Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 20 - Part 2

00:00 Speaker 1 Yes, we started chapter 20 here in the previous class. But in chapter 20, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain the subject of Hashem’s unity. That is the subject of these two chapters, chapters 20 and 21. The Alter Rebbe says that “I am” and “You shall have no other gods” encompass the entire Torah. “I am” includes all 248 positive mitzvos, and “You shall have no other gods” includes all 365 prohibitions. That is why we heard these two commandments directly from the Almighty. But the question is: What is the connection? Why do we say that “I am” and “You shall have no other gods” encompass the entire Torah? What connects positive mitzvos as a whole with “I am,” and prohibitions as a whole with “You shall have no other gods”? This continues what we are learning here. In these chapters, the Alter Rebbe is explaining that a Jew has mesirus nefesh, simple faith that extends to mesirus nefesh; that a Jew does not want to, and cannot, be separate from G-dliness. All of this finds expression in Hashem’s unity: a Jew wants to connect with and be included in Hashem’s unity, and does not want to, and cannot, be separate from it. So when you know that the entire Torah is connected with Hashem’s unity, you can take that point and bring it into all of Torah and mitzvos. That is the whole foundation the Alter Rebbe wants to explain from chapter 18 through chapter 25, inclusive. Here, then, the Alter Rebbe is in the middle of explaining the subject of Hashem’s unity. So let’s start again from the words “To understand this well” in chapter 20, the line ... after the period. From here we’ll read again, in more detail, what the Alter Rebbe explains. The Alter Rebbe says: “To understand this well, we must first briefly discuss the nature and essence of the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” The Alter Rebbe is saying that to explain this matter—what

02:19 Speaker 1 is the connection between “I am” and “You shall have no other gods,” between Hashem’s unity and the rejection of idol worship, and between these and the entire Torah?—we need to explain what the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu means. Here the Alter Rebbe seeks to clarify Hashem’s unity for us on the basis of the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching. “He is called One and Unique, and all believe that He alone is, just as He was before the world was created—literally.” We say, “All believe.” That is a passage we say in the Shacharis prayers on Yom Kippur. “All believe” goes through the whole alphabet, and among its lines are the words, “All believe that He alone is.” As we said in the previous class, the meaning of “He alone is,” where the word “He” appears twice in Hebrew, is that He remains the same: “All believe that He alone is”—He is just as alone as He was before, and He is just as alone now. “Just as He was before the world was created—literally—when He was alone.” Before the creation of the world, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was alone. He is the same now. As we say, “You are He before the world was created; You are He since it was created,” and so on. That is not a verse; it is part of the prayers. “You are He before the world was created; You are He since the world was created.” It appears in the morning prayers. And where is that passage from? Who knows? Where does “You are He before ... You are He since ...” come from? Tanach. The source is—prove it.

04:16 Speaker 1 It says on the previous page, “A person should always”—that whole passage. Tanna Devei Eliyahu. Tanna Devei Eliyahu. The entire section, from “A person should always.” You’re not looking at the bottom. The boys aren’t looking in depth. From “A person should always” through “You are He”—that entire section is from Tanna Devei Eliyahu. It’s a Midrash. It’s all right here. So there it says, “You are He before the world was created; You are He since the world was created.” The Alter Rebbe pays close attention to the wording. We’ll see it inside shortly. As we say, “You are He before the world was created; You are He since the world was created,” and so on. “Meaning that He is literally unchanged.” We say here, “You are He before it was created; You are He since it was created.” So what is the precise point? That He is literally the same He, exactly the same, without any change: as He was before, so He is now. Here too, as we discussed in the previous class, the point lies in the repetition of “He”: “You are He before the world was created,” and then again, “You are He since the world was created.” It could have said, “You are He before the world was created and since the world was created.” By saying “You are He” again, it means—as the phrase is translated from the original language—that He is the same. Yes, du bist der zelber: You are the same. He was there before the creation of the world, and just as He was before the creation of the world, so He is now, after the creation of the world. This is, in fact, the foundation of the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching about Hashem’s unity. In other words, until the Baal Shem Tov, as is well known, Hashem’s unity was spoken of in its straightforward sense. In all the verses about His unity, you say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” “Know this day ... that Hashem is G-d,” and all the other verses. You have some understanding of it. So what was Hashem’s unity understood to mean before the revelation of the Baal Shem Tov?

06:10 Speaker 1 That Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one means that there is only one, not two. In what ways? As the Rambam explains in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one: He is not divided into limbs or parts, He has no body, and He is not a composite of different elements. The Rambam discusses this in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah. There are a number of ways to explain Hashem’s unity. What they have in common is that they speak about the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as it concerns Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Then there is the Zohar, which discusses Hashem’s unity as it concerns the Names: the Name Havayah and the Name Elokim. You should not think that these are two separate Names and levels; rather, it is all one Name—Havayah and Elokim are entirely one as Names. But that is still speaking about aspects of G-dliness, levels within G-dliness, and saying that they are all entirely one. Or, more generally, when people traditionally spoke about Hashem’s unity, they understood it as ruling out any other power besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There are, G-d forbid, approaches that hold that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the supreme authority but that there are other powers as well—partners, attendants—like a king. The Rambam says in Hilchos Avodah Zarah that a king has ministers and attendants. That was the mistake of the generation of Enosh: they thought the same was true of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So Hashem’s unity comes to rule that out: Hakadosh Boruch Hu alone has power, and there is no other power whatsoever besides Him. That is one interpretation. What the Baal Shem Tov revealed “one” to mean is that there is no existence whatsoever besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the only reality—not just the only king, not just the only ruler, not just the only sovereign, but the only reality. And besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu

07:58 Speaker 1 there is no existence whatsoever. What does that mean, “no existence whatsoever”? There is a world, after all. It isn’t imaginary. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world. So what is the Alter Rebbe going to explain? First, the Alter Rebbe establishes the foundation: this is what the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu means. That is why he cites these passages here, which say, “He alone is.” And similarly, when we say, “You are He before the worlds were created, and You are He since the worlds were created,” what are we emphasizing? We are emphasizing—and we’ll come to the world—that this unity extends to the world. We say that just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu was One and Unique before the world was created, when He was alone—“alone” meaning that He was the only reality, with nothing besides Him—so too, “You are He”: He is just as alone, just as one, even now, after the creation of the world. So this unity concerns creation. This is what the Baal Shem Tov revealed about the unity of Havayah. Of course, it does not mean that the Baal Shem Tov introduced something that had never been written before. The Baal Shem Tov explained it; the Baal Shem Tov revealed it. The Baal Shem Tov made it a fundamental principle of faith. He revealed the depth of the idea, but not that—these matters had all been written before. The Baal Shem Tov, however, made this the fundamental emphasis of the entire subject: the unity of Havayah that the Alter Rebbe explains here. “As it is written, ‘I, Havayah, have not changed.’” Here, too, the verse says, “I, Havayah, have not changed.” What is the precise point of the verse “I, Havayah, have not changed”? It is a verse in Tanach that says, “I, Havayah, have not changed, and you, children of Yaakov, have not perished.” In Malachi. I don’t ... What does it say? “I, Havayah, have not changed.” So on the straightforward level, the verse says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not change the

09:40 Speaker 1 His decision. No, no—Hashem promised. He promised that He would protect us. Hashem has not changed, He has not canceled His promise, He has not had second thoughts. “And you, the children of Yaakov, have not been consumed.” That is the Jewish people: we are surrounded by nations that constantly want, Hashem have mercy, to persecute us, and so on and so forth, and Hashem protects us. “You have not been consumed.” No, no extermination; we will not be wiped out. That is the plain meaning of “I, Hashem, have not changed.” But there is a nuance here. Chassidus takes this verse and makes it a foundation for understanding Hashem’s oneness. The nuance is that the word is shanisi, with a kamatz. It should have said shinisi. If the meaning were that Hashem did not change His promise, then in Hebrew it should have said, “I, Hashem, have not changed [my promise].” I have not changed my promise. The word shinisi would fit that meaning. Shanisi, with a kamatz, means that I Myself have not changed. This is the source, the source in Chassidus; it is a proof for Hashem’s oneness. “I, Hashem, have not changed,” with a kamatz, means that I have not changed, not that I have not changed something else. And this is the foundation that Chassidus explains: “I, Hashem, have not changed”—there has been no change in Hashem at all. So how can you say there has been no change? Before, He was one, and now He is not alone. Before the creation of the world, Hashem was alone, and now there is a world. Once there is a world, there is something else. There is another existence besides Hashem: the world He created. So He is no longer alone as He was before. That is the difficulty: how do we explain “I, Hashem, have not changed”? Although He created a world, He remains just as He was before the worlds were created; after the worlds were created, He is the same. This is what the Alter Rebbe now comes

11:38 Speaker 1 to explain. So what is the explanation? By the way, Chassidus also explains the rest of the verses: “I, Hashem, have not changed, and you, the children of Yaakov, have not been consumed.” According to Chassidus, what does that mean? A maamar explains it. There is a maamar called Bachodesh Hashlishi, and by Divine Providence, today and tonight are Rosh Chodesh Sivan. So there is the maamar Bachodesh Hashlishi. The Rebbe said to study it. On Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5748, the Rebbe instructed people to study the maamar Bachodesh Hashlishi from 5672. The Rebbe himself also spoke about the maamar in a sicha. There is a maamar and a sicha printed under Bachodesh Hashlishi, and the Rebbe then said that everyone should study his maamar. One of the things stated there in Bachodesh Hashlishi is an explanation of this verse. It explains “I, Hashem, have not changed” in connection with the continuation, “and you, the children of Yaakov, have not been consumed.” It is a question, expressed in wonder: “I, Hashem, have not changed.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not changed from before creation to after creation. If you contemplate Hashem’s true oneness, you come to recognize that the entire existence of the world is utterly nullified. He alone is here. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has not changed from before creation to after creation, because everything is truly and completely nothing. So how can it be that “you, the children of Yaakov, have not been consumed”—that you do not feel your soul consumed with longing? In terms of serving Hashem, then, the verse means something entirely different. “Consumed” here means a soul consumed with longing. How can a Jew have no thirst, no love, no yearning for G-dliness? If you contemplate this idea, “I, Hashem, have not changed,” it should bring you to a sense of self-nullification, to yearning and thirst, to a desire to leave behind all the limits of the world and unite with the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And yet

13:28 Speaker 1 you do not have that. That is the point of [unclear] according to Chassidus, of course. So what is the Alter Rebbe explaining here? What is the explanation? How can we say that there is a world and yet there has been no change at all from before creation to after creation? The Alter Rebbe says: “For all the upper and lower worlds effect no change in His oneness by their creation from nothing into something.” True, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world from nothing into something. The world was created; it is a reality. And yet it makes no change in the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He remains just as He was, even though the world was created. “Just as He alone was One and Unique before they were created, so He alone is One and Unique after He created them.” Just as He was alone before creation, He remains the same after creation. Why? Because “all is considered as nothing before Him, as truly nothing at all.” That is the foundation. So here is the explanation of Hashem’s oneness: it is true that He created the world. The world was created from nothing into something, and yet He remains just as He was. Why, says the Alter Rebbe? Because all the worlds are considered as nothing before Him, as truly nothing at all. That is the explanation. In other words, looking at the matter overall, what explanation does the Alter Rebbe give for Hashem’s oneness? He truly created a world, but the world has no significance whatsoever in relation to Him. All is considered as nothing before Him. If the world had any value or importance in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, then you would have a problem. There would be a problem here: He would no longer be as He was before. Now there would be something of

15:20 Speaker 1 value. Before creation there was nothing; there was only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Apart from Him, there was nothing at all. And now there is also a world. There is something else, something He created, with value and an existence of its own. So He would no longer be as He was before. But we say that even after Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, the world has no significance whatsoever in relation to Him. All is considered as nothing before Him; it is truly nothing at all. And something that is truly nothing has no significance; it is as though it were not there. So what is the foundation of what we are discussing? The foundation here is nullification. It does not mean that the world does not actually exist. Rather, it is nullified: it has no value, no importance. That is how we arrive at the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: Hakadosh Boruch Hu remains One and Unique. One and Unique, because even now Hakadosh Boruch Hu is One and Unique. But there is a world! The world has no value or importance, and since it has no importance, there is nothing additional here that has any significance. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu is One and Unique even though the world exists, because the world is nothing; it has no value or importance. Now, to explain a little what is new here, what the explanation is: Chassidus discusses two aspects of Hashem’s oneness. One concerns existence, and the other concerns importance. When we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one, one explanation is: why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu one? Because nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This concerns the existence of the world. The world has no independent existence. What is the world’s existence? The world’s existence is the word of Hashem,

17:10 Speaker 1 the Divine power; it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is one explanation of oneness. Before creation, who alone existed? Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And now too—yes, the world was created. But what is the world? The entire existence of the created world is only G-dliness; it has no existence apart from that. We will study this point in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, where the Alter Rebbe explains it. What does the Alter Rebbe explain in chapters 1, 2 and 3 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah? He explains that the world was created from nothing into something and has no independent existence. The entire existence of the world is the word of Hashem. Apart from the word of Hashem there is nothing here, because the word of Hashem brings it into being every single moment, and without the word of Hashem it becomes nothing at all. If the word of Hashem were to withdraw for even one moment, it would become nothing at all. That whole explanation appears in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. It is one explanation of oneness, one aspect: nothing exists except Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But here the Alter Rebbe comes to add another point, concerning the world’s value and importance. It is not only that the world has no independent existence because its existence is the word of Hashem. There is also the question of its value and importance. In practice, Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. True, the entire existence of the firmament is the Divine power that speaks it into being. But in practice, Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “Let there be light,” and there was light; from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s saying, “Let there be light,” light came into being. So it is true that the entire existence of the firmament depends on the word of Hashem speaking it into being. But the very fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu speaks gives it importance, gives it value. So a person speaks,

18:53 Speaker 1 Right? Say Reuven says something to Shimon. The very fact that Reuven speaks to Shimon shows that Shimon matters. True, the word itself has no independent standing, no existence of its own. That whole word is Reuven’s word; it belongs to Reuven. But there is still some significance here: Shimon matters, and Reuven is speaking to him. That itself gives the word a certain importance. So the Alter Rebbe comes along and says here, “Everything before Him is considered as nothing.” Relative to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the entire creation not only has no separate existence; it has no standing or importance at all, because “everything before Him is considered as nothing.” The Alter Rebbe will now explain, later in the chapter, how we understand that the world not only has no existence of its own, but has no importance either. He’ll explain that in the second half of chapter 20. Yes, go ahead and ask.

19:43 Speaker 2 There was always an existence. Even if [unclear], now I’m saying “existence,” because we have an existence, we have a world, and “Let there be light.” Okay.

19:53 Speaker 1 So, yes, that takes work. That’s the meaning of “Know this day and take it to heart”: a person has to make an effort, first to understand it intellectually.

20:03 Speaker 2 Intellectually.

20:03 Speaker 1 Yes, to understand it intellectually, and then the intellect will influence your heart, and then... Yes, okay, but that’s where this chapter is going. You’re asking a good question. Yes, how can you grasp this with your own intellect when you yourself are an existence? And at the same time, grasp the bittul.

20:23 Speaker 2 There is that, because you explained [unclear]. I find [unclear].

20:31 Speaker 1 Exactly. So that, that is the whole structure here. The Alter Rebbe began with faith. It all starts with what we learned in chapter 19: there is the Ein Sof, the Infinite. You always have to remember how these ideas connect. Chapter 20 continues chapter 19. What did we learn in chapter 18? Where does faith begin? Not with your own existence—with the soul’s faculty of chochmah. What is that chochmah in the soul? What did we learn? The Ein Sof shines in the soul. The Ein Sof is true oneness. There, in the Ein Sof, the truth that “there is nothing else besides Him” shines, and that is revealed in a Jew’s soul. So when you understand this, it’s not like your understanding of some reality that you perceive. It’s the truth of G-dliness penetrating reality. Do you understand what I’m saying? It comes from above downward, not from below upward. We approach it from below upward, because that’s how we do our work. But in truth, the truth of Hashem our G-d and the G-d of our fathers shines in the soul. We need to bring that into our own reality. So what is the point the Alter Rebbe is making here? This is where the essential meaning of Hashem’s true oneness lies. We say, “I, Hashem, have not changed,” and “You are He before the world was created.” From Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, even after the world was created from nothing, it remains utterly nothing, just as it was before creation. Why? Not only because it has no existence of its own, but because it has no standing or importance at all. “Everything before Him is considered as nothing”—it is truly nothing. Now there’s a very interesting observation by the Rebbe here. We say that in Tanya every word is precise, every letter is precise. So the Rebbe points out something interesting. Earlier, the Alter Rebbe writes: “Just as He alone was one and unique before their creation, so He alone is one and unique after He created them.” “Their creation”; “He created them.” Why doesn’t he use the same expression both times? “Just as He alone was one and unique

22:33 Speaker 1 before He created them, so He alone is one and unique after He created them.” Or the reverse: “Just as He alone was one and unique before their creation, so He alone is one and unique after their creation.” The first time he writes “their creation,” and the second time, “He created them.” It looks like just one letter. What difference does it make either way? It makes all the difference in the world. The distinction between “their creation” and “He created them” is this: “their creation” implies that it happened as a matter of course, as though they came into being on their own. “He created them” implies direct involvement. We know that Chassidus discusses two verses. One verse says, “In the beginning, Elokim created”—“created,” an expression of direct involvement. And there’s a verse we say every day in davening: “Let them praise the name of Hashem, for He commanded and they were created.” There it says “they were created,” as a matter of course. So chassidim raise this question and explain that it reflects the difference between creation through the name Hashem and creation through the name Elokim. Through the name Hashem, it happens as a matter of course; through the name Elokim, it happens through direct involvement. What is the difference? When creation happens as a matter of course, there is bittul: what comes into being has no independent existence. It is as though it simply comes into being. There was no need for constriction, no descent. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, remained on His own level and willed it, and the world came into being as a matter of course, as though it were a continuation of the revelation of Hashem’s word. The whole reality of creation is therefore, from the perspective of the name Hashem, entirely G-dliness: “their creation.” By contrast, the name Elokim involves direct involvement. The name Elokim signifies judgment, constriction, descent, and then a world with its own apparent existence comes into being. So with “He created them,” through direct involvement, there is bittul hayesh, whereas with “their creation” there is bittul bimetzius. What does the Alter Rebbe want to tell us here? The Alter Rebbe wants to say: Just as He alone was one and unique before “their creation”—Hakadosh Boruch

24:24 Speaker 1 Hu was one and unique before the level of the name Hashem, before creation as a matter of course. That is “one and unique” at the highest level, even above the name Hashem: before “their creation.” So too, He is one and unique now, after “He created them.” Even though there was subsequently a descent and constriction, and creation came about through the involvement of the name Elokim, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, even after “He created them,” He remains one and unique just as He was before “their creation.” That is Hashem’s oneness from one extreme to the other. That’s Tanya: every letter, every word is precise. By the way, this also explains what we say: “You are He before the world was created; You are He since the world was created.” There are versions that say, “You are He before You created the world.” There are different versions of the prayer text. The Alter Rebbe’s version is, “You are He before the world was created; You are He since the world was created.” So the Rebbe explains: “You are He before the world was created.” Why did the Alter Rebbe choose this particular version? To emphasize this point: “You are He before the world was created” refers even to the level of Hashem’s oneness that is higher than the level of a world that “was created” as a matter of course. This is Hashem’s true oneness. Not only does a world that “He created” have no standing; even a world that “was created” has no standing at all. That is the true bittul of Hashem’s oneness, which was revealed by the Baal Shem Tov. We’re now approaching Shavuos, the time of preparation for Matan Torah. Shavuos is the yahrzeit of the Baal Shem Tov, who revealed the concept of Hashem’s oneness. And the Rebbe always speaks about beginning to study Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah on Shavuos. So this whole subject of Hashem’s oneness that we’re learning now involves some quite deep ideas to explain. As we mentioned, it’s Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the time of

26:08 Speaker 1 unity: “And Israel encamped there opposite the mountain.” And we see this in the fact that the Rebbe said to study the maamar “Bachodesh Hashlishi.” Take a look. So we’ll try to study that maamar over the coming days and begin this month of preparation for Matan Torah, each of us according to our own situation.