Shiurim on Kuntres Ha'avodah - Part 3

00:00 We see here that the matter of acknowledgment... In the ladder of prayer, there is acknowledgment, which is the first level of prayer. Then comes ruach, the work of Pesukei Dezimra. He explains that when a person rises to the level of Pesukei Dezimra, to ruach, the acknowledgment rises along with him. There is a higher grasp of acknowledgment; the acknowledgment rises to a higher level. So he explained in parentheses what a higher level of acknowledgment means. He explains that there is general acknowledgment and particular acknowledgment. General acknowledgment is the acknowledgment of Hodu, and this includes the acknowledgment up to Baruch She’amar. It is general both in terms of the level of G-dliness—not a particular level of G-dliness, but G-dliness in general—and in terms of the soul: it involves the soul as a whole. Particular acknowledgment, on the other hand, concerns a particular level. For example, acknowledgment of the oneness of G-d, that “all is considered as nothing before Him.” That is a particular level of the oneness of G-d. The oneness of G-d belongs only to lofty souls, which have a level of vision, or at least comprehension through binah. That is the level of the oneness of G-d. Someone who has not yet reached the level of vision, or at least comprehension through binah—whose entire understanding is only an intellectual grasp—does not truly have that level of the oneness of G-d. Nevertheless, as they say, [unclear], everyone must try to grasp the oneness of G-d, at least intellectually. So this is called acknowledgment on a higher level. In other words, he studies the oneness of G-d, grasps it intellectually, and has vitality in it as well. But to say that he has attained the oneness of G-d in its entirety—that is only by way of acknowledgment.

02:09 This counts as acknowledgment having reached a higher level. That is what we said at the end here. Now, regarding the matter in general: what does it mean that the oneness of G-d must be attained specifically through vision in chochmah, or at least through comprehension in binah? He mentions here in parentheses that this is why binah is called a vessel for G-dliness, and the two combinations. He mentions that because of this matter of comprehension through binah, binah is called a vessel for G-dliness. And the matter of the two—did we learn this, did we explain it last week, or did we learn it? No? Let me explain it a little. In Chassidus generally, the difference between chochmah and binah is explained. The difference is that in chochmah, things are illuminated in a way of vision. Chassidus associates chochmah and binah with seeing and hearing. In chochmah, the truth is felt as it is, like with sight. What is the difference between seeing and hearing, between seeing something and having it explained? When I see, the thing reveals itself to me. What I see is not dependent on how I understand it; I see the thing as it actually is. When a person sees something, it reveals itself to him as it is. With binah, by contrast, it is how I understand the thing. It is no longer the matter as it truly is in itself, but how I grasp it through my own reasoning. Broadly speaking, that is the difference between chochmah and binah. Chochmah is the truth of the idea: the idea shines as it truly is. Binah is my grasp of the idea, how it enters my world. That is

04:19 the general difference between chochmah and binah. And so, when we speak about levels of G-dliness in terms of the sefirah of chochmah and the sefirah of binah, in chochmah there is no sense of independent existence; the light shines there as it truly is. Consequently, the nullification of existence is felt there. At that level of G-dliness, the truth that “all is considered as nothing before Him” is felt. “All is considered as nothing before Him” means seeing it from the side of G-dliness. If we contemplate things from the perspective of the world, we cannot arrive at “all is considered as nothing before Him.” If a person begins by looking at the world, he sees a world. He begins contemplating it and tries to understand how the world is connected to G-dliness. If I begin from the perspective of the world, I do not see things from the perspective of G-dliness. The most I can reach from the perspective of the world is the bittul of the yesh—the nullification of its sense of independent existence. I can reach the point of understanding that the world is not a true, independent existence: its existence is bound up with the Creator, who brings it into being at every moment and brings the Creator’s light into the world. All of that can be reached through contemplating the world. But to reach the point that “all is considered as nothing before Him”—what does that mean? It means how things are before Him, from the perspective of the light, of G-dliness. That does not belong to binah, because binah is intellectual comprehension. As we just discussed, comprehension means how I grasp the matter of G-dliness. If comprehension is my grasp, then I will never reach a true recognition of G-dliness as it is in itself. It will always be a recognition of G-dliness from the perspective of existence. From the perspective of existence, you can reach the bittul of the yesh, but not the nullification of existence altogether. Recognizing that the world is not an independent existence, that all existence is considered as nothing, is possible only from the perspective of G-dliness. And that is what the maamar says here. The oneness of

06:15 G-d—no, one can reach it only through vision. Vision means that the truth shines forth. That is what we call vision: intellectual vision, seeing G-dliness as it truly is. When you are at the level of vision, you can relate to the truth of yichuda ila’ah, the higher unity, so that you feel the truth that the entire world has no independent existence at all. Its entire existence is completely nullified. Therefore, yichuda ila’ah as an actual level belongs only to souls that have already reached a higher level. Or, he says, at least the inner dimension of binah. What is the inner dimension of binah? Generally, yichuda ila’ah belongs to chochmah, to vision. But within binah too, there is an aspect that relates, to some degree, to the level of yichuda ila’ah: the inner dimension of binah. What is that? It is binah as it is connected to chochmah. In Chassidus, the inner dimension of binah is described as something like the chochmah within binah. I will put it another way. The inner dimension of binah, as explained in Chassidus, is the essential point reached at the end. The essential point. What do I mean by that? A person thinks through an intellectual matter, contemplates it as part of the work of binah. After all that work and discussion, he reaches a point. In other words, through binah he contemplates the various aspects, and through working through the subject he comes into focus. That process produces the essence: the central point of the whole complex matter. He connects to the deepest, innermost point of it. That is called the inner dimension of binah. In other words, stripping away the subject’s outer garments—that is, chochmah

08:23 That is before binah. Chochmah is the point as it exists in itself, the abstract point of an idea before it has the garments of binah. The inner dimension of binah is the reverse. First there is binah—all the work, all the detail—and afterward a person strips away all the garments and comes closer to the essential point. What is the point here, beyond knowing what is contained in all those details? That is the point of the inner dimension of binah, and in this respect it is also something like chochmah. It is not like chochmah before binah, which is associated with seeing. Here it is binah, but it is called the inner dimension of binah. So when a person is at this level of binah, at its inner dimension, at the essential point of binah, it is also like chochmah in this particular respect: there, too, one can sense within binah that “all before Him is considered as nothing.” In other words, to some extent the inner dimension of binah is also connected with “all before Him is considered as nothing.” Of course, it is not in the same way, with the same clarity or the same light, as the light experienced through seeing the truth. Nevertheless, the concept of “all before Him is considered as nothing” does apply to the inner dimension of binah; it can be sensed within binah, within a true understanding of reality. This is also what he brings in parentheses: that the inner dimension of binah is called in Chassidus “kalah, ishtetzi gushmi.” What does “kalah, ishtetzi gushmi” mean? In Chassidus—and the Rebbe also notes this below and explains it there—the word kalah has two meanings, two levels. There is kalah in the sense of “my soul longs, indeed yearns,” an expression of yearning. And there is also kalah in the sense of being consumed and nullified. As he says, this term refers to bittul of one’s very existence: being consumed and nullified. Not kalah in the sense of yearning, but of being consumed and nullified. So they cite the verse, “My flesh and my heart are consumed.” The Targum translates those words from the verse, “Whom have I in heaven? And besides You I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart are consumed,” as “ishtetzi gushmi.” That is its translation of “my flesh and my heart are consumed.” “My flesh” refers to the body, and “my flesh is consumed” means “ishtetzi gushmi”: the physical body is, as it were, completely nullified and becomes nothing. So Chassidus explains that these are two levels of kalah. In avodah, kalah is the soul’s being consumed in G-dliness. There are two forms of this. There is a kind of being consumed that is the bittul of something that still has a sense of its own existence. There, “being consumed” means yearning. Yearning is not becoming utterly nothing; the person is still an entity, yearning for something higher in holiness. That is the lower kalah, the sefirah of malchus. There, where there is still a sense of existence, the idea is being consumed with yearning. Kalah in the sense of

10:24 thirst and yearning. But there is also kalah in the sense of being consumed and nullified. As he says, the term refers to bittul of one’s very existence: being consumed and nullified. Not kalah in the sense of yearning, but of being consumed and nullified. So they cite the verse, “My flesh and my heart are consumed.” The Targum translates those words from the verse, “Whom have I in heaven? And besides You I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart are consumed,” as “ishtetzi gushmi.” That is its translation of “my flesh and my heart are consumed.” “My flesh” refers to the body, and “my flesh is consumed” means “ishtetzi gushmi”: the physical body is, as it were, completely nullified and becomes nothing. So Chassidus explains that these are two levels of kalah. In avodah, kalah is the soul’s being consumed in G-dliness. There are two forms of this. There is a kind of being consumed that is the bittul of something that still has a sense of its own existence. There, “being consumed” means yearning. Yearning is not becoming utterly nothing; the person is still an entity, yearning for something higher in holiness. That is the lower kalah, the sefirah of malchus. There, where there is still a sense of existence, the idea is being consumed with yearning. By contrast, within binah itself, in its inner dimension, this is called the higher kalah. That is, the higher meaning of kalah, where being consumed does not mean yearning, but being consumed and nullified—“ishtetzi gushmi”—so that all of one’s physicality, one’s entire sense of existence, is completely nullified. Since the inner dimension of binah is this level, it is possible there to speak of everything being on the level of higher unity, yichuda ila’ah. One can speak of such a level in the inner dimension of binah. Someone whose avodah is not on the level of chochmah, or even on the level of the inner dimension of binah, is engaged in avodah at lower levels.

12:24 He studies, understands and grasps things intellectually, but with understanding and intellectual grasp, one cannot attain true Divine unity. One can understand and grasp the idea of Divine unity intellectually, but then it is not Divine unity itself. Rather, it is an enhancement of one’s engagement with the idea of Divine unity, compared with the true level of Divine unity. You focus on Divine unity and try to understand everything in its light, but that is only a kind of enhancement in the matter of Divine unity. It is not the true avodah of Divine unity. Now, it is true that everyone needs this. We need to work on it and study it. Nevertheless, it remains an enhancement. Why is it a particular enhancement? Because it is an enhancement in a specific matter, a level of Divine unity. That is what the holy Midrash says. Stories are told here about the Rebbe Rashab asking the... when the Rebbe Rashab wrote Kuntres HaAvodah. There are several versions of the story. In one version, the Frierdiker Rebbe asked the Rebbe Rashab whom he was writing this kuntres for. After all, it discusses levels here in Bava Kama and so on that do not seem relevant to young students. Who is it for? Whom is he writing it for? The Rebbe Rashab answered. I once heard one version in which the Rebbe Rashab said he had Reb Dovid in mind, but afterward, in another class, I heard that he meant Zalman Dovid. There were two young students. There was Reb Dovid Barnovaz[unclear], who was one of the students in Lubavitch. In other words, there are two versions of the story, including whether this question was about Kuntres HaTefillah or Kuntres HaAvodah. Reb Dovid studied there in the early years, when the kuntreisim first appeared. Zalman Dovid was another young student.

14:11 Yes, Zalman Dovid, in fact. He studied in Lubavitch in the later years. So it was Zalman Dovid. I don’t remember from whom I heard that it was Reb Dovid. In any event, it was a student in Tomchei Temimim who was very accomplished in avodah. He was also close to the young man mentioned earlier, a very refined young man, very accomplished in serving Hashem. So he said that this was relevant to him, that he was connected with this level. They said the Rebbe Rashab was referring to the inner dimension of binah. In other words, there are students in Tomchei Temimim to whom the inner dimension of binah is relevant. There is a letter from Reb Chaim Kanievsky[unclear] to the Rebbe. The Rebbe writes him a thank-you letter, saying that we also received the saying and asking him to send another saying. Reb Shalom Chaim[unclear] recounts and writes to the Rebbe about Lubavitch, about the mashpia, Reb Shilem—I don’t remember. Reb Shilem explained to the students what the inner dimension of binah means. What does it mean for a young man to be at the level of the inner dimension of binah? Reb Shilem explained that the inner dimension of binah is like a horse standing in a field and eating the grass. That is exactly what it was like among the chassidim—or among... The idea is like the king’s horse walking through a field when it has no need of it. As long as one is still among the grass and weeds, still far from [unclear], a person knows he has to fight, that he has to work; avodah is a battle. But when one reaches the stage of the inner dimension of binah, a person is in a state like the horse walking through the king’s field. That is, he does not even feel what it reminds him of; it no longer even brings anything to mind. He is in a state of [unclear]. It is all simply within him. All right, I think we’re ready for today, so

16:52 I think we’ll stop here.