Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 4 - Part 1

00:00 Speaker 1 In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain the subject of the garments. This brings us to the subject of Sefer Shel Beinonim, so this point is especially relevant. This is what the Alter Rebbe is working toward, because the point he begins to explain here will explain the avodah of the beinonim. The main avodah of the beinonim is in the garments: thought, speech, and action. So here, in this chapter, we come to the heart of the matter, to understanding what a beinoni is. In any case, the Alter Rebbe begins as follows. Let’s start again from the beginning: “And every divine soul also has three garments.” In addition to what we said earlier—that the soul has ten faculties—it also has three garments. In the previous class, we explained the difference between a faculty and a garment. Broadly speaking, a faculty belongs to the soul. It is part of the soul; it expresses the soul and is connected to its essence. A garment, by contrast, is like the soul’s activity in things outside itself. It does not express the soul’s essence, and that is why it is called a garment, just as with a physical garment. A garment is something a person uses not for himself, but so that he can appear outwardly. It therefore does not express the person’s essence. Likewise, thought, speech, and action reveal the person outwardly, in relation to things outside himself. Within that, there are three garments: thought, speech, and action. In other words, when we speak of a garment, we mean becoming revealed to someone or something outside oneself. And within that revelation, there are three levels of what is outside oneself, corresponding to the three garments.

02:31 Speaker 1 What is this “other” to which the garment reveals something? First, there is the person himself as an “other”—that is, in relation to his own inner self, what we might call his outward self. This is the garment of thought. Thought is a garment that reveals a faculty, but where does it reveal it? To the person himself. Even for that, he needs a garment. He cannot grasp the intellect and emotions as they are in themselves; he needs to clothe them in something external, in letters. Intellect without letters is too abstract; he cannot grasp it. He needs letters in which to clothe the intellect and give it definition. That is the garment of thought: here, the “other” is the person himself. With speech, the “other” is someone outside the person, but someone on his level—another human being. We speak to people. So this “other” is outside the person, but is still of the same order: one person and another. With action, the “other” is not on his level. What action reveals itself to is of a different order. Action is already connected with inanimate things—with doing things involving the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animal, things outside the person and below the human level. These are three kinds of “other,” and they correspond to the three kinds of garments: inner, intermediate, and outer. In any case, what does it mean that the divine soul has three garments? They are thought, speech, and action concerning the Torah’s 613 mitzvos. Since we are speaking about the divine soul, it has only one concern: everything about it is G-dliness. It has no other concerns, so its entire expression is thought, speech, and action concerning the Torah’s 613 mitzvos. When a person fulfills through action all the practical mitzvos,

04:33 Speaker 1 engages in speech with the explanation of all 613 mitzvos and their laws, and comprehends in thought all that he can comprehend of the Torah’s PaRDeS—when a person does this with his thought, speech, and action, using them for G-dliness as described here—then all 613 limbs of his soul are clothed in the Torah’s 613 mitzvos. This causes the 613 limbs of his soul to be clothed in the Torah’s 613 mitzvos. In other words, he is offering an explanation here. It would seem that the Alter Rebbe is adding an explanation of why he calls thought, speech, and action “garments.” According to what we explained, why are they called garments? Because they are external. A garment, an article of clothing, is external; it is how a person acts outwardly, in external matters. In the same way, thought, speech, and action are called external matters. Here the Alter Rebbe adds a deeper explanation: I call them garments because they clothe the soul. That is the main point he is emphasizing: they clothe the soul. In other words, what is the Alter Rebbe adding here? When we speak about a physical garment, there are two aspects to it. On the one hand, as we said, it is simply the means by which a person appears outwardly. If he wants to go out, he needs clothing. The garment covers the person and enables him to appear in public. That is the garment’s external aspect. But a garment also clothes the person to such an extent that you can sometimes recognize the person through it. Not just sometimes—usually, you can recognize something about a person from his clothes. That is to say, the garment also reveals something; it becomes connected with the person

06:48 Speaker 1 to a certain extent. To a certain extent, the garment becomes one with the person. Say you look at someone and want to know whether he is an orderly person or a disorderly person—something that would seem to relate to qualities of the soul. How can you tell? You can look at his clothes. His clothes give me some indication of what he is like, even something about his inner character. I can tell what role a person has. There are soldiers’ uniforms, the clothes of an ordinary person, and the clothes of an important person. So I can get some idea from them. In other words, to a certain extent, the garment becomes connected with the person in a way that reveals something about him—what sort of person he is. Of course, clothes can also conceal, but generally that is a garment’s function: the soul is also revealed through it. The clothing reveals something about the person. That is one reason why garments are called “adornments.” In the Targum on the verse, “A man’s article shall not be on a woman, nor shall a man wear a woman’s garment,” where the verse speaks of wearing, it says, “A man shall not adorn himself with a woman’s adornments.” The word used for garments is “adornments”; that is how the Targum puts it. What does that mean? An adornment improves a person and completes him; it adds something to him. Likewise, in our case, when we speak of a garment of the soul, an adornment of the soul, it means that it completes the soul. And so here too, when we

08:43 Speaker 1 ...and it reaches thought, speech, and action. So the Alter Rebbe adds here that the 613 powers of the soul are clothed in the 613 positive mitzvos. The role of thought, speech, and action is also to give the soul somewhere to be clothed. The soul’s 613 limbs, its 613 powers, are clothed in the 613 positive mitzvos. A person fulfills those mitzvos through the garments of the soul. The 613 mitzvos are not found in the faculties themselves; they are found in the garments. Some mitzvos involve action, and some involve speech and thought. And when a person uses... There is something interesting here, a question that many people ask. When the Alter Rebbe explains the details, there seems to be a serious problem. He wants to explain how thought, speech, and action serve as garments for the 613 positive mitzvos. That is where the 613 positive mitzvos are found. The Alter Rebbe could simply have said: action is for all the mitzvos performed through action, speech for every mitzvah performed through speech, and thought for every mitzvah performed through thought. He could have said plainly that a person fulfills the practical mitzvos through action, the mitzvos of speech through speech, and the mitzvos of thought through thought. That’s it. But the Alter Rebbe does not say that. After all, most mitzvos involve action. There are mitzvos of speech, such as bentching, Shema, davening, and so on. Torah study, of course, is a mitzvah of speech. And there are mitzvos of thought: faith, awe, love, knowledge. So the Alter Rebbe could have said simply that a person fulfills mitzvos through action, mitzvos of speech through speech, and mitzvos of thought through thought. But he does not say that. Regarding action, he speaks of every mitzvah performed through action. Fine—the practical mitzvos. Regarding speech, though, he says something entirely different: “And through speech, he engages in explaining all 613 mitzvos and their laws.” He singles out one particular activity: speech.

11:04 Speaker 1 What does speech mean here? Engaging in explaining the 613 mitzvos. But there are other mitzvos performed through speech. The same question applies to thought. What does he write about thought? “And through thought, he comprehends all that he can comprehend in the Pardes of the Torah.” Comprehension takes place in thought, but there are many other mitzvos of thought. There is faith, knowledge, love, awe—the six constant mitzvos. Those are mitzvos of thought. There are many. So what exactly is the Alter Rebbe getting at here? This question has been asked before, and the Rebbe gave a wonderful explanation. The Rebbe explains that the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize what is distinctive about each garment. Of course there are mitzvos of action, speech, and thought; that is obvious. The Alter Rebbe wants to highlight what each garment adds beyond the one before it. Action is the means of performing practical mitzvos. Speech offers something more than the mitzvos specifically performed through speech: a person can explain all 613 mitzvos. If the Alter Rebbe had mentioned only mitzvos of speech, you would have five, ten, fifteen—however many mitzvos of speech there are. Just a small number. He wants to teach us that through speech, you can also engage with all 613 mitzvos by speaking about their explanations. You study Rambam, you study Sefer Hamitzvos, you study the 613 mitzvos, and through speech you can engage with all 613 mitzvos, not only those of speech. That is the point the Rebbe is making. And the same applies, even more so, to thought. Look, he wants

12:59 Speaker 1 to add something new here. What does thought add beyond the previous two garments, action and speech? With thought, you can also understand. Thought, as a garment, enables comprehension. So when he reaches thought, he adds: “He comprehends all that he can comprehend in the Pardes of the Torah.” What does thought add that speech does not offer to the same extent? Through thought, you can understand the whole Pardes of the Torah: pshat, remez, drush, and sod. That is what is distinctive about thought. Had the Alter Rebbe written only about mitzvos of thought, you would have just a few mitzvos of thought. Instead, thought can engage with pshat, remez, drush, and sod—with every aspect of the Pardes of the Torah. That is very interesting. The Alter Rebbe is adding something here. That is why he does not simply write “mitzvos of thought.” He wants to emphasize the particular advantage of each garment.

13:51 Speaker 2 What is the advantage of action?

13:53 Speaker 1 Hmm?

13:54 Speaker 2 What is the advantage of action?

13:56 Speaker 1 The practical mitzvos.

13:58 Speaker 2 Thought.

13:59 Speaker 1 Hmm? You don’t have that. With action, seemingly, you cannot fulfill all 613 mitzvos through action. How could you? Some mitzvos have nothing to do with action. What? What? What? No, that is not what he says here. Yes, there he is talking about practical mitzvos. Action has a different advantage, and so on. Now, as for the question you are asking, I don’t know exactly how it relates here; it certainly is not the straightforward explanation. But there is a well-known teaching of the Frierdiker Rebbe that the Rebbe quotes many times. The Frierdiker Rebbe says many times in his maamarim that every mitzvah has an element of action, even a mitzvah of thought. One of the significant points the Frierdiker Rebbe makes repeatedly in Chassidus is that every mitzvah involves action. Even a mitzvah of thought or a mitzvah of the heart has an element of action. Indeed, a mitzvah reaches its full measure when it comes to action. That is one of the points the Frierdiker Rebbe makes. Take, for example, the mitzvah of knowing Hashem. That would seem to involve a different kind of avodah. Nevertheless, what is the measure of that mitzvah? It is when a person’s physical brain becomes different, when a physical change takes place in the brain. There are aspects of the brain... Chassidus says that changes take place in the brain. When a person uses his brain a great deal, his physical brain should change. Creases form there, various marks develop; there is a physical change in the brain tissue itself. Only then is it considered that he has fulfilled the mitzvah. If he merely thinks, but no change takes place in his brain, he has not fulfilled the mitzvah of knowing Hashem. The same applies to the mitzvah of loving Hashem, for example. The mitzvah of love is not just an emotion. When do I fulfill the mitzvah of love? When my physical heart begins to beat

15:59 Speaker 1 faster. When a person feels a strong love, it produces movement in the heart; it beats faster. So that is the general idea. In general. Good. Until now, I have been speaking in general terms. When a person fulfills mitzvos, the powers of the soul are clothed in the body—in mitzvos. The Chabad faculties of the soul are clothed specifically in the comprehension of Torah, but that is now a more particular point about those faculties. Until now we have been speaking generally; now we begin to discuss the details. What is the connection between the powers of the soul and its garments? More specifically, the Alter Rebbe says that the Chabad faculties of his soul—the higher powers of the soul, his intellect—are clothed in his comprehension of Torah, which he comprehends in the Pardes of the Torah according to his capacity for understanding and the root of his soul above. There is a mitzvah to know the Torah, and that mitzvah is fulfilled through the garment of thought or speech. Speech is speech, but primarily it is through thought. So when a person thinks about and understands a subject in Torah, the Chabad faculties of his soul, those inner powers, are clothed in the comprehension of Torah. They are clothed in his comprehension of the Torah in the Pardes, “according to his capacity for understanding and the root of his soul above.” A person comprehends Torah according to his capacity. Now, the Alter Rebbe mentions both “his capacity for understanding” and “the root of his soul above.” What does that mean? These are two distinct things. One is his capacity for understanding, and the other is the root of his soul above. What are they? His capacity for understanding simply means the faculties a person has at his disposal—his intellectual faculties. Each person has his own talents, traits, and powers of the soul. One person is wiser; another has greater understanding. Each has his own capacity for understanding, the extent to which he can grasp something. So the Chabad faculties of the soul are clothed in Torah comprehension according to each person’s capacity. There is another factor: the root of his soul above. There is

21:28 Speaker 1 Matters that have nothing to do with a person’s abilities, meaning their talents. Some things have to do with the root of the soul, the root of a person’s soul above. Because of the root of the soul, a person is more connected to one thing than another. For example, one of the well-known stories brought in this connection is the story of the Alshich and the Arizal. What happened? The Alshich was, as is well known, one of the great preachers in the Arizal’s time. He was also in Tzfas. The Alshich was a holy, righteous man and one of the great preachers, but he wanted to study Kabbalah. So he went to the classes. The Arizal taught Kabbalah in the afternoon, and the Alshich would go to study with him. But the moment the Arizal began to speak, he would fall asleep, and he would wake up when the Arizal finished the class. This happened several times, and he felt terrible that he wasn’t able to hear the Arizal’s Kabbalah class. It caused him a great deal of distress. So the Arizal approached him and told him not to be upset. It was because his soul came from the world of derush, not the world of sod. That wasn’t where he belonged. In other words, his soul came down into the world to reveal derush. The Alshich was one of the great preachers. The Alshich’s writings are cited in Chassidus, in Likkutei Torah in several places, and in many places in Chassidus. His area was derush. That was the root of his soul above. He may have had tremendous talent and every other quality, but his soul belonged to derush, not to—not to—grasping those teachings. Along these lines, there’s another story. There’s a story the Rebbe told about the Rogatchover. The Rogatchover was the Rogatchover, an extraordinary genius, with all the brilliance the Rebbe

23:48 Speaker 1 always spoke about. A remarkable genius, and all of that. Once he was with the Rebbe Rashab somewhere, and the Rebbe Rashab discussed a concept in Chassidus. The Rogatchover, despite his level of understanding, didn’t understand it. He began to cry, or something like that. He was upset that he hadn’t understood the depth of the concept. So the Rebbe Rashab told him: “What do you have to be upset about? Der zeide hot dir gebentsht az du zolst zayn a lamdan in nigleh, nisht Chassidus.” The grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, blessed you to be a scholar in nigleh, the revealed part of Torah, not in Chassidus. So your area is nigleh. This was the Rogatchover. He was a chossid, and his father was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek. When he was a young boy, his father brought him to the Tzemach Tzedek, and the Tzemach Tzedek blessed him and told him that when he grew up, he would be a great scholar in nigleh. He also told him to study Tractate Nazir. There’s such a story—the Rebbe once related that he told him to study Tractate Nazir. He was a child, and he understood from this that he had some connection to being a nazir, so he grew his hair. He wasn’t actually a nazir, but he grew his hair because the Tzemach Tzedek had told him to study Tractate Nazir. He took on one practice connected with being a nazir: keeping his hair very long. Anyone who has seen pictures of the Rogatchover can see his long hair, which was connected with the Tzemach Tzedek telling him to study Nazir. The Tzemach Tzedek told you that you would be a scholar in nigleh; he didn’t say Chassidus. So that isn’t your area. In other words, he belonged to the world of nigleh, not the world of sod, the world of Chassidus. Yes. And there are quite a few stories along these lines. The point is that there are two things: one is aptitude and talent; the second is

25:50 Speaker 1 the root of the soul above. Now, I don’t want some young man here to wake up one day and decide that the root of his soul doesn’t belong to a particular path of avodah. First of all, we don’t understand the roots of souls. That’s one thing. Second, plainly, every student connected to Tomchei Temimim is connected to Tomchei Temimim and connected to the Rebbe, so he belongs to all these areas. Right? He belongs to nigleh, to Chassidus, to avodah—to everything. Because he’s connected to the Rebbe, who encompasses everything, he belongs to everything too. That’s one of the advantages we have as chassidim. There’s another story as well. I don’t know if it’s connected, but it sounds related—let’s finish with it. A short story about the Rebbe Rashab. There was once a supervisor in Lubavitch who was very, very strict. How do you say it—very, very tough, a very demanding supervisor. When he took the position, within a few days he expelled dozens of young men from the yeshivah. And they were actually good students. But they were young men immersed in Chassidus, young men devoted to avodah—all sorts of young men. He expelled them all. He said, “A yeshivah is for young men who can sit and study nigleh, Chassidus, everything. A young man who wants to study only one thing can go to a mesivta. He doesn’t belong in the yeshivah.” That was his approach, and he expelled a very large percentage of the students. Word of this reached the Rebbe Rashab. The Rebbe Rashab wasn’t in Lubavitch at the time; he was at the dacha. The Rebbe Rashab expressed himself in these words: “I would like every student to be fully developed in every path—in nigleh,

27:59 Speaker 1 in Chassidus, and in avodah. But if, for a particular young man, one path is stronger than the others, we shouldn’t turn him away. Because for him, one path...” That’s what your Rebbe said. I would like them to develop in every path, but if someone has more success in one path, we shouldn’t turn him away for that. So, since we know what the Rebbe wants—he wants each person to develop in every path—we have the strength to do that.