An Introduction to Learning Chassidus - Part 7

00:01 We spoke here about learning Chassidus. The last time we spoke, we discussed learning Chassidus in depth and learning Chassidus for breadth. Beyond that, there is learning it as it applies to oneself. That is a third approach—and not just another approach, but the main one. In fact, one of the bochurim asked about this in the questions they submitted. Today, with Hashem’s help, we’ll address the bochurim’s questions. But first I want to speak about this point, and then we’ll try to discuss several of the questions asked here. In yeshivos, there is generally a study period for learning Chassidus in depth and one for covering more material. During the in-depth period, they study maamarim with more shiurim and try to learn more profound subjects. During the other period, each person learns more on his own, with a chavrusa, and tries to cover more material, as we explained last week when discussing the difference between these two approaches. But we know that Chassidus has a very special, central purpose: the teachings of Chassidus established that learning should affect the person himself, as it applies to his own soul. Chassidus is a sublime light. It is the inner dimension of the Torah, which is connected with the inner dimension of the soul: the hidden dimension of the Torah is connected with the hidden dimension of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and with the hidden dimension of Jewish souls. By learning Chassidus and connecting with the inner dimensions of the soul, of G-dliness, and of the Torah, the sublime light shines. That is what Chassidus is: its light must illuminate the soul and bring a person closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, connecting him with G-dliness and illuminating his soul’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—love of Hashem, awe of Hashem, attachment to G-dliness, and so on. In Chassidus, this is primarily connected with the faculty of daas. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, there are

02:27 chochmah, binah, and daas. Chochmah is the initial point of an idea. Binah is understanding and grasping it. When you learn Chassidus, you have chochmah and binah, but then there is daas. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, daas sustains the emotions and gives them life. Without daas, a person may know a great deal and learn a great deal, but if he does not contemplate the subject deeply, firmly, and persistently, he will not have genuine love and awe—only vain imaginings. This requires a particular kind of work. No special study period was established for it in yeshiva, because it varies from person to person. You cannot prescribe a set period, time, or method for it, because it depends on the individual’s soul. Each person needs his own time, his own work, and his own path. In these matters, one needs to “make for yourself a rav,” as the Rebbe discussed: every bochur needs a mashpia to guide him. Even for learning Chassidus in general, you need a mashpia to guide you in how to learn, what to learn, in what order, and so on. But learning Chassidus in a way that reaches you inwardly especially requires individual guidance. Still, I’ll mention a few general points. One point appears in several places, including Kuntres Eitz Hachayim. The Rebbe Rashab discusses it, and it is also discussed in several maamarim of our Rebbeim: when learning Chassidus, you need to recognize that you are studying a G-dly subject. Sometimes you become so absorbed in the avodah, in the intellectual study—in understanding what the maamar means, analyzing it, and knowing what it says and why it says it,

04:27 and all its explanations and elaborations—that you forget the essential point: this is about G-dly light. This is about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the first, most basic thing in learning Chassidus, something that should really always be there, is this: when you learn a maamar and want it to affect you inwardly, you need to keep in the back of your mind that it is speaking about G-dliness, that the maamar is speaking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That awareness, that knowledge that these are G-dly matters, gives life to your learning of the maamar and helps you connect with it. It is a simple, basic, fundamental thing, but it takes work. Sometimes a person becomes so involved in the details that he forgets the essence, the content, the point: we are speaking about a G-dly matter. That is one central point. A second point, also discussed in the ways of Chassidus and its study, is to remember the one who delivered the maamar. You need to remember that there is a Rebbe who is saying it. If you have a picture of the Rebbe, keep that image in mind. Each person, according to his situation, can picture the one who delivered the maamar. When it is our Rebbe, the Nasi of our generation, there are certainly many photographs and videos that can help you picture his face. For the earlier Rebbeim, too, there are pictures. The Rebbe even asked that when a book was printed, a picture of the Rebbe Rashab be printed at the beginning. Similarly, several books contain a picture of the Rebbe Rashab, and certain books contain one of the Frierdiker Rebbe. This is so that you can picture the face, the likeness, of the Rebbe who delivers the

06:30 maamar. Looking at the picture also gives you strength to connect with the G-dliness of the maamar. The Rebbe said this many times. I’ve told this story many times: I remember a farbrengen I attended on Shabbos Parshas Re’eh 5746. The Rebbe spoke at length about “Re’eh”—“See.” The Rebbe said that “Re’eh” means having the Rebbe’s face before you when you learn a maamar. It is not enough just to learn the maamar; the one who delivered it must also stand before you. Then what flows from the maamar is on a much higher level. That is the second point. A third point is that for a maamar to enter you inwardly, you must first have learned it several times. In other words, a maamar you want to daven with, work with, and connect with must be one you have learned several times. After you have learned it, understood it, and gone over it several times, the stage comes of internalizing it, of bringing the maamar inside yourself. That is the third point to know: if I want to learn a maamar in a way that it affects me, I do so only after learning it many times. You already know the maamar and the avodah it discusses. Then you learn it again with the aim of connecting and relating to what it says. Another thing to do when learning a maamar is to pause from time to time and think about its content. When you finish a chapter, a section, or a passage, you stop and think: What is the point? What is it saying here? What is the content? What are we talking about? Sometimes, too, not only

08:39 On a section—sometimes it can even be just a line or two. When you’re learning a passage in a maamar, a particular point or insight, and you feel there’s some depth there, something that speaks to you. Sometimes you see a line in a maamar and it speaks to you. You feel there’s a particular insight here that relates to you. So you don’t rush on. You stop at that passage and go over it several times. You contemplate it; you think about it. That, too, is part of making it your own, connecting with it, so that the maamar enters my mind and heart and has an effect on me. We see this in Tanya, at the beginning of chapter 3, when the Alter Rebbe speaks about the faculty of daas. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes that daas comes from the expression “And Adam knew Chava”—it means attachment and connection: “He binds his mind with a strong and firm bond,” and “fixes his thought upon it firmly and persistently, without diverting his attention.” I think there are two main points here: “He fixes his thought upon it firmly and persistently.” “Firmly” means being completely immersed in it. When you learn the maamar, you live with it; your whole being is immersed in it. You go deeply into the ideas. When you learn its passages, you’re fully immersed, thinking about them, delving into them, trying to be entirely focused on the subject and to disconnect from all sorts of other things. That’s “firmly.” And “persistently” means coming back to the same idea again and again and again—not being lazy, but thinking about it many times. One of the things that today,

10:53 in our generation, has become difficult is thinking about the same idea many times. People want to rush: “I know it already; I’ve understood it. What now? What does this add for me? I’ve already learned the maamar. I learned it again; I understand the ideas.” But that’s exactly the point here. “Firmly and persistently, without diverting his attention” means training ourselves to live with that same idea and think about it many, many times. There are the well-known teachings and stories that the Rebbe cites in his sichos about learning something forty times, fifty times, sixty times—there are different versions—and about how often the Rebbeim instructed chassidim to study something many times. There’s a story, as it’s told, about someone asking what the difference was between the sixtieth time and the fifty-ninth. They told him—it was a dialogue with the Rebbe, [unclear]—that the difference between the sixtieth and fifty-ninth times was as great as the difference between the first time and the fifty-ninth. They’re incomparable. You might ask: Why go over the same thing so many times? The point is that when you learn it again and again, when you persist in reviewing the same idea many times, it penetrates your very being, it penetrates your soul, and it has a very deep effect. The Rebbe once spoke about this at a farbrengen. There’s a Shavuos farbrengen from the early years where the Rebbe recounts that the Rebbeim would sometimes say to learn one maamar many times. The Rebbe asks: Isn’t that a waste of time? You could have learned new things in that time. What is the point of learning the same thing so many times? The Rebbe explains the point there:

12:40 Since Torah contains a Divine light, for the G-dliness in Torah to penetrate the soul and have an effect on it, one must think about the same idea many times. So those are a few points about learning in a way that affects the soul. Of course, this also brings us to the whole subject of contemplation in Chassidus, of thinking about Chassidus. That warrants a class of its own, and with Hashem’s help we’ll have a special class on contemplation soon. For now, we’re learning and talking. What we’re discussing now is primarily the learning itself, but this is a distinct third approach to learning: learning in a way that affects the soul, affects the person, so that the maamar begins to work on him inwardly. Now, the students asked some questions here. I’ll answer them briefly, and then we’ll discuss the matters at hand. One question was about the order in which to study Chassidus: Is it better to learn in chronological order, or by subject? That’s a very good question, and there really isn’t one answer to it. I think that with questions like these, it’s very important for a student to ask his own mashpia and receive guidance. It depends somewhat on the student, and on the guidance his mashpia gives him—someone to accompany him in this. On the one hand, there is value in studying Chassidus in chronological order, at least certain parts of it. When we speak about the Rebbe Rashab, for example, over the years he delivered teachings in Chassidus as series of maamarim. There are the well-known series, and in Tomchei Temimim there was an established order. So there is a certain value to following the order of the years, but not necessarily in every case. There are many details to consider, and therefore

14:49 I think this question is very individual. A student would do well to consult his mashpia about his particular situation. Another question came up when we spoke in previous classes about how “words of Torah are sparse in one place and rich in another.” That’s how it is in Chassidus: when you learn a maamar, not every subject is explained in that one maamar. One maamar explains one point at length, but not other points. With Hashem’s help, you’ll get to another maamar. That’s why there is a practice of learning for breadth: the Rebbe established a study schedule of this kind in Tomchei Temimim, so that by covering a large amount of material, students would learn many subjects in Chassidus, each complementing the others. So the question was whether it has to be done specifically that way, or whether one can also use books. Today there are books like Sefer Ha’erchim, as well as various other books that explain subjects in Chassidus and lay out the ideas systematically. Here we must emphasize a point that is absolutely fundamental. The essential point is that studying Chassidus is not just about acquiring knowledge, information, or concepts. We are speaking about Torah—the Torah of our Rebbeim. As the well-known expression has it, “The Shechinah speaks from their throats.” The Rebbeim reveal G-dliness to us. So we must know that there is no substitute for studying Chassidus in the Rebbe’s own words. That is essential, and the Rebbeim are known to have emphasized it very strongly. Our Rebbeim placed special emphasis on studying their Torah specifically—that is, Chassidus as the Rebbeim themselves wrote it. And the Rebbeim did not write Chassidus in a way that— the Frierdiker Rebbe speaks about this at length. The Rebbe

16:45 He speaks about this in several places: the Rebbeim deliberately did not write Chassidus in a systematic way. They tell of a chossid in the time of the Tzemach Tzedek named Reb Nachum Tuvia, who made “tractates” of Chassidus. The Frierdiker Rebbe speaks of him disapprovingly. He arranged Chassidus into tractates—Atzilus, Adam Kadmon, the Kav—turning them into sugyos, and the chassidim did not think much of it. Because Chassidus needs to be learned specifically as the Rebbeim taught us: you learn a concept, discuss a verse and enter into a sugya; some points are explained here and others there, and that is how you gradually learn. On the other hand, it is clear that especially in our generation—and the Rebbe speaks about this too—we should make use of the books available today that help with learning, but as a supplementary matter. The main study must be of the Rebbe’s own words. This is absolutely essential. As the Rebbe says in Hayom Yom, there is a special importance to “soaking” in the Rebbe’s words. In one entry in Hayom Yom, the Rebbe speaks about rinsing and salting in the service of Hashem, and says there must be soaking: to refine the animal soul, it is specifically the Rebbe’s words that do this. That is absolutely essential in learning Chassidus. But of course, boruch Hashem, in our generation we have been privileged to have many books, classes, explanations and so on. So of course we should use these books to help us along the way. That is important, worthwhile and right, with all its advantages. But it must be clear that this is supplementary learning. Another bachur asked: How do we come to know so much Chassidus? He says he sees bachurim who know a great many maamarim and a great deal of Chassidus. So how do you come to know so much Chassidus? The answer is that, as with Nigleh and with

18:45 Chassidus and the entire Torah, every person is different. No two people are alike. You cannot—and you should not—be jealous. Of course, healthy envy is a good thing, as explained in Heichal Tzofar[?]: there is good envy and bad envy. Clearly, if you envy a particular bachur’s effort and want to learn from him, that is a good thing. But abilities and talents are not something to envy. The ability to remember and know a lot is a kind of aptitude. Some bachurim have a talent for it: they simply have a good memory. What they learn, they remember. That does not necessarily mean their understanding is so good. Others are the opposite: they have a very deep understanding and grasp a subject in depth, but their memory is not so good. Some have more of an aptitude for in-depth study; others for covering material, for delving deeply, for analysis, for debate or for reaching conclusions. These are different aptitudes. So some bachurim grasp things quickly and have good memories, and they know a lot of Chassidus. Other bachurim learn and toil but forget, so they need to review much more. It is individual, and there are different approaches. Every bachur needs to get to know himself: where his strengths lie, where he can invest more effort and in what way. And of course, where something is harder for him, he needs to work harder at it. But he need not envy someone else for having an aptitude he does not have, or one that is less developed in him, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave each person his own abilities and talents. One last question for today, asked by one of the bachurim: Why do we need to

20:30 know so much Chassidus at all? Isn’t the whole point of learning Chassidus for it to affect you? Who says we need to know all of Chassidus? Instead of learning many maamarim, we could learn a few and daven with them and work with them. Do we need to learn so many maamarim? The answer is that we need both. The Rebbe gave us a directive, especially for our generation. In earlier generations—and we spoke about this in the previous class—the main emphasis in Chassidus really was on avodah and davening. But in our generation the Rebbe explicitly called for a special focus on gaining knowledge through the study of Chassidus, including learning a great deal of it. The Rebbe placed special emphasis on studying Chassidus in quantity. That is why the Rebbe published so much. With the Rebbe there was a change from the earlier Rebbeim: the earlier Rebbeim did not want to publish Chassidus, whereas the Rebbe published so many maamarim. The Rebbe published the teachings of all our Rebbeim, in such abundance. And the Rebbe said that before the coming of Moshiach there is a “squandering of the treasures,” so we need to learn Chassidus in quantity as well. The Rebbe wanted extensive study of Chassidus, and we need to do it because that is how the Rebbe educated us in our generation. There is even a particular farbrengen where the Rebbe discusses this, on 19 Kislev 5743. It is also an edited sicha—the Rebbe edited it—in which the Rebbe said that engagement in Chassidus had weakened, and spoke about the need to learn in quantity. The Rebbe wanted bachurim to know many maamarim, to know maamarim by heart and be familiar with the subjects. The Rebbe discusses this at great length there. It was not the usual way our Rebbeim spoke, but our Rebbe did speak this way. He wanted people to have extensive knowledge of Chassidus. That is in quantity, but through that, in quality too,

22:07 as we discussed last week—or whenever the previous class was, two weeks ago. The Rebbe also taught that Chassidus should be studied in depth: working through a sugya with understanding, questions and the students’ give-and-take. That, too, had not been the usual way of learning Chassidus. The Rebbe wanted the study of Chassidus to be like the study of Nigleh: bachurim debating with one another, delving deeply, understanding, raising questions and resolving contradictions. The Rebbe wanted the study of Chassidus in our generation to have both quantity and quality, in an entirely different way. So this is a clear directive the Rebbe gave us. Someone asks: How do we know what our strengths are? Life teaches you, and sometimes consulting a mashpia and talking things over can help. You learn gradually through life. Some things take time to recognize. But a bachur need not preoccupy himself with all of this; gradually he begins to see where he succeeds more and where his strengths lie. In any case.