Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 19 - Part 1

00:00 Speaker 1 The Alter Rebbe began by explaining that every Jew can become a servant of Hashem in thought, speech, and action—“with your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” Even if he does not have a great deal of understanding, intellectual capacity, or contemplation, he can become a servant of Hashem in the fullest sense. How? By awakening the hidden love. The Alter Rebbe wanted to clarify what this hidden love is. What is this thing called hidden love, which, when we awaken it, enables us to achieve all of that? So the Alter Rebbe asked four questions. Yes, there were four questions here. The first was about the source of the love: What is the source of this love called hidden love? What is its nature? What is its aim, its desired outcome, its purpose? The third question was: How can it be inherited? We say that every Jew has this love as an inheritance. How can you inherit love? Love is not something that passes down as an inheritance. The fourth question was: Where does fear of Hashem come into this? To be a Jew, you need not only love; you also need fear. Yes, it is specifically through love and fear that one can be a beinoni. So we are talking about love. Where is fear included? The Alter Rebbe answered two of these questions in chapter 18. He explained the source of the love, and he explained how it is inherited. How is it inherited? He explained that it is because the Patriarchs were a chariot to Hashem. The Patriarchs did not merely have love as an emotional attribute. If it were only love as an attribute, then why would a father’s love mean that his son would necessarily love too? It was not merely love as an attribute. It was love on the level of being a chariot. That means their entire existence was in a state of utter self-nullification. It became their very essence

02:12 Speaker 1 —their essence was G-dliness. And because it was like that, it became an inheritance. It was passed down to every Jew who belongs to the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. That explains how it is inherited. Let’s turn to the first question: What is the source of the love? The Alter Rebbe explained that its source is chochmah. The source of a Jew’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes from the chochmah in his soul, where the light of Ein Sof shines. Chapter 18 explained at length what chochmah is: koach mah, the power of self-nullification. In the soul’s faculty of chochmah there is self-nullification before G-dliness, and therefore the truth of G-dliness shines there. It shines in such a way that a Jew feels it could not be otherwise. It is like seeing something: when you see it, it is clear. It is vivid and absolute. This is also the source of the simple faith every Jew has. G-dliness is certain to him, and he has no doubt about it. Every Jew has this, even the simplest Jew. The same applies to the capacity for mesirus nefesh: a Jew wants to be connected to G-dliness and cannot be separated from G-dliness. This explains why Jews give their lives for Hashem, as we so often see, even among the sinners of Israel. It comes from the soul’s chochmah, where the light of Ein Sof shines. Now, in chapter 19, the Alter Rebbe is going to answer the other two questions. What was the question? What is the nature of this love? When we studied the questions, we explained what that question means. When we speak about love, love has an aim, something it seeks. In other words, I say, “I love you.” Yes, in simple terms, if I love you, I want to gain something through that love. Love has some purpose. If you love someone, then naturally you

04:17 Speaker 1 want to receive things from him. Do you want to give him things? Do you want to connect with him and do things that will make him happy? Love can give rise to all kinds of aims. Right? So when we speak of love for G-dliness, we say the same thing. Take the idea of contemplating that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my father. You contemplate “For You are our Father.” A person contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is his true Father, our Father in Heaven. When I come to see Hakadosh Boruch Hu as my father, my aim is to be connected with my father. I want to have a good relationship with him. So naturally I will look for things my father wants, and that way I can be a good son to my father. That is the aim, for example. Similarly, when you contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu “is your life”—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is life, that He gives life to everything, that He is the life of... right?—then the aim is: I want to live. I want to be truly alive. When I come to understand that true life is Torah and mitzvos, I will look to Torah and mitzvos to see how they give me life. There are many ways to contemplate, and each contemplation has its own aim, its own purpose. Sometimes it produces a thirst. If the contemplation gives rise to love connected with the exaltedness of G-dliness, that love awakens a thirst in the soul. The aim of thirst is to quench it, right? To satisfy it, to look for ways and things that will satisfy that thirst, and so on. So the question was about that aim, that desired outcome—the objective, the purpose, the interest, so to speak, that one seeks through love. What determines it? It depends on the contemplation. The nature of the understanding determines the aim. But when does that apply? When the love is built on intellect. Then the intellect also determines its purpose. But here we say

06:31 Speaker 1 that this love is not intellectual. This love is a hidden love. It is not connected with contemplation; it is something essential within a Jew. So what does it seek? What do you want? Where do you want to get to? What do you want to gain through this love? That is the question: What is the nature of this love? What is its purpose? This is what the Alter Rebbe is going to explain now in chapter 19. And the Alter Rebbe will also address the fourth question, about fear. Where is fear here? This is love. But to be a servant of Hashem, you also need fear, because fear is what makes you turn away from evil. The Alter Rebbe will explain that too, at the end of chapter 19. So let’s begin studying this short chapter. The Alter Rebbe says: “To further explain this, we must thoroughly clarify the verse, ‘The soul of man is the candle of Hashem.’” To understand more fully, more deeply: Why does a Jew have the capacity to give his life for Hakadosh Boruch Hu? A Jew’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu extends to mesirus nefesh. What—what—what is the explanation for that? Why is a Jew’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu such that it calls for giving his very life? “We must clarify the verse, ‘The soul of man is the candle of Hashem.’” The Alter Rebbe cites a verse here. The verse says, “The soul of man is the candle of Hashem”: a Jew’s soul is like a candle. “Meaning”—the Alter Rebbe explains the verse—“that Israel are called ‘man.’” This verse speaks of the soul of man, meaning specifically a Jew. Here, “man” means Israel. Israel are called “man.” Right? That is from the Gemara. This statement that Israel are called “man” comes from our Sages, in the Gemara in Yevamos, where it is based on the verse, “You are man.” “You are called ‘man,’ but the nations of the world are not called ‘man.’” We learn

08:24 Speaker 1 this in connection with the passage about the red heifer. It says there, “This is the law: When a man dies in a tent, everything in the tent...” and so on—the laws of impurity conveyed by a tent. So the Gemara says that this form of impurity applies only if the deceased is a Jew. If he is a non-Jew, the whole law of impurity conveyed by a tent does not apply there. Why? Because it says, “This is the law: When a man dies...” “You are man.” You are called “man”; the nations of the world are not called “man.” So according to that Gemara—and similarly, this is also connected with the weekly parsha, in Likkutei Torah on the weekly parsha—“When a man has, in the skin of his flesh...” Right? It speaks about tzaraas as well. The Alter Rebbe explained why it says “when a man.” Why does the Torah use the wording “When a man has, in the skin of his flesh”? Because this specifically relates to a Jew, who has a soul, who has self-nullification, and who has a part of G-dliness. It is specifically in him that the whole matter of tzaraas applies—not to a non-Jew. It does not apply to just anyone, and so on. That is the explanation in Likkutei Torah on Parshas Metzora—ah, Parshas Tazria-Metzora. In any case, what is the point the Rebbe is making here? When we say, “The soul of man is the candle of Hashem,” “man” refers to the Jew: a Jew’s soul is like a candle. But what does it mean that “their soul is, by way of analogy, like the light of a candle, which naturally flickers upward constantly”? What is distinctive about a Jew’s soul that makes it like a candle? What do we see in a candle? Its flame is always moving. The candle—the flame—has a distinctive quality found in fire, in a candle: the flame is constantly in motion. It does not stay in one place. Everything else in the world has its particular form. You make it a certain way, and it stays that way. You build a table, you build a chair. Wood has its shape, its structure, and that remains its form,

10:21 Speaker 1 That is its form. Where do we see an example of this? Among plants, animals, and inanimate things—and among fire, air, water, and earth—fire is the exception. Everything in the world has its definition, its limits, its own existence, and generally stays the way it was made. But when we look at a flame, we see that it is constantly restless—what’s the word? It has no fixed existence; it is constantly leaping. It always flickers upward by nature. That is its nature: it is constantly moving. And how does it move? Upward. It constantly wants to rise, to leap, to escape upward. What is the explanation? The Alter Rebbe explains that the light of the fire naturally desires to separate from the wick. The flame keeps leaping upward because the light of the fire truly wants to escape its present existence. It does not want to be here. That is why it leaps upward again and again. The flame really wants to escape the world; it does not want to be here. It wants to cleave to its source above, to the universal element of fire beneath the sphere of the moon. Where does the flame naturally want to be? At its source. The source of fire is the universal element of fire beneath the sphere of the moon, as stated in Eitz Chaim. Here is the point. It is written in Eitz Chaim, and it was written even before Eitz Chaim. Why does he cite Eitz Chaim? I’m not sure, but it is also written in the Rambam, and it is explained explicitly in Chassidus. It also has a source in the Zohar and is explained in several places. There are four elements in the world: fire, air, water, and earth. And every element—everything in the world is composed of fire, air, water, fire and air. That is the force of the...

12:21 Speaker 1 ...elements from which everything is composed. There is the element of fire, the element of water, the element of air, and the element of earth. This is a spiritual element, the underlying source from which all the water in the world comes. All the air in the world comes from the element of air. The element of fire, all the... And when the four elements combine with one another, they produce all the created beings, all the different kinds of beings. The Rambam describes this in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, and he says that each of the four elements has its own place. The element of fire is beneath the sphere of the moon; that is its place. The Rambam says it surrounds the entire world and is situated highest of all four elements. The four elements are fire, air, water, and earth. So fire is the highest, most spiritual element. And where is it? Beneath the sphere of the moon. Why there? I don’t know, but that is how it is arranged. The Ramban also writes about this in Parshas Bereishis, on the first verse, [unclear], and discusses this idea as well. The element of fire is beneath the sphere of the moon. So a flame instinctively, naturally, wants to be there. When a flame leaps upward, that is its desire to be absorbed into its source. It wants to escape and be at the source of fire, in the element of fire beneath the sphere of the moon. In the physical world, we see the opposite in other things. Everything else is drawn downward. Generally, a physical thing naturally tends to fall—that is gravity, or whatever it is called. In simple terms, that makes sense, because it is the nature of matter. Matter has a sense of existence, and that existence wants to become more substantial. A physical thing is drawn downward because that is

14:11 Speaker 1 its place: substantial existence. It wants more of that; it wants to descend, to be where physical existence is more substantial and more fully realized. So everything physical naturally tends downward. But the one thing in the world that is also physically real and yet has the opposite nature—a desire to escape upward—is a flame. That goes against the usual pattern. At first glance, it is hard to understand. Physical things want to become more physical, and so they descend. How can there be a physical thing in the world that does not want to descend but wants to rise? The explanation is that fire is not essentially physical. Fire is essentially spiritual. Chassidus teaches us something remarkable here: the element of fire differs from the other elements. In its essence, fire belongs to something spiritual. It is a spiritual thing. Why is it that whenever we want to illustrate a spiritual concept, we use a flame or fire as an example? Fire, a flame, light—they are all part of the same family, and these are always the analogies we use when we come to a spiritual concept. When we speak about the soul or about mitzvos—“A mitzvah is a candle and Torah is light”—and all kinds of other subjects. Whenever we want to speak about spirituality, the example we use is a flame. Even when speaking about G-dliness: “For Hashem your G-d is a consuming fire.” Fire is repeatedly used as an analogy for the Shechinah, for G-dliness, for the soul, for Torah and mitzvos, for spirituality. That is what we are explaining here. Fire is something we can see and that can burn us. In other words, it exists here in this world, but

16:13 Speaker 1 its defining qualities, its properties, are those of something spiritual, not something physical. And we see this in all kinds of ways, not just one. When you consider the properties of fire, you notice that all its characteristics are the opposite of what you would expect of a physical thing. Here is one very simple example: what we explained earlier. Everything in the world has a particular shape, right? It starts here and ends there. It has a certain number of centimeters of height, length, and width. The one thing you cannot measure that way is fire. You cannot say how big it is, because it is constantly changing. It has no fixed shape. That is one aspect, and it represents spirituality. A physical thing has boundaries; a spiritual thing is not so clearly defined. So physical fire has a spiritual quality: it is not fixed or bounded by a shape. You cannot say, “It starts here and ends there.” That is one aspect. Then there is the fact that fire cannot live in peace with anything. It does not coexist peacefully with anything. Wherever it reaches, it burns a hole; it consumes.

17:27 Speaker 2 Air.

17:28 Speaker 1 What?

17:29 Speaker 2 Air.

17:29 Speaker 1 Air? In some respects, air too, yes, but not exactly. For example, you can put air inside a balloon, right? The balloon holds it, and that is that. Fire you cannot... You cannot put it anywhere. There is no container that will hold it, enclose it on all sides, and keep it from moving. No such thing exists. And it does not coexist peacefully with anything: wherever it reaches, it burns, it damages, it curses—it spoils things, sorry, it destroys. So this is an expression of nullifying separate existence. Another very interesting thing we see with fire is that you can light one candle from another, and then another and another, and the first one is never diminished. It never becomes less. It does not lose any fire or any strength because of it. With physical things, whenever you take something out, there is less left. You have a bottle here with so many milliliters of soda, and you pour some out. There is less. When a person works and expends energy, he gets tired. With anything physical, when you take something from it, you diminish it. That is natural. But with fire, you can light a million candles from one candle, and the original candle remains the same. Nothing has been taken from it. That is a property associated with spirituality. A physical thing has a measurable amount, and when you take from it, that amount decreases. It had a hundred; now it has ninety, now eighty. But here you can keep taking, and it remains at a hundred—as though you had never taken anything from it. All these are qualities that belong to a realm without limits, a realm of infinity, a realm of spirituality. And what does that mean? So, in a sense

19:23 Speaker 1 According to Chassidus, that is what fire is. This will help us understand the candle. Fire is not really physical. It is something spiritual, something G-dly. It exists here in this world, but even when it descends into the world, in its essence it remains above. That is precisely why fire naturally wants to rise all the time: in its essence it remains in a higher, spiritual place. So this also shows in its outward nature—it is constantly leaping. It wants to escape upward, to return to its source. Yes. In a moment we’ll see how this applies to the soul, okay? The Alter Rebbe hasn’t finished yet; he’s in the middle of an idea. The Alter Rebbe says that, seemingly, there is a question here—a question we ask the candle, the fire. The Alter Rebbe asks, “Even though this will cause it to be extinguished.” What, seemingly, will you gain? We say to the fire, “Mr. Fire, tell me, are you normal? What will you gain by escaping? Down here you’re a flame. You give light, you give warmth. It’s nice. You do something; you matter. You have importance, you have value. The moment you escape to the source of fire, that doesn’t mean you’ll continue to be a flame there. In the source of fire, you’ll be nothing at all. There, it isn’t fire; it’s something with no significance for our world.” So much so that the Ramban says the source of fire is called darkness. It is dark, he says. The Ramban discusses the verse, “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of G-d hovered over the face of the waters.” The Ramban says the four elements are mentioned in this verse. Where are the four elements here? He says that “the spirit of G-d” is

21:18 Speaker 1 the element of air. “Hovered over the face of the waters” is the element of water. “And the earth was unformed” refers to the element of earth, and “darkness” is the element of fire. That’s what the Ramban says. How can darkness be called the element of fire? The Ramban says that the source of fire is dark. When it descends below and becomes physical fire, it burns and gives light and does all kinds of good things. But when it is in the source of fire, it is dark; it has no significance. So please, when you leap from here and escape to the source of fire, you’ll be nothing at all, with no significance. You see that this will cause it to be extinguished: there will be nothing below, and in its source above it will be nothing as well. Meaning, down here you won’t accomplish anything, and up there you won’t be anything either. You’ll be nothing at all. Nevertheless, this is what it desires by its nature. That is the nature of fire. There’s no explanation for it, no justification. It’s a spiritual matter. The spiritual wants to be nothing at all. That’s the point here. It isn’t about an explanation or a benefit, about “What will I gain?” The nature of the spiritual is to want to be nothing. In other words, let’s put it this way: the difference between the spiritual and the physical is that, in the physical, existence is felt to mean being a separate entity. What does it mean to be an entity? Wherever I can be more of a “something,” that’s where I want to be, because there I’ll have more existence. In the spiritual, the truth is in being nothing, not in being a separate “something.” The truth is that, in essence, everything is nothing at all. There is nothing besides G-dliness. There is nothing else. So the deepest truth is that being nothing is the truth, not being a separate entity. Because that is how it really

23:14 Speaker 1 is. Being nothing—that is the truth. So for something spiritual, the more it is nothing, the closer it is to the truth. That is what draws it, more and more. “What will you gain?” I’m not looking to gain anything. It isn’t about profit or what it will have. On the contrary, being nothing at all is the whole point. That is the idea we’re expressing about a physical flame: we constantly see this movement in it. It leaps because it wants to leap away, escape its present existence, and become nothing at all there. And if you ask what it gains from this—the answer is nothing. That is the point: to be nothing at all. To become nullified, yes. What is the parallel in the soul? The Alter Rebbe goes on to explain. He says: this is the soul. “The soul of man is the lamp of Hashem.” A Jew has a part of G-dliness; he has a soul. The soul’s defining characteristic is that it descended here below, just as fire descended here below, and became clothed in a body, but in its essence it remains a part of G-dliness. We discussed this. This is one of the fundamental principles about the soul: even when it descends here below, it does not become physical. It remains spiritual, remains G-dly, remains a part of G-dliness. And therefore the soul constantly has an impulse to escape. It does not want to exist as a separate entity. It wants to be nothing at all, to become nullified. In the Alter Rebbe’s words: “So, too, the soul of man, and likewise the levels of ruach and nefesh, by their nature desire and yearn to separate and leave the body and cleave to their root and source in Hashem, the Life of life, blessed be He.” The soul wants to escape the body and be absorbed into the Infinite, the Life of life—to be nothing at all, to become nullified, to be part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Even though it will be nothing at all, because when it is absorbed into the Infinite, it will not remain a separate existence; it will be utterly nullified. And nothing will remain of it

25:08 Speaker 1 except that, certainly, there is only the Eibershter; there is nothing besides Him. The soul will be entirely nullified as an entity, and nothing of its original essence and being will remain. Nevertheless, this is what it naturally wants and desires. This is what the soul wants. What will it gain? It isn’t looking to gain anything. On the contrary, it seeks to be nothing at all, because that is the true reality. So that is what it wants: to be nothing at all. This is the foundation, the answer to our question: What is the point? We asked, what is it seeking? What is the question? Because of the soul’s love, because of the chochmah in the soul where the Infinite shines, the soul desires to be absorbed into the Infinite Light. What is it seeking? That itself is what it seeks: to be absorbed into the Infinite Light, to be nothing at all, to become nullified, to be part of the Eibershter. How did the Alter Rebbe put it? “I don’t want Gan Eden; I don’t want the World to Come.” I don’t want Gan Eden, I don’t want the World to Come, and I don’t want a reward. I don’t want to receive something. “I want You Yourself.” I want to be part of the Essence, to be absorbed into it. But there, you’ll be nothing at all; you won’t receive anything! On the contrary—that itself is the point. That is the truth. That is what the soul essentially wants. The soul wants to be nothing at all. So when you ask what it seeks, what the purpose is, what it is searching for—that itself is the answer: to be nothing at all, to be completely nullified. That is why a Jew has the capacity for mesirus nefesh: when something touches his connection to the Eibershter, he gives himself over completely. Why do I need to live? Am I looking for Gan Eden? Am I looking for some World to Come? When the oneness of Hashem is at stake, what matters to him is the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that I want to be part of Hashem’s oneness.

26:50 Speaker 3 That’s over time.

26:53 Speaker 1 [unclear]. Wait, we’re only at the beginning of the subject. The Alter Rebbe will go on to explain that the goal isn’t to die. The goal is to bring this down here, to reveal Hashem’s oneness in the world. That’s chapter 36; the Alter Rebbe will explain it later. For now, he’s speaking about the soul’s ratzo, its yearning to rise. This is today’s Hayom Yom. Did you learn today’s Hayom Yom? Yes, 20 Iyar. Yes, there is ratzo. By nature, the soul has a desire and thirst to cleave to Hashem; it wants to be absorbed into the Infinite Light. And it wants to be nothing at all. But when you reach that point—and this is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu—yes, there is delight, there is [unclear], there is intention, there is a dwelling place in the lower realms. [unclear]. There has to be bittul. That is the shov, the return. But before shov there is ratzo. By nature, the soul is drawn to be absorbed into the Infinite Light. It is natural; that is the foundation here. By the way, this week we are in Parshas Tazria. There is a wonderful maamar in Likkutei Torah on Tazria that discusses this very subject. It’s the maamar “Lamnatzeiach Al Hasheminis.” Yes, in Likkutei—no, not “Lamnatzeiach Al Hasheminis,” I’m sorry. “Sos Tasis.” “Sos Tasis Vesagel Haakarah.” Learn that maamar, because there the Alter Rebbe explains this entire point in this week’s parsha: “When a woman conceives and gives birth to a male.” He explains the whole meaning of “male”: it is love—the soul’s love, its desire to be absorbed into the Infinite Light without seeking any gain from it. There is a feminine form of love, which wants to receive a reward: it wants Gan Eden, revelations, some benefit. And there is a masculine form of love, which is [unclear]. This is also the foundation of the maamar [unclear]: the soul wants to be absorbed into the Infinite Light. That is this level; that is the point.

28:45 Speaker 1 His innermost self wants only that. And this is what the Alter Rebbe is discussing here: the foundation of mesirus nefesh is that it is revealed within him.