Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 18 - Part 7

00:00 The Alter Rebbe is speaking here about what a soul is, what a Jew is. Every Jew, whoever they may be, has a soul. And no matter what level a person is on, their soul has the faculty of chochmah, in which the Infinite Light shines. Because of this, every Jew has simple faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu—a faith that is beyond understanding. This is the simple faith every Jew has in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Even women and unlearned people, and so on, each have simple faith in G-dliness; they do not need proofs or arguments. Where does that come from? From the fact that the soul sees G-dliness. As explained in Tanya, the Infinite Light shines in the soul’s faculty of chochmah. That is why our faith has such clarity and simplicity. Now the Alter Rebbe will go on to explain mesirus nefesh. Until now he has spoken about faith. Now he will speak about mesirus nefesh: the same place from which simple faith comes is also the source of a Jew’s mesirus nefesh. This is what he continues to explain here in Tanya. He says: “And therefore, even the lowest of the low and sinners among the Jewish people generally give their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name.” Because the Infinite Light shines in a Jew’s faculty of chochmah, because of this simple certainty we have about our connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even the lowest of the low and sinners among the Jewish people have mesirus nefesh for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “They give their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name and endure severe torture.” A Jew, even one of the lowest of the low or a sinner, is prepared to endure terrible suffering rather than deny Hashem’s oneness. Rather than deny Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he is prepared to endure terrible suffering. “Even if they are ignorant and unlearned, and do not know Hashem’s greatness.” What is remarkable is that even though we are speaking here about

02:32 someone who is ignorant and unlearned, this does not come from his knowledge of G-dliness. No, he is ignorant and unlearned; he has no knowledge of G-dliness. Nevertheless, he has the mesirus nefesh to endure suffering and death rather than be separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So what is it? “And even the little they do know”—even if we say that he does have some knowledge, that this person does know something, that is not why he gives his life. No, no. Even if he does know something, the little he knows is not the reason for his mesirus nefesh. It does not come from what he knows. “Even the little they do know, they do not contemplate at all.” He does not contemplate it. It is not that he sat down and reflected on what he had learned and knew, and then said, “Oh, based on my contemplation, I’ve reached a conclusion, so now I’m going to give my life.” No. Even what he knows, he does not contemplate at all. “And they do not give their lives because of any knowledge or contemplation of Hashem.” His giving his life has nothing to do with how much he knows or contemplates. It has nothing to do with that at all. “Rather, without any knowledge or contemplation, but simply as though it were utterly impossible to deny Hashem’s oneness, without any reason, argument, or answer whatsoever.” It is as though there is no other way. So here the Alter Rebbe makes another point that follows from this simple faith. There are two things we are learning here in Tanya. On the one hand, the Alter Rebbe teaches us about faith; on the other, he speaks about mesirus nefesh. Regarding faith, the Alter Rebbe emphasized earlier that even people whose understanding and comprehension are weak—there, the Alter Rebbe did not emphasize the matter of

04:31 the lowest of the low. That was not about observance of Yiddishkeit; it was about intellect. People whose intellectual capacities are weak, such as the examples he gave—the masses, ordinary people, people with limited understanding—nevertheless have firm faith. They do not need proofs or arguments to strengthen it. Their faith is utterly simple and utterly firm. That was regarding faith. Now the Alter Rebbe explains mesirus nefesh, which we see among the Jewish people: a Jew is prepared to endure great suffering rather than be separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In whom have we seen this? We have seen it even among Jews who are the lowest of the low and sinners among the Jewish people. Here the Alter Rebbe is already speaking about people whose problem is in their fear of Heaven, not their understanding. In everyday life, this person does not observe Torah and mitzvos. On the contrary, he is among the lowest of the low: he treats Torah and mitzvos lightly and disregards them. The Alter Rebbe goes further and says “sinners among the Jewish people”—people who transgress willfully. No one forced them. Nevertheless, when it comes to denying Hakadosh Boruch Hu, they are not prepared to do that. They cannot do it. And we know this; we have seen it throughout the history of the Jewish people. This has been part of our history all along. In every generation there are stories of Jews who had no Torah knowledge, or who did not observe Torah and mitzvos at all in their daily lives. When the moment came to hold on to their faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu or lose it, when they were backed against the wall, as they say, they gave their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name, simply and without hesitation. But as he says,

06:27 it was not because they understood, contemplated, or had someone explain it to them. It was simply that living without G-dliness was impossible. That would not be life, and they would not accept it. So what else is there here? The Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize something remarkable: there is such a thing as giving up one’s life. It is not something found only among Jews; it is also found among non-Jews. Non-Jews do it even today. May G-d protect us, and with a thousand distinctions between the two, there are people who do this—as, may G-d protect us, there are terrorists among the Arabs who kill themselves in order to cause devastation and destruction. They know they are going to die. Is that called sanctifying Hashem’s name, mesirus nefesh? No, it is not. What is the difference? This is what the Alter Rebbe emphasizes here. A person may reach the conclusion, because of what he has learned, something he knows, or something he has thought through, that a particular cause is so important it is worth giving up his life for. There could be many reasons. One might be ideological: he has concluded that a particular approach, opinion, or set of rights—whatever it is he wants—is so important that it is worth dying for, so that some benefit will come of it. Suddenly the whole world will talk about it, and people will see it and grasp that, in his mind, this is something real. I don’t know. Or he thinks it is more worthwhile to die for it than to live for it. Or perhaps he was promised some reward. Someone explained to him, someone convinced him, that if he blew himself up and died, he would receive paradise with all sorts of things—all sorts of nonsense they put into his head, which he accepted. So it can come from different reasons: material reasons, spiritual reasons, ideological reasons, religious reasons,

08:27 this reason or that reason. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes here that when a Jew is unwilling to deny G-dliness—to the point that he is prepared to endure suffering and death rather than be cut off from Hakadosh Boruch Hu—it has nothing to do with any of those calculations. It is not about that. On the contrary, the person may be one of the sinners among the Jewish people. In other words, this Jew, this person, is one of those sinners. His aim is not to publicize Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That was never his purpose in life. Quite the opposite: he is one of the sinners among the Jewish people. Throughout his life he has behaved contrary to G-dliness, as the Alter Rebbe noted above. Nor does he have knowledge. Could you say it is a matter of ideology, of knowledge, of an explanation that this is worth it or that is not worth it? No. He has no such knowledge. And even if he does, that is not what moves him. That is not what brought him to this point of mesirus nefesh. So what does he feel? What a Jew feels is: “I can’t.” This is not a product of intellect. It is not a product of emotion. It is not a product of knowledge or comprehension. It is not a product of— It is that he cannot be cut off from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why can’t he? Why can’t he? Because the Infinite Light shines in the soul’s faculty of chochmah. So we return to the same point. Because this is the truth. If my connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu depended on binah, on intellectual comprehension, then you could say that someone who understands more would be more willing to give his life, and someone who understands less would be less willing. It would depend on how much knowledge and comprehension he has and how much has been explained to him. No, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with what is found in the soul’s faculty of chochmah. There is the Infinite Light, the truth. The true oneness shines

10:16 In the soul, something real shines within me. This is the truth. And if it is the truth, there is no other way. There is no other possibility. That is the point. And that is why a Jew will give his life for G-dliness. I’ll finish the chapter, and then I’ll come back to the question here. First let’s finish this. The Alter Rebbe continues: “This is because Hashem is One, and He illuminates and gives life to the entire soul by being clothed in its faculty of chochmah, which is above knowledge and comprehensible understanding.” This is what we were just saying. Because Hashem is One—the true oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that there is nothing besides Him, that He is the only reality and there is nothing apart from Him—that shines within a Jew. And where does it shine? It shines throughout his soul through chochmah. Through chochmah, it reaches the entire soul. So when the point of faith is touched, it takes hold of the whole person. A person feels that life is G-dliness, and without G-dliness there is no life. So he cannot live without G-dliness, and he will give his life for it. That is because the moment he faces a test, a moment of sanctifying Hashem’s name, the Or Ein Sof shines within him openly. There he cannot deceive himself. The Alter Rebbe will explain this further in chapter 19. At that point, the truth touches him, and that truth penetrates his entire being. So he will give his life. He will endure the agony of death, as long as he is not separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now there are several points here that need explaining. That is the plain meaning of the Tanya. So, in chapter 18, the Alter Rebbe explained the nature of the hidden love within a Jew. He explained that the Or Ein Sof shines in chochmah, and because the Or Ein Sof shines in chochmah, this is

12:20 a matter of essential self-nullification before G-dliness. That is why they passed this self-nullification on to all the Jewish people. This is the soul every Jew has—even the least observant and the sinners of Israel. We have a “part of G-d above,” which is connected to the sefirah of chochmah, where the Or Ein Sof shines. He then explained that this is why a Jew has simple faith in G-dliness, without any explanations or arguments, and [unclear]. From this comes the willingness to give one’s life: a Jew cannot be separated from G-dliness under any circumstances, even at the cost of his life. That is the foundation. In the coming chapters, the Alter Rebbe will develop this at length and bring it down into various details and forms of avodah. But this is the foundation. Chapter 18 is the foundation for understanding the essence of a Jew. Now there are several questions here. One question: the Alter Rebbe says “for the most part.” The Alter Rebbe says that Jews give their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name “for the most part.” So the question is: then it isn’t everyone. “For the most part” means there are some who do not. How does that work? According to what the Alter Rebbe just said, it should be impossible for that to happen. This is essential; it cannot be otherwise. Yet here the Alter Rebbe himself says “for the most part.” And indeed, we see this in history. It’s true that we tell many stories of Jews giving their lives—this happened in Spain, that happened in France, and that happened in England. It happened in all kinds of countries, among Ashkenazim and Sephardim, in all kinds of periods throughout history, right up to our own day. A few years ago, there was a story in America that became known throughout the world. An American soldier who was not religious, had no connection to it—he was Jewish, that was all. He had not had a bris and had no connection

14:30 to a bris. He came from a family that... The only thing he knew was that he was Jewish. The Arabs captured him there in Afghanistan. They wanted him to say some word or something—something heretical, some [unclear]. That was what they wanted. In short, he was put to the test. Afterward it appeared in all the newspapers, and a video came out. The Arabs published it. They killed him. And what did he say before he died? He said, “I am a Jew, and I will die like a Jew.” Then the Arabs killed him, rachmana litzlan, and they themselves published what they had done. This happened perhaps ten years ago at most. These aren’t just stories we tell about something that happened once in history. This is a story that shows the essence of a Jew. A Jew who knew nothing about Yiddishkeit, had not learned about Yiddishkeit—no one had told him about Gan Eden, so why would he do it? He knew only one thing: he was Jewish. And they put him in a position where they wanted to test his Judaism. They did not kill him because he was American. America was at war in Afghanistan, but the Arabs took revenge on him because he was Jewish. That is why they killed him. They wanted him to do—I don’t know what—some act of idol worship. He said no, and they slaughtered him for it. This is a story from our own times. But I want to come back, after all, to “for the most part.” We also know from history of Jews who did not withstand tests. So what does the Rebbe mean? There are really two questions here. The first is: how can this happen? How is it possible? If the faculty of chochmah is in the soul, how can there be this minority who do not give their lives? And second, how does this not contradict everything the Rebbe

16:41 wants to say here in the Tanya? The Rebbe himself says it is “for the most part.” How does that fit with the outlook the Rebbe presents here: that because of chochmah, this is not up to the Jew himself? If so, how can it happen? There are several points here. One point concerns the question itself, before we examine how it happens. The question itself is not such a question. Even if it is only “for the most part,” there are people who say: Bring me evidence. Bring me proof. Prove it to me from this. People ask: Prove to me that a Jew has a soul. And you bring them the Tanya’s proof. The evidence that a Jew has a soul is the self-sacrifice of Jews throughout the generations. Look at it. It could only happen because you have a soul. Otherwise, none of this could have happened. So someone says: Wait, but there are some who did not give their lives. What kind of proof is that? That itself is not a question. Why not? Because even if it happens “for the most part,” that is evidence too. In our world, what happens in most cases is a real fact, rationally speaking. When you say that something happens in most cases, while in a minority of cases it does not, the majority is decisive. That is how our world works. When a person wants to establish what something is—whether it is this way or that way—there can be all kinds of things that happen. Yes. But if it is this way in most cases, that tells you what the underlying reality is. Ah, there is a minority where it is not so? Then that is a minority. You need to look for the reasons for it. But a rational proof does not have to be one hundred percent. I’m mentioning this

18:37 here because it has practical relevance. When you discuss things with people and they ask questions—and some people like to confuse you with questions—it’s good to know the answers. What do you need to know? When someone starts confusing you: “How is that proof? Look, there are some who didn’t.” Think about it rationally. In the real world, we do not measure things by one hundred percent. We do not live in a world of one hundred percent, because in our world there are many exceptions, and there are bound to be exceptions. We always look at the majority. Yes, most people are such-and-such. Take a simple example: most people who watch their diet are healthy, right? That is what the Rambam writes. Someone who watches his diet in such-and-such a way, “I guarantee him a long life.” Ah, there are people who watched their diet and did not live long. Does that mean watching your diet doesn’t work? Does it mean the rule is not a rule? No. It means there is probably some other kind of problem. It does not contradict the rule. The rules of our world are determined by the majority. The fact that there is a minority for whom it does not hold true—yes, we need to find the reasons for that. That’s all. So the Frierdiker Rebbe says that the fact that this happens “for the most part” means that this is the defining nature, the essence, of a Jew. Ah, now the question is: Why really is there a minority who do not give their lives? We need to look for the reasons. There are several reasons. One is the Marranos, the people known as the anusim, the forced converts. The Rebbe brings them as an example. We know that during the Inquisition in Spain, many Jews were not prepared to give their lives. But what was happening there? They deceived themselves into thinking they could live as Jews in secret. So it does not mean that they changed their faith. It does not mean that they

20:34 They denied Hakadosh Boruch Hu because they wanted to live? G-d forbid. They did not deny Him. They did it outwardly. They could not withstand the test of suffering a painful death, so they created a kind of Judaism for themselves in which they could outwardly behave like a non-Jew while continuing in secret, with faith in their hearts. That is one type. That is one issue. The Rebbe explains this in a letter. That is one way to understand the minority who did not choose mesirus nefesh: they thought that inwardly they still remained believers, and it was only outward. There is another explanation. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes in one of his sichos that sometimes, when a person has committed so many transgressions punishable by death at the hands of Heaven or by kares—a great many transgressions, rachmana litzlan, involving forbidden relationships, and-and-and the like, desecrating Shabbos—the person develops such coarseness, such concealment over his soul, that he no longer even feels this. He becomes so coarse, with such a heart of stone, that he no longer feels the Ein Sof within his soul. And so he reaches a point where he does not even care about entering a state of apostasy and the like. That is another type, yes? So, as we said, these are what we call exceptions. It is an illness; it is not the norm. The norm is what applies to a Jew for the most part. The norm is that a Jew, even the lowliest of the low, even the sinners of Israel, cannot and does not want to be separated from Elokus. And that is not something that comes from intellect. As we said, it comes from his very essence, because this is intrinsically true, and therefore separation is impossible. There are unusual, abnormal situations that can arise for either of these reasons. Right. Right. Who said otherwise?

22:48 But that Jew does not feel it because of the many transgressions he has committed. He has reached such a state of insensitivity that even this does not register with him. He does not feel that he is separating himself from Elokus. That is unusual. It is not normal, but it can happen. But again, as we said, the norm is what the Alter Rebbe says here. That is the significance of the Alter Rebbe’s wording: “for the most part.” That is one point. Another point we need to understand in this chapter, and it is very important: the bochurim here are all familiar with Ve’atah Tetzaveh. And here we see something remarkable. The Alter Rebbe takes what Ve’atah Tetzaveh divides into two levels and treats it as one level. Or, to put it the other way around, the Rebbe divides into two levels what the Alter Rebbe presents as one. In Ve’atah Tetzaveh, we learned that there are two levels of faith. There is faith that comes from seeing: the soul sees Elokus, and that produces simple faith. And there is faith that comes from the essence. Because the essence is rooted in Hashem’s Essence, separation is impossible. That is why a person has an essential bond and has no doubts about Elokus, no doubts about faith. There are two levels of faith. Now, what is interesting here—one moment. The Alter Rebbe says... What is the practical difference? One of the practical differences the Rebbe writes about—sorry, the Rebbe writes in the maamar Ve’atah Tetzaveh about the difference between these two explanations, between this level and that level. The Rebbe writes there that seeing brings certainty, but a person might still fail to withstand a test. That is not so with the essential bond. There, a person feels that it is impossible to be separated from Elokus, and then he will certainly have mesirus nefesh. Right? You remember that from Ve’atah Tetzaveh? What is happening here?

24:57 In chapter 18 of Tanya, on the one hand, the Alter Rebbe speaks about faith that comes from seeing. The whole point here in chapter 18 is that the light of the Ein Sof shines in the soul. That is a point about seeing, a point about something coming from above downward. It is the same idea as “his mazal sees.” Since the light of the Ein Sof shines in the soul, that is the reason. And yet the Alter Rebbe says here that a Jew’s mesirus nefesh is, in the Alter Rebbe’s words, “as though it were utterly impossible to deny Him.” “Impossible” relates to the essence. With faith that comes from the essence, it is impossible. So here we see something about Chassidus: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe brings it all together as one matter. The Alter Rebbe does not yet distinguish between the levels, but over the generations, through our Rebbeim, we begin to understand that there are several levels here. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe speaks about mesirus nefesh in general, about faith in general. So he places it all on one level. But when we then go into the details, we know that there is a level of faith connected with the soul’s chochmah—“his mazal sees,” seeing. There is a higher level of faith connected with the soul’s yechidah, where it is an essential matter: it is utterly impossible to be separated from Elokus. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe never even mentions the word “yechidah.” Throughout Tanya, the Alter Rebbe does not mention yechidah. The Alter Rebbe does not speak openly about yechidah, for reasons of his own. But later, in Chabad Chassidus, the Rebbeim who came afterward do speak about yechidah. On the contrary, they speak about yechidah as a central matter. And there we discover that faith, too, has two levels, which give rise to the two levels of faith and the two

26:56 levels of mesirus nefesh. That includes everything the Rebbe explains in Ve’atah Tetzaveh: that we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu the power of the essence, the power of mesirus nefesh, and the whole matter.