Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 20 - Part 5

00:01 Speaker 1 We’re at the end of chapter 21. Page 26b, the line beginning “thought.” “For example.” That’s the point here: “For example.” Yes, so the Alter Rebbe gives the whole analogy from the soul. We’re learning about the oneness of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe explains that the oneness of Hashem means what we say: “I, Hashem, have not changed”; “You are He before the world was created, and You are He after the world was created”—without any change. Why? Because the worlds and all created beings bring about no change in the Creator’s oneness. Just as He was one and unique before the creation of the world, so He remains one and unique after the creation of the world. How do we understand that? The Alter Rebbe explains, first of all, that the foundation of all created beings is the word of Hashem at every single moment. The word of Hashem brings them from nothing into being, so the entire existence of created beings is the word of Hashem. Then we discuss the word of Hashem—speech. Speech, too, is utterly incomparable and has no significance relative to the Ein Sof. For this the Alter Rebbe gives an analogy. The analogy was that, as we see in the human soul, one utterance has no significance relative to the faculty of speech as a whole. All the more so, it has no significance relative to the faculty of thought as a whole. And all the more so, it has no significance relative to the essence of the soul, which is its

01:40 Speaker 2 ten faculties.

01:42 Speaker 1 So we discussed in the previous class that there are three ways in which it is incomparable: one utterance relative to the faculty of speech as a whole; one utterance relative to the faculty of thought, thought being the life and inward dimension of speech; and one utterance relative to the ten faculties of the soul, which are entirely above the level of letters. Right? So that one utterance is incomparable to the soul itself in three ways: in quantity, in quality, and in its very nature. Now, if we think about these words, these letters, as they are included within the soul, they have absolutely no significance. And so it is with the word of Hashem, from which created beings come into existence—the existence of the world—in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s the point the Alter Rebbe is coming to explain, and here the Alter Rebbe is still continuing the analogy. This is where we were in the middle of the class. The Alter Rebbe says: “For example,” yes, “when some love and desire arise in a person’s heart.” When a person has some love and desire in his heart, before that love rises from the heart to the mind to think and reflect on it, “it does not yet have the aspect of letters.” When a person has a desire in his heart, he hasn’t thought about it yet. It’s just there in his heart. So in the heart, the desire exists without letters. It’s a desire, but it has no letters. It’s as if you were to ask someone, “In what language do you like eating? In what language do you like eating?” People all over the world generally like eating; people in every country like eating. But ask, in what language do they like eating? In every language. The love doesn’t change because he thinks about it in Russian, Spanish, English, or Hebrew. He likes eating. That love itself has nothing to do with language; it has to do with a disposition of the heart.

03:55 Speaker 1 A person is drawn to food. It’s natural for a person to like eating. So the desire itself, the love itself, has nothing to do with words or language. It’s something of the heart, something of the soul, an emotion found in the heart. Before it rises from the heart to the mind, it has no letters. In other words, the feeling of love for a particular food—that feeling isn’t connected to letters, to particular words. It’s a feeling found among people all over the world, whether they have it or not, but that’s the point. “It does not yet have letters, but only a simple longing and yearning in the heart for the thing that appeals to him.” It’s a kind of longing: he has a particular desire and wish for something he finds appealing. “And all the more so before the desire and longing for a particular thing arose in his heart, when it existed only in the potential of his wisdom, intellect, and knowledge.” There’s an even earlier stage, when he doesn’t yet have a desire. It’s only knowledge. He knows it exists. There’s a stage when a person knows about certain things but isn’t yet drawn to them. Say, for example, a child knows there is such a thing as money. He already knows the concept of money, but he doesn’t yet desire money. There’s a certain age when a person develops a desire for money. Although the Rambam says that a child’s dinar is dear to him—that was in yesterday’s Rambam. Where was it that they just learned it in Rambam? A Torah scholar, in the chapters on...? But in practice, there’s a certain age. At a certain age, he’s familiar with the concept of money, but he doesn’t necessarily desire it; he doesn’t yet have a desire for wealth. And it’s the same with everything in the world. There’s a stage when a person knows something exists, but it doesn’t interest him; it’s there in his mind. After that comes a stage when he has a feeling for it. He

06:06 Speaker 1 feels it; he loves it. But even then, he isn’t necessarily thinking about it. It’s in his heart. So the Alter Rebbe says that when something is in my mind as knowledge, it has no words. That is, it isn’t tied to a language. A person knows there is money; he knows the concept. Every country calls money something different in its own language. Here they call it dollars; they call it pesos; they give it various names. Those are the words, but that’s not the point here. Knowing about money is knowledge that isn’t tied to the word. It isn’t tied to the language. It’s an awareness of the thing itself, that this concept exists. The concept isn’t tied to words. Likewise, when you have a feeling, the desire isn’t tied to words either. It’s a simple desire found among people everywhere. Language isn’t the point here. When does language begin? When you want to put it into practice. When you want to bring that desire or that knowledge into terms of actual action, then you begin to think. And when you begin to think or speak, suddenly there are letters. If you’re from one country, you think in one set of letters; if you’re from another country, you think in another. It’s when it reaches the soul’s garments that letters come into being. So he says—the Alter Rebbe’s words inside—“It existed only in the potential of his wisdom, intellect, and knowledge, through which he knew that the thing was desirable, pleasant, good, and fine to attain and attach himself to.” The person knew this thing had all sorts of qualities, and so it was worth knowing about, “such as learning a particular field of wisdom or eating a tasty food.” Since the Alter Rebbe has brought two examples here, one from intellect and one from food, he also gives two examples: learning a subject of wisdom, which relates to the mind, or

08:05 Speaker 1 eating a tasty food, which relates to the emotions. One relates to the mind and the other to the heart. So while it is in the mind and heart, it is still without letters. It’s without letters. When do the letters come into being? Only after the longing and desire have already arisen in his heart, rooted in the potential of the wisdom, intellect, and knowledge—only after this has moved from potential toward actuality, right? The thing is already there. “And afterward it rises again from the heart to the mind, to think and reflect.” It rises from the heart to the mind so he can think about it in a sustained way: how to bring his desire from potential into actuality, to obtain the food or actually learn the subject of wisdom. “At that point, letters are born in his mind—the letters of the language of each people, in which they speak and think.” When it reaches the garments, that’s where letters come into being, and then there are different languages. How do you think about wanting to eat a particular thing in this language or another? How do you think about this subject of wisdom in this language or another? So when do the letters take on an existence? When they enter the garment of thought and the garment of speech. But as long as the thing remains a desire in the heart or knowledge in the mind, although he already knows about it and already has a feeling for it, letters aren’t found there. Now a question naturally arises for many people: What does that mean? Surely there are letters. Everything has letters. Anyone who has learned even a little Chassidus—the ABCs of Chassidus—comes across letters. It’s well known that Chassidus always says there is no expression of the soul that isn’t connected to letters. In chochmah and binah, in intellect and emotions, in desire and will—every expression of the soul involves letters. The soul cannot express itself without letters. Have you learned the maamarim of 5659? I don’t know, Tishrei. Likewise, a number of maamarim discuss the subject of letters. After all, it’s well known that the soul is full of letters. It says so in many maamarim.

10:16 Speaker 1 The soul is full of letters. That means the letters are already present in the soul itself, even before anything is revealed. And after that, what is revealed in the soul? A desire. Even if I’m not thinking about it right now, there must be letters. Without letters, nothing—nothing happens. Chassidus explains that the word for “letters,” osiyos, is related to “the morning has come”: “has come” means revelation, right? So every revelation is connected with letters. Then what does it mean when the Alter Rebbe says here that the letters are born only after a person has gone through the whole process from intellect to emotions, and only when it comes up into the mind to think about it—only then are letters born? The answer is very simple. The Alter Rebbe is speaking here about letters as a distinct reality. Every revelation does have some sort of letters, but there the letters are not felt as letters. They are not considered letters. In other words, when a person has a desire in his heart, he isn’t thinking about it. He simply has the feeling that he likes eating, as we said, or that he likes learning. But right now he isn’t actually thinking about learning, or about something he wants to eat; the feeling is simply there in his heart. So yes, there too, there is essentially a kind of letters, because without letters there can be no revelation. But those letters are not considered letters. It is like what Chassidus says about engraved letters. There are also written letters. Engraved letters are not considered letters, because when the light shines through—as in an analogy often brought in Chassidus, when you have a precious stone that shines, with letters on it—the letters do not conceal. The light shines, and it is as though you don’t notice them. Yes, there are letters there, but they have no effect, because the light of

12:25 Speaker 1 the precious stone penetrates and passes through the letters. You look at the stone; you don’t see letters, you see only the stone. If you put ink there, put color there, put something there that conceals, then you will see letters. But as long as there is nothing that conceals, those letters do not conceal. The light shines through them as though they aren’t there. They are not considered a distinct reality. The same applies here. The Alter Rebbe does not mean that there are no letters at all in the soul beforehand. He means that letters as a distinct reality are born in thought and speech, in the garments of the soul. In the soul’s intellect and emotions, they do not have the character of letters. What is felt there is, so to speak, the emotions, not the letters. The letters there are nullified to the substance of the feeling, so they are not considered a distinct reality of letters. By contrast, when a person actually begins to think, letters are born. And that is what we said: loving, wanting, understanding—the very existence of intellect is not tied to a language. Whether it is in one language or another, it is the same idea, the same subject. The letters make no difference there. But when you come to speak about it, when you come to think about it, then your language is the language in which you will speak and think about it. What is all this? It is the analogy for our subject. What does the Alter Rebbe want to tell us? The same applies to the coming into being of created beings. Where does their existence come from? From the word of Hashem. And within that, there are two levels. We know that it says there is the revealed world and the hidden world. There are worlds that come from speech and worlds that come from thought. From the letters of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech were created the revealed worlds, worlds that have a sense of independent existence. From the letters of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s thought were created hidden worlds, worlds that are nullified, worlds that do not have that sense of independent existence. These are two kinds of letters from which

14:22 Speaker 1 two kinds of worlds come into being. Above that there are no letters, and consequently there are no worlds. What does it mean, “there are no worlds”? Before thought and speech there are emotions, intellect, will and pleasure, and all of these are connected with the worlds. As it says in the sefarim, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling in the lower realms”—that is pleasure. “It arose in His will that there be worlds”—there is will. [unclear]. “You made them all with wisdom”—there is wisdom. “For six days He made”—there are the emotions. Only afterward does it say, “By the word of Hashem the heavens were made.” If so, the worlds are already present in the emotions, the intellect, the will and the pleasure. But there, they are not worlds. That is still before the letters. This is the analogy the Rebbe gives. As you say of a person’s heart and mind: although things are present there too—he loves things, he knows things—he is not thinking about them. They are there, but in a way in which the letters are not felt. The language is not felt there. The words are not the point; the content is, the point itself. The same applies, as it were, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu at the level of Kesser, will, pleasure, intellect and emotions. There, the focus is not the world, not its existence. We are not yet speaking about the world. When does a world begin to exist? In thought and speech. When there are letters of thought and letters of speech, letters emerge as a distinct reality. So, as we say in the analogy of the human soul, one utterance is absolutely nothing in relation to the overall faculty of speech, all the more so in relation to the faculty of thought, and all the more so in relation to the essence of the soul. The same applies—and all the more so in the case of the analogue, when we speak of all

16:15 Speaker 1 the worlds. What constitutes the existence of the worlds? They come from the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So these letters, which constitute the existence of created beings, have no significance whatsoever, no value at all, in relation to His essence and being—to Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom and emotions. They are absolutely nothing. That is the nullification of the worlds in relation to the Ein Sof. That is the point of chapter 20. So, briefly, what does the Alter Rebbe teach us in chapter 20 about the unity of Hashem? What else? What is the Alter Rebbe’s innovation here concerning the unity of Hashem? We discussed how this is his innovation here compared with what we learn in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. In those chapters of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, when the Alter Rebbe speaks about the nullification of created beings, he is speaking about the nullification of the created being’s independent existence. The created being has no existence of its own; its entire existence is from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is the Divine power, the word of Hashem. We are speaking about the created being’s existence, its sense of being. It has no existence of its own because its entire existence is brought into being from absolute nothingness by the word of Hashem at every moment. So the created being’s independent existence is nothing, and that is what the Alter Rebbe explained to us in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. But it might still have some significance. From Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah alone, we do not yet understand that it has no significance; we understand that it has no existence of its own. Its entire existence is due to the word of Hashem bringing it into being. But the very fact that the word of Hashem brings it into being implies a relationship, some degree of connection and significance. To address that, the Alter Rebbe now brings the analogy of letters in relation to the soul. Just as with letters in relation to the soul, it is not only that the created being has no existence of its own: it has no significance. It is utterly incomparable; it has no value and no relationship whatsoever.

18:06 Speaker 1 In the same way, this is the existence of the worlds in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Even in relation to the ten sefiros, they have no significance, no standing whatsoever. This is what we mean when we say, “You are He before the world was created, and You are He after the world was created”: the created beings have no significance, no standing in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the point of chapter 20. What is still missing, that the Alter Rebbe needs to continue into chapter 21? Everything seems clear already. There is now another whole chapter about the unity of Hashem, but hasn’t he already explained it? He has explained not only that created existence is nothing, but that its relationship to Him is of no significance either, and therefore, “I, Hashem, have not changed.” What is missing from the Alter Rebbe’s explanation? Chapter 21 will now explain. I’ll just explain the main point, and then we’ll look at the text itself. The point is to understand how chapters 20 and 21 follow one another, how one chapter completes the other. You have explained, correctly, that in relation to the Ein Sof, the world has no significance whatsoever. But there is tzimtzum. The Ein Sof is not present down here; down here there is only speech. So the fact that the world has no significance in relation to the Ein Sof is true in relation to the Ein Sof. But in its own place, at its own level, surely it does have significance. Do you understand the question? Take the analogy of the soul again. You say that a single word has no significance in relation to the soul. In relation to the soul, it has no significance; in relation to the underlying faculties, it has no significance. But I’m asking you not about the soul, but about speech itself. Here, in my mouth, I say a word and speak to you, and we communicate. I make a connection through speech. In that setting, does speech have significance or not? Of course it does. So

20:33 Speaker 1 you have Reuven and Shimon speaking to each other, and Reuven speaks to Shimon. In this world, where Reuven is speaking to Shimon, speech matters. It has significance, it has substance, it has a place. It is only in relation to the soul that it has no significance. The soul is without limit; it is infinite. But that is in relation to the soul, and the soul is the soul—it is on another level. Where I am actually speaking, speech does have significance. In the same way, as it were, above: you say that the world is connected to the word of Hashem, and that the word of Hashem has no significance in relation to the Ein Sof. But that is the Ein Sof. At the level of the word of Hashem itself—just as in a person there are different levels, the level at which he speaks and the soul above it—so too above, there is the Ein Sof, there are the sefiros, there is Atzilus and levels still higher, and there everything is of no account. But at the level of the word of Hashem, in the realm of speech where it brings the world into being, surely the world does have significance. And this is the point the Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 21: in precisely this respect, the analogy of the soul does not match what it illustrates. There is a difference between the analogy and what it illustrates. In the analogy, it is true that at the level of the mouth, at the level of speech, and for the other person, speech does have significance; it is only in relation to the soul that it does not. Above, however, even down here, even in Malchus, even at the level of the word of Hashem that is invested in speech, the world is utterly nothing, of no account. That is the foundation of chapter 21, which we will learn next.