Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 1 - Part 2

00:02 One point: a person is made to swear an oath. In the previous class, we discussed what an oath means. You are entrusted with bringing more hidden, more essential powers into the world for the service of Hashem down here. How is the oath expressed? It has three details that, at first glance, seem repetitive. First it says, “Be righteous.” Why add, “Do not be wicked”? That is the first question. Aren’t they the same thing, just a repetition? “Be righteous” should be enough; then, automatically, you won’t be wicked. Why add, “Do not be wicked”? Then we need to understand the third part: “Be righteous,” not only “Do not be wicked,” and then, “Even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, regard yourself as wicked.” What does that have to do with it? Why isn’t “Be righteous” enough? What does “regard yourself as wicked” add? It sounds as though this is so fundamental that it is part of the oath. In other words, the oath is not only that I will try to be righteous and not be wicked. It also includes this: even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, regard yourself as wicked. That suggests that regarding oneself as wicked is so important, so fundamental, that it was included in the oath. We need to understand why this detail matters so much that it becomes part of the oath. This is a general introduction that will help us understand this entire page—really, this page and a half of Tanya, where the Alter Rebbe cites various teachings of our Sages and various proofs, according to the revealed dimension of Torah, concerning the levels of the righteous, the intermediate, and the wicked. There is a central point the Alter Rebbe wants to prove throughout this passage, from the beginning of chapter 1 until

02:08 until the middle of the second page, where it begins, “But the explanation of the matter is according to what Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote in Shaar Hakedushah.” Up to that point, he gives a long introduction, with various lines of reasoning according to the revealed dimension of Torah—proofs from here and there—leading to the levels of the righteous, the intermediate, and the wicked. Of course, the Alter Rebbe did not write this as a book of such discussions. It is not a book of intricate arguments or a book of commentaries. Tanya is not a book explaining passages of Gemara or verses in Chumash; it is a book of Chassidus. There are various books of Chassidus. One of the innovations of Tanya, compared with books of Chassidus that appeared in the Alter Rebbe’s time, is that books of Chassidus generally took the form of commentaries on the Torah or on the Talmud. They explained verses and teachings of our Sages, and they also contained ideas about serving Hashem, but they presented them as explanations of verses or teachings of our Sages. Tanya is the only book—or at least one of the first books, perhaps the first book of Chassidus—not written as a commentary on the Torah or as a collection of explanations. It was written as a book about serving Hashem. Its entire purpose is to explain how to serve Hashem according to Chassidus. What is the innovation? What is the central innovation of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings in serving Hashem? Chassidus is the inner dimension of the Torah, so the revelation of Chassidus is a revelation of inwardness. Chassidus revealed the inner dimension. Until the Baal Shem Tov, until the revelation of Chassidus, the main emphasis in serving Hashem was on the external dimension. The revealed dimension of Torah, the external dimension of Torah, was primary, so the service, too, was more external, carried out through outward means, so to speak. The main emphasis was therefore on what a person actually did. Then the Baal Shem Tov came

04:13 and began to reveal an inner way of serving Hashem. As the Alter Rebbe himself said, the Baal Shem Tov did not introduce new mitzvos. He did not introduce new practices. What the Baal Shem Tov introduced was inwardness: bringing inner work into serving Hashem, so that the service would not be merely external but would involve feeling and come from within. That is essentially the point the Alter Rebbe begins to make in the first page and a half of Tanya: he demonstrates that serving Hashem must be an inner service. He sets out to show that true service of Hashem is not merely a matter of outward behavior—that someone who does many mitzvos is called righteous, someone who commits many transgressions is called wicked, and someone who does half and half is called intermediate. That was the straightforward, external way of understanding it. The Alter Rebbe comes to reveal the dimension of inner service, and he begins by looking for ways to demonstrate it. He wants to show it according to the revealed dimension of Torah as well. That was one of his strengths: showing, even from the revealed dimension of Torah, that serving Hashem must be an inner service. This is the joining of the revealed and inner dimensions of Torah. So the Alter Rebbe proves from various passages of Gemara that he cites later that serving Hashem is not an external matter but an inner one. How does this become apparent? In his discussion of the righteous, the intermediate, and the wicked. The conventional understanding was external: a righteous person has many mitzvos, a wicked person has many transgressions, and an intermediate person has half and half. That was the straightforward understanding, and it also seems to be the plain meaning of the Talmud. But Chassidus came, and the Alter Rebbe revealed that it is not so: there are distinctions here on the inner level. Outwardly, it may be—and this is the great innovation of Tanya—that you see no difference between them. You look at them and say that the righteous person, the intermediate person, and the wicked person really

06:06 look almost the same. The righteous person performs mitzvos all the time, and the intermediate person also performs mitzvos all the time and does not commit transgressions. Even someone called wicked may appear outwardly to do nothing but mitzvos. It could be that he once stumbled in thought, and yet one person is called righteous, another intermediate, and another wicked. That is because the difference between them is not external. The difference is primarily within, as the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain. This is the main point he wants to emphasize: from here we see that serving Hashem is an inner service, and the differences between people are not external differences but inner ones. We can see this immediately in the first teaching of our Sages. In the oath, they say, “Be righteous.” Then they say, “Do not be wicked.” They do not stop at “Be righteous”; they add, “Do not be wicked.” And above all, they add, “Even if the whole world tells you that you are righteous, regard yourself as wicked.” That alone tells us there is something more inward, something deeper, to being righteous or wicked. If it were only an external matter, what would be the problem? Why make such a big issue of it? Why couldn’t the whole world call him righteous? He performs mitzvos and commits no transgressions. The very fact that they emphasize so strongly, “Regard yourself as wicked,” shows, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later, that the distinctions are much finer and much deeper. They require a special discernment. That is why they say that even if the whole world calls you righteous, even if everyone sees you as righteous, you must regard yourself as wicked. And this is real; it is not just imaginary, as we will see later in Tanya. But first, let us return to the oath. We are saying that the oath includes—even part of the oath is—even

07:49 “Even if the whole world tells you that you are a tzaddik, regard yourself as a rasha.” The Alter Rebbe continues: “But this needs to be understood.” What about the teaching in chapter 2 of Pirkei Avos, “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes”? There seems to be a direct contradiction. Here, the beraisa says a person should regard himself as a rasha even if the whole world calls him a tzaddik. But the Mishnah in Avos says the opposite: “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes.” A person must not regard himself as a rasha. So that is a straightforward contradiction. And there is another question, a second question. The first is simply a contradiction: the oath says, “Be a rasha,” while the Mishnah says, “Do not be a rasha.” The second question is one of logic. It is not a question of—of—it is simply a question of logic. You say a person must regard himself as a rasha. Well, if he regards himself as a rasha, what is he supposed to feel? He has to keep thinking that he is a rasha. So what should his feeling about that be? Here is where the dilemma begins. Here is the problem: how is a person supposed to feel? “And if he regards himself as a rasha, his heart will be troubled and he will be sad, and he will be unable to serve Hashem with joy and gladness of heart.” If you say that a person must always regard himself as a rasha—something inward, that he must constantly feel himself to be a rasha—then this is not just his imagination. He regards himself as a rasha in the plain sense; it is something real. The Torah is not telling him to think this way even though it is not true. He has to genuinely feel that he is a rasha. If he really has to feel that way, what will happen? “His heart will be troubled and he will be sad, and he will be unable

09:46 to serve Hashem with joy and gladness of heart.” The person will become sad; his heart will be troubled, and he will lack something. Serving Hashem with joy? Then he cannot really think of himself that way, because if he is sad, he will be missing an essential part of serving Hashem with joy. So what will you say instead? Think of yourself as a rasha. Know that you are not a tzaddik, that you are a rasha, and nevertheless be joyful. But “if his heart is not troubled by it at all, he may come to take things lightly, G-d forbid.” If a person thinks he is a rasha but does not care at all, serves Hashem with joy and is unbothered by it, he will come to take things lightly. That creates a different problem: he will become frivolous. Before we explain the dilemma itself, though, why does the Alter Rebbe add this question at all? Why isn’t the difficulty posed by the beraisa enough? Look: the Rebbe adds another point. Here is what the beraisa says: a person must regard himself as a rasha. In the Mishnah, it says that he must not regard himself as a rasha. So why doesn’t the Alter Rebbe stop with that question? Why must he add the second question, about how a person is supposed to feel? Notice what makes this so pressing. The point is that there are other explanations of the passage in Pirkei Avos. The Rambam explains “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes” to mean that a person must not regard himself as a rasha. On that reading, there is a contradiction. But many commentators understand it differently. One explanation is that “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes” means a person should not do things that will later make him feel like a

11:39 rasha. “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes”: do not do things that will leave you feeling that way. The Mishnah is telling a person: when you are unsure whether to do something, do not do something you will later regret. Before doing it, think: “Will I regret this afterward and feel like a rasha?” If so, do not do it in the first place. That is one explanation given by the commentators. Another explanation of “Do not be a rasha in your own eyes” is that a person should not be a rasha by being “in his own eyes”—on his own. What makes him a rasha here? That he keeps to himself, distances himself from other people or separates himself from the community. He does not spend time with others; he isolates himself. That itself is the wrongdoing. This is another explanation found among the commentators. So one could say that the contradiction exists only according to one interpretation; according to the others, there is no contradiction. That is why the Alter Rebbe adds the second question. It is not a question about a contradiction, but about a person’s feelings. How is he supposed to feel? On the one hand, if a person thinks of himself as a rasha, what does the Alter Rebbe say? He will become sad and will not be able to serve Hashem with joy. Why does that matter? Let him serve Hashem without joy. But Chassidus makes it clear that serving Hashem with joy is not something incidental. As the Baal Shem Tov explains, and as Chassidus teaches—and there is even a basis for it in a verse of the Torah—serving Hashem

13:28 with joy is not something incidental. It is not that you can fulfill mitzvos with or without joy, and the main thing is simply to fulfill them. Joy is part of serving Hashem. So much so that, as quoted in Chassidus, the Alter Rebbe cites the verse: “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart,” followed by “you will serve your enemies.” If a person serves Hashem but not with joy, there is a punishment. If joy were merely an extra, like beautifying a mitzvah—something one could have or do without—there would be no punishment for lacking it. Yet the verse says, “You will serve your enemies.” That implies that when joy is missing, something is missing from the very act of doing good. If a person fulfills a mitzvah but lacks joy in it, if he serves Hashem without joy, it does not merely mean that he has done it imperfectly. Something is lacking in the very essence of his service of Hashem—to the point that there is a punishment. Why “you will serve your enemies”? That is the point the Alter Rebbe is making. If I think I am a rasha, I cannot truly serve Hashem with joy, and then I will be failing in an essential part of serving Hashem. So what will you say instead? Think you are a rasha, but do not be sad? You cannot do that without the feeling having consequences. It will lead a person to take things lightly: “Well, I don’t care. I can do what I want. I’m a rasha anyway; I can commit a sin. I’m nothing—and nevertheless I’m happy.” What conclusion will a person reach? That he can go on committing sins, remain a rasha, and still be fine and carry on. Now, one could ask a simple question. This question has nothing to do with the beraisa. It is not a difficulty with the Gemara in Niddah. It is a general question about how

15:10 a person should feel. Forget the beraisa. Say a person simply committed a sin. How should he feel? If you say he should feel bad about having sinned, he will be sad and unable to serve Hashem with joy. If you say he should feel good about having sinned, that is taking it lightly. What does any of this have to do with the beraisa in Niddah? What does it have to do specifically with the Gemara’s statement? Even without the oath, these things happen every day. This is a practical question that touches daily life. A person has sinned; a person has not behaved well. How should he feel? If he feels bad about himself, he lacks joy in serving Hashem. If he feels joyful, he is taking it lightly. That is the question. It is an everyday dilemma that every bochur and every person experiences. Why tie the question specifically to the beraisa? The answer is simple. If we are talking about someone who has committed a sin, the advice is straightforward: do teshuvah, and that settles it. If a person has sinned, he certainly should feel bad, and he should do teshuvah. He should say, “I have sinned, I have been guilty, I have stolen,” ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive him, do teshuvah, and then continue in joy. Of course he should feel bad about it; there is no question. But that is not the difficulty here. A person who sins must do teshuvah and then try to be joyful. The problem here is the beraisa. The beraisa says, “Regard yourself as a rasha”—that a person must feel, all the time, that he is a rasha in his own eyes. Even after doing teshuvah, he must still feel like a rasha. That is where the problem begins. The beraisa never gives me room to be joyful. It tells me that even when I am not committing sins, and even when I do teshuvah, I must continue to feel like a rasha. So here

17:00 That’s where the problem begins. Am I supposed to feel good about it or feel bad about it? And of course, that is precisely the question here. By the way, we won’t go into this too much. Not everyone knows this, but it was one of the points of disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. Everyone knows that the Alter Rebbe faced opposition not only from the misnagdim; he also faced opposition from chassidim, disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. The Alter Rebbe revealed Chabad Chassidus, and the expression used there is, “And his brothers envied him.” Even his own colleagues, disciples of the Maggid, opposed certain aspects of the Alter Rebbe’s approach. They argued that he had adopted a new approach, one that was not the way of Chassidus: the whole idea of serving Hashem through one’s own efforts, the whole concept of the beinoni, the whole idea of bringing things inward—all of that. Most of the Baal Shem Tov’s disciples understood the path of Chassidus differently: more as a path of faith, more through the Maggid, not so much [unclear] and inward work and inadvertent sin. We spoke a little about this in the second introduction. The Alter Rebbe faced difficulties over several matters and had to be careful. One of the disagreements, as the story goes, concerned this point as well. Many of the Baal Shem Tov’s disciples held that serving Hashem must be done with joy, in every way. A person should always be joyful. But this led to certain things, to a kind of frivolity. Because joy had such a powerful effect, and the Baal Shem Tov had so strongly emphasized joy at all times and in every situation, it reached a point where a person could commit a sin with joy. Right at the beginning of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe immediately emphasizes this point, because it was one of the areas where he did not go along with every—

18:48 There are letters from the Alter Rebbe, strongly worded letters, saying that this leads to casting off the yoke and to all sorts of other things when people do not understand the Baal Shem Tov’s point correctly. Granted, the Baal Shem Tov made joy a foundation of serving Hashem. But that does not mean there is no need to do teshuvah. It does not mean a person should not feel bitterness from time to time, and so on. That is why the Alter Rebbe devotes several chapters of Tanya to explaining and examining this point: How can both things coexist? How can a person serve Hashem with joy and still, from time to time, feel bitterness over his own spiritual state? The Alter Rebbe will explain this mainly in chapters 34 and onward. The Alter Rebbe continues: “But the matter is…” If you like, look in your siddurim. Some people have never looked there. At the back of the siddurim are two letters from the Alter Rebbe. If you have ever noticed, there are two of his letters at the back of the siddur. One of them addresses this very point: there were people who engaged in all sorts of joking around, as long as they were joyful. The Alter Rebbe writes that this is kelipah. They thought it was a way to serve Hashem—to be happy—even though their happiness came from mockery. You can see there that people had taken the Baal Shem Tov’s methods the wrong way. They thought Chassidus meant joy, and joy meant revelry. The Alter Rebbe distinguishes there between joy and revelry, and so on. He discusses that too. But, “the matter is…” We find a distinction in the Gemara. To understand this whole point, we need to establish that there are, in fact, five types of people. Until now we might have thought there were only two levels, tzaddik and rasha, but there are actually five: a tzaddik for whom things are good, a tzaddik for whom things are bad,

20:42 a rasha for whom things are good, a rasha for whom things are bad, and a beinoni. Look in that Gemara and you will not find the word beinoni. That’s right: there are only four levels there—the tzaddik for whom things are good, the tzaddik for whom things are bad. Those terms appear in the Gemara in Berachos, and there it lists only four levels: a tzaddik for whom things are good, a tzaddik for whom things are bad, a rasha for whom things are good, and a rasha for whom things are bad. The beinoni appears elsewhere. So you see, I need two passages of Gemara. Yes, I have to refer to the Gemara in Berachos. There is also a Gemara in Rosh Hashanah; from these we get five levels. Now, a tzaddik for whom things are good and a tzaddik for whom things are bad: on the plain meaning of the Gemara, “good for him” and “bad for him” do not describe the person’s spiritual level. They describe his circumstances, his material circumstances. There is a tzaddik for whom things go well materially, and a tzaddik for whom things go badly materially. There is a rasha for whom things go well materially, and a rasha for whom things go badly materially. The Gemara explains these as a complete tzaddik and an incomplete tzaddik. In the Gemara’s explanation, a tzaddik for whom things are good is a complete tzaddik; a tzaddik for whom things are bad is an incomplete tzaddik. What does that mean? Simply, someone who is a complete tzaddik is entirely righteous. So things are good for him not only in the World to Come, but in this world too. Hakadosh Boruch Hu grants him both material and spiritual good, because there is no reason not to. By contrast, a tzaddik for whom things are bad is an incomplete tzaddik. He falls a little short of perfect righteousness. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives him some suffering in this world, so that his World to Come will be completely free of blemish. That is the plain meaning regarding a tzaddik. The same applies to a rasha for whom things are good and a rasha for whom things are bad: good and bad refer to his material circumstances. That is the plain meaning. But in Raaya Mehemna, in Parshas Mishpatim, “a tzaddik for whom things are bad” is explained to mean that the evil within him is subordinate to the good, and so on. Look at Raaya Mehemna: there it says

22:34 that a tzaddik for whom things are bad is one whose evil is subordinate to the good. In other words, Raaya Mehemna is already the inner dimension of the Torah. Raaya Mehemna is part of the Zohar, what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai learned from Moshe Rabbeinu, and there it gives a deeper interpretation. It speaks of “a tzaddik for whom things are bad” and explains that the evil within him is subordinate to the good. That means “bad for him” is not merely about his material circumstances, whether things are going badly for him materially or not. It describes his spiritual level. A tzaddik for whom things are bad means a tzaddik who has evil within him—spiritual evil, evil in his service of Hashem. There is still some evil within him, but it is subordinate to the good, nullified before the good. Accordingly, what does “a tzaddik for whom things are good” mean? It means a tzaddik who is entirely good, with no trace of evil in him. His whole being is good. By contrast, a tzaddik for whom things are bad has a tiny bit of evil within him, though that evil is nullified before the good. This gives us a deeper meaning. According to the revealed dimension of Torah, “good for him” and “bad for him” refer to material circumstances. The inner dimension of Torah reveals what lies within the whole concept of good and bad for him: it is the person’s spiritual level. To what extent has he nullified the evil? Does it mean he still has evil, but that evil is nullified, or does it mean there is no evil in him at all? That, at least, is the meaning there in Raaya Mehemna. Then there is the Gemara in Berachos: “Tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov,” and so on; “resha’im are judged by their yetzer hara”; “beinonim are judged by both,” and so on. In the Gemara in Berachos we again see a distinction between these levels. The Gemara says that tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov. This implies that they have no yetzer hara; only the yetzer tov judges them. The Alter Rebbe makes a precise point about what “judges them” means later on. But

24:28 in any case, a tzaddik has only a yetzer tov. Resha’im are judged by their yetzer hara. A beinoni is judged by both, and so on. That is the distinction between them. In general terms, tzaddikim have only a yetzer tov, resha’im only a yetzer hara, and a beinoni is somewhere in between: both judge him. The Rebbe makes a very remarkable observation here. As we know, every letter and every word in Tanya is precise. Nothing in Tanya is there without reason. We see something interesting here: the Alter Rebbe writes, “Tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov, etc.” It shows just how precise the wording of Tanya is—and, even more, the Rebbe’s brilliance in explaining it. Not everyone can explain these fine points. The Alter Rebbe quotes the Gemara in Berachos. He writes, “Tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov, etc.” What does “etc.” stand for? In the Gemara, a verse follows: “Tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov, as it is said, ‘And my heart is hollow within me.’” The Alter Rebbe does not quote the verse; he just writes “etc.” Then he writes, “Resha’im are judged by their yetzer hara.” Here the Alter Rebbe does not write “etc.,” even though the Gemara also cites a verse there. Something about the head or the heart—I don’t remember exactly—“The utterance of transgression to the wicked is within my heart; there is no fear of G-d before his eyes.” It cites some verse there. Yet the Alter Rebbe does not write “etc.” Then: “Beinonim are judged by both, etc.” Here he does write “etc.” The verse there is: “Beinonim are judged by both, as it is said, ‘He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who judge his soul.’” So we need to understand this. Let’s continue. Either the Alter Rebbe should write “etc.” all three times, since he leaves out the verses in all three cases; or he should write it only the last time; or he should never write it. He writes it the first time and the third time, but not the second. Why here and here, but not there? What is the explanation? The Rebbe explains that the reason the Alter Rebbe

26:18 He adds “etc.” when what follows has some connection to the point. If it has some connection, even though it isn’t relevant right here, he writes “etc.” to indicate that what follows is relevant. If what follows isn’t relevant at all, he doesn’t write “etc.” So the meaning here is as follows: “Tzaddikim are judged by their yetzer tov, as it is said, ‘My heart is hollow within me.’” The verse “My heart is hollow within me” is relevant to the Alter Rebbe’s novel explanation in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe comes to explain that a tzaddik is not merely someone whose mitzvos outweigh his transgressions; he has no yetzer hara at all. Where do we learn that from? Ultimately, from the verse “My heart is hollow within me”—hollow. The Alter Rebbe will explain later that it is completely empty: he killed it through fasting. He has no evil at all. Since this verse is the proof for the Alter Rebbe’s whole approach, the Alter Rebbe alludes to it with “etc.” By contrast, “The wicked are judged by their yetzer hara” has no such connection. The Alter Rebbe doesn’t use the verse the Gemara cites there as proof of anything in Tanya, so he doesn’t allude to it at all. He doesn’t write any “etc.” But “Beinonim are judged by both” is relevant to the verse “He stands at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who judge his soul.” In chapter 13, the Alter Rebbe uses this verse to explain how a beinoni fights the evil within him. Because there is a battle between good and evil, he needs Hakadosh Boruch Hu to help him, etc. The Alter Rebbe explains this further on. So here, too, the Alter Rebbe alludes to it with “etc.,” because this verse helps us understand the level of the beinoni, which is the main purpose of Tanya: to explain what the level of the beinoni is. So we see how every word in Tanya is precise. But there’s still something we don’t understand. I’ll leave

27:57 that for you: Why does the first “etc.” appear without a vav, while the second one is written with a vav? That, too, is a detail you can think about yourselves.