Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 3 - Part 5

00:00 Daas. He says that if a person lacks daas, even if he has chochmah and binah, he will not come to genuine love and fear, but only to vain imaginings. Now, what does “vain imaginings” mean? There is imagination, and there is vain imagination. An imagining might have some basis to it. A vain imagining is utterly baseless. In other words, the fear produced by chochmah and binah without daas—when the element of daas we discussed is missing, when the investment is missing—is not really fear at all, even if the person thinks he has it. One of the students pointed out to me that “vain” is much further from the truth. There is an explanation here that speaks of two kinds of imaginings: falsehood and vanity. It is not so simple to change the meaning, but since this is how it is brought in our source, there is room for it. He says the difference between falsehood and vanity is like the difference between a false oath and a vain oath. A false oath is when someone lies. He says that day is night, or night is day. But what is a vain oath? It is an oath with no purpose. What he says may be true, not necessarily false, but the oath serves no purpose. Someone says, “It is night now,” and swears to it. Fine, what you are saying is true, but the oath has no point, no purpose. So that

02:22 is called a vain oath. What he means is that “vain imaginings” refers to two things. First of all, the fear he thinks he has is false. Even if he thinks he has fear, it is an imagining—a false imagining. He understood the idea, but he did not bind himself to it; he lacks daas. So it is false. And even any fear he does feel is “vain,” meaning that it serves no purpose. It will not produce the result the middos are meant to produce. Even if he does have some feeling of love—he does feel something—that feeling is vain. It will not bring about what fear is supposed to bring about. That is the simple meaning. And so he concludes the chapter by saying: “For daas is what sustains the middos and gives them life.” That is why daas matters so much. Daas sustains the middos and gives them life. Those are two things. Sustaining the middos means, quite simply, that they endure over time, rather than coming and going without leaving anything behind. Daas is what makes them endure. And “gives them life” means that the middos are alive. So daas accomplishes two things. When someone has chochmah and binah but lacks daas, what happens? Even if love and fear are aroused in him, they do not

04:25 endure. Because he has not become united with the idea, because he has not internalized it, it has not become part of him. The moment he turns to something else, he will completely forget that love and fear. Nothing will remain; they have no staying power. Second, when daas is lacking, even the love and fear he does have are without life. They may be love and fear, but they are not alive—not with their full force, their full energy. But when they come through daas, daas makes the middos last. The feeling of love remains with him for a time, for a long time. And not only does it endure; it is alive. I once heard [unclear] speak about “giving them life.” In Russia—I do not know exactly who it was—an elder chossid was brought in to teach them Tanya. When he reached this passage about sustaining the middos and giving them life, he would tell a story. What does it mean for love and fear to be alive, rather than merely to exist? So he would tell them a story. As you know, in the way Tanya was taught, certain things were passed down deliberately. This was how chassidim taught other chassidim; they were very careful not to introduce new ideas. In any case, he told a story about the Tzemach Tzedek and an uncle of his called Feter Yossele. Feter Yossele was one of the great chassidim. Yossele the Maggid, Yossele of [unclear]—he had several names. He was an uncle of the Tzemach Tzedek, if I am not

06:27 mistaken. He was [unclear], and he was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek. He was an exceptionally good man. Yossele the Maggid’s role was to serve as an emissary collecting funds. What did that mean? He traveled from town to town collecting money for the Tzemach Tzedek, for the yeshiva [unclear]. Then he would come to the Tzemach Tzedek and bring him the whole collection, the entire bundle of money. He noticed that every time the Tzemach Tzedek received it, he sorted the money into groups: one group here, another there, and another. Once he noticed that the Tzemach Tzedek would take a few coins and set them aside. He wanted to know which coins the Tzemach Tzedek was setting aside, so he began checking. He noticed that it was always the same amount that he received from Reb Nechemiah Dovid of Brod, one of the Tzemach Tzedek’s great chassidim. But he still could not be sure that these were the actual coins Reb Nechemiah had given. It might have been the same amount, but who knew whether they were the very same coins? So the next time, he made a mark for himself to check whether it really was the same money. He placed those coins in different places, far apart, so they would not all be together. He wanted to see whether the Tzemach Tzedek would take out precisely the coins he had received from Reb Chaim of Brod. And then he saw the Tzemach Tzedek receive the bag with all the money, search through it, and take out

08:24 a coin from here and another from there. He took out exactly the coins of Reb Chaim of Brod and set them aside. Reb Yossele could hardly contain himself. “Ah! How could that be?” He could not believe it. The coins all looked the same, yet the Tzemach Tzedek knew exactly which ones came from Reb Chaim of Brod. He cried out in amazement: “How did the Rebbe know these were Reb Chaim of Brod’s coins?” The Tzemach Tzedek told him, “I didn’t know.” He said, “I didn’t know these were Reb Chaim of Brod’s coins.” What did he mean? The Tzemach Tzedek explained that he had not known whose coins they were. Rather, when a person gives tzedakah with vitality, the coin has vitality. A person gives tzedakah with love and fear, with life, and you can see that life in the coin. According to the degree of vitality he puts into the mitzvah, you can see a certain spirit of life in the coin. You can look at it and see that it is a lively coin. That was how he sorted them into groups. There were different levels among the coins, according to the life with which they had been given. These few coins always had a special vitality. He did not even know they were from Reb Chaim of Brod; he only saw that they had a particular vitality. In any case, as I was saying, Reb Kaduri related that his mashpia, who had given him permission [unclear], explained the matter of

10:25 For daas sustains the middos and gives them life. There is this matter of life. In other words, when a person does a mitzvah—whatever mitzvah it may be—and does it with daas, with a connection, it is alive. It becomes something alive. This applies to tzedakah, too. Even a physical coin, when it is given as it should be, has that life in it. Just as love and awe, when they are accompanied by daas, have an entirely different vitality. They are utterly alive. It is a different kind of life. You cannot compare the two. The Alter Rebbe continues: “Therefore daas sustains the middos and gives them life, and it encompasses chesed and gevurah, meaning love and its branches, and awe and its branches.” Daas encompasses both ends, both lines—chesed and gevurah. [unclear] That is why there are sometimes four faculties of the mind in tefillin. There is this concept of four faculties: chochmah and binah, and daas divided into chesed and gevurah. That is why there are four passages in tefillin, corresponding to this concept. Daas is sometimes divided into chesed and gevurah for this very reason: daas gives the middos their life. So daas itself is sometimes divided in two, into chesed and gevurah. What do chesed and gevurah mean? Since the Alter Rebbe is speaking here in the terminology of Kabbalah, but wants to speak primarily about avodah—how this plays out in our avodah, in love and awe—he explains what he means by chesed and gevurah: “love and its branches, and awe and its branches.” Here the Alter Rebbe could have said directly, “and it encompasses love and awe.” Instead he says “chesed and gevurah,” and then explains, “love and its branches, and awe and its branches.” Why do that? He could simply have said, “and it encompasses love and awe.” There are letters in which the Alter Rebbe explains this.

12:31 Someone once asked the Alter Rebbe that question, and he explained that in the works of Kabbalah, the wording is always that daas encompasses chesed and gevurah. So the Alter Rebbe takes that wording and explains it. He says that daas encompasses chesed and gevurah, and then adds, “meaning…” He explains it and brings it to our subject: love and its branches, and awe and its branches. The Alter Rebbe is teaching us that it is not only chesed and gevurah. Chesed and gevurah are at the root. There are love and its branches, and awe and its branches. Chesed has branches, and awe has branches. Those are the other middos, which the Alter Rebbe has already explained here. The other middos—netzach, hod, yesod, and so on—are all, apparently, branches of love and awe. What does “branches” mean? Why do we say the other middos are branches of love and awe? When it comes to tiferes, everyone understands. We mentioned that tiferes is associated with compassion: it has something of love in it and something of awe. That is understandable from what I have explained. But why are netzach, hod, and yesod also called branches? The basic point is that netzach is a branch of chesed. What is a branch? On the one hand, a branch is no longer the thing itself—it extends outward. But it is still a continuation of it. That is what a branch is. The same applies here when we say “love and its branches”: netzach is a branch of love. What does that mean? Love is a feeling one person has for another—a feeling of closeness, of attachment, of cleaving to the other. It exists

14:51 between one person and another. That is love: it is a feeling. And because I love the other person, I give to him. The giving is based on the feeling of love. That is what love is. What, then, is netzach? Netzach means that he does not feel love, but he gives nonetheless. Netzach is related to the word for overcoming: he overcomes himself. Right now he is in a state where he has no feeling of love. But the expression of love—the giving—will happen anyway. Although I do not feel it, I will still give. So here we have a branch of chesed. There is giving, but without the inner feeling. That is why it is called a branch. We will explain much more about this when we reach the other middos of netzach, hod, and yesod. We will not go into it now. For now, the point is that daas encompasses chesed and gevurah—love and its branches, and awe and its branches—and all the other middos are branches of love and awe. The Rebbe once discussed an interesting point in a maamar, and also spoke about it several times in sichos. Hayom Yom says that when the Tzemach Tzedek was born, on Erev Rosh Hashanah 5550, the Alter Rebbe delivered a maamar on material that became part of Tanya. The Alter Rebbe began delivering the material of Tanya in 5550 and continued until 5553, covering all its chapters. What it says there is that on the day the Tzemach Tzedek was born, the Alter Rebbe delivered a maamar containing the substance of the first three chapters of Tanya. In other words, from chapter one through this point, the Alter Rebbe delivered it as a single maamar. That means it is one unit, one subject. And when did he deliver it? On the very day the Tzemach Tzedek was born: Erev Rosh Hashanah

16:57 5550. The Rebbe said there is something remarkable here. What does the maamar discuss? At its conclusion it speaks about daas, and it is known that the Tzemach Tzedek corresponds to the sefirah of daas. Each Rebbe is associated with a sefirah. The Alter Rebbe corresponds to chochmah: his teachings were written in the manner of chochmah—briefly, as points, as insights in concentrated form. The Mitteler Rebbe corresponds to binah, with its breadth of explanation. Then came the Tzemach Tzedek, who corresponds to daas. He joined the point with the breadth, connecting the two. That is why the Tzemach Tzedek drew so extensively on the Alter Rebbe’s teachings, while also contributing something of his own. He connected the detailed explanations that came afterward from the Mitteler Rebbe to the Alter Rebbe’s points of chochmah. He also had this ability to bring those ideas into the middos, to bring them down into practice. That is what daas does: it sustains the middos and gives them life. This was also connected with the fact that, physically, the Tzemach Tzedek had seven sons. Daas encompasses and gives rise to the middos. It says there that he had six sons. There is an entire discussion of this in one of the sichos—six sons or seven sons. He had seven sons, and one passed away young. Right.