Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 21 - Part 4

00:01 Speaker 1 Because a Jew naturally has mesirus nefesh when it comes to idol worship. What makes idol worship such an issue for a Jew comes from the very essence of being Jewish: he does not want to be separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The moment he knows that something separates him from the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he has mesirus nefesh. So the Rebbe comes to explain how, from the actual prohibition of idol worship, we can understand that all the mitzvos are connected to this. What have we learned so far? We learned about idol worship. The Rebbe explained the whole analogy of speech and the soul: one utterance compared with all of one’s speech, all of one’s speech compared with all of one’s thought, and all of one’s thought compared with the essence of the soul. Speech, then, is utterly insignificant; it has no independent existence. The same is true of the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu in relation to Ein Sof. But in section one, he adds that there is a difference between the analogy and what it represents. In the analogy of speech, there are two states, two levels: speech as it exists within the soul, and speech as it is revealed to someone else. When we say it counts as nothing, that it is zero, we mean speech as it is included within the soul. But when speech goes out, it becomes an entity. That is not the case with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There, even after His speech comes into effect and brings all created beings into existence, even as they are being brought into existence, it remains included in the light of Ein Sof. Why? Because nothing exists outside Him. His speech is not like our speech, and His thought is not like our thought. So even after His speech brings things into existence, it remains included in Ein Sof. This raises the question: Why is it called speech? If so, it is not speech; it is thought. The whole difference is

02:12 Speaker 1 between thought and speech: thought is for oneself, while speech is for someone else. Since you are saying that here, speech never goes out and is always included within Him, why is it called speech? So the Rebbe explains: speech has a quality of its own. Its quality is revelation. Thought is concealed; speech is revealed. This applies Above as well. The point is that things that were concealed within Hakadosh Boruch Hu emerged from concealment into revelation. Through speech He created a world, and the world results from that revelation. Because there is a world here, there is an existence. This is the difference between creation from alma d’iskasya, the concealed world, and creation from alma d’isgalya, the revealed world. There is creation through thought and creation through speech. Creation through thought is a kind of creation in which the created being has no independent existence from the outset; even from its own perspective, its entire existence is utterly nullified and attached to its source. Our creation through speech, by contrast, is a kind of creation in which the created being, by its very nature, feels itself to be an entity. So this revelation, this emergence from concealment into revelation, is called speech. The difference, though, is that when a person reveals something, it also becomes separate. When a person reveals something to someone else, it goes out from him to the other person, becomes separated from him, and becomes something separate. But here it remains within Him. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is only the advantage, without the drawback. There is revelation, through which something is brought into existence by speech, but at the same time the speech remains within Him, included within Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the Rebbe now continues, at the end of the chapter, on page 27, at the line: “And all the tzimtzumim are a form of concealment of the countenance.” The Rebbe says: Hakadosh Boruch Hu made all these tzimtzumim

04:15 Speaker 1 so that a created being would feel itself to be an entity. So what are these tzimtzumim? They are the concealment of the countenance. Tzimtzum means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, conceals His face. In truth, He is here, and that is the difference between the analogy and what it represents. In the analogy of speech, the soul is not there. The soul is within me, but the speech has gone out. The expression of the soul that comes out in the words a person speaks goes outward—and what does “separate” mean? It is outside the person. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in truth He is here, but He conceals Himself, so to speak. This is connected with everything we are learning now in Tanya during these days: the aspect of, so to speak, a tzimtzum, of His being silent, so to speak. That is essentially what the Rebbe says here in different words: “And all the tzimtzumim are a form of concealment of the countenance.” All the tzimtzumim are a matter of concealing and hiding the light and vitality that flow from the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He conceals and hides, so to speak, the light and vitality that flow from His speech, so that they will not be revealed with intense revelation. There is light and vitality—the flow that Hakadosh Boruch Hu bestows so that there can be a seder hishtalshelus, an order of progressive descent. Tzimtzum means that there is concealment and hiding. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, conceals and hides this light so that it will not be felt, so that it will not be revealed with such intensity that the lower beings could not receive it. For if it were revealed intensely, the created beings would not be able to receive it. Therefore there is a concealment of the countenance, which hides this light so that the lower beings can exist. And therefore, too, the light and vitality of the speech of the Omnipresent, blessed be He, that is invested within them appears to them as though it were something separate from His essence and being. Since this comes about through tzimtzum—because the whole purpose of tzimtzum is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants the lower beings to be able to receive and not be utterly nullified—

06:16 Speaker 1 it therefore appears to them, to the created beings who receive it, as though the light and vitality were separate from Him, as though detached and separate from the light of Ein Sof. As it flows from Him, it seems distant, like a person’s speech in relation to his soul. That is how the created being feels it: as though the speech were separate from Him. In other words, the Alter Rebbe is explaining here what we observe: on the one hand, in truth the created being is included in the light of Ein Sof; on the other hand, when I look at the created being, we do not see the light of Ein Sof in it. That is part of what Hakadosh Boruch Hu accomplished through tzimtzum: from the created being’s perspective, they feel like two different things. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it so that, to the created being, the word of Hashem that brings it into existence feels as though it were separate from the light of Ein Sof, as speech is separate from a person’s soul and spirit. Although in truth that is not so. In truth, the light of Ein Sof is present down here just as it is Above. Put differently, what we learn in other maamarim of Chassidus—the point the Rebbe states briefly here—is explained at length in other maamarim of Chassidus. It is the whole discussion of coming to understand daas elyon and daas tachton. We always speak of these two perspectives: daas elyon and daas tachton. Daas elyon is how things truly are, as they are perceived from the perspective of the light of Ein Sof; daas tachton is how things are perceived from the perspective of the created being. So we say that from the perspective of the light of Ein Sof, the truth is felt: the light of Ein Sof is present down here. And when the light of Ein Sof sees the truth, what does it see? That it is present below just as it is Above. Therefore, everything before Him counts as nothing; everything is utterly nullified. And even after Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings things into existence and says, “Let there be light,” “Let there be a firmament,” even then the light of Ein Sof is present down here, within the created being, within the word of Hashem, and consequently within the created being,

08:14 Speaker 1 And therefore it is utterly nullified. So all of this is a matter of the higher perspective, daas elyon. But the tzimtzum did have an effect. It caused that from the lower perspective, daas tachton—from the standpoint of how the created being feels and sees things—the created being feels itself to be a real existence. Even when it reflects deeply and comes to recognize that it does not exist on its own, but that the word of Havayah brings it into being, how does it feel that the word of Havayah brings it into being? It feels as though the word of Havayah emerges from Ein Sof, as though it becomes a separate existence, and that is how the being is created. That is why the created being’s feeling is as described in Chassidus: below there is “something,” and above there is “nothing.” The created being senses its existence as it comes from the Divine speech. It does not sense what its existence is in relation to Ein Sof. Even when it does come to recognize that it is brought into being by Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that it cannot say, “I, and nothing besides me”—it recognizes that there is a sustaining force bringing it into being. But how does it perceive the word of Havayah? As something outside Ein Sof. So the nullification it feels is only bittul hayesh, the nullification of a separate existence. That is the continuation of the subject here; it is what the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya. But for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, no tzimtzum, concealment, or hiding obscures anything from Him. All of that concerns how the created being experiences it. From Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, we say that no tzimtzum, concealment, or hiding obscures anything from Him, and “darkness is like light.” For Hakadosh Boruch Hu there is no tzimtzum at all. More than that, what do we say? “Darkness is like light.” For Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even what we call tzimtzum—even “darkness”—is like light. In other words, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu they are the same in this respect. As it is written, “Even darkness will not obscure from You,” and so on. When you say, “Darkness is like light”—

10:27 Speaker 1 Along the same lines is the verse he cites here: “Even darkness will not obscure from You.” You could explain that in two ways. You could say that “even darkness will not obscure from You” means it has no significance for Him. Darkness does not obscure for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why? Because it has no significance; it simply does not count. But at a deeper level, we say no: “Even darkness will not obscure from You” because the darkness, too, is Ein Sof. That is also part of the novel point here. And that is what the Alter Rebbe goes on to say: “For the tzimtzum and the garments are not something separate from Him, G-d forbid.” Why do we say “darkness is like light” and “even darkness will not obscure from You”? What is the explanation? Because the darkness, too, is Him. The darkness, the tzimtzum, is also Him Himself. It is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. He is that power. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu has the power to reveal, He also has the power to constrict. So it follows that the tzimtzum, too, is Him Himself; it is Ein Sof itself. “For the tzimtzum and the garments are not something separate from Him, G-d forbid, but are like the locust whose garment is from itself and part of itself.” That is the well-known analogy of the kamtza. A kamtza is a creature. Some say it is a turtle, but that is not right. A kamtza is a kind of lobster, a grasshopper, a worm, a shrimp. The point is—I think a kamtza is something you sometimes find by the sea.

12:15 Speaker 2 [unclear].

12:16 Speaker 1 Things like that. Yes. I think it is more like [unclear] than... shrimp—something with a covering that is part of its own being and life. There is the creature and there is its covering, but the covering and the creature are of one and the same thing. It is not something added onto it. It is the creature itself, part of the same body. In the same way, this is the analogy that [unclear] would bring: with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the power to conceal and the power to reveal are not such that there is a power to reveal while the power to conceal is something outside Him, G-d forbid—as though the power of tzimtzum were separate from Him. Rather, what is it? It is all one. In other words, the perfection of Ein Sof includes both the power to reveal and the power to constrict. So the power to constrict is a power of Ein Sof just as much as the power to reveal. And because the power to constrict is the same Ein Sof as the power to reveal, the tzimtzum is not considered a concealment. That is the meaning of “even darkness will not obscure from You”: the darkness, too, is part of You. It, too, is part of the perfection of Ein Sof. This is the well-known analogy brought in the maamarim that discuss the subject, right? Recently the bochurim learned the maamar from 5657—what is it called? The maamar Veyadata Hayom, Havayah Hu HaElokim, Veyadata Moscow. There he gives the analogy of covering one’s head. A person covers his head with a yarmulke, with a kippah; that shows fear of Heaven. But if you cover your head with your hand, that does not count as a head covering according to halachah. You need to cover it with a garment, not with your hand. Why? Because if you cover it with your hand, it is not considered a covering, since the hand—

14:03 Speaker 1 is part of the person himself. So “a thing cannot conceal itself from itself”; it does not count. In other words, what appears to conceal is itself part of that very essence. The same applies here, and we will get to it. What the Alter Rebbe says here is that with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, since the power to constrict is also part of His perfection, also part of His oneness, the tzimtzum does not conceal Him. The tzimtzum does not conceal Him, and so the tzimtzum itself is part of that oneness. For “Havayah is Elokim.” Havayah and Elokim: Havayah is the power to reveal, while Elokim is the power to conceal, the power to constrict. “Havayah is Elokim” means that the power to reveal and the power to constrict are all one. There are several ways Chassidus understands “Havayah is Elokim”; it is explained in different ways, not always in the same way. Sometimes Chassidus explains these ideas differently. Even in the maamar Veyadata Hayom Moscow itself, those who learned it know that he explains “Havayah is Elokim” in several ways. But this is what the Alter Rebbe explains here: since the tzimtzum is not something separate, it is part of the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Therefore, “before Him, all is truly considered as nothing.” So now we can understand the true oneness of Havayah. From everything we have discussed here, we can understand the true oneness of Havayah as it is for Hakadosh Boruch Hu: not only on the part of the power to reveal, but also on the part of the power to constrict. It is all one. And therefore, according to daas elyon, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective, concealment has no place at all. So the Alter Rebbe has explained several details here about the oneness of Havayah. If we put the ideas we learned in chapter 21 in order—

15:51 Speaker 1 we have learned several points. The first point the Alter Rebbe made was that the word of Havayah brings the created being into existence, and the created being’s entire existence is the word of Havayah. That is the first point. So the created being has no existence of its own, because it is the word of Havayah. That is one point, but it is still not true nullification. It is only the created being’s nullification in relation to the word of Havayah; the word of Havayah is still enclothed within it, so it still has some significance. In response to that, the Alter Rebbe explained that the word of Havayah is as nothing at all in relation to Ein Sof. That expresses a higher level of nullification: not only nullification in relation to the word of Havayah, but nullification in relation to Ein Sof, its source and root. That is complete nullification. Then the Alter Rebbe adds another point, a third point: Ein Sof is present below. It is not merely that the word of Havayah is nullified in relation to Ein Sof while Ein Sof remains before the tzimtzum. Rather, Ein Sof is actually present in the very place where the Divine speech is present. That emphasizes the depth of the nullification even more: the created being is of no account at all in relation to Ein Sof. Even when the speech and the process of creation are already present, Ein Sof is present right there, and so the created being is utterly nullified. But that is in relation to Ein Sof. There is still the power of tzimtzum, which conceals Ein Sof, and because of that power the created being comes to feel itself to be a real existence. To this we say that the power to constrict is also Him. That is what he adds at the end of the chapter: since the power to conceal and constrict is also Ein Sof, the tzimtzum itself is Ein Sof. You see? So “Havayah is Elokim.” That is why he concludes the chapter, “Before Him, all is truly considered as nothing.” In light of all these points, it is truly considered as nothing—even when the created being exists below, and even as it exists through the power of tzimtzum.

17:50 Speaker 1 In terms of everything within it, it is truly of no significance, because the tzimtzum is part of the entire matter of the Infinite. This is the basis of the true oneness of Hashem that the Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 21. This is the basis he added in connection with the whole matter of Torah and mitzvos. That is why, when the Alter Rebbe began chapter 20 by saying that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Torah and said, “I am Hashem your G-d,” the meaning of “I am Hashem your G-d” is the oneness of Hashem. This makes it possible—

18:31 Speaker 3 “I am Hashem your G-d”

18:32 Speaker 1 —to grasp the oneness of Hashem. “You shall have no other gods” means that anything contrary to the oneness of Hashem must be utterly out of the question for a Jew. Idol worship is the denial of the oneness of Hashem, and we heard this directly from the Almighty. The Alter Rebbe began chapter 20 by saying that we heard these two commandments, “I am Hashem your G-d” and “You shall have no other gods,” from Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Why? Because they encompass the entire Torah. What does it mean that they encompass the entire Torah? It means that the common point of all 248 positive mitzvos is that by fulfilling them—whether from the Torah or instituted by the Sages, with all their details—we reveal the oneness of Hashem in the world. These are the ways it happens. How is the oneness of Hashem revealed in the world? Through tefillin, tzitzis, mezuzah, the recitation of Shema—all the time. All 248 positive mitzvos are expressions of the oneness of Hashem in the world. And by fulfilling a positive mitzvah, we reject every form of idol worship, the opposite of the oneness of Hashem. That means that every mitzvah is one particular expression of the oneness of Hashem. So through this, a Jew can reach the heart of the matter. As the Alter Rebbe explains in chapters 22, 23 and 24, the chapters that follow, it becomes clear that when I study Torah and fulfill a mitzvah, I become a vessel, a vehicle for the oneness of Hashem. And when, G-d forbid, I commit a transgression, I become separated from the oneness of Hashem, G-d forbid. Just as I do not want to practice idol worship—and it is not merely that I do not want to; I would give my life rather than do so. A Jew “cannot and does not want to be separated from G-dliness,” even at the cost of his life. So he has that same self-sacrifice with regard to every mitzvah and every transgression. By understanding this point, a Jew can serve Hashem in thought, speech and action, and fulfill the mitzvos—

20:33 Speaker 1 —the 248 positive mitzvos, all 613 mitzvos. In practice, it will be complete once you have grasped the point of the true oneness of Hashem.