Shiurim on Kuntres Ha'avodah - Part 5

00:00 Speaker 1 To explain the three levels of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah: each of them is actually a complete structure. In other words, it is not as we understood until now, that nefesh is only a matter of acknowledgment and ruach is a matter of feeling. Each one is a complete structure. In each one there is understanding in the mind, there are love and fear, and there is also an aspect of limitation. It is a whole structure, but at each level that structure belongs to nefesh, or, at a higher level, to ruach. There are three such levels. So now the explanation begins. He begins a whole explanation of this, reading it as the plain meaning of Tanya. Before we continue learning the text itself, we need to know at least the basics: which parts of Tanya is this founded on? The entire explanation that follows is founded on two places in Tanya: chapter 16 and chapter 39. Thirty-nine, thirty-nine. Those are the two places whose principles the Rebbe uses here to establish his explanation. What is the service of prayer at the level of nefesh? What is the service of prayer at the level of ruach, and what is it at the level of neshamah? As we will see, each of them also contains... The simple understanding until now was that nefesh is only a matter of the faculties of action, only a matter of the body. But even at the level of nefesh there is the work of contemplation, there are love and fear, and nevertheless it is called nefesh. And then at the level of ruach there are all these elements, and nevertheless it is called ruach; and at the level of neshamah, too, there are all these elements. These are the three general levels, and the entire structure of Chabad, Chagas, and Nehi—the whole array of sefiros and the whole structure within the soul—

01:56 Speaker 1 intellect, emotions, and action. That structure exists at all three levels, at three general gradations. Let’s look at one point now. ... But this is his nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. ... It is all discussed in chapter 16. So when the Alter Rebbe speaks in chapter 16 of Tanya of “as is fitting for him,” he is speaking there about a kind of love. The Alter Rebbe says there is a love that is “as is fitting for him”; that is the kind of love discussed in chapter 16. The Rebbe says that this is on the level of nefesh. That degree of love discussed in chapter 16 is called nefesh. Why is it called nefesh? Because it has a primary element, and it also has a

02:51 Speaker 2 spiritual element.

02:52 Speaker 1 Nevertheless, it is called only nefesh. Why is it called nefesh? The Alter Rebbe explains: it gives rise to love and fear, but that love does not mean that he truly desires it. It is not that his heart truly wants to cleave to Hashem, but only that he has reached a kind of agreement. It is a decision. An agreement—like a decision, a measure of assent. He has agreed. It is something more technical, or, as it were, more superficial, more external. He has agreed that he ought to love. It is love in the form of an agreement, and therefore, at the level of nefesh, you cannot call it ruach. You certainly cannot call it neshamah. So this kind of love and fear is called nefesh. Why? Because it is an agreement alone, and even the contemplation that brings him to it is not a spiritual engagement of that kind. The feeling, too, is not a fully genuine feeling, so it cannot be called ruach. And the contemplation involved is not of that kind either, so it cannot be called neshamah. That is why it is called nefesh. Now, what is being discussed there in Tanya? I mean, we could go into this at length. Briefly, the point the Alter Rebbe discusses in chapter 16 of Tanya is how one reaches the level of a beinoni: how “the matter is very near to you,” how every single person can become a beinoni. He explains that the verse says, “In your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” To be a beinoni in thought, speech, and action, there also has to be “in your heart.” A person needs a feeling in the heart, love and fear. It does not have to be love and fear openly revealed in the heart. Love and fear hidden in the recesses of the heart are enough. That is the whole basis of those chapters, from 14 through 17, those four chapters, which are known as... This is called the long way. The Rebbe also brings this in a written sicha in the later volumes: the explanation that these four chapters are considered the long way. Tanya—

04:48 Speaker 1 is it the long way or the short way? The long way is the path of contemplation. There the Alter Rebbe explains how every single person can be a beinoni. Why? Because what is demanded of you is not love and fear openly revealed in the heart. If openly revealed love and fear were demanded, that really would be a greater undertaking. But since the main thing demanded is action—yes, love and fear are demanded, but what kind of love and fear? Love and fear that lead to “doing it”: “in your heart, to do it.” The point is that the heart should lead to action; the feeling in the heart should lead to actual deeds. His heart does not have to burn with love of Hashem in fiery flames. It is enough for the love to be in the form of “as is fitting for him.” What does “as is fitting for him” mean? The Alter Rebbe explains that a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem. Through that contemplation, he reaches the conclusion that, in light of Hashem’s greatness, he ought to love Hashem, and that this love should bring him to fulfill the mitzvos. He should also fear Hakadosh Boruch Hu on the basis of that same contemplation, and therefore be careful not to sin. A person comes to recognize that, in light of his contemplation of Hashem’s greatness, he ought to love Hashem—“as is fitting for him”—to love Him and fear Him, and to devote all his thought, speech, and action to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so that all his movements and actions are for Hashem alone. And he does so. He decides that this is how it should be, and he conducts himself that way in actual practice. So this is considered love and fear. Yes? What? Not only that: the Alter Rebbe explains that this is what our Sages meant when they said, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu joins a good thought to the deed.” True, no fiery enthusiasm has been kindled in him; it is only a good thought. He has only thought about it—he contemplated and reached a conclusion. [unclear]

06:40 Speaker 1 He understood that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is something great, and he understood that he ought to love Him, but love did not arise in his emotions. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe says that when he acts accordingly, it is considered love and fear sufficient for the mitzvah. And more than that: it is not merely that it leads him to act; it elevates all his actions, as the Alter Rebbe explains there. The Rebbe says here that this level, among the levels of the soul, is called nefesh. There was contemplation here; there was a whole line of reasoning, something associated with neshamah. There are love and fear here. But because the main thing here is neither the contemplation nor the love and fear—the main thing here is the actual outcome—even the contemplation is not complete. The proof is that it did not lead to complete love and fear. If his contemplation had been truly deep, if the reality of G-dliness had been profoundly real to him, it would have produced love and fear that were not merely hidden in the recesses of his heart. Strong love and fear would have emerged. Here, the contemplation did not reach that point, so it follows that it was not complete. The love and fear are certainly not complete. The proof is that they remained hidden in the recesses of his heart. They did not become fiery enthusiasm; they remained only in the recesses of his heart. So because the love and fear here are not complete, and the contemplation is not complete, the main thing here is just the decision. That is considered the level of nefesh. So what do we see here? Even when a learned person has this kind of love and fear—he contemplates it, prays with it, develops a feeling about it, all of that—because the main thing here is just an agreement, “this is what he ought to do,” it is nefesh. It is considered a matter of, a matter of

08:22 Speaker 1 Soul. That is what we are saying. Here, in section 261, the Rebbe discusses the matter of a resolution. He wants to distinguish the resolution we are discussing here from the resolution discussed elsewhere, because there it looks quite different. The resolution we mean here is that he will indeed act accordingly. He calls this a resolution alone. It is not like the resolution that remains after davening. That is not connected with the resolution discussed in the Siddur, attributed to the Arizal. What happens after davening is something else. The Siddur is discussing [unclear]. It speaks about this there too. Now, there was something around Pesach—I don’t know if I mentioned it—about water: “And Yitzchak’s servants dug in the valley and found water.” Water is mentioned there too. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the effect of davening after davening. We say that davening must have an effect on the entire day. The main point of davening is not the davening itself; the main thing is that it carry over into the whole day, that something come of it. Now, obviously, during the day a person does not feel what he felt during davening, even if the davening went well and there was something special about it. [unclear] Nevertheless, when davening ends, he goes back out into the world. The whole feeling does not remain, and the yetzer hara is still there. So the Siddur speaks of something called a resolution. What is a resolution? During davening, a person has to settle how he will conduct himself throughout the day in accordance with his davening. In the language of the Siddur, that too is called a resolution. So the Rebbe distinguishes between that resolution and the resolution we are discussing here. This resolution is not like the resolution made during davening.

10:15 Speaker 1 The resolution made during davening is an impression that finds expression in action; its entire point is what happens in practice. The resolution that remains after davening concerns only practical conduct. In other words, there is no feeling involved here; it is solely a matter of what he actually does. He will conduct himself according to the decision he made during davening. That is a matter of action. By contrast, the resolution that he “should act accordingly” has vitality. There is feeling in it. After all, at that very moment he is contemplating the matter, and he arrives at the conclusion that, in light of his contemplation, this is what he ought to feel. So there is certainly much more vitality in this than in a person’s decision that remains with him in the afternoon from his morning davening. There, it is just a lifeless body, without any feeling—only practical action. Here there is more feeling, because he is contemplating and has [unclear]. Nevertheless, in general, we still call this a resolution. Since he lacks genuine feeling for the matter, he is, in a sense, compelling himself through his judgment. And even though [unclear] because he decides that he needs to, the feeling is lacking. So, broadly speaking, this can be called a resolution. And as for what it says at the end of the lines, “and the nefesh and ruach that are in holiness”—that is the Alter Rebbe’s wording in chapter 7. If you look in Tanya, his wording is “nefesh and ruach.” Yes, there he is speaking about acting accordingly, and he writes: “And the nefesh and ruach that are in holiness will also act accordingly.” So his wording is “nefesh and ruach.” Until now, we have spoken only of nefesh. Here, every word is carefully chosen. Why does he add the word ruach as well? It seems that nefesh and ruach were mentioned there. So—

12:08 Speaker 1 In terms of the level of Nehi, it says that, in truth, this avodah is not simply nefesh or ruach; it is a combination of nefesh and ruach. On the one hand, it is a level of nefesh, as the Rebbe described here: it is only the fire, the enthusiasm. On the other hand, it cannot be called nefesh alone, because there is also a glimmer of love and fear here—not love and fear that are openly felt, but a certain measure of love and fear nonetheless. So it is a combination of nefesh and ruach. He also acts, and [unclear]. Now that he has mentioned this, he explains in parentheses so that we should not make a mistake. We said that nefesh and ruach are combined here, but apparently there is another kind of combination. What distinction is he making? The Alter Rebbe says that acting accordingly is not just nefesh; it is a combination of nefesh and ruach. So you might think that this is the same thing we said at the beginning of the chapter. There, too, we spoke about the ladder: when you rise to the level of ruach in Pesukei Dezimra, nefesh also rises to the level of ruach. There, too, we spoke about a combination. The Rebbe Rashab distinguishes between the combination we are discussing here and the one we discussed there. It is a different kind of combination. What is the difference? A great deal. We have to think about everything. Yes, leave that. The Rebbe Rashab explains that this is the whole point of Chabad: truth in its fullest sense, not to fool ourselves about anything. We have to understand everything precisely. That is why a chossid puts in effort and delves deeply. Broadly speaking, it is the same idea, but in Chassidus there is no such thing as leaving it at “broadly speaking.” It has to be understood in detail, every single point. We have to know exactly what each detail means. He explains all the details. What is the difference between what we said—

14:01 Speaker 1 earlier about the combination of nefesh and ruach, and what we are saying here? It is a different kind of combination. There, nefesh is included in the level of ruach. Earlier, we spoke about a person at Pesukei Dezimra, where nefesh also rises to the level of ruach. That is what we discussed earlier. In other words, what level is he actually on? At the beginning of the chapter, we said that he is on the level of ruach, the level of Pesukei Dezimra. That is already the level of love and fear. But what do we add? That nefesh, too, rises into ruach. That is the combination of nefesh and ruach: nefesh rises to the level of ruach. Here it is not like that. Here, he is not actually on the level of ruach. It is the opposite: he is on the level of nefesh. So the kind of combination here is that this overall level has something of nefesh and something of ruach. That, too, is a combination. There is a combination in which the lower level is included in the higher one. In that case, the essential level is the higher one, and the lower one is included in it. That is one kind of combination. Here, we are discussing a combination in which the lower is not included in the higher; rather, the lower and the higher share a single state. They are on one general level. That is a different definition. Here, too, it is a combination of levels, in which the levels are, so to speak, mixed together. It is not that one is included in the other, but that the levels are mixed: it is not quite nefesh and not quite ruach. It has something of both. That is the main explanation: this is a different kind of combination. Nefesh enters into Hodu. Interesting—he explains it the other way around from what you said. So that is the same avodah of combination we discussed earlier. Hodu is Hodu, and ruach is ruach. They are two distinct levels. Nefesh is only Hodu; ruach is Pesukei Dezimra, the feeling of love and fear. But what happens? Nefesh rises to the level of ruach. Yes, [unclear] at the level of ruach, or even higher, at the level of intellect. That is why Hodu is at that level.

16:02 Speaker 1 So there are really two things here. Hodu itself remains at its own level. It is not that Hodu ceases to be Hodu. Hodu is Hodu, even when it is now at the level of ruach, the level of the emotions. What happens is that Hodu rises to the level of the emotions. Hodu is elevated to a higher level, but each remains what it is, and one rises into the other. By contrast, here the combination is such that nefesh and ruach are on one level. It is not that nefesh is Hodu and ruach is ruach. Here it is neither one nor the other. There, nefesh is nefesh and ruach is ruach, and nefesh rises to the level of ruach. But when we speak about the case here, nefesh is not quite nefesh and ruach is not quite ruach. In other words, this is not Hodu; on the other hand, it is not quite love and fear either. Rather, the point is that the levels are combined into a single state, and this is a higher level. There is a level of nefesh that resembles ruach. Nefesh here is not quite nefesh; it is on a higher level, because this is not simply Hodu. There is something of love and fear in it. So nefesh resembles the level of ruach, but it is not truly ruach either, because there is no actual love and fear here. That is it—a combination of levels. What are you asking?

17:10 Speaker 3 All right, I want to put these points in order.

17:13 Speaker 1 No.

17:14 Speaker 3 Yes, I want to put these points in order, as the guide already explained earlier. This is a kind of—

17:22 Speaker 1 No, [unclear]. I didn’t tell you which [unclear], but this is a different kind of integration. Right, you’re correct: it belongs here because it is on the level of nefesh. But here, although in one respect this is a higher level—because it is not simply acknowledgment; it involves love and awe—we still place it in the category of nefesh. Why? Because of what we said earlier: the genuine feeling is missing. It is only intellectual. It is the level of Netzach, Hod, and Yesod within nefesh. The Rebbe Rashab says that this is the level of Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. The level of nefesh can be divided in two: there is Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, and there is Malchus. Acknowledgment is Malchus. What we are discussing here is not Malchus, because it is not simply acknowledgment. It is an expression of love and awe, so you cannot call it acknowledgment. Acknowledgment is without love and awe; it is only something expressed with the mouth. So you cannot call this level Malchus. Then why do you call it nefesh? Because nefesh includes not only Malchus but also Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. When we divide the sefiros into groups, we divide them into Chochmah, Binah, and Daas; Chessed, Gevurah, and Tiferes; and Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. Then there is Malchus. Malchus is only concrete expression. Malchus is speech. What is there? Nothing beyond the mouth. Netzach, Hod, and Yesod are branches of the middos: Netzach is called [unclear], Hod is called longing, and Yesod is called desire. In other words, they are branches of the middos. But they are only branches of the middos. That means they do not have love and awe in their full sense. They do not have all the inner feeling found in Chessed, Gevurah, and Tiferes, but they are still a form of middos, only in a more external way. That is why we call this level Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, which is also called nefesh. [unclear]. We’ll leave it at that.

19:14 Speaker 1 Chochmah, Binah, and Daas; Chessed, Gevurah, and Tiferes; and Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. As we said about Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, this is classified as nefesh, with Malchus below it. So it is higher than Malchus, because Malchus is acknowledgment. Here we are talking about Netzach, Hod, and Yesod, which are higher. Nevertheless, it is still on the level of nefesh. Now we come to the next section. In the next passage he will explain what ruach is. If this is nefesh, then what is ruach? He will explain in detail the level of ruach, including its sefiros, and afterward he will explain what neshamah is.