Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 5 - Part 1

00:00 In chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe goes into greater detail about the word “grasp” that Eliyahu uses: “No thought can grasp Him at all.” He wants us to understand more fully the word “grasp” used by Eliyahu Hanavi. In chapter 4, he quotes Eliyahu’s words, “No thought can grasp Him at all.” That was the conclusion of what we discussed in chapter 4. He already explained that “no thought can grasp Him,” but when thought is clothed in Torah and mitzvos, it can grasp Him. Through Torah and mitzvos, we do have a grasp of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So here the Alter Rebbe focuses on the precise word “grasp.” Eliyahu Hanavi chose that word deliberately. What is significant about it? “No thought can grasp Him”—which implies that through Torah and mitzvos, there is a grasp. What is the difficulty with the word “grasp”? And what is the Alter Rebbe coming to explain in chapter 5 that he has not yet explained in chapter 4? First, let’s look at the progression of these chapters. The Alter Rebbe is in the middle of explaining what a Jew is and what Torah and mitzvos are. He is explaining the Jewish divine soul. In chapter 2, the Alter Rebbe began to explain the essence of the divine soul: that it is “literally a part of G-d above,” and so on. In chapter 3, he explained the faculties of the divine soul—its intellectual faculties and its emotional attributes. In chapter 4, he began to explain the divine soul’s garments. And in explaining those garments, the Alter Rebbe said that although garments seem to be the lowest part of a person—they are only external garments—

02:53 nevertheless, for a Jew it is precisely in the garments that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is found. A Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes specifically through the garments, because Torah and mitzvos are there. The Alter Rebbe explained at length the remarkable significance of Torah and mitzvos: they are infinitely higher even than the soul itself, because “the Torah, the Jewish people, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are all one.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is found there. The soul, by contrast, is only a created being—G-dliness that has become a created being. So how does a Jew connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Through the garment of Torah and mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe explained, first, that Torah and mitzvos involve physical things, and nevertheless His very essence, the essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is found in them. “Where you find His greatness, there you find His humility.” He already quoted the words “No thought can grasp Him at all,” but it is specifically through Torah and mitzvos that one can grasp Him. There is no way to grasp His essence; that is, a created being cannot grasp His essence on its own. This underscores how utterly incomparable a person is, on his own, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “No thought can grasp Him at all.” Even with the apprehensions of G-dliness in Gan Eden, where G-dliness is apprehended, no thought can grasp Him there either. There is no grasp of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is specifically through Torah and mitzvos that one can grasp Him. But chapter 4 discussed Torah and mitzvos together. In chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe adds a deeper point about the connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Specifically, this is the advantage of Torah over mitzvos. Chapter 4 discussed Torah and mitzvos together, not Torah as a subject in its own right. It explained that Torah and mitzvos are

04:51 the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and through them we connect with Him. We are talking about the connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu—a connection of grasping, a special connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And Torah has a particular advantage over mitzvos. A Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu through Torah is even greater than his connection through mitzvos. Through Torah there is a deeper bond, and that is the point of chapter 5. Here the Alter Rebbe explains Torah’s advantage over mitzvos. When it comes to the unity a Jew can achieve with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that unity is achieved primarily through Torah, even more than through mitzvos. Granted, in other maamarim and sichos we can find an advantage of mitzvos over Torah. Mitzvos do have their own advantage, and we do not even need to look to other maamarim: we can find it in Tanya itself. If we look at other chapters of Tanya—chapters 35, 36, and 37—we will see that the Alter Rebbe specifically emphasizes the advantage of mitzvos. They have an advantage that Torah does not have. Of course they do; no one says otherwise. That applies to making a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms and to other matters. But as for what we are discussing here, we are not looking to explain the unity. Where is G-dliness apprehended? How can the soul, a Jew, connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu? We are speaking about the desire for oneness. In this matter of unity, Torah has an advantage over mitzvos, and that is the point of chapter 5: to explain the extraordinary unity a Jew has with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That unity is achieved primarily through Torah, even more than through mitzvos. And that is why the Alter Rebbe begins with the word “grasp.” What is the difficulty with “grasp”? The word seems suited to physical things. We speak of grasping things that are under our control, things over which we have

07:06 control. I grasp a particular object; I take hold of a particular thing. “Grasping” means that something is in a person’s hands, under his control. He holds it and, as it were, controls it. He has some control over the thing. It becomes his possession. It becomes part of him, and he is its master. That is what “grasping” means. But when we speak about Hakadosh Boruch Hu—or about anything spiritual—the concept of grasping does not seem appropriate, especially when speaking about G-dliness. “No thought”—thought. You could say, “No thought understands Him,” or “No thought apprehends Him,” or “No thought knows Him.” That language would fit, because we are talking about thought. Thought relates to the spiritual, to G-dliness, so those words would be more appropriate. But “grasping” is a term better suited to other things, not to the subject at hand, not to thought. And here the emphasis is specifically on “grasping.” So the Alter Rebbe explains that this word highlights the special, remarkable unity that comes specifically through intellectual engagement—a unity not found in anything else, more than in any other activity, even a mitzvah. That is the idea of grasping. Here the Alter Rebbe spells it out. “Now”—look carefully. You have Tanya in front of you, right? There are a few familiar lines here that we simply need to know how to read. It is not so deep; it is just that the wording is interesting. He says: “Now, whenever the intellect comprehends and apprehends some concept.” We are talking about a person’s intellect: it understands and grasps, apprehends some concept, some subject, some intellectual idea. “The intellect grasps the concept and encompasses it within the mind.” First of all

09:29 The Alter Rebbe says: What happens when a person studies and understands an idea, an intellectual concept? First, he says, the intellect grasps the concept. The intellect grasps the idea, the concept, the thing it understands. It encompasses it in the mind. It takes hold of it, comprehends it, and encompasses that concept with its intellect. “And the concept”—okay, that is one point, up to “and the concept”: “He encompasses it in his mind.” Now the Alter Rebbe makes another point: “And the concept is grasped, encompassed, and enclothed within the intellect that comprehends and understands it.” What happens to the concept? It is grasped and enclothed within the intellect that comprehends it. And here the wording seems repetitive. He says the same thing again in different words. First he says that a person’s intellect grasps the concept—the idea, the subject, the matter—and encompasses it. The intellect encompasses the concept. And what does he say afterward? That the concept is grasped, encompassed, and enclothed within the intellect. That is the same thing. The intellect grasps the concept, so the concept is grasped by the intellect. But the Alter Rebbe uses two phrases here: the intellect encompasses the concept, and the concept is encompassed by the intellect. The Alter Rebbe also adds another point: “And the intellect is also enclothed in the concept when he comprehends and grasps it with his mind.” The Alter Rebbe says something else happens here—this is already a different point: the intellect is enclothed in the concept. Before, we explained that the intellect encompasses the concept. So which is on the outside, and which is on the inside? The intellect is on the outside, encompassing it, and the concept is on the inside. The concept is what is encompassed. Now the Alter Rebbe says the reverse: the intellect is also enclothed in the concept. That means the opposite. What is on the outside here? The concept. And what is on the inside? The intellect. The intellect is enclothed within the concept. So on the one hand, the intellect encompasses the concept from the outside. On the other hand, it is enclothed in the concept. It is inside the concept: “And the

12:10 intellect is enclothed in the concept when he comprehends and grasps it with his mind.” When I contemplate and comprehend the matter, the intellect is also enclothed in the concept. So when we study this passage of Tanya in our first class, we need to know that the Alter Rebbe is speaking about two—there are two stages here, two points. Although it is divided into three sentences, there are really only two things the Alter Rebbe emphasizes. Two points. One point is that there is a person, and a person has the faculty of intellect. The faculty of intellect includes the faculties of chochmah, binah, and daas—the intellectual faculty of the soul. The ability to understand ideas is called the intellect. The “concept” means the matter I am understanding. The concept. The sugya: I am studying the sugya of two people holding a tallis. So I have a sugya here; that is the concept. There is the intellect, and there is the concept. The Alter Rebbe says that two things happen here. First, a person’s intellect encompasses the concept. It takes the idea and encompasses it, grasps it, encompasses it in his mind. That means the intellect is what encompasses, while the concept—the sugya—is within the intellect. That is one point, and he says it here in two ways, but it is the same point. Then he adds another point: the intellect is also enclothed in the concept. The faculty of intellect within the soul not only encompasses the matter; it is also enclothed within it, as though it is inside the sugya. It enters into the matter, and then the matter surrounds it. Now let’s explain this a little more tangibly, more concretely. How should I put it—more in practical terms: how does it work? Let’s put it into words. How does it work? Simply put, it is the difference between the start of understanding, the beginning of learning, and what happens later. When I study a sugya, at first I learn it, say, by reading through the text, getting a first impression of it. So I am studying the matter. Or let’s put it another way: I come in now and start the morning seder, the seder for Nigleh, and I say: Which sugya are we going to study today? Today we are going to study the sugya of two people holding a tallis. So I grasp the point, the sugya I am going to study. I have the subject before me. I have the point I am going to study, and I already know some details. I am going to study this sugya, this particular detail, this particular halachah, and I take a certain section that I am going to discuss. So when I begin studying it, what happens is that a person’s intellect is, as it were, in charge here. The intellect is a general faculty, the ability to understand many ideas—an unlimited range of ideas. Essentially, the intellect can understand all kinds of things, and here I take one particular subject. So we can say that the faculty of intellect has now encompassed a particular sugya. At the outset, it chose a particular matter, a particular sugya that it is going to enter into. At the beginning of understanding, then, the intellect is what encompasses. The intellect is, as it were, the general faculty, while the concept, the particular subject, is within the intellect. The intellect encompasses it. But what happens afterward, when I begin to delve into the sugya? When I begin to delve into it and analyze it, I have questions and difficulties, I do not understand it so well, and I analyze every detail. Here the reverse happens. At a certain stage, as I come to understand the idea, what happens is

14:16 that I first study it at a glance. So I study the matter. Or, to put it another way, I come in now and start the morning seder, the seder for Nigleh, and I say: Which sugya are we going to study today? Today we are going to study the sugya of two people holding a tallis. So I grasp the point, the sugya I am going to study. I have the subject before me. I have the point I am going to study, and I already know some details. I am going to study this sugya, this particular detail, this particular halachah, and I take a certain section that I am going to discuss. So when I begin studying it, what happens is that a person’s intellect is, as it were, in charge here. The intellect is a general faculty, the ability to understand many ideas—an unlimited range of ideas. Essentially, the intellect can understand all kinds of things, and here I take one particular subject. So we can say that the faculty of intellect has now encompassed a particular sugya. At the outset, it chose a particular matter, a particular sugya that it is going to enter into. At the beginning of understanding, then, the intellect is what encompasses. The intellect is, as it were, the general faculty, while the concept, the particular subject, is within the intellect. The intellect encompasses it. But what happens afterward, when I begin to delve into the sugya? When I begin to delve into it and analyze it, I have questions and difficulties, I do not understand it so well, and I analyze every detail. Here the reverse happens. At a certain stage, as I come to understand the idea, what happens is

16:28 the reverse. It is as though the person becomes caught up in the idea. The sugya becomes the larger thing. There is a sugya with its details and its various points, and the person puts his intellect into the sugya. So here it comes out the other way around. It is not that the intellect encompasses the concept; on the contrary, the concept encompasses the intellect. It is as though the person is inside the matter. He is caught up in it, held there. He is now caught up in a particular question in the sugya and cannot get out of it; he is trying to understand what Tosafos says. He is caught up in a question, in a problem that he now has to work through. So he is inside the matter. Those are the two stages. We could say—though what I am about to say is not an exact comparison—that it is somewhat like chochmah and binah. The first stage is the stage of chochmah, the more general stage. We say that a person’s intellect encompasses the concept; it surrounds the concept. It is as though the concept is within it. That is at the beginning. For the time being, the intellect encompasses it, as though it is in charge. When he comprehends it inwardly and in detail, the reverse is true: he is enclothed in the concept. Good, that is understood. So we can also understand the wording in Tanya, where it says, “when he comprehends it with his mind.” Look at the wording: “And the intellect is also enclothed in the concept when he comprehends it with his mind.” When he comprehends the matter, at that very time, during the act of comprehension, the intellect is enclothed in the concept. What is not clear here is something else—the repetition in the wording. What is not clear here is the repetition. The Alter Rebbe begins by saying: “The intellect grasps the concept and encompasses it in his mind,” and afterward, “and the concept”

18:31 “Is grasped, encompassed, and clothed within the intellect that comprehended it.” That seems to say the same thing: the intellect grasps the concept, and the concept is grasped by the intellect. It sounds like mere repetition. He doesn’t seem to add anything here. In other words, you have this line in Tanya where the Alter Rebbe says, “And the concept is grasped, encompassed, and clothed within the intellect that comprehended and understood it.” At first glance, that line seems unnecessary. It’s the same thing he said a line earlier. Before, he said it from below upward: the intellect encompasses the concept. Then he says the same thing from above downward: the concept is encompassed by the intellect. Well, of course—if the intellect encompasses the concept, the concept is encompassed by the intellect. It’s the same thing, a repetition. So, on this question... Yes? Everyone understands the question? That’s the wording of Tanya. The Rebbe gave several explanations of this question on different occasions. First, the Rebbe explained the straightforward meaning—quite literally, that the Alter Rebbe isn’t adding anything here. He’s simply emphasizing the point. The Alter Rebbe’s intention here in chapter 5 is to emphasize how deeply a person’s soul can unite with G-dliness: a person can use his intellect to unite with the intellect of Torah, the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He wants to emphasize that unity, so he presents it from both sides. A person’s intellect grasps the intellect of Torah—encompasses the intellect of Torah—and the intellect of Torah is encompassed within the person’s intellect. He wants to emphasize the unity from both sides: the person encompasses Divine wisdom, and the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is encompassed within him. There’s no distinction; he isn’t adding anything, only emphasizing the unity—how deeply the Divine intellect unites with a person’s intellect. In the context, that’s the simple meaning. He just wants to emphasize the point.

20:45 Because of the tremendous, tremendous depth of the unity. Then the Rebbe adds a second explanation: there is also something new here. What is it? We’re talking about the intellect of Torah. What kind of intellect are we talking about? Divine intellect, the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So perhaps I can encompass that intellect, yes? My intellect can encompass the subject; I can encompass the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But who says that this wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is encompassed within me? Who says He wants that? After all, we’re speaking about the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t have to be somewhere He doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t have to be wherever you want Him to be. So a person might study—for example, someone completely wicked, yes? Hakadosh Boruch Hu is displeased with him, yet he might study Torah. He studies; a person can be completely wicked and study Gemara, with all his arrogance and sense of self. He takes the sugya and encompasses the whole subject. For his part, he does everything: he encompasses the sugya. But who says the sugya is encompassed within him? It’s the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; it’s Divine wisdom. So perhaps the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t present within him. He encompasses the subject, but the subject isn’t encompassed within him. The Divine subject doesn’t become clothed within him. It remains apart; it withdraws from him. Hakadosh Boruch Hu can withdraw from him. He doesn’t have to be there, doesn’t have to become his. And the new point is that even if a person is

22:36 whoever he may be—whoever he may be—even if he is completely wicked, of whom it is written, “But to the wicked, G-d said: What right have you to recount My statutes?”—when he takes a sugya and encompasses it, when he studies a subject in Torah, he encompasses a sugya in Torah, in the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. At that very moment, the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is also encompassed within him. The Divine wisdom becomes clothed within him. That’s what the Alter Rebbe wants to add by repeating the same point from the other direction. The Divine intellect, too—from the side of G-dliness, not just from the side of the person comprehending the idea—the Torah itself truly becomes clothed within him. The Torah enters the person and becomes clothed within him. That’s the Rebbe’s second explanation. Then there’s another explanation the Rebbe gives elsewhere. The Rebbe offers a different explanation of this line: there are actually three stages in understanding a subject in Torah. When a person studies an intellectual subject, there’s a first stage, a second stage, and a third stage. In the first stage, the intellect encompasses it, as we said earlier. The faculty of intellect encompasses the subject. Today we’re studying a particular sugya, so we encompass the sugya. My intellect encompasses the sugya. When I begin to delve into the details and analyze it, what happens? That’s when the next stage happens—what it says afterward, “and also.” The intellect actually becomes clothed within the concept, delves into it, and works through it. So the intellect is within the concept. But there’s a third stage. After I’ve analyzed and labored over the sugya and resolved the questions, I make a summary. I summarize the sugya: What did we learn today? I make an overall summary, and then I have the conclusion of the whole subject in my mind. So

24:44 what happens then? “The concept is grasped, encompassed, and clothed within the intellect that comprehended and understood it.” So the stages aren’t presented in chronological order here. The Alter Rebbe starts with the first stage, goes to the third, and then goes back to the second. Look inside. First: “For the intellect grasps the concept and encompasses it within the intellect.” That’s the first stage. When I begin to study, my intellect takes hold of the concept and encompasses it. That’s the beginning of learning, the first stage. Then the Alter Rebbe says, “And the concept is grasped, encompassed, and clothed within the intellect that comprehended and understood it.” That’s the third stage. It happens at the end, when I’ve finished the sugya and reached a conclusion. I take the subject in its final form. The concept—everything I’ve studied, the entire subject and its summary—is encompassed and clothed within the intellect that comprehended and understood it. That’s the end, the third stage. “And also”—that’s the middle stage: “And the intellect is also clothed within the concept while comprehending and grasping it intellectually.” That happens during the study itself. It’s the second stage, when I’m laboring over the sugya: the intellect is clothed within the concept while comprehending it. Now, you might ask why the Alter Rebbe presents the stages in such a jumbled order. He starts with the first stage, then the third, and only then the second. But it isn’t a question, because the Alter Rebbe isn’t discussing the chronological order here. He first discusses the stages in which the intellect encompasses the concept, and afterward explains the stage in which the concept encompasses the intellect. In the first and third stages, the intellect encompasses the concept; in the second stage it’s the other way around: the concept encompasses the intellect. That’s why the Alter Rebbe divided it this way: the first stage