognize us? The Gemara discusses this. In Shabbos, page 89, the Gemara relates that before Moshiach comes, during the period we are in now, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will come to Avraham Avinu and tell him, “Your children have sinned.” And Avraham Avinu will not succeed, so to speak, in persuading Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive us. Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu will turn to Yisrael—to Yaakov; Yaakov and Yisrael are the same person—and he too will not succeed in obtaining forgiveness and pardon. Only to Yitzchak, the Gemara says, will they say, “For you are our father.” Why Yitzchak? What is special about Yitzchak, of all the forefathers, that it is specifically to him that they say, “You are our father”? What exactly is this verse telling us? What is the message? I won’t go into the whole lengthy discussion; I’ll go straight to the point as it relates to what we were discussing earlier. The Alter Rebbe says something wonderful. Avraham and Yisrael represent a Jew’s spiritual service—what we were discussing earlier. Avraham represents kindness and love. “Avraham, who loves Me”—love of Hashem. Avraham Avinu was filled with love of Hashem. His service of Hashem was permeated with a wonderful love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yisrael too, Yaakov Avinu, represents a Jew’s inner, spiritual service, filled with love, spirituality, fear of Heaven, and joy in serving Hashem. But there are times when I have none of that. I try. I try to learn, try to contemplate, try to daven. “Avraham does not know us, Yisrael does not recognize us”—I can’t manage it. And then a person, like

26:04 As we discussed, we become discouraged. It isn’t working. Especially in this difficult exile, with its difficult trials, in this doubled and redoubled darkness—the world is full of darkness, making things even harder for us. How can I awaken love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu when we see such doubled and redoubled darkness in the world? During exile, it is hard to awaken an ordinary, healthy, joyful love of Hashem in our service of Him. Surrounded by enemies, surrounded by all the troubles, suffering, and torment, surrounded by all the confusion and the pressures of earning a living—where will I find the strength to rise above it? “For You are our Father.” The Alter Rebbe says something wonderful. Even when a Jew is not feeling inspired, loving, or joyful, when things are not clear to him, when his mind does not fully grasp them and his feelings are not fully awakened, every Jew still has “For You are our Father.” It has nothing to do with feelings, with lofty spiritual levels, with a level of understanding or intellectual attainment, or with wonderful feelings of love and joy. It is the very essence of a Jew. I am a Jew, and You, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, are our Father. The cry of “For You are our Father” is the cry of the soul, when a Jew says: I have Hakadosh Boruch Hu, our Father, our King, our Father in Heaven. “For You are our Father” is stronger than everything else. As is well known, the Baal Shem Tov would go from place to place and approach Jews, and the one thing he wanted from them was... How are things? He wanted a Jew to say, “Baruch Hashem.” Baruch Hashem for the livelihood, Baruch Hashem for the field, Baruch Hashem for the cow that gives milk, Baruch Hashem for whatever it might be. Those words, “Baruch Hashem,” express “For You are our Father.” The Baal Shem Tov once revealed to his students—he showed them—the great pleasure Hakadosh Boruch Hu has when a simple Jew says a word in prayer and, in the middle, lets out a cry: “Ah! Tatty, our Father in Heaven.” Those words—even though he

28:18 does not understand what he is saying in prayer, he says the words but does not understand; he does not believe, he does not even understand the meaning of the simple words. But the cry itself, that connection of “For You are our Father,” is the deepest part of a Jew. It is the most wonderful depth within a Jew, and especially in our times, in the hardest days, it is always there. It never goes to sleep. That is the story of Purim. Purim took place at a time of darkness, when Hashem’s face was hidden. The Gemara asks, “Where is Esther alluded to in the Torah?” “And I will surely hide My face on that day.” The hiding of Hashem’s face was extraordinary. From Above, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was, so to speak, hiding His face: He allowed Haman’s terrible decree to come about. And from below, there was a hiding of the face too: the Jewish people enjoyed the feast of that wicked man and bowed down to an idol. Hashem’s face was hidden on both sides—Above and below. It was a time of darkness. But what did we see when the decree came? What awakened? “Go, gather all the Jews.” The Jew who “would not kneel or bow down” awakened. Mordechai succeeded in awakening the Jewish point within the people of his generation—the point of the soul, the Jewish spark. Whatever a Jew may do throughout his life, that spark always remains whole within him. The cry of “For You are our Father” lifts a person from the lowest depths to the greatest heights. It raises a person up and connects him with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, and then all the darkness evaporates. All the evil, all the darkness, everything that obstructs and conceals—it all disappears. That is the story of Purim, and it is the story of each and every one of us. Even when you do not feel love of Hashem or awe of Hashem, even when you cannot be perfect in mind, intellect, and feeling in your service of Hashem, you still have faith; you have

30:12 “For You are our Father.” That is Yitzchak. That is Yitzchak’s story. Yitzchak represents mesirus nefesh. Yitzchak’s story is the Akeidah. It is the story of a Jew who remains connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the hardest, darkest moments. He is never cut off. On the contrary, the point of mesirus nefesh that Yitzchak Avinu revealed within every Jew through the story of the Akeidah is, in essence, the story of “For You are our Father.” We have seen this recently; we have witnessed it in such a wonderful way. Look at what has been happening lately in the world, among the Jewish people—how the Jewish point has awakened in Jews who had been the most distant in their day-to-day service of Hashem. “For You are our Father” is always there, intact. And once you have that, you do not fall; you grow stronger. In the end, it will also bring love and awe, and bring the mind and the emotions—and the whole person—into the service of Hashem. So this is what we learn. To sum up, these are the points we must always remember so that we can pick ourselves up, lift ourselves higher, grow stronger and remain strong, and know: there is no room for despair in this world. First, know that what gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu the greatest pleasure is the struggle itself. The delicacies, the delight Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes, come from a Jew overcoming challenges day by day, even though he has to struggle. The second point: to make the world—put the spotlight in the right place. Do not be absorbed in yourself and your own perfection, in what level you have reached. Instead, think about what makes Hakadosh Boruch Hu happy, what He wants. He wants the deeds. He wants a dwelling in this lowest world, which we make specifically through actual deeds, speech, and thoughts. And the third point is “For You are our Father.” “For You are our Father” is what brings us out of everything, lifts us up, strengthens us,

32:16 gives us the strength, connects us with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and turns exile into Geulah. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu truly help us to see this soon, to awaken, and for that love to awaken in the most open way. For You are our Father, our King, and our Redeemer. May we see the complete Geulah, and go from the festival of Purim to the festival of Pesach, the festival of the month of Nissan. In Nissan, we are destined to be redeemed with the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, speedily in our days, amen.