An Introduction to Learning Chassidus - Part 8

00:00 So we’ll continue today with our discussion of studying Chassidus. Today we’ll talk a little about the study of Chassidus in relation to Kabbalah. It’s an interesting subject in general, and especially timely now, since we’re close to 5 Menachem Av, the yahrzeit of the Arizal. As I recall, in 5748 the Rebbe made a particular stir about the Arizal’s yahrzeit. On 5 Menachem Av 5748, the Rebbe spoke both on the night of 5 Menachem Av and after 5 Menachem Av ended. The Rebbe spoke very strongly then about the Arizal, Kabbalah, and the inner dimension of Torah: precisely during the Nine Days, a time associated with the destruction, comes the Arizal’s hilula. This points to the inner dimension. Since the Geulah is connected with “your wellsprings spreading outward,” the fact that the Arizal passed away specifically in the middle of the Nine Days alludes to the healing brought about through studying and spreading the inner dimension of Torah. After all, the Arizal revealed the principle that “it is a mitzvah to reveal this wisdom”—that the inner dimension of Torah must be revealed. The Arizal’s teachings are Kabbalah, the inner dimension of Torah, which was later revealed through Chassidus—first Chassidus in general, and then Chabad Chassidus—in a way that can be understood and grasped. So I wanted to talk a little about the relationship between Chassidus and Kabbalah, both historically and in terms of their depth and content, to understand how they relate. I also want to discuss the practical question of whether—and what—we need to know of Kabbalah in order to understand Chassidus. So let’s begin with the historical side. In general, we know that Kabbalah—and, really, everything—

02:43 was given to Moshe Rabbeinu at Sinai. It is all one Torah. The entire Torah, both the revealed dimension of Torah and its inner dimension, was given to Moshe Rabbeinu at Sinai. Indeed, as the Rebbe writes in his sichos, at the Giving of the Torah the Divine Chariot was revealed, and the Jewish people openly saw the entire supernal Chariot—everything that the inner dimension of Torah explains and reveals. They saw it with their own eyes at the Giving of the Torah. Nevertheless, after that revelation, what Moshe Rabbeinu openly taught the Jewish people was only the revealed dimension of Torah. Matters connected with the inner dimension of Torah—the secrets of Torah, Kabbalah—were not revealed to all the Jewish people, but only to a select few, who received that tradition in secret. That is why it was called the hidden dimension, the secrets of Torah: the inner dimension of Torah. For many years, not only were there few people who knew Kabbalah and the inner dimension of Torah; people did not even know they existed. It was concealed to such an extent that people did not know there was such a thing as Kabbalah, the inner dimension of Torah. Many Jews thought that what they knew of Torah was all there was. They had no idea that the Torah contained a hidden dimension. The inner dimension of Torah and its secrets began to be revealed many, many years later, in the time of the Tannaim. No, let me say that again: that does not mean it did not exist until then. Until then, only one person in a generation knew it, as it says in the Gemara in Tractate Chagigah—one person in a generation, and so on. In the time of the Tannaim, we begin to see somewhat more revelation, primarily, as is well known, through Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. But even before Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the Gemara there in Tractate Chagigah tells us of

04:50 Tannaim who studied the hidden dimension of Torah. The Gemara mentions Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, and several other great Tannaim, including Rabbi Akiva, who preceded Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and were familiar with the Torah’s secrets. We even find a very small number of books written by Tannaim. For example, there is Sefer HaBahir, written by Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah, and Sefer HaTemunah, written by Rabbi Yishmael—the Tanna Rabbi Yishmael, or Rabbi Yishmael the Kohen Gadol, or Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha. Which Rabbi Yishmael was it? There are several opinions. Sefer HaTemunah is cited in Chassidus. There is also Sefer HaKanah, which some attribute to Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah, and other Kabbalistic books of that kind. But we all know that the main revelation of the inner dimension of Torah came through Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He did not study alone; he also had a group. The Zohar describes a group of about nineteen people, a circle of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s companions. He revealed the Torah’s secrets to them, and they revealed those secrets, and together this became the Zohar. In practice, though, the Zohar and all the teachings Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai revealed remained secret for many, many years. Much later, toward the end of the Geonic period, we first begin to see Kabbalah reappear. Rav Hai Gaon is considered one of the very last Geonim, and he includes a few Kabbalistic ideas in his writings—but just a word or two, hints, a few lines at most. Chassidus also cites a few very brief statements in the name of Rav Hai Gaon. Rav Hai Gaon

06:52 lived before the Rambam and before Rashi, about a thousand years ago. After Rav Hai Gaon, we begin to find more and more glimmers of Kabbalah appearing in the world. Among the best-known figures of that period is the Ramban, who includes several Kabbalistic teachings in his writings. Rashi is known to have been a Kabbalist, and he alludes to it in his commentary on the Gemara in several places, but almost nothing of his on the subject is stated openly—just a word here and there. There is much more from the Ramban. From the Rambam, there is nothing. We have only the tradition passed down from the Baal Shem Tov in the name of the Maharal of Prague that the Rambam, too, was a Kabbalist; but he wrote nothing openly about it. On the contrary, his books seem to indicate the opposite. He does not—he hardly even alludes to any Kabbalistic subject. There are just a few points in the Rambam’s halachos where, as the Rebbe writes, one can see that the Rambam had access to certain portions of the Zohar. And we have the tradition received from the Baal Shem Tov that the Rambam himself also studied Kabbalah. It is sometimes said that he studied it only toward the end of his life. In any case, that is the tradition. At that time, Kabbalah began to gain a little recognition in the lands of Ashkenaz. There was also Rav Yehudah HaChassid, who was a great Kabbalist. And the Ramban had students who wrote books on Kabbalah. There are several books by students of the Ramban, who are considered among the early Kabbalists. Little by little, groups began to form here and there to study Kabbalistic subjects. When did Kabbalah become a more established presence in the world? That was in the time of the Arizal. Before the Arizal there was the Ramak. We know that the Ramak and the Arizal lived roughly 450 years ago. That was the period. We are now in 5780, so around the beginning of the year 5300, which is about 450 years ago,

09:02 Four hundred and eighty years ago—that was when Kabbalah began to be revealed on a broader scale. There was the Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, whose yahrzeit was just now, at the end of Tammuz, on the 24th or 25th of Tammuz. After him came the Arizal, whose yahrzeit is on 5 Menachem Av. The Ramak and the Arizal lived in the same period and were roughly the same age. The Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, lived in Tzfas. His family, in fact, was among those expelled from Spain. They came to Eretz Yisroel, and he lived in Tzfas, where he had a yeshiva and began teaching Kabbalah in a yeshiva setting. There was a group of great Torah scholars there, among them Rabbi Yosef Karo, Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, who composed Lecha Dodi, and the author of Sefer Chareidim, who composed the song Yedid Nefesh that we know, and others like them. In any case, the Ramak was the first to write books as well. The Ramak was something like a Rambam: he took all the works of Kabbalah written by the great early sages up to his generation. He himself, of course, also had teachings he received through revelations of Eliyahu Hanavi and the like—ways in which these secrets came to him. He produced the books, chiefly the one called Sefer HaPardes, Pardes Rimonim. There are also several other books by the Ramak. In Chassidus, Sefer HaPardes is generally cited, but there are other books by the Ramak: Sefer Eilimah, Sefer [unclear], and several books he wrote on Kabbalah. The Ramak’s contribution was simply that he brought order to it. His book Pardes Rimonim in particular is an entire work in which he organized all the subjects of Kabbalah. He wrote

11:07 a section on each subject: a section on the sefiros, a section on the Kisei, on Ein Sof, on seder hishtalshelus, on the worlds, and so on. He explained each subject at length. That was the Ramak. The Ramak passed away in the year 5330—exactly 450 years ago—and after he passed away, the Arizal emerged. The Arizal was a young man. I’m not going to go into the history in detail now; I just want to get to the point that the Arizal carried on after the Ramak passed away. Although the Arizal had been a hidden figure and had only then become known, arriving from Egypt, and although he was young, he became the Ramak’s successor. He took Kabbalah to a much deeper level. He revealed profound secrets that even the Ramak had not known. As is often said in Chassidus, the Ramak did not know about some of the matters the Arizal revealed. The Arizal revealed Kabbalah’s deepest dimensions. He had revelations of Eliyahu Hanavi and the like, through which he received profound secrets. That is the Kabbalah of the Arizal. The Arizal taught for only two years. He passed away very young, after those two years, but during that time he revealed all his secrets. Rabbi Chaim Vital, his student, wrote down during those two years all the teachings contained in the writings of the Arizal that we have. That was when yeshivas for the study of Kabbalah began, in the Arizal’s time. The Arizal wrote that in this era, even though the Gemara says it is forbidden to reveal the Torah’s secrets, a change had begun: because we are close to the Geulah, and the Zohar says that before the coming of Moshiach the inner dimension of the Torah will be revealed. So he began that process. By the way, we’ll come to the Zohar.

13:03 Although the Zohar comes from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his time, the Zohar itself was also hidden and concealed for many centuries. It was only in this millennium, roughly two hundred years before the Arizal, that the Zohar was discovered. About seven hundred years ago, it was discovered by a Jew who lived in Italy named Rabbi Aryeh di Modena, if I’m not mistaken. In any case, he discovered the Zohar and made it public. Perhaps I have the name wrong now. Ah, de Leon, de Leon—Rabbi Moshe de Leon. I’m mixing up names. He was a Jew from Italy, and he discovered the Zohar. The Arizal, through his student Rabbi Chaim Vital, began to disseminate the teachings of Kabbalah, and then yeshivas devoted to Kabbalah arose in various places around the world. It began in Eretz Yisroel, in Tzfas. Later it spread to Europe and to Syria, among the Sephardim, where our Sephardic brothers lived, and also abroad, to Italy. In Italy there was a rabbi, the Rama of Fano, who was a student of the Ramak, and he disseminated the Ramak’s Kabbalah. There was the Maharal of Prague, who lived in Prague at that time, and also the holy Shelah, who was in Germany. They began spreading the teachings of Kabbalah through the countries of Europe. From there developed the Kabbalah yeshivas. The Frierdiker Rebbe describes at length in Sefer Hazichronos how the Maharal had a yeshiva for students of Kabbalah, and there was a student, [unclear], and a student of his. From there came Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem, Rabbi Yoel Baal Shem, and Rabbi Adam Baal Shem. These were generations from the Maharal until the Alter Rebbe, a period of about 150

15:10 years during which Kabbalah began to spread through the countries of Europe. So that is Kabbalah. Then came the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov came 150 years—about 120 years, let’s say—after the Arizal. Yes, a large part of the Baal Shem Tov’s Kabbalah was the Kabbalah of the Arizal. The Baal Shem Tov received not only the Arizal’s Kabbalah but the Ramak’s as well. But the change the Baal Shem Tov brought about is well known: until his time, people studied more of the Ramak’s Kabbalah. The Ramak’s books are more comprehensible, relatively easier to understand in the study of Kabbalah, while the Arizal’s Kabbalah was too deep, too abstract. The Baal Shem Tov began revealing the teachings of the Arizal’s Kabbalah. This is the true Kabbalah, where the deepest truth of the Torah’s inner dimension is found. But as is known, the Baal Shem Tov did not speak about it at length; he mainly explained how it applies to serving Hashem. He did not explain the depth of Kabbalah so much, except through hints and the like. But with the Baal Shem Tov and the teachings of Chassidus, something began, as the Alter Rebbe writes in his well-known letter. The Alter Rebbe writes in Igeres Hakodesh, section 25, that from the time of the Arizal it became permissible and a mitzvah to reveal this wisdom, as Rabbi Chaim Vital writes in his introduction. Until then it had been forbidden; people were afraid. Rabbi Chaim Vital began to reveal it and said that it was a mitzvah to reveal this wisdom. Nevertheless, Rabbi Chaim Vital set many conditions. Not everyone can study Kabbalah. If you look at Rabbi Chaim Vital’s introduction, you see that he set many, many conditions. This is so that

17:04 To study Kabbalah, you need yiras Shamayim. You need to be pure and holy, and thoroughly versed in halachah and yiras Shamayim. There are many conditions for studying Kabbalah. You have to be a certain age, and so on. Then Chassidus began to be revealed by the Baal Shem Tov, afterward by the Maggid, and afterward, especially, by the Alter Rebbe—Chabad Chassidus. They presented these matters in a way that could be understood and grasped, and then all the restrictions fell away, allowing us to study the inner dimension of Torah. Now, the Alter Rebbe writes in Igeres Hakodesh, section 25—there are two letters in Igeres Hakodesh in Tanya, sections 25 and 26. In section 25, the Alter Rebbe explains the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal. The Alter Rebbe writes there, in section 25 of Igeres Hakodesh, that his whole purpose is to explain the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal. What the Alter Rebbe writes is very interesting. The Alter Rebbe is saying that the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings are very deep. It’s very interesting: the Baal Shem Tov spoke about serving Hashem. The Baal Shem Tov didn’t speak about things... The Baal Shem Tov spoke mainly about serving Hashem. He spoke about how a Jew should serve Hashem: cleaving to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, love of Hashem, fear of Hashem, joy, intention. The Baal Shem Tov spoke about serving Hashem, but all his teachings—the foundations of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings—are built on the depths of Kabbalah. The Baal Shem Tov’s strength, though, was that he brought these ideas down in the simplest way. He said that everything is watched over by Hakadosh Boruch Hu with individual Divine Providence. He said that help and assistance come from Above at every moment. He said that whenever a Jew sees something, he needs to learn a lesson from it in serving Hashem. He said that a Jew needs to—needs

18:51 to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu with joy and a glad heart. L’chaim. He said things that seem simple, but when you begin to delve into them, they are very, very deep, very abstract matters. So the Alter Rebbe writes—the wording in section 25 of Igeres Hakodesh is: “For I have come only to explain the words of the Baal Shem Tov, of blessed memory, and his disciples, according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal, of blessed memory.” My purpose—the Alter Rebbe’s purpose—what was it? To explain the words of the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal. In other words, the Alter Rebbe’s teachings explain what the Baal Shem Tov said—what its source is, what... in other words, to understand the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal, all sorts of matters in the Arizal’s Kabbalah. That’s where you begin to see it. There’s even a story chassidim tell: once, at the Maggid’s—sorry, once the Maggid was in the middle of delivering a teaching. The Maggid was at the table, and he was about to begin his teaching. The Alter Rebbe was at the end of the table. The Alter Rebbe was a young man, one of the younger disciples. The Alter Rebbe stood up, and suddenly a Jew with a yellow beard came in—that’s how the story is told. He came in, sat down in the Alter Rebbe’s place, and listened to the Maggid’s teaching. When the Maggid finished delivering the teaching, the man left.

20:15 No one knew who he was. After the gathering, after the farbrengen, after all that, the Alter Rebbe asked the Maggid of Mezritch who that Jew was who had come in. He asked his fellow disciples and realized that no one had seen him. The Alter Rebbe was the only one who saw him. So he asked the Maggid, and the Maggid told him it was the Arizal. He told him that he was the only one who had seen the Arizal because his soul was connected with the Arizal’s soul. And you could see this in the Alter Rebbe: he began to present Chassidus, the inner dimension of Torah, and to explain the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal. Now there’s a saying of the Rebbe Rashab. After all, yeshivah students ask, people ask: Why don’t we study Kabbalah? If Chassidus is founded on Kabbalah, why do we study Tanya and sichos, without first studying what the Arizal says? Why don’t we learn the sources? In the revealed dimension of Torah, you first study Chumash, then Mishnah, then Gemara. There’s an order. We go straight to studying Chassidus. If Chassidus is founded on the Arizal’s Kabbalah, why don’t we study the Arizal’s Kabbalah in yeshivah? Why isn’t there an order in which we first have to study various other things? On this there is a saying of the Rebbe Rashab, printed in Toras Shalom. The Rebbe Rashab said this: People are mistaken. People say that Chassidus is an explanation of Kabbalah. That’s what people say: Chassidus is an explanation of Kabbalah. It’s a mistake. A mistake. Chassidus is not an explanation of Kabbalah. Later in the sicha,

22:14 the Rebbe Rashab says: Not only is Chassidus not an explanation of Kabbalah; in fact, it’s the other way around. Kabbalah is an explanation of Chassidus. What does that mean? The first point, the first part of the sicha, can be explained. What does the Rebbe Rashab mean when he says Chassidus is not an explanation of Kabbalah? We can explain that simply. Chassidus was not written as an explanation of Kabbalah. No, that isn’t what Chassidus is about. Chassidus didn’t come to explain Kabbalah. Chassidus isn’t a commentary on Eitz Chayim. Chassidus isn’t an explanation of Kabbalah. There’s no such thing. Chassidus draws on many areas. It speaks about Kabbalah, serving Hashem, mussar, and the ways of Hashem. Chassidus is a path in serving Hashem. It isn’t an explanation of Kabbalah. It isn’t a commentary on the writings of the Arizal. There’s no such thing. Chassidus is a path in serving Hashem. Among the things it addresses in order to serve Hashem, it also explains Kabbalah. That helps us understand what it means to say that Chassidus is not an explanation of Kabbalah. It’s true: Chassidus is not an explanation of Kabbalah. It also explains Kabbalistic concepts. But when the Rebbe Rashab says the reverse—that Kabbalah is an explanation of Chassidus—what is that? What does that mean? If you want to understand Chassidus, you need to study Kabbalah? But the truth is, that’s what the Alter Rebbe writes here in this letter. The Alter Rebbe writes, “I have come to explain the words of the Baal Shem Tov according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal.” That means the Arizal explains the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings. So that’s what he’s saying: Kabbalah is an explanation of Chassidus. The Baal Shem Tov taught, and the teachings of the Arizal explain the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings through the Arizal’s Kabbalah. How do we explain this? What

24:04 does it mean? The Rebbe gives two explanations. In the kuntres Inyana Shel Toras Hachassidus, the Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation. The Rebbe writes what it means that Kabbalah is an explanation of Chassidus. The Rebbe writes that Chassidus is about the oneness of Hashem. That is Chassidus. Chassidus comes to explain the oneness of Hashem—that is its whole concern. And what does Kabbalah discuss? The order of spiritual descent, seder hishtalshelus. In other words, Kabbalah—the Arizal and all the books of Kabbalah—explains seder hishtalshelus. There is what precedes the tzimtzum and what follows the tzimtzum; there is Adam Kadmon; there are Akudim, Nekudim, and Berudim; and there are sefiros and worlds—Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. What each world is and how it works: that’s seder hishtalshelus. So the Rebbe says in the kuntres Inyana Shel Toras Hachassidus that Chassidus discusses the oneness of Hashem, while Kabbalah explains at which level that concept is found, where it is found. That’s how the Rebbe explains it. There’s the structure. You study yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah. Chassidus doesn’t speak so much about levels; Chassidus speaks about becoming one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But there are many ways of becoming one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So Chassidus explains that there is yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah, daas elyon and daas tachton. That’s Chassidus. Kabbalah comes along and tells you at which level each of these concepts is found. There is Atzilus; there is Beriah; there is Yetzirah and Asiyah. That is the explanation. “Explanation” doesn’t mean a commentary, like when you study Gemara and then study a commentary on the Gemara. It isn’t an explanation like Chassidus Mevueres. That isn’t what “explanation” means here. Rather, it means that Kabbalah explains where each level is found—where each form of bittul is, at which level it is found. That is the explanation the Rebbe gives in the kuntres Inyana Shel Toras Hachassidus. Interestingly, in Toras Shalom, the Rebbe Rashab tells a story about one of the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim who was a very accomplished Kabbalist, very

26:24 A great scholar. He studied a great deal of Kabbalah. He gives his name—I think he says he was called Reb Zalman, Reb Zalman Konitzer[?], if I’m not mistaken. He was one of the Alter Rebbe’s outstanding students, and he was a kabbalist. He relates in Toras Shalom that he would ask the Alter Rebbe to say maamarim explaining Eitz Chaim. The Alter Rebbe declined—once, twice. Eitz Chaim is the well-known work of Rabbi Chaim Vital, part of the writings of the Arizal. He asked several times for the Alter Rebbe to explain Eitz Chaim, until one time, when he pressed him, the Alter Rebbe said: “Why do you need an explanation of Eitz Chaim? What does Eitz Chaim discuss? Eitz Chaim discusses the chain of worlds, the various levels, the order of the chain of worlds. We speak of what can be perceived and what cannot be perceived. We speak of things higher and higher still.” That is what the Alter Rebbe said. And the Rebbe Rashab explains there in Toras Shalom what is meant by what can and cannot be perceived. In other words, from the sicha in Kuntres Inyanah, we can understand why Chassidus speaks this way: it speaks about G-dliness, not about the chain of worlds and the sefiros—where each one is found, at which level. It speaks about these matters as they are in G-dliness. That’s one point. In another sicha, in Likkutei Sichos volume 22, I think—there’s a sicha of the Rebbe’s elsewhere where he makes the same point, perhaps in different words. The Rebbe says: It is well known that Chassidus is the level of yechidah. Chassidus is the essence; Kabbalah is the revelations. Since revelations explain the essence—there is essence and there are revelations, and the revelations explain the essence—Kabbalah is revelations, while Chassidus is the essence. Essentially, it’s the same

28:33 point, only expressed more sharply, more forcefully. At any rate, that’s another way of putting it. So there is a very important point here. It’s true that the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus is, in practice, full of explanations of Kabbalah. Chassidus is full of kabbalistic concepts, and it cites many passages from Eitz Chaim and the Zohar and explains them, along with the entire order of the chain of worlds and so on. But the aim here is very, very different. In Kabbalah, the aim, the subject and the purpose are to set out the order of the chain of worlds and explain its details. In Chassidus, the intent is to speak about the oneness of Hashem, to connect ourselves to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to reach G-dliness. These other matters are used as examples to help us understand, but the main purpose is to speak about the essence, about G-dliness—truly the Torah of Moshiach—and to see the true oneness of Hashem. That’s a general point. In practice, we know that over the generations there were quite a few great Chabad chassidim who were kabbalists. They studied Kabbalah; they were kabbalists. There were several of them, not all that well known. Among the chassidim of earlier generations, as I mentioned before, there was Reb Shmuel Ber Breslau[?], who was a kabbalist and studied a great deal of Kabbalah. There was a chossid named Reb Yehuda Leib Hoffman. The Rebbe mentions him in Reshimos. Reb Yehuda Leib Hoffman lived in the time of the Rebbe Maharash and the early years of the Rebbe Rashab, and he was an extraordinary kabbalist. So much so that before he passed away, he said he did not know what would become of Kabbalah: when he left this world, Kabbalah would leave the world too. The Rebbe brings this in Reshimos. And in our generation, of course, we know about Reb Levik, the Rebbe’s father. Reb Levik

30:26 was a great kabbalist, and all of Reb Levik’s books are full of Kabbalah. His books deal with Kabbalah and Geulah. He studied Kabbalah, wrote about Kabbalah, and explained matters according to Kabbalah. And thanks to Reb Levik, we too merited, in our generation, that at every Shabbos farbrengen the Rebbe would offer explanations and teachings on Reb Levik’s Torah. As a result, we have explanations of the Zohar, explanations of Kabbalah, and explanations of various other matters. And here we saw how the Rebbe would take his father’s most profound ideas—matters of Kabbalah, matters of the hidden dimension of Torah—and always explain how they find expression in serving Hashem, bringing them down into everyday life. In any case, I want to conclude with something else I remember the Rebbe saying at a farbrengen in 5749. We would have to look up exactly where, but the Rebbe said that a young man studying in Tomchei Temimim gets all his knowledge of Kabbalah from what is written in the maamarim. How does he know that there is a Sefer Habahir, a Sefer Maayan Hachochmah, and all sorts of other books, including very profound ones? Not because he has seen those books, but because he studied Chassidus. He studied Kuntres HaAvodah, Kuntres Eitz HaChaim, Hemshech 5666 and Hemshech 5672, and there he learned what they say is written in Sefer Habahir and the other books. That’s how he knows about them. And when they ask him, “Why don’t you study the books themselves?”—the Rebbe said this at a farbrengen—he answers, “I have only our Rebbeim. What I need to know from those books, the Rebbe has written down for me; the Rebbe explains it to me.” In other words, this

32:14 was not [unclear]. This was the approach from the outset; the Rebbe encouraged it. We do not need to study the wisdom of Kabbalah; we need to study Chassidus. And everything we need to know from Kabbalah in order to understand Chassidus better, our Rebbeim tell us, reveal to us and explain to us. They tell us what we need to learn from it. I want to finish with a story that happened here in the yeshiva quite a few years ago. There was once a young man around the yeshiva who was a mystical sort of person. He liked mysticism, powers, magic and all that, and he wanted to study Kabbalah. He drove me crazy every day saying he wanted to study Kabbalah, wanted to study Zohar and so on. Here in Argentina there’s a place that teaches Kabbalah, a Kabbalah Centre, and other things like that. He wanted to study Kabbalah. In short, I tried to explain to him why he shouldn’t, until one day I said to him, “You know what? You want to study Kabbalah so badly? Write to the Rebbe and ask him.” This was already after Gimmel Tammuz. So he wrote a letter and sent it to the Ohel. Afterward, he put it in Igros Kodesh, and it opened to a letter from the Rebbe to a Jew about the Sulam commentary. It’s a work of Kabbalah, the Zohar with the Sulam commentary. The Kabbalah Centre bases its teachings on it, as though it were considered... In short, the Rebbe writes to him in the letter: “Regarding your question about the Zohar with the Sulam commentary, I have not looked at that book. I also know that my father-in-law did not think highly of it. Its author took a new approach to the teachings of the Zohar and Kabbalah, one that does not accord with Chassidus.” The Rebbe writes to that person: “In general, why

34:13 do you need to look into other books and read other books? Chabad Chassidus explains all the concepts of the Zohar in their inner dimension, the secrets of the Torah, in a way that can be understood. This is the inner dimension of Torah that we need to study in our generation, for the revelation of Moshiach—‘your wellsprings will spread outward.’ All the teachings of the Arizal are found in Chabad teachings, in the teachings of our Rebbeim.” It’s a very strong letter from the Rebbe, found in Igros Kodesh. So that young man—in short, that’s something that happened here once with one of the Temimim. At any rate, this gives us some idea of the relationship between Kabbalah and Chassidus, and what it means for us in practice: that we need to study Chassidus. As for matters of Kabbalah that are relevant to halachah or that we need for Chassidus, they are found in the books of Chassidus. There we see the full depth of Chassidus, which reveals the oneness of Hashem, the inner dimension of the hidden teachings of Moshiach’s Torah. May it be Hashem’s will that, through “your wellsprings will spread outward,” the Master—Melech HaMoshiach—will come already, and we will merit to hear [unclear], the inner, hidden teachings of Moshiach’s Torah, from Melech HaMoshiach himself.