Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 1 - Part 4

00:00 Speaker 1 And also to understand. Chapter 1, page 5. “And also to understand what the level of the beinoni is.” Here the Alter Rebbe begins with the central question of Tanya. Tanya is the “book of beinonim.” After all the questions he has asked—the general questions, questions from the Gemara, and so on—here we come to the main question that brings us to Tanya, the book of beinonim. After all, we are not so interested in explaining the surrounding issues. What we chiefly want to clarify is the avodah that applies to each and every person: the avodah of the beinoni. So the Alter Rebbe begins: “And also to understand what the level of the beinoni is.” We need to understand the level of a beinoni. “For certainly he is not someone with half merits and half sins.” It is clear, the Alter Rebbe says, that we cannot say a beinoni is someone with half merits and half sins, as it is understood in the plain sense: half and half. As the Alter Rebbe will bring later, there are also several places in the Gemara where it sounds as though a beinoni sometimes means half and half. But the Alter Rebbe says that is not the level of the beinoni. We cannot say that. “For if so, how could Rabbah have mistakenly said of himself that he was a beinoni?” First of all, the Alter Rebbe asks, it does not fit with what we said earlier. Why can’t we say a beinoni is half and half? It simply does not fit. What did we learn earlier in Tanya? We learned that Rabbah taught his students various things about the difference between a tzaddik and a beinoni, and Rabbah said of himself, “Someone like me is a beinoni.” So Rabbah considered himself a beinoni. If beinoni means, quite literally, someone with half merits and half sins, how could Rabbah think of himself as a beinoni? “And it is known that his mouth never ceased from study.” It is known that Rabbah was on such a lofty level that his mouth never ceased from study. He never stopped—not even for a moment—learning. So much so that even the Angel of Death could not take hold of him. Rabbah was so

02:39 Speaker 1 engrossed in learning Torah that even the Angel of Death could not catch him. “And how could he have been mistaken about having half sins, G-d forbid?” So the question arises: if Rabbah never stopped learning Torah, how could he have thought he was a beinoni, with half sins? The Gemara tells a story. It tells how Rabbah was fleeing from the authorities, and it came to the point where he was traveling and fled from there. He hid among some trees and knew that his time had come. It was time for him to leave this world, and he was learning Torah. The Angel of Death could not catch him. Then there was a noise. We won’t go into the details of the story. It was somewhat like what happened with King David: there was a noise, and he stopped learning. Rabbah thought people were pursuing him, because they had been pursuing him and wanted to catch him. So he heard a noise and thought they were about to catch him. He stopped learning for a moment, and that is how he passed away. That is how the Angel of Death was able to catch him. Yes. In other words, Rabbah was a person who simply did not stop learning for a moment, to the point that the Angel of Death had to look for ways to catch him. Now, one could ask: What is the proof? Maybe he happened to be learning just then. Who says Rabbah was a person who never stopped learning? Maybe it was just then, on the day he was meant to die, that he happened to be learning. What made the Alter Rebbe’s proof so strong? I don’t know. “His mouth never ceased from study”—who says? Maybe his mouth did cease from study, and on that particular day he was—no, he learned constantly. Interesting. The Rebbe asks this in a sicha. The Rebbe. Somewhat for our purposes, but elsewhere. Elsewhere it is explained. Elsewhere it is explained that the point is not

04:39 Speaker 1 that we know Rabbah never stopped learning because the Angel of Death could not catch him. Obviously, the Angel of Death cannot be stopped from catching everyone who sits and learns. It does not mean that whenever someone learns and says words of Torah, the Angel of Death cannot catch him at that moment and has to wait until he stops learning. A person has to be on a certain level. When someone’s Torah learning is such that Torah is alive for him and he is completely bound up with it, then the Angel of Death cannot catch him at that time. His entire being is Torah, so the Angel of Death has to look for ways to catch him. But an ordinary person who sometimes learns and sometimes wastes time—is the Angel of Death unable to catch him just because he happens to be sitting and learning now? Rather, it is the other way around. This reflected Rabbah’s level. The fact that Rabbah was a person whom the Angel of Death could not kill while he learned shows that, for him, Torah was such that his mouth never ceased from study, all the time. Torah was his entire being. That, at least, is how some explain it. But what is the Alter Rebbe’s question? Let’s examine what the Alter Rebbe is asking here. What is his question? How could Rabbah have said of himself that he was a beinoni if he never stopped learning? Why couldn’t it be that Rabbah was humble and thought little of himself? Humble. We could assume that this is why he said he was a beinoni. What is the problem? What is the question from Rabbah? Rabbah’s mouth never ceased from study. He really was not a beinoni; he really was a tzaddik. But he said of himself that he was a beinoni because he was humble. What are the Alter Rebbe’s words? “How

06:28 Speaker 1 could Rabbah have mistakenly said of himself that he was a beinoni?” Who says he was mistaken? He was humble and said he was a beinoni.

06:35 Speaker 2 But he could have been humble, yet the fact that there is death... That can’t be, no, but also, uh...

06:43 Speaker 1 You’re saying that humility is not falsehood. What is the reasoning behind that? First of all, when we learn Chassidus, we know that humility is not about saying, “I am nothing.” If someone says of himself, “I am nothing, I am worth nothing,” does that make him humble? In Chassidus we distinguish between the two. First of all, that is not called being humble; it is called being a liar. Or even if we say he genuinely feels that way, Chassidus distinguishes between humility and lowliness. There is humility and there is lowliness, and Chassidus does not regard lowliness as a virtue. Lowliness is not an advantage. It says so in the sichos of [unclear]. It explains at length: there is a humble person and there is a lowly person. Being lowly is not an advantage; on the contrary, it is a shortcoming. A lowly person is someone who thinks little of himself. He feels he has no good qualities at all and is nothing. Chassidus says that this sort of lowliness often comes from the yetzer hara. In everyday language, perhaps today it’s called baja autoestima, or something like that. It’s a person feeling that he is nothing, and that’s called—what is it called in English?—low self-esteem. In Chassidus, this kind of lowliness, where a person thinks he is nothing, is called “a doormat to be trampled on.” He becomes a rag, a doormat, something to be trampled on. A person who does not recognize his good qualities and does not know who he is or what his strengths are becomes like a rag: “I am nothing. I am worth nothing.” And so he does not make an effort, he does not learn, he does not do anything, because he feels he is nothing. That actually comes from the negative side. Humility is something entirely different. Humility is a person who recognizes his good qualities. Humility is a

08:46 Speaker 1 person who knows his own worth, who knows his strengths. As the well-known saying goes, just as a person must know his shortcomings, so must he know his strengths. A person needs to recognize not only his shortcomings; he absolutely needs to recognize his strengths. If so, what is humility? Humility means that he does not think highly of himself because of them. He knows he has strengths, and yet he does not become proud of them. Why not? Because he thinks that if someone else had those same strengths, that person would achieve much more than he has. So, he has no... I have strengths. I may know that I have a good mind and good abilities, but I do not become proud of them. First of all, why? Because if someone else had the same abilities, he would make better use of them. That’s one thing. Second, they are a gift from Above. What I have been given is a gift from Above. And considering how much effort I could have made, I have not made that effort. In any case, there are all sorts of considerations. He knows his strengths, but does not become proud of them. That is what humility means. That is the point. How does this relate to Rabbah? To say that Rabbah called himself a beinoni would simply be a lie, if we say that a beinoni is

10:01 Speaker 3 someone with half merits and half sins.

10:05 Speaker 1 It’s easy to say that he lied. He said something false. But that isn’t right. He lied to himself? That’s called lowliness. Or not even lowliness—it’s simply a lie. He says he’s a rasha, when that isn’t true. What could it be, though? According to... So that’s why I said we can’t say that. But if we explain that a beinoni is a person who has no sins at all, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later, then it’s possible that Rabbah, out of humility, thought of himself that way. He knew his own qualities. He knew he was a halachic authority, a Torah scholar; he knew he studied all the time. But as the Alter Rebbe will explain later, a person can study all the time and still not be a tzaddik, but a beinoni. So we can understand why Rabbah thought of himself that way. What does it mean that he thought of himself that way? Since the difference between a beinoni and a tzaddik is very subtle, it’s possible that out of humility he saw himself as being on a lower level. But we can’t say he was lying. So this is the proof the Alter Rebbe brings that we can’t say a beinoni means someone with half merits and half sins. There’s a story people tell. One of the stories they tell is about, um, someone called Reb Henoch Schick. He was the father of Reb Pinchas Reizes. Reb Pinchas Reizes was with... His father came from a family of misnagdim. Reb Pinchas became a chossid, and when he came back from the Rebbe, his father asked him, “What did you discover there? What did you gain there? What was so good about Chassidus?” He said, “The Rebbe taught us bittul.” Bittul means humility. So Reb Henoch said to him, “Humility? For that you have to go to the Rebbe? You can study Reishis Chochmah and become humble too.”

12:16 Speaker 1 So Reb Pinchas Reizes said, “You know what? Study Shaar Ha’anavah in Reishis Chochmah for two weeks, and afterward we’ll test your humility.” So he did. He studied Reishis Chochmah. After two weeks, or some period of time, he went to the mikveh on Erev Shabbos. He went to the mikveh to wash, and Reb Pinchas sent someone—an ordinary man from the town who had grown close to Reb Pinchas Reizes—to his father, Reb Henoch, who was the rabbi of the town, the rabbi of Shklov. He told him to approach his father in the mikveh, give him a slap on the back, and treat him like a friend there in the bathhouse. So the man went over to him while he was washing, touched him, gave him a slap on the back, and spoke to him very casually. When he came back, Reb Pinchas asked him, “Well, how did you feel?” He said, “It stung a little; it hurt my feelings. But I held myself back and acted as though nothing had happened. The humility I learned from Shaar Ha’anavah helped me not take it to heart or answer him, and I accepted it gladly.” So Reb Pinchas Reizes said to him, “If you had studied Chassidus, it wouldn’t have hurt your feelings at all. If you had studied Chassidus, it wouldn’t have hurt your feelings. The humility you learned means you have to restrain yourself and not... But if you had studied Chassidus, it wouldn’t have hurt you at all, because you would have felt that every Jew is one with you. That’s a different kind of humility, a kind of bittul.” I just mentioned that story in passing. When we speak about humility in Chassidus, there are many levels and many kinds. What is humility? Humility in Chassidus is a much deeper level.

14:26 Speaker 1 In any case, that wasn’t relevant to our subject. This is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here: a beinoni cannot mean someone who is half and half, because even humility has certain limits. Humility doesn’t mean simply saying nonsense—something foolish and false. The Alter Rebbe says: “Furthermore, at the time a person commits sins, he is called a complete rasha. And if he subsequently does teshuvah, he is called a complete tzaddik.” We see that when a person commits a sin, he is called a complete rasha. At the time he commits a sin, he is called a complete rasha. And if he subsequently does teshuvah, he is called a complete tzaddik. Where does this come from? The Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring the source here, but it is cited elsewhere. There is a source for it in the Gemara: when a person commits a sin, he is called a complete rasha. And if he subsequently does teshuvah, he is called... Again, we see, as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, that a person who committed a sin is called a complete rasha, and if he subsequently does teshuvah, he is called a complete tzaddik. What is the Alter Rebbe adding here? He’s saying this: Who is called a beinoni? If a person commits even one sin, he is already called a rasha—so would we call him a beinoni? What, then, might you say? That a person who committed a sin and afterward did teshuvah is called a beinoni. The Alter Rebbe says we can’t say that either. Why? Because if he subsequently does teshuvah, he is called a complete tzaddik. The Alter Rebbe doesn’t give the source here; he cites the source in Tractate Kiddushin. We are studying Kiddushin here, and that is the proof he brings from Tractate Kiddushin. It says in Tractate Kiddushin: “One who betroths a woman on the condition that I am a complete tzaddik.” So what

16:26 Speaker 1 does it say? What is the halachah? Actually, the Gemara doesn’t say “complete tzaddik.” The Gemara just says “tzaddik.” But the Alter Rebbe follows a version found in the Zohar—that’s the source for the wording here—and there it says “complete tzaddik.” “One who betroths a woman on the condition that I am a complete tzaddik.” What is the halachah? She is betrothed. Is she betrothed or not? What is the ruling? She is possibly betrothed, right?

16:49 Speaker 4 Even if he isn’t a tzaddik.

16:51 Speaker 1 What?

16:52 Speaker 4 Even if he isn’t a tzaddik.

16:52 Speaker 1 If he... Ah? Even if he is a complete rasha, what is the ruling? She is possibly betrothed. So can he betroth her? “Perhaps he contemplated teshuvah in his heart.” What does “perhaps he contemplated teshuvah in his heart” mean? We can’t say she is definitely betrothed, because we don’t know. Even though until now he was a complete rasha, since he may have contemplated teshuvah in his heart, he became a complete tzaddik at that moment. So by law, the betrothal should take effect. It is only a matter of doubt because we don’t know whether he really contemplated teshuvah in his heart. That’s why she is only possibly betrothed, not definitely. But in any case, we see from here that there is nothing in between. If he commits a sin, he is a complete rasha, and if he does teshuvah, he is a complete tzaddik. So where is the beinoni here? “And even one who violates a minor prohibition of the Sages is called a rasha, as stated in the second chapter of Yevamos and the first chapter of Niddah.” The Alter Rebbe continues: not only a Torah prohibition. Someone might come along and say—the Alter Rebbe is proceeding here in order. There is an organized progression. The Alter Rebbe is going through a whole sequence. What might a person think? He might say that a beinoni is someone who commits... No, someone who commits a sin cannot be a beinoni; he is already a complete rasha. Then someone might say that a beinoni is a person who committed a sin and afterward did teshuvah. We can’t say that either, because if he did teshuvah, he is a complete tzaddik. By the way, this is a proof for what the Alter Rebbe says later, in chapter 12, that a beinoni is a person who has never committed a sin in his life. That isn’t simple—that he has never once committed a sin in his life—because here the Alter Rebbe explicitly says that even if he once committed a sin, if he subsequently did teshuvah, he is no longer a rasha. So that is no longer relevant here. Back to our subject: the Alter Rebbe is proceeding in order. First, he says

18:27 Speaker 1 One sin, and he’s already a complete rasha. Then the Alter Rebbe says: If you say he’s someone who has done teshuvah, then someone who has done teshuvah is a complete tzaddik; he isn’t a beinoni. The Alter Rebbe goes on: But what if someone says, “Do you know who a beinoni is? Someone who has committed a rabbinic prohibition. He hasn’t violated any Torah prohibition, but sometimes he slips up with a rabbinic prohibition.” Today we spoke about many rabbinic prohibitions; a shvus is a shvus. So perhaps someone who violates a rabbinic prohibition could count as a beinoni. Maybe that’s what a beinoni is: someone who slips up only with rabbinic prohibitions. The Alter Rebbe says: “Even one who violates a minor prohibition of the Sages is called a rasha.” He, too, is called a rasha. “In chapter two of Yevamos and chapter one of Niddah.” He brings two proofs, from the Gemara in Yevamos and Niddah. There the Gemara says, “The master did not obey.” If someone doesn’t listen to the words of the Sages, isn’t he called a rasha? So from this we understand that, plainly, someone who doesn’t listen to the words of the Sages is explicitly called a rasha. So that can’t be a beinoni either. Well, then someone might say, “I have another suggestion. You know what? He doesn’t violate any prohibition, neither a Torah prohibition nor a rabbinic one. But what happened? He himself committed no sin, but he saw someone else commit a sin. He himself committed no sin, but he saw someone else do it and said nothing. So because of that, even though he himself didn’t do anything—he’s fine. It’s just that he saw someone else commit a sin and didn’t protest. So he’s no longer a tzaddik; let’s call him a beinoni. A tzaddik is someone who not only commits no sins himself, but doesn’t let others

20:16 Speaker 1 commit sins. A beinoni is someone who himself commits no sins, not even rabbinic ones, but when he sees others sinning, he says nothing to them.” So the Alter Rebbe also says: You can’t answer that way, because even someone who has the power to protest and doesn’t protest is called a rasha, in chapter six of Shevuos. The Gemara in Shevuos says that someone who sees another person committing a sin and had the ability to protest but didn’t is called a rasha. There the Gemara says, “And they shall stumble, one through his brother,” and discusses the various punishments that come from our responsibility for one another. First of all, we are responsible for one another, so because the other person sinned, he, too, receives punishment. Why? Does he deserve punishment because the other person sinned? It says: Because he had the power to protest and didn’t. You see, incidentally, there too in the Gemara we see that such a person is called a rasha. So you can’t say he’s a beinoni either. And all the more so someone who neglects a positive mitzvah that he could have fulfilled. Or the Rebbe of Belz, the Chasam Sofer—and here they make a kal vachomer and say: If so, then certainly someone who had the power to protest and didn’t has not fulfilled the mitzvah. Surely he’s called a rasha, not a beinoni. We need to understand how this follows. Otherwise it doesn’t fit with what comes next. It’s already getting late. We’ll have to leave it for another class. Also, an interesting point—just one more small thing. The Rebbe cites the Rogatchover there. Here the Rogatchover asks a question about the Gemara in Kiddushin. Perhaps you’ve heard it already: If a man betroths a woman on condition that “I am a tzaddik,” she is betrothed, because perhaps he contemplated teshuvah in his heart, even if he had been a complete rasha. So the Rogatchover asks: But isn’t he

22:09 Speaker 1 a baal teshuvah, rather than a tzaddik? You see, a baal teshuvah and a tzaddik are two different things. He said, “On condition that I am a tzaddik,” not “that I am a baal teshuvah.” So why is she betrothed? The Rogatchover explains: As we know, baalei teshuvah are greater than—“In the place where baalei teshuvah stand, even complete tzaddikim cannot stand.” A baal teshuvah is higher than a tzaddik. So when someone was a complete rasha and contemplates teshuvah, he leaps from being a complete rasha to being a baal teshuvah. In effect, he passes through all the levels. So he passes through the level of tzaddik as well.

22:49 Speaker 5 There’s also the point that being at the level of a tzaddik isn’t enough. Still, in Kiddushin, if he’s more than what he told her, that isn’t good either. From what’s needed for this, someone great... Sorry, but...

22:58 Speaker 1 Ah, that’s why he says we need to explain the reasoning behind it.

23:00 Speaker 5 [Unclear] that we need to say the line. But for now, the point is that he passes through the level, so that works. It’s really like looking for a woman who’s of average means and finding one who’s very wealthy. So that’s relevant to Kiddushin, because if he simply wasn’t precise, that isn’t a problem.

23:17 Speaker 1 So we need to move on [unclear]. And by the way, tonight is 15 Sivan. The Rebbe spoke about this in several sichos in the later years. As everyone knows, 15 Sivan is also the day the Frierdiker Rebbe was taken into custody. The Frierdiker Rebbe was arrested on 15 Sivan 5687. It was in the middle of the night, in the early morning hours. Anyone who wants the whole story can read it in Likkutei Dibburim. It has the full account of the arrest and so on. But the point the Rebbe explained is that although 15 Sivan was a day of darkness then—the Frierdiker Rebbe was arrested, an extremely grave event, a day of anguish—nevertheless, after the Geulah on 12 Tammuz, it became clear in retrospect that the opposite was true. It was for the good. As we find with a Rebbe: when there is an imprisonment, more exalted revelations in the inner dimension of Torah are revealed afterward, and so on. So it became clear in retrospect that 15 Sivan was actually the beginning of a new period, a new time in revealing the wellsprings outward, spreading the wellsprings outward, as the Rebbe explained when he spoke about it. That’s why there are also several maamarim in Melukat, volumes three and four—there are several volumes. There are maamarim on the third and fourth, I think. There are several maamarim specifically on 15 Sivan, because it now became a period, a time of greater revelation of the inner dimension of Torah. Accordingly, on 15 Sivan each and every one of us must strengthen ourselves. This applies precisely to our own day as well: Although until now this whole matter, this period of the Rebbe’s Geulah, has been a time of darkness, utter darkness, when Moshiach is revealed, it will become clear in retrospect that it was all a preparation for a more exalted revelation of Moshiach. Accordingly, from today onward there needs to be

25:02 Speaker 1 even greater resolve in each and every one of us in all the matters of the month of the Rebbe’s Geulah. As we say, the main thing is action: make use of the time. Tonight is Thursday night; if you can learn a little more Chassidus, so much the better.