Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 4 - Part 5

00:01 Below. Six lines from the bottom—that’s where the new point begins. Ah, we’re up to the part after the period there. Here the Alter Rebbe begins a new subject. Until now, the Alter Rebbe has explained that the G-dly soul has three garments: the garments of Torah and mitzvos. They are called garments. Thought, speech, and action are the garments of the soul; the soul clothes itself in them. The intellect clothes itself in thought, in understanding Torah, and the emotions clothe themselves in the fulfillment of mitzvos through action and speech. The emotion of love clothes itself primarily in doing them, and the emotion of awe clothes itself primarily in turning away from evil. So that is what he has explained until now. What is the Alter Rebbe coming to explain now? On a simple level, we learn that thought, speech, and action are the garments, and the soul clothes itself in thought, speech, and action. So it would seem obvious that the soul is primary and the garments are secondary. That’s how it is physically, right? When a person wears clothes, there is the person and there are the clothes he is wearing. Which is primary? Obviously, the person is primary and the clothes are secondary. We’re learning about primary and secondary in Shulchan Aruch now. Yes, there is a primary thing and a secondary thing. The person is primary, and the clothes he wears are secondary to him. They are external to the person. More than that: not only are they secondary, but the person has an effect on the clothes. In other words, clothes on their own aren’t worth anything. I mean, they have value, but what I’m saying is that they have no content. Clothes on their own, without anything else, have no significance. When do clothes gain significance? When they serve the person—that is, when a person wears them. On their own, the clothes are inanimate matter or something from the plant kingdom. They are made of whatever they are made of. When a person wears these clothes, he elevates them to his level. They become something that serves him. They

02:49 become a means for the person, so the clothes are elevated through the person. That’s how it is physically. And seemingly, it’s the same in the spiritual realm, with spiritual garments: thought, speech, and action. On their own, thought, speech, and action are entirely external things. They are letters. What is thought? Letters. Thought on its own, without intellect or emotion, is letters without content. A person can think nonsense. He can think all sorts of things that have no substance at all. The same is true of speech. A person can talk and talk and talk without saying a single word of substance. He talks a lot of nonsense. And the same can be true of action. In other words, the garments on their own have no content. When do the garments gain content? When are they elevated? When they serve as garments for the intellect and emotions. When the intellect clothes itself in thought and the emotions clothe themselves in speech and action, they elevate the garments. So which is primary and which is secondary? Obviously, the soul and the powers of the soul are primary here, and the garments are secondary. The garments are elevated through the soul. They are uplifted through the soul. If a person does something without vitality, the action is a lowly, dry action—an action without any vitality. When he has vitality in it, the action becomes a more elevated action. It is a different kind of action, as we were discussing earlier. That, seemingly, is what has been implied until now. That is the straightforward way to understand it, if we follow reason: the primary thing is what is clothed in the garment. In our case, that is the soul. The powers of the soul are primary, and the garments are secondary, external. Now the Alter Rebbe comes along and makes a great reversal. It is the great reversal of Yiddishkeit as a whole, but it is what Chassidus reveals

04:57 to us and explains to us, and this is where the Alter Rebbe begins it. This is the great reversal with which the Alter Rebbe opens our eyes. What is it about Torah and mitzvos that makes it exactly the opposite? When it comes to the G-dly soul engaging in Torah and mitzvos, it is the reverse. The garment is primary. Precisely the opposite: the garment is primary—thought, speech, and action. The soul is secondary by comparison. On the contrary, the garments elevate the soul; they bring about its elevation. The opposite of what we were just saying. He says: “Now, these three garments, which come from the Torah and its mitzvos, although they are called garments of the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah.” Although we say they are only garments—and as we explained, a garment would seem to be something external, something lower, only a garment. Which is primary? The person inside the garment. And the same would seem to apply here to the soul. Nevertheless, here it is the opposite: “Their level is immeasurably higher and greater than the level of the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah.” This is the great new point: with the G-dly soul, it is the other way around. Thought, speech, and action—the garments—have a greater quality than the G-dly soul itself. “Their level is immeasurably higher and greater than the level of the nefesh, ruach, and neshamah.” Why? We are talking about the G-dly soul, not just any soul—the G-dly soul, its intellect and its emotions. And yet we say that the garments are greater. He explains it as follows: As it says in the Zohar, “The Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” What are thought, speech, and action—the garments of Torah and mitzvos? They are the garments of Torah and mitzvos: thought, speech, and action in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. Since we are speaking here about the mitzvos of the Torah, “the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” What does “Torah” mean here?

07:16 Hashem’s wisdom and will—that is Torah. The Alter Rebbe explains its meaning. The Alter Rebbe adds an interpretation here, because on a simple level, “Torah” means just Torah. The Alter Rebbe introduces the novel point that here it means not only Torah but mitzvos as well. That is a novel point. The Rebbe even leaves the reasoning behind this as a question requiring further study. But in practice, that is how the Alter Rebbe understands the passage: “Torah” here means both Torah and mitzvos. Hashem’s wisdom and will, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, are entirely one. So it follows that these garments of Torah and mitzvos have this quality: Torah is one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the quality of the garments. For He is the Knower and He is the Knowledge. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is the Knower, and the Torah, which is the Knowledge, are one. “The Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one,” as quoted above in the name of the Zohar. So this is what the Alter Rebbe is explaining here. What does that mean? What quality do the garments have, to the extent that I say their level is immeasurably higher and greater? Not just a little higher. The quality of thought, speech, and action—the garments—is beyond comparison to the soul. Why such a difference? Because, as explained here, it is the difference between Creator and created being. Everyone understands that the difference between Creator and created being is the greatest possible difference. One is a created being, and the other is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There can be no greater difference. That, he says, is the distinction here. The nefesh, ruach, and neshamah are all created beings. Intellect is created; chochmah, binah, and daas are intellect. Nothing is higher than the intellect of the G-dly soul, but it, too, is created. After all, “You created it, You formed it, You breathed it into me.” The soul

09:21 At its root in G-dliness, all of that is well and good. But in practice, “You created it”: it is a created being, and the intellect of the G-dly soul is the intellect of a created being. So however much a person understands and grasps G-dliness, apart from the mitzvah involved, the very faculty of intellect that he uses is created and limited. What is it? A created being. The same is true of love. Even though his love is love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the point here is not Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it is love. Love is an emotional attribute of a created being. It connects the soul to G-dliness; his love is directed toward G-dliness. But all of this is still a created being connecting himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Ultimately, that is what intellect and emotions have in common: they are created. Thought, speech, and action, by contrast, are of the Creator. When I fulfill a mitzvah, say words of Torah, think words of Torah, or do something—put on tefillin, perform a mitzvah in action, speech, or thought—there I have the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There it is not a created being but the Creator: the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, His wisdom, and the mitzvos that express His will are one, and that is the difference. The gap is so vast that the garments—the garments of thought, speech, and action—are of the Creator; they are the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The soul, by contrast, is created. So although the garments would seem to be only garments, we say that their stature and greatness are infinitely higher, because they are the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That gives us the exact opposite of what we are used to. Ordinarily, we understand that the soul is primary and the garments serve it, as we said. Here it is precisely the opposite: the garment is primary. It is

11:18 primary. The garment is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, found specifically in the garments of thought, speech, and action. And the soul is elevated through the garment. When a person uses his soul to bring life into the mitzvos, the mitzvah remains primary. As it says regarding mitzvos, what matters most is the actual deed. The main thing is to fulfill the mitzvah in practice. Action is the main thing. As the Rebbe proclaims so emphatically, “The deed is the main thing.” A person can sit all day concentrating on lofty intentions, feeling deep feelings, having love and awe, being, as people say, “a Jew at heart”—with all his Yiddishkeit in his heart. Nothing has happened. The finest feelings, but nothing will come of them. By contrast, if a person actually fulfills the mitzvah, then he has fulfilled it. And when he fulfills it with intention and vitality as well, then certainly the mitzvah is more refined, and all the rest. But it is the soul that is elevated. The soul on its own is of the Creator—sorry, it is created. The soul on its own is created. But when the soul works, when it uses its intellect and emotions to fulfill the mitzvah, the soul too is raised to that level. In other words, it is precisely the opposite of the usual order. It is not that the garments are elevated by the soul, but that the soul is elevated by the garment. The Rebbe once explained this point in one of the sichos. I would explain that this is, above all, the innovation of Matan Torah: the difference between before Matan Torah and after Matan Torah. And in many sichos in Likkutei Sichos for these weeks, the Rebbe speaks about this a great deal. The Rebbe once explained it very beautifully. We are told that the Patriarchs kept the entire Torah even before it was given. But before Matan Torah, the normal order applied: the spiritual was primary. The main thing was the spiritual.

13:27 The main thing was the soul. It was also expressed in action, of course. The Patriarchs also performed mitzvos in practice, but the main thing was the soul—the soul’s intellect and emotions. Naturally, this found expression in action too, but the action was only a result. It was, as we said, a garment secondary to the essence. The essence was the soul, its intellect and emotions. That was the main focus of Avraham Avinu’s avodah. It did not remain there; it came down into the garment, into action as well. So various actions resulted, but they were not primary. They were secondary. That is why we are told that Yaakov Avinu used sticks in place of tefillin, and afterward nothing remained of them. The main thing was not the action. The action was only an external means of bringing it down; the main thing was its inner, spiritual content. After Matan Torah, it was the reverse. The main thing is the action, and the inner content is there to bring life into the action, so that it should have vitality and all that goes with it. But the action is primary. So the Rebbe explained the difference between before and after Matan Torah with an example. Suppose a person is very happy. He feels tremendous joy in his heart. Then that feeling of joy grows so strong that he gets up and starts dancing—his feet are dancing. What is primary here: the dancing feet or the joy in his heart? Obviously, the joy in his heart. The joy in his heart simply spreads as far as his feet. The movement of his feet is only a result, the natural expression of the joy. That is the difference between before and after Matan Torah. Before Matan Torah, the main thing was the feeling in the heart, which was also expressed in action. So once he had finished doing the act

15:23 itself, it had no lasting significance. The action had no significance in its own right. After Matan Torah, the dance itself is the point. In other words, the actual deed is primary. The feeling, as we said earlier, is there so that the deed is performed genuinely, with vitality. The whole order is reversed. The garment is primary. There is a story, for example, about the Baal Shem Tov. It is told that before his passing, the Baal Shem Tov took his tzitzis, kissed them, and said that the angel Michoel, who stands at the highest level among the angels and possesses the loftiest spiritual attainments, would give up all that he has just to be able to kiss a single tzitzis fringe belonging to a Jew. One fringe. An angel has no tzitzis; they can be obtained only down here below, because they are physical. The Rebbe gives an entire analysis of this saying: Why did the Baal Shem Tov say “one tzitzis fringe”? One fringe does not constitute the mitzvah; tzitzis requires four fringes. The Rebbe explains at length how it fits. In any case, the Baal Shem Tov’s emphasis is clear: how great is the spiritual stature of a practical mitzvah! Precisely fulfilling a mitzvah through action—that is the main thing. Then there is a story they tell about several people. One version is told about Reb Avraham of Kalisk. They also tell it about one of the Torah scholars, Rabbi Levi Doksi[?], and about Reb Dovid of Horodok. These were great chassidim. What is the story they tell? Take Dovid of Horodok, for instance, who passed away at a young age. He passed away [unclear], and he practiced iskafya, exerting himself through self-denial. In his final days, he became so weak that

17:41 he could not put on tefillin, because his body was not clean. He could not keep his body clean, so according to halachah he could not put on tefillin. Tefillin require a clean body. He expressed how deeply distressed he was by this. Another week. He said that all forty years of his avodah—Dovid of Horodok truly was a chossid who devoted his whole life to avodah—were not worth a single time putting on tefillin. One of the chassidim there said that to be able to say such a thing, or to truly feel such a thought, a person needs to practice avodah and iskafya for forty years. In other words, to truly appreciate what a mitzvah is, a person needs forty years of iskafya for that alone. But in any case, that is the point. Dovid of Horodok grasped that there can be forty years of refined avodah, yet one practical mitzvah—one action, one deed—is worth more than all of it. That is what the Alter Rebbe is teaching here. This is the great point he is explaining to us: with the garments of Torah and mitzvos, it is the reverse of what we had understood. It is specifically in the garments that the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu are found. That is Torah and mitzvos; each one is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is present in the garments themselves. The holy emotions themselves, by contrast, are created. And therefore the garments are primary. Here is a question everyone asks: What is the difference between Torah and mitzvos and the soul? After all, the Alter Rebbe said earlier in Tanya that the soul too is “literally a part of G-d Above.” So where does this distinction come from? On the one hand, we said that the soul too is literally a part of G-d Above. What are you explaining

19:48 Now, what is the great advantage of the garments? Torah and mitzvos are one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The soul is also one with Him. We learned in chapter 2 that the soul is literally a part of G-d above. So what will you say—that it descended below? The soul descended below, and Torah and mitzvos also descended below. So, ultimately, what is the essential difference between the soul and Torah and mitzvos? And the question is even stronger: the Alter Rebbe cites the same Rambam there and here. When the Alter Rebbe speaks about the soul, what does he cite? The Rambam’s statement that “He is the knowledge and He is the Knower.” He brings that in connection with the soul. Here the Alter Rebbe brings the same Rambam in connection with Torah and mitzvos. He uses the same Rambam for both the soul and Torah and mitzvos, yet here he says that Torah and mitzvos are higher. But it is the same thing! The soul, too, is a part of G-d above, and there, too, “He is the Knower and He is the knowledge.” So how can you say that Torah and mitzvos, the garments, are greater than the soul? And what does “greater” mean? It is difficult. If you have a Tanya, look at chapter 2. You will see a very small difference. Here the Alter Rebbe says, “He is the Knower and He is the knowledge.” He begins with “Knower” and then says “knowledge.” In chapter 2 it is the other way around: first “knowledge,” and then “Knower.” It seems like a small difference, but it expresses the entire distinction. There he says, “He is the knowledge and He is the Knower.” Here he says, “He is the Knower and He is the knowledge.” There is a letter about this from the Frierdiker Rebbe. Someone asked him this question. There is also an explanation from Reb Levi Yitzchak, the Rebbe’s father, expressed

21:56 more in the language of Kabbalah. The essential explanation is the same; only the style is different. “Knower” refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Knowledge” refers to what comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Simply put, the Knower is the one who acts, and the knowledge is what results. So when we are speaking about the soul, the Knower is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the knowledge is the soul. When we are speaking about Torah and mitzvos, again, the Knower is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the knowledge is the Torah. In chapter 2, then, the Alter Rebbe says, “He is the knowledge and He is the Knower.” He first mentions the soul, and then says that the soul is connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We start with the soul and ascend from below to above, from the knowledge to the Knower, from the soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Here, with Torah and mitzvos, it is the reverse. He begins with the Knower and ends with the knowledge. In other words, the main point is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that also descends below. This is the essential difference between the soul and Torah and mitzvos. When we speak about Torah and mitzvos, we are really speaking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Torah is His wisdom and His will. It is His wisdom and His will. That is Torah: “He is the Knower.” The wisdom and will begin with Him. It is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, and it descended below—the “knowledge.” The wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu descended below, but even after descending, they remain the same in their essence. Nothing has changed. They are the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. However far they have descended, they always remain connected with Him. In other words, the essential nature of Torah and mitzvos is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They have also descended below, but in their essence they remain, remain, remain the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is why

24:19 words of Torah cannot become impure. That is why, as it says, even someone who is impure can study Torah. Torah never changes. It always remains above the world, because it is, in essence, part of Him. The soul is the opposite. The soul becomes a separate entity. It does not remain attached to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the way Torah does. The soul becomes a separate entity. The soul is called a child; Torah is called “Torah is light.” Light is a revelation of its source. There is the source of light, and it is revealed; there is no separate existence here. The soul is called a child. What is distinctive about a child is that he becomes an entity, something separate from his father. Yet despite being separate, he still has a connection. That is the soul. So with regard to the soul we say, “He is the knowledge and He is the Knower.” Although the soul is an entity, it is still connected with Him—but it has become an entity, something separate. Torah and mitzvos, by contrast, are the reverse: the Knower is the knowledge. Reb Levi Yitzchak expresses this in different terms, in the language of Kabbalah. He says that Torah is chochmah and the soul is binah. Chochmah is the letter yud, and binah is the letter hei. The soul’s source is in the hei of Hashem’s Name. That is why, in the Chumash, when the families of the Jewish people are listed, Hashem places a hei and a yud around their names. In Parshas Pinchas, where the families of the Children of Israel who left Egypt are listed, it says, for example, the family of the Machli, the Mushi. The name always begins with a hei and ends with a yud. This reflects the letter

26:26 hei of Hashem’s Name. It begins with hei and ends with yud. Torah, by contrast, is the reverse. Torah is yud, chochmah. First comes the yud, and afterward the vav and daled, its expansion. So “He is the Knower and He is the knowledge.” With Torah, which is chochmah, yud, we begin with the Knower, the yud, and then proceed to the knowledge, its expansion. The soul, by contrast, is the hei of Hashem’s Name. First comes the hei, the expansion, and afterward we come to the yud. When the letter hei is spelled out, it is hei-yud. In any case, this is expressed in the language of Kabbalah, in terms of letters. It comes from above to below. This, then, is the explanation: because the soul descended below and became a separate entity, it needs Torah and mitzvos. That is what it means when we say that Torah and mitzvos are “higher and greater than I.” What advantage do Torah and mitzvos have over the soul? Because the soul has become a separate entity, its connection with what is above is not so apparent. Torah and mitzvos, by contrast, remain in their essence “He is the Knower” even after descending below. Their connection with what is above is more apparent, and therefore they are “higher and greater than I.” Since the soul becomes separate from what is above through its descent below, it needs the garments of Torah and mitzvos in order to connect with what is above. This is the essential explanation given by the Frierdiker Rebbe. Reb Levi Yitzchak explains the same point here. When we look in Chassidus, we will see that the soul also has an advantage, regarding absence and essence and so on. But here we are speaking in terms of revelation. That is how the order works. Therefore, to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the soul specifically needs Torah to descend. And that is the idea of the garment he was speaking about.