Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 20 - Part 4

00:01 Speaker 1 Now, from here, in chapter 20, we’ll discuss the oneness of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe presents the concept of Hashem’s oneness briefly here, as he says. But his approach is to explain Hashem’s oneness so we can understand how every detail and every mitzvah is connected to it. The Alter Rebbe began by saying that “I am” and “You shall have no other gods” are the mitzvah of Hashem’s oneness—the rejection of idol worship and the affirmation of Hashem’s oneness. A Jew gives his life for this, because it reaches the yechidah of the soul as well. So the Alter Rebbe says that every detail is, in fact, connected to Hashem’s oneness. That is why “We heard ‘I am’ and ‘You shall have no other gods’ from Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself”: these two commandments encompass all the details. To explain this, the Alter Rebbe began explaining what Hashem’s oneness means. The point he explained is: “You are He before the world was created; You are He after the world was created.” The meaning is that just as, before the creation of the world, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was alone, with none besides Him, so too after the creation of the world, He remains in that same oneness. For although all the worlds were created through speech and utterance, they nevertheless have no effect whatsoever on Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why do they have no effect whatsoever on Him? That is what we are in the middle of discussing. First, the Alter Rebbe says that all the worlds are the letters—the word of Hashem that brings them into being. A created being, the world, has no existence apart from the word of Hashem. Then the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain what speech is. In other words, the world’s existence is the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is the nature of speech? On this,

01:49 Speaker 1 the Alter Rebbe will explain with an analogy. We already began reading it in the previous class. We’ll read it again, because there are several details here that we need to examine more deeply. The Alter Rebbe says: “By way of analogy, in the human soul, when a person speaks a single utterance, that utterance alone is truly as nothing even in relation to the totality of his speaking soul.” When a person speaks one utterance, that utterance is truly as nothing compared with the soul as a whole—the soul’s power of speech. That is, we are talking here about the utter lack of proportion between one utterance and the entire power of speech. The soul’s power of speech is without limit, while one utterance is just one utterance. So one utterance is truly as nothing compared with the soul as a whole. “Which is its intermediate garment”—speech is the soul’s intermediate garment. For there are three garments: thought, speech, and action. Here we are discussing speech, the intermediate garment. Since we want to understand the word of Hashem, the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the analogy from the soul focuses on speech. So one utterance is utterly insignificant in relation to the totality of the speaking soul. “For it can speak an endless number of utterances.” What is special about the soul’s power of speech? It can speak without end. So the soul’s power of speech is an infinite power, while one utterance is only one utterance. What is the distance—the distance—between one and infinity? The distance from one to infinity is infinite. It follows that one utterance has no proportion to the power of speech of the soul, which has limitless scope and extent. There is no comparison, no ratio. One has a ratio to ten. One has a ratio to a thousand. One has a ratio to a million. Each time it gets smaller, but the common point is that each

03:55 Speaker 1 time there is still some kind of ratio. There is a relationship. The distance from one to ten is nine. The distance from one to a hundred is ninety-nine. To a thousand, and so on. You can keep going, and you can measure the distance. But the distance from one to infinity is infinite. There is no ratio at all. That is what it means to say they are incomparable. That is with regard to the power of speech. The Alter Rebbe continues: “All the more so in relation to its inner garment.” Now we go deeper. Consider the lack of proportion between one utterance and—not the garment of speech, but the garment of thought. One utterance is even more incomparable to the garment of thought. It is not only a difference in quantity, because one is finite and the other is unlimited; it is also a difference in quality. One is thought and the other is speech. What is the distance between thought and speech? The Alter Rebbe explains: “Its inner garment, which is thought, from which the utterances are drawn and which is their vitality.” What is distinctive about the garment of thought? The utterances are drawn from thought. In other words, for speech to occur, thought must come first. And thought is their vitality. What does the Alter Rebbe mean by this? He wants to convey the distance between thought and speech—the superiority of thought over speech. On the one hand, we say that thought is the source of speech. But we also say that it is its vitality. What does “its vitality” mean? It means that thought gives life to speech. When a person speaks and thinks about what he is saying, his speech has much more life, much more richness. If a person just says random things and nonsense without thinking, his speech will lack life, content, and thought.

06:01 Speaker 1 It is dry speech. Speech with thought is something else entirely. So thought is like the soul of speech. It is its vitality. As we see with a soul and a body, the distance between them is certainly beyond comparison. The soul is spiritual and the body is physical. The distance between soul and body is therefore immeasurable; they are at opposite extremes. The soul is entirely spiritual and the body is entirely physical. Although the soul is enclothed in the body and gives it life, one is spiritual and the other physical. They cannot be compared. That, says the Alter Rebbe, is the distance between thought and speech. Since thought is the vitality of speech, it follows that thought is beyond comparison with speech. On the one hand, you might think that thought and speech follow one another in an orderly progression. After all, thought consists of letters and speech consists of letters; one has subtler letters and the other less subtle letters. But the Alter Rebbe wants to explain here the extent of the nullification, this lack of proportion. So he emphasizes that the distance between thought and speech is like the distance between soul and body. Since thought is the vitality of speech, in this respect thought is like something spiritual, while speech is like a body. Therefore, when you compare one utterance with thought, they are not only incomparable in quantity but also in quality. It is not just one compared with something unlimited. It is also one utterance—speech—compared with thought. The lack of proportion is qualitative too. It is like soul and body, spiritual and physical. So the difference between speech and thought is like the difference between

07:51 Speaker 1 the physical and the spiritual. They are incomparable not only in quantity but also in quality. It is a different kind of quality. The Alter Rebbe continues: “All the more so”—sorry—“and needless to say, in relation to the essence and core of the soul.” Here the Alter Rebbe does not say “all the more so,” but “needless to say.” It is much more certain. The distance between speech and the essence of the soul is beyond question. After all, thought and speech both consist of letters, so they do have something in common. True, thought gives speech life, making them far more incomparable, but they still have something in common. By contrast, when we consider speech in relation to the soul itself—not to its garments, but to the soul’s faculties—it certainly goes without saying that they are utterly incomparable. One is a garment and the other is the essence.

08:54 Speaker 2 Thought, the letters, and the vitality—are those two different things that are one and the same in thought?

09:01 Speaker 1 The letters of thought are the vitality of speech.

09:04 Speaker 2 Of the letters, exactly.

09:05 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. Needless to say, this is true even of the essence and substance of the soul—its ten faculties, Chochmah, Binah, Daas, and so on. The soul’s essence here means its ten faculties, so the distance is much greater there. From them come the letters of thought that are clothed in speech when a person speaks. Speech comes from thought, and thought comes from the faculties of the soul. So the distance between speech and the soul’s faculties is much greater. Why? The Alter Rebbe explains that thought, like speech, consists of letters. After all, thought is letters—just more spiritual and subtle letters. But ultimately, they are letters. The soul’s ten faculties—Chochmah, Binah, Daas, and so on—are the root and source of thought, and they do not yet contain letters, before they are clothed in the garment of thought. There are no letters there yet, no garment. That is why the distance there is so great. What do we have here? We are talking about three kinds of incomparable distance: in quantity, in quality, and in essence. Those are the three terms we can use to define what the Alter Rebbe is explaining here. The distance between one utterance and all six hundred thousand utterances is a matter of quantity. In quality, though, they are comparable: one utterance and all six hundred thousand utterances belong to the same world, the world of speech. So they have something in common: both are speech. The difference is that one is speech without limit and the other is limited, and the unlimited is incomparable to the limited. So in quantity they are incomparable, but in quality they are comparable. Speech compared with thought, on the other hand, is incomparable in quality, because thought is of a different quality. As we said, it is

11:08 Speaker 1 vitality; it is spiritual. That is why it has a different quality. So the incomparable distance is not only in quantity but also in quality. Still, although they differ in quality, they are of the same essential kind: both belong to the world of garments, the world of letters. Within the world of letters there is a body and a soul, the spiritual and the physical, thought and speech. But it is all within the world of letters, so it is of the same essential kind. Garments compared with faculties, by contrast, are of a different essence. The faculties of the soul are entirely different in essence from its garments. What is the difference between them? As explained in Chassidus, a garment of the soul involves concealment. A garment covers; it relates to something outside oneself. With garments, there is an outside reality. They involve a relationship with something external, and therefore they conceal the soul. The soul’s faculties, by contrast, are the soul itself. The faculties give expression to the soul; the soul itself is revealed through them. Its essence shines in the intellect and emotions, and with it, the soul’s simplicity. Not so with the soul’s garments. There, there is already a boundary. They mark a movement beyond the soul toward something outside it, toward another. In thought, that “other” is still one’s own inner other; speech is directed to an other outside oneself. These are different kinds of “other,” but that is the distinction. It is a different essence. So when we speak of the incomparable distance between one utterance and the soul, “soul” here means the soul’s faculties. Yes, the Tanya does not go higher than the soul’s faculties here. In Tanya we are discussing only these levels: the garments of the soul and its faculties. It is known that when the Alter Rebbe says “the essence and substance of the soul” in Tanya, he is not speaking of the yechidah; he means the intellect and emotions. Infinite vitality, section two; the essence and substance of the soul, infinite vitality, section... The Rebbe says in Likkutei Torah, in Parshas Vayikra, “And I will lift up your face,” that when

13:19 Speaker 1 Tanya speaks of the essence of the soul, it does not mean the essence of the yechidah; it means a faculty of the soul. That is the faculty. So these are three kinds of incomparable distance: between one utterance and the entire faculty of speech, between speech and thought, and between speech and a faculty of the soul. This is how it is reflected in the soul. What does the Rebbe want to tell us through all this? It is all an analogy to help us understand created beings in relation to G-dliness. What is the point of the analogy? It is very interesting that the Rebbe’s analogy emphasizes that each level is drawn from the one above it. He keeps saying that a single utterance comes from the faculty of speech, the faculty of speech comes from the faculty of thought, and the faculty of thought comes from a faculty of the soul. The Rebbe keeps saying that one is drawn from the other, and at the same time, they are incomparable. There are two movements here throughout. On the one hand, the Rebbe emphasizes a progression: speech comes from the faculty of speech, which comes from thought, which comes from the soul. And at the same time, there is an incomparable distance between them. How does this apply to the analogy’s subject? It applies to the beings created by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the order of creation is the same. A created being comes from the word of Hashem. The word of Hashem consists of ten utterances. That is it—ten utterances. Ten, not one; ten, not nine. There are ten utterances. So we understand that speech issued in ten utterances. Where does that speech come from? From the sefirah of Malchus. In Malchus there is far more than ten utterances. Hashem’s faculty of speech, in its essence, is infinite; He can speak without end. Hashem has the faculty of speech, and here He wanted only ten utterances. But the faculty of speech itself has, in its essence and potential, the capacity for infinite branching. This is the sefirah of Malchus, the world of speech. Beyond that is the world of thought. The world of thought is alma d’iskasya, the hidden world. The sefarim speak of alma d’isgalya, the revealed world, and alma d’iskasya. One is the sefirah of Malchus; the other is also the sefirah of Binah.

15:27 Speaker 1 That is precisely the point: there are letters connected with another, and letters intended for another. The letters of thought—alma d’isgalya and alma d’iskasya—are also drawn from one another. The letters of speech come from thought. Hakadosh Boruch Hu first thought—or rather, He had it in His will, in His thought. Hakadosh Boruch Hu thought of a world, and afterward the world came into being in actuality. We learned this, as I recall, from a maamar from Tishrei, Kislev, Chanukah. There the Rebbe Rashab gives the analogy of one utterance. There are ten utterances and one utterance. The world could have been created with one utterance. The ten utterances are speech; the one utterance is thought. Hakadosh Boruch Hu thought of the world, and in thought everything arose in a single thought. Afterward, when it descended into speech, He spelled it out in detail. There are several approaches there. The Rebbe brings them—the Rebbe Rashab brings them—yes, regarding one utterance and ten utterances. In short, he brings all the approaches. But the whole point is that there is a progression within speech, and before speech there is thought. Above thought are the sefiros. Sefiros are not independent entities. A sefirah is a sefirah. It is higher than that. Yes, so there is the matter of the sefiros. The sefiros. There it is like an expansion of the soul. It is a higher level. In any case, what do we understand from all this? This is the point: speech, which is distant—the ten utterances, great as they are—is incomparable to the faculty of speech. Compared with thought, it is even more incomparable, incomparable in quality as well. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s thought of the world has no form of independent existence at all. Its form in thought is not necessarily the form of a separate entity; it is a form of bittul. All the more so as it exists within the sefiros, higher still. There it is not a matter of form at all; it is a sefirah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Chochmah is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and from this He

17:23 Speaker 1 ...unfolded. So this is what the Alter Rebbe is saying: if, with a person, we understand that a single word is utterly incomparable to all three of these things, how much more so is this true of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As for the very existence of a world that comes into being through speech, the entire existence of the created being is that speech. It has no existence apart from the speech. And that speech is utterly incomparable to speech as a whole; all the more so to thought, and all the more so to the sefiros. So [unclear]. All the worlds come from one utterance, or from ten utterances, but they are utterances nonetheless. In relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to the sefiros, to Ein Sof, they have no significance whatsoever—not in quantity, not in quality, and not in their very nature. They are utterly incomparable, and because they are utterly incomparable, they count for nothing. That is why “You are He before the world was created,” and after the world was created it is of no account. And that is [unclear]. This is the fundamental point the Rebbe is explaining here. This is the second approach, known in the language of Chassidus as the second approach to the unity of G-dliness. That is what we are learning here. Essentially, it is the difference between what we learn in the opening chapters of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah and what we are learning now. In Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, in its opening chapters, the Alter Rebbe is speaking about yichuda tata’ah, the lower unity, whereas here he is speaking about yichuda ila’ah, the higher unity. In Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, the Alter Rebbe explains creation of something from nothing. That creation has to take place at every moment, because the created being has no existence of its own and must be brought into being anew at every moment. So what is the status of the created being in relation to its Creator? We are considering the created being

19:26 Speaker 1 in relation to the Creator of the worlds. In other words, when we speak about speech, about the Ten Utterances themselves, it is not that they bring something into being and then the created being becomes an independent existence. Rather, it has to be created at every moment, because it has no existence of its own. Even after it has been created, it has to be brought into being anew. So it has no existence whatsoever in relation to its Creator. We are speaking about the created being in relation to its Creator—that is yichuda tata’ah, the nullification of the created being in relation to its Creator. But speech is a reality; it does have an existence. Not a physical existence, but a spiritual one. It is speech. It is Elokim speaking or thinking. There is a relationship; there is something other. So there is some connection here, but then we come to what the Rebbe explains in the passage we are learning now. This is what the Rebbe is explaining here, in this quotation: if you look at that speech in relation to speech as a whole, to the faculty of thought, to the ten sefiros, and to Ein Sof, you come to recognize that it is truly of no account. That is yichuda ila’ah, utter nullification of its existence. And that is the difference between the analogy the Alter Rebbe gives in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah and the analogy he gives here in Tanya. In Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, he gives the analogy of the sun. Here the Alter Rebbe gives the analogy of letters. There are many differences; we will not go into all the distinctions now. In Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, the Alter Rebbe gives the analogy of the sun’s radiance: the nullification of the created being in relation to the word of Havayah is like that of the sun’s radiance. Here the Alter Rebbe gives the analogy of letters in relation to the soul. So what is the difference? One difference is that when we speak of the sun’s radiance—of the light that comes from the sun—the light has no existence of its own. Its entire existence is the sun. That is true. What is the sun’s radiance? Light. Without the sun, it does not exist. Its entire existence is the sun’s revelation. When it is outside the sun, though, it is perceived as if it were something.

21:49 Speaker 1 Within the sun, there is no such thing. There is only the sun. Letters and the soul are not the same thing. It is not like the sun’s radiance in relation to the sun. The soul is the soul, and letters are letters. There are letters now, apart from the soul. Letters are [unclear]—they are still letters. They are something distinct. They are not simply the soul’s revelation; they are letters. Nevertheless, we say that when the letters are within the soul—when they are included in the soul—then, as we mentioned, they are as nothing, on account of all three levels we discussed here. So when it comes to utter incomparability and nullification, the analogy of letters is a much better analogy. That is why the Alter Rebbe uses it here: to illustrate the utter nullification of the word of Havayah in relation to Ein Sof. But when we want to speak about the created being, which has no existence of its own and whose entire existence is the word of Havayah, the analogy is the light of the sun. Are you following? It is very interesting, this whole point. Very interesting. I do not want to—ah, it is hard to discuss this at night, to take it all in. At this hour it is hard to follow these concepts precisely, but it is very interesting. I just wanted to put the idea out there. Afterwards, if you want, you can look into it yourselves. It is very interesting. In chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe gives both analogies. In chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe gives both analogies. He also speaks about the word of Havayah. There, the Alter Rebbe gives both analogies and says what the difference is between one and the other. He says that this is a physical analogy. [unclear] It sounds as though the difference between the first analogy and the second is that the first, letters, is a spiritual analogy, while the analogy of the sun is a physical one. So what does “a physical analogy” mean? Does it mean that it is the same analogy, only one is physical and the other spiritual? Elsewhere, something entirely different is written about the difference

24:19 Speaker 1 between the two analogies. The Rebbe Rashab writes—I think it is in Hemshech 5672—what is the difference between the analogy of letters and the analogy of sunlight? The analogy of letters illustrates the nullification of the keilim, while the analogy of sunlight illustrates the nullification of the oros. There is “Ihu v’chayohi chad” and “Ihu v’garmohi chad.” These are two forms of oneness. “Ihu v’chayohi chad” refers to the oros; “Ihu v’garmohi chad” refers to the keilim. The nullification of the oros is because the oros are attached to their source. Light, being of the same nature as its luminary, is attached to the luminary. The nullification of the keilim is through being included in their source. A keili is not attached in that way. Keilim are like letters, but they are included in their source, and therefore they are nullified. That is the difference between the analogy of sunlight and the analogy of letters. Letters are like keilim: they are nullified because they are included in their source, not because letters have no existence in their own right. Rather, when the letters are included in the soul, they are nullified. Sunlight, by contrast, is the sun. There is nothing else there; there is only the sun. That is the difference between the nullification of the oros and the nullification of the keilim. That is all explained beautifully in Hemshech 5672. But when you look in Tanya and see where the Alter Rebbe uses the analogy of letters and where he uses the analogy of the sun, you see something quite different. As I said earlier, he uses the analogy of the sun in chapter 3 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, where he is speaking about yichuda tata’ah. And he uses the analogy of letters in chapter 20 of Likkutei Amarim, where he is speaking about yichuda ila’ah. So the explanation is what we said before. I hope you understood. That is enough for today.