Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 2 - Part 2

00:00 For a long time, he wanted to understand the meaning of “from above, literally.” It says, “a part of G-d from above, literally.” The words “from above” and “literally” point to two different things. “From above” means the very height of spirituality, the very height of G-dliness, while “literally” suggests something tangible, something substantial. Or, as we said, even within “literally” there are two meanings. On the one hand, it is literally a part of G-d, literally from above. On the other hand, it means something tangible: physicality and materiality, something made real. So the Alter Rebbe answered him—he came back after a few weeks, and the Alter Rebbe told him—that “from above” is ratzo, the movement upward, and “literally” is shov, the return downward. Yes. In other words, these are the two aspects of the soul. They express what the soul is. On the one hand, it is “from above”: a Jew, by virtue of his soul, has the quality of ratzo, a desire to go beyond himself and cleave to G-dliness. On the other hand, he has the quality of shov: to descend, to be in the physical world, and to make a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms. The Rebbe adds a few words that take this deeper. The Rebbe offers a deeper reading of the Alter Rebbe’s explanation. It is not simply that there are two separate aspects, ratzo and shov. The deeper meaning is that it is specifically in the tangible—in shov—that the soul’s essential self is expressed. The point is not that there is one aspect of ratzo and another aspect of shov. Rather, the novel point here is that specifically in the tangible, in shov—in a Jew’s soul-given ability to descend into the physical world and make a dwelling in the lower realms—the soul’s essential nature as literally a part of G-d is expressed even more than in ratzo. This is what is explained in Siddur Im Dach, throughout the maamarim: the advantage of shov over ratzo. A Jew has both ratzo and shov.

02:20 Ratzo is the soul’s yearning to expire in its longing for Hashem; it wants to become nullified to Him. But where is a Jew’s deeper bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu expressed? Not in ratzo. Specifically in shov, in the fact that a Jew descends and does not do what he himself wants. On the one hand, the soul wants G-dliness; it wants to cleave to G-dliness. That is what the soul wants. But true bittul means that the soul does not do what it wants, but what Hashem wants. And what does Hashem want? Hashem wants a dwelling in the lower realms—shov. So it follows that shov comes specifically from a deeper bittul, a deeper level. A Jew’s ability to descend into the physical world and create a dwelling in the lower realms comes from a higher source. That is what it means that specifically in the tangible, in what is “literal,” the soul’s being literally a part of G-d is expressed: its truest source, which gives it precisely the ability to descend and make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms. That is the meaning. It says of Rabbi Akiva that he “entered in peace and departed in peace.” Rabbi Akiva, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, and Elisha ben Avuyah entered the Pardes; they had ratzo. One died, one was harmed, and each met his own fate because of that ratzo. Rabbi Akiva, specifically, entered in peace and departed in peace, because of his true bittul to G-dliness. He did not think about his own desires. He thought about what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted: to descend here below and make a dwelling in the lower realms. And it is specifically in this that the soul’s true source is expressed—its ability to descend and make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms. This is what the Alter Rebbe did with Rabbi Rommel[unclear]. They both reached a state where their souls wanted to expire in longing, and in the middle of it the Alter Rebbe suddenly got up and went to eat a bagel with butter. The Alter Rebbe said that this was the whole purpose. Rabbi Rommel[unclear] came to him and shouted at him: We were

04:16 already almost at the very highest level of ratzo, and you went to eat such coarse, physical things! And not just to eat—a bagel, and not only a bagel but butter too, with all the... So the Alter Rebbe told him that this is the point: yes, remain in the world. That is why it is written that the Maggid was grateful to the Alter Rebbe throughout his life for saving his son, Reb Avraham the Malach. In other words, Reb Avraham the Malach was on a very high level; he was an angel, a seraph. The Alter Rebbe was on an even higher level, and he was a new soul. His source in this regard was higher, and so the Alter Rebbe had the ability to bring about shov, to bring him back down into this world. By the way, since we are talking about this, there is a sicha on the subject that you will find interesting. It is very interesting that we also see this later, after the Maggid’s passing. For a time, the Maggid’s son, Reb Avraham the Malach, was the Rebbe and continued the leadership after the passing, but only for a short time—half a year. Afterward, he said he was not suited to being a leader. A leader has to be a person with his feet on the ground, and he was completely removed from the world, so he could not... For half a year after the Maggid’s passing, Reb Avraham the Malach continued, until he stopped. There is a very interesting letter that the Alter Rebbe wrote to Reb Avraham the Malach with complete and absolute bittul, with awe and utter deference. At that time the Alter Rebbe accepted Reb Avraham the Malach as his teacher. He wrote to him after the Maggid’s passing, and you can see the extent of his bittul. Although they had been study partners, you can see the Alter Rebbe’s complete bittul toward Reb Avraham the Malach. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe

05:59 writes a letter to Reb Avraham the Malach. What does he write? The Alter Rebbe writes—and several of the students write to him as well—that they see him practicing self-denial and fasting, and they want to remind him of what the Maggid, their Rebbe, taught them: a person must take care of his physical health. The Maggid said that a small hole in the body makes a large hole in the soul. In other words, as is well known, if a person does not take care of his body and a small breach develops in his physical health, it makes a large breach in his soul. It prevents him from seeing Hashem. They want to tell Reb Avraham the Malach to remember what his father said, and also that before his passing, his father instructed them to look after his son—to see that he took care of his physical health and did not engage in self-denial and fasting. We see this point again and again: Reb Avraham the Malach had a tendency to detach himself from the world, and the Alter Rebbe was charged with bringing him back into the world, bringing about shov, the descent below. In any case, that is the meaning of the Alter Rebbe’s explanation. The Alter Rebbe continues as follows. The Alter Rebbe says here further: “The second soul in a Jew is a part of G-d from above,” as it is written, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” So the Alter Rebbe brings proof from verses. One verse says, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Then he brings another phrase: “And You breathed it into me.” “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” is a verse in Tehillim. “And You breathed it into me” is in the siddur. It is in the siddur itself. So you see, it is in the siddur; we say it in the wording of the prayers: “And You breathed it into me.” The Alter Rebbe first brings the straightforward verse, proof from Scripture. But that verse is speaking about Adam Harishon. The Alter Rebbe

07:56 He wants to bring proof that this is speaking about a Jew. The verse about Adam HaRishon, “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life,” could be explained by the fact that Adam HaRishon was an all-encompassing soul. He included all the souls of Israel, as stated in several seforim. But what do I have so far? That verse explicitly refers to Adam HaRishon. The Alter Rebbe adds the verse, “And You blew into me,” which every Jew says about his own individual soul. So we see the point: both “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life” and “You blew into me” use the language of blowing, specifically when it comes to the soul. Both the Torah and the prayers use this expression. What is the emphasis in this wording? As it says, “Whoever blows, blows from within himself.” Someone who blows does so from his innermost self. That is, he forcefully brings out, through his breath, the innermost life-force within him. A person blows from within, and it is through blowing that this inner dimension comes out. He forcefully brings out the innermost life-force within him through his breath. So what is the Rebbe coming to explain here? What does the Rebbe want to explain with this idea? He has already said that the soul is “an actual part of G-d above.” The Rebbe is coming to explain the soul’s unique quality at its source. What does it mean that it is a part of G-d above? There is the well-known question everyone always asks when learning Tanya—or even when they are not learning Tanya at all: What is the difference between a Jew and all other creations? After all, all creations come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, all creations come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and every creation contains a G-dly spark. We said earlier that the animal soul comes from kelipah. But kelipah is only a shell; it is external. Inside the shell there is a fruit. In other words, there is a G-dly spark in every single thing, including the animal soul. So

09:46 after all, what is the difference between the soul, the second soul within a Jew, and the animal soul—and, for that matter, all other creations? They all have something from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, a G-dly spark that gives them life, and that is the true reality of everything. So the Rebbe comes to explain this point, and he explains it through the idea of blowing. What do we see? We see that throughout the Ten Utterances, when speaking of all creations, the Torah uses the language of saying, of speech, through which they were created. It says “And He said” throughout: “And G-d said, ‘Let there be light’”; “Let us make man.” It is all expressed in the language of saying. But when it comes to the soul, the Torah changes its wording and says “He blew.” Now, we understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not literally speak or blow. The Torah uses language that alludes to a particular meaning. The language of saying and the language of blowing allude to the difference between the way all other creations are connected to their source and come into being, and the way a soul comes into being. With all other creations, their coming into being is described as a form of saying. With the soul, it is described as a form of blowing. How do we understand the difference between them? Let’s understand the difference between these things. What is the difference? I’ll put it simply: when a person says something, there are words; blowing is breath without words. But on a deeper level, what is the difference? When someone speaks, he expends a little strength; when he blows, he expends a great deal of strength. But the difference is not merely one of quantity. Otherwise, I would be saying that the whole difference between a Jew and a non-Jew, or between the G-dly soul and the animal soul, is just whether there is a little G-dly life-force or a lot of G-dly life-force. That is not the only difference. We need to properly understand the difference between saying

11:38 and blowing, which is actually a difference from one extreme to the other. In simple words, the difference between saying and blowing is this: saying is external; blowing is internal. Saying, speaking, is how a person relates to someone outside himself. Speech is directed toward another person, and so the breath a person gives off when he speaks is breath meant for someone else to receive. He brings out only the external aspect of his breath—what the other person needs to hear—and that is enough for speech. In other words, the breath involved in saying something is external breath, breath meant for someone else. Blowing, by contrast, is when a person brings out an inner breath, one that is not meant for someone else but expresses the strength he has within him. When a person wants to show how much strength he can exert, he blows. This is what it says, and it is also brought in halachah. The Rebbe cites the Shulchan Aruch: in the laws of shofar blowing, we find that the mitzvah of blowing the shofar should be performed with such effort that the face of the one blowing turns red. A person blows the shofar, he blows, he exerts all his strength, and his face turns red. That shows he is putting his inner self into it. In any case, the difference between saying and blowing is the difference between the external and the internal. Or, in other words, between oneself and another. In blowing, it is a person drawing on his own strength, according to his own capacity and inner self. Saying, by contrast, is external—what is meant for someone else. And that is the difference between all creations and the soul. As we said, everything comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But all things are said to come through speech. What does that mean? That they come from the external dimension, from the powers of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and therefore the creations that result are separate from G-dliness and conceal

13:36 G-dliness. That explains why we said earlier that they are considered like a kelipah, which conceals the truth. Because speech is external and separate from the person, what comes from it is likewise something external and separate. In the same way, all creations were created through speech, so they became separate entities. They do not reveal G-dliness; they do not have an inner connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The soul, by contrast, has an inner connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That means the soul comes from the innermost, essential dimension of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is another difference. There really is another difference between saying and blowing—a very simple one—but the Rebbe does not mention it here; he discusses it later in Igeres Hateshuvah. There is another very simple difference between saying and blowing. Quite simply, if I speak and there is a wall in between, people on the other side can hear what I say. But if I blow and there is a wall in between, the breath does not reach the other side. If I am just blowing air, the wall stops it. What does that mean? With blowing, the breath must remain continuously connected to the place it comes from. With speech, by contrast, something can stand in the way and the words can still reach the other side. In other words, a barrier does not prevent them from getting through. This too is part of the analogy: a Jew’s connection is like blowing. That means a Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one that does not become separated or disconnected. It is a direct connection. All other creations, by contrast, come into being through speech, so it is, as it were, as though something could stand between them and their source. In other words, a created being does not have to be in direct connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu

15:39 It is. A neshamah, by contrast, is in direct contact with Hakadosh Boruch Hu at all times. We won’t go into much detail about that. So let’s come to the point. There is an explanation of the Rebbe’s in Tanya. Anyone who wants to look in volume 39, in the explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah, will find the Rebbe’s explanation of what this detail in the analogy adds to the previous detail. This isn’t the place to elaborate. In any case, the point he emphasizes here is the special quality of the neshamah: it comes through Hashem’s breathing. Now there’s a very interesting distinction here, which shows how precise every word in Tanya is—and not just every word, but every letter. The Rebbe was exacting about every single letter. There’s a wonderful observation from the Rebbe here that shows just how precise every letter in Tanya is. The Alter Rebbe quotes the wording of the siddur: “And You breathed into me.” Look in the siddur and you’ll see two differences between the wording he quotes and the wording there. The siddur says “You,” without a vav; the Alter Rebbe adds a vav: “And You.” The siddur says, “You breathed into me.” It does say, “And You preserve it within me,” but “You breathed into me” has no vav. “You breathed into me.” The second difference is that the siddur writes “nafachtah” with a heh, while the Alter Rebbe writes “nafachta” without a heh. So the Alter Rebbe made two changes to the wording of the siddur. Now, the Rebbe cites various references to other versions that provide a source for this wording: versions that, as in Tanya, have “And You” with a vav and “nafachta” without a heh. He cites the Rambam’s version and other versions as well. Fine, that can answer where the wording came from: the Alter Rebbe found another version, and the text follows that version exactly. But the question remains: Why did the Alter Rebbe change the wording of the siddur in Tanya? That brings us to “nafachta.” First—

17:37 All this is before we get to the inner meaning. First, though, there’s a problem we need to address. When discussing “nafachta,” the Rebbe says that its being written here without a heh might simply be a typesetter’s mistake. This is something the Rebbe spoke about a great deal. In many letters, he gives the same answer to many questions: there used to be such a thing as a typesetter. People worked in the print shop. It wasn’t like today, when everything is done on a computer—though even today the same thing could happen. Back then, a typesetter was the person responsible for setting the letters in print. He wasn’t necessarily a great Torah scholar, and he made all kinds of mistakes. Many difficulties can be resolved by pointing to those typesetters’ mistakes. Be that as it may, here is what happened: in the first printing of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe wrote “nafachta” with a small mark over the tav. There was this little mark. “Nafachta.” Sometimes, when you reach the end of a line, there’s no room. So he wrote “nafachta” with a little mark. The typesetter had to decide: Why would there be a mark here? “Nafachta” works perfectly well without it. It’s a word, a perfectly good word. It looked fine without anything added. So he left out the mark and the heh, and that is how it remained. That’s one possibility. But on the level of allusion, there may be more to it. So what was the mistake at its root? Since this is how it appears in our editions of Tanya and how it has remained, the Rebbe says we can explain that it really contains a secret. There is a deep reason for the Alter Rebbe’s two changes. First, the vav. Chassidus explains that a vav alludes to a drawing down

19:23 from above to below. That is the letter vav—the vav in “and the Awesome One,” in the phrase “the Great, the Mighty, and the Awesome.” The vav represents a drawing down from above the order of hishtalshelus. “And the Awesome One”: chessed and gevurah are the lines of the unlimited and the limited. The vav of “and the Awesome One” represents a drawing down of the concealed level of tiferes, from the essence that is above all revelation. So with the wording “And You breathed into me,” the Alter Rebbe alludes to this vav, the source of the neshamah in “And You.” The vav points to the essence above all revelation, from which the neshamah within the body is drawn. The source from which the neshamah in the body is drawn comes from there. That is the significance of the vav in “And You.” Now let’s come to “nafachta.” The Rebbe says something wonderful. What difference does it make whether we say “nafachtah” with a heh or “nafachta” without one? If I say “nafachtah” with a heh, I’m speaking about the neshamah: “You breathed it.” In other words, “nafachtah” refers to the neshamah. If I say “nafachta” without a heh, the focus is on Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “You breathed.” You are the One who breathed. When it is written without a heh, we reflect on the source of the breath: You are the One who breathed. With a heh, it means You breathed it. So, he says, if it had said “nafachtah” with a heh—“You breathed the neshamah”—I might have thought that the neshamah itself does not come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Perhaps it comes from some level within the order of hishtalshelus. The neshamah itself might have its source at a level within hishtalshelus, whether a low level or a high one, but still within hishtalshelus. The neshamah itself would not be “a part of G-d above,” not of the Essence. Rather, what would “And You breathed it,” with a heh, mean? That You brought the neshamah into the body through the act of breathing. Who joined the neshamah to the body? Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The power of the Essence is needed to join the neshamah and the body, and that is also true. Chassidus does say that joining soul and body means joining two opposites, and that requires the power of the Essence. But who

21:31 says that the neshamah itself comes from the Essence? Perhaps the neshamah itself is on some limited level, and only the joining of neshamah and body is accomplished by the Essence. When it is written without a heh, by contrast, “nafachta” means “And You breathed”—the focus is on the Essence. We are saying that the neshamah itself comes from the very Essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the Alter Rebbe specifically omitted the heh to emphasize the nature of the neshamah’s source. “And You breathed”: from where did Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathe forth the neshamah? He brought it forth from “And You,” from the Essence. That, then, explains why the Alter Rebbe specifically omitted the heh: to emphasize that the neshamah itself comes from the Essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We see how exact every letter in Tanya is. The vav was added deliberately, and “nafachta” was written without a heh deliberately, to underscore the Alter Rebbe’s proof that the source of the neshamah’s essence is not within the order of hishtalshelus, but in the very Essence, in the innermost Essence. Now, we’ve come to the subject in Hilchos Beis Habechirah. We’ve already learned chapter 2 of Hilchos Beis Habechirah, about the altar. Regarding the altar, the Rambam says that its foundation was not entirely complete. Yes, there was a section of the altar’s foundation that was absent. There was one cubit on this side and one cubit on that side without a foundation. The foundation did not go all the way around the altar. Presumably the teacher explained the reason for that. Why didn’t the foundation go all the way around the altar? What explanation was given? Who remembers? In halachah 10, the Rambam says that the altar’s foundation extended one cubit along the south and one cubit along the east, but the southeastern corner had no foundation. At that corner, where east and south meet, there was no foundation. There’s a dispute among the halachic authorities about what that means: Was the foundation missing for only one cubit, yes, or one cubit on this side and one cubit on

23:44 On this side, or the other way around. Only one cubit had a foundation, and the rest had no foundation. There is a dispute about exactly how it was. What does it mean that it cut away a cubit on this side and a cubit on that side? Was there only a cubit of foundation on each side, or was there just one cubit without a foundation? Either way, the foundation was not complete. According to the revealed dimension of Torah, what is the explanation? It is because the altar was in Binyamin’s portion. The Beis Hamikdash was built in such a way that part of it belonged to Yehudah’s portion and part belonged to Binyamin’s portion—Yehudah and Binyamin. We find this in the verses. Now, the altar had to be specifically in Binyamin’s portion, not Yehudah’s. “Binyamin is a wolf who tears his prey” refers to the altar, which consumes the offerings. Since it had to be specifically in Binyamin’s portion, a piece was missing: Yehudah’s border entered at that very spot. That was exactly where Binyamin’s portion ended and Yehudah’s began. So that whole area belonging to the tribe of Yehudah could not be part of the altar; it had to be in Binyamin’s portion. That is the plain explanation. But why, really? What would have been so terrible if a little bit of the altar extended into Yehudah’s portion? What bothers you so much? Why should it matter if a little bit of the altar—one small cubit there—extended into Yehudah’s portion? Who would that bother? And why did it have to be precisely the foundation? Everything about the altar was exact. What is hinted at here? And specifically, part of the foundation was left out. So there is a very beautiful explanation from the Rebbe’s father, Reb Levi. He writes that the foundation of the altar alludes to Yosef, since Yosef corresponds to the sefirah of Yesod. Thus, “a tzaddik is the foundation of the world.” Yosef HaTzaddik corresponds to the sefirah of Yesod. This also brings us to the seven

25:50 shepherds: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef and David. So Yosef corresponds to the sefirah of Yesod. Since Yesod is connected with Yosef, and Yehudah was the one who sold Yosef, Yehudah and Yosef did not go together; they did not get along, because Yehudah sold Yosef. So the foundation could not be in Yehudah’s portion. And particularly according to the inner dimension of Torah, Yehudah corresponds to Malchus and Yosef corresponds to Yesod. Yehudah is Malchus; Yosef is Yesod. The foundation of the altar could not be in Yehudah’s portion, which corresponds to the sefirah of Malchus. You see how precise everything is in Kabbalah, all these details. Okay.