Igeres Hakodesh, Letter 11, "Lehaskilcha Binah" - Part 4

00:00 We’re in the middle of chapter 11 of Igeres Hakodesh, at the lines “and the discerning person will understand” and “He is only good all day, and therefore.” Right? So the Alter Rebbe says here that we need to have this foundation: creation is something from nothing. The Rebbe explains what this foundation means—that creation comes from Hashem’s wisdom and is brought into being at every moment by His wisdom, which brings everything into being from nothing at every moment. The Rebbe says that when a person contemplates this, they will naturally have joy of the soul all the time. And the joy should be so great that they will not feel any evil from any suffering in the world. Because the existence and life of every moment and every detail come from His wisdom, and His wisdom is the source of life, goodness, and delight, it is therefore only good all day. As the Rebbe says, it is just that we cannot grasp it. Because we’re speaking about such an exalted level, sometimes we cannot grasp it down here. How does it appear here? It appears in a way that looks bad down here, but in the true essence of the matter, no evil descends from Above, and everything is good; it is only that we cannot grasp it because of its greatness and abundant goodness. Sometimes the good is so exalted that down here we cannot feel it, because of its greatness and abundant goodness. Before we continue, I want to explain this point a little more: that no evil descends from Above and everything is good, but we cannot grasp it because of its greatness and abundant goodness. The Alter Rebbe has a maamar in Likkutei Torah where he explains this point. And in Likkutei

02:20 Amarim, too, the Alter Rebbe brings it in Tanya, chapter 26. There it is presented briefly. But in Likkutei Torah, in Parshas Chukas, there is a maamar, “And Moshe Made a Copper Serpent,” in which the Alter Rebbe explains it at greater length. There are two stories in the Gemara: the story of Nachum Ish Gamzu and the story of Rabbi Akiva. The Rebbe also discusses them in Likkutei Sichos. The Rebbe goes into the two stories and the difference between them at length there. But first let’s start with the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe cites the story told in the Gemara. Rabbi Akiva used to say, “Everything the Merciful One does, He does for the good.” Everything Hashem does is for the good. That was Rabbi Akiva’s level. The Gemara relates that once, when he was traveling, he took a donkey to carry him on the journey, a rooster to wake him, and a lamp so he could learn. He arrived at a town where the people would not offer him hospitality. He went out to the field, saying all along, “Everything is for the good, everything is for the good.” Then a lion came and ate the donkey. A cat came and ate the rooster. And a wind came and blew out the lamp. Rabbi Akiva said, “Everything the Merciful One does, He does for the good.” That is what he said about each thing. The Gemara continues that afterward, thieves—bandits and robbers—came and caused havoc in the town. He was saved because he had no lamp, no rooster, and no donkey. That meant they did not notice him, and that is how he was saved. So here the good in it became apparent. That is Rabbi Akiva’s story. Then there is the story of Nachum Ish Gamzu,

04:19 who went to the king with silver and gold to have the decree rescinded. On the way, the silver and gold were stolen and replaced with earth. He said, “This too is for the good.” When he arrived before the king, they saw earth and wanted to kill him. But then they took the earth, it turned into arrows, and they succeeded in battle. So not only did the king rescind the decree, he gave Nachum a great deal of silver and gold in return. If Nachum had arrived with silver and gold, the king would not necessarily have listened to him. It was precisely because it was earth, and a miracle happened with that earth, that this too was for the good. So the Alter Rebbe, in Likkutei Torah on Parshas Chukas, brings these accounts and explains them. What is the meaning of these stories? He makes this point, which here the Alter Rebbe states in one line: Above, everything is entirely good. Above, there is nothing bad at all. Above, everything is G-dliness, everything is holiness. Even things that down here appear to be the opposite of holiness and G-dliness—that is only how they appear down here in our world. But at their source Above, everything is G-dliness and holiness. The thing is, there is what Chassidus calls the shattering of the vessels, and there are the tzimtzumim, the contractions, and... So when things descend through the chain of worlds, and sometimes descend through a kind of shattering, the result is that down here they appear in a way that is not good. But as they are Above, at their source, everything is holiness, everything is good, everything is G-dliness. On the contrary: the things that fall to a lower place down here do so because their source Above is far more exalted. And this was the greatness of Nachum Ish Gamzu,

06:09 Ish Gamzu raised things to their source. In other words, when he saw something in the world, he did not look at it as it appeared down here, where it seemed bad. He looked at its source. He connected it to its source Above, where everything is good. Once he raised it to its source, to its origin, to the Essence, to G-dliness—where everything is G-dliness and everything is good—he thereby brought about that its goodness would become apparent down here too. That is what the Alter Rebbe explains, and that is the point of “This too is for the good.” He saw the good in everything, and he did this by connecting things to their source. There in Likkutei Torah, the Alter Rebbe connects this with the story of the copper serpent. The Torah relates that there was a plague: Hashem sent serpents, and, may Hashem protect us, many Jews died. So what did Moshe Rabbeinu do? He made a copper serpent and placed it on a pole, and when the people looked up, they were healed. What is the point of that? The Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah asks, “Does a serpent cause death, or does a serpent give life?” They looked at the serpent and lived—was it the serpent that did that? No. Rather, when the Jewish people looked upward and directed their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they were healed. By looking up, they turned to their Father in Heaven, and they became well. So the question is, why take a serpent and put it on a pole? Moshe Rabbeinu could have told the Jewish people to look upward without a serpent, without a pole, without copper, without all of that. Just tell them, “Friends, look up, connect to Hashem,

08:05 and then everything will be good.” Why specifically put a serpent on a pole, and so on? The Alter Rebbe explains that the serpent is the symbol of evil. The primordial serpent—all the evil in the world, all the death in the world, all the darkness in the world, all the bad things began with the serpent. So down here, the serpent is evil; it is kelipah. But the source of the serpent—the copper serpent, the serpent raised on a pole—in other words, the source Above of the primordial serpent, was also holiness. It fell down here through the nurture of the external forces, and through that fall it underwent a shattering. But at its source, the serpent is something holy. That is what Moshe Rabbeinu revealed by taking the serpent and raising it on the pole. They saw the serpent at its source; they revealed the serpent at its source. The good within it became apparent, and then the serpent could no longer harm them down here either. This is a foundation in serving Hashem, a foundation in emunah. It is the point of “This too is for the good”: by raising things to their source, you connect them to G-dliness. There it becomes apparent that everything is G-dliness and everything is good, and then, when it comes down here, it too is transformed. That, in general, is the point the Alter Rebbe explains at length in Likkutei Torah. On this basis, the Rebbe also explains in a sicha from [unclear], 5711, which the Rebbe later edited and which appears in the early volumes of Likkutei Sichos. In the sicha, the Rebbe explains that in these stories we can see the difference between Nachum Ish Gamzu and Rabbi Akiva, even though, in general, it is the same

10:03 But that is not the same thing. Nachum Ish Gamzu was extraordinary: what happened was that the bad thing itself became good. “This too is for the good.” The bad itself was revealed to be good. In that story, the bad itself was the key. If he had brought the king precious stones and gold, what would the king need them for? He had plenty. He would not have been impressed. It was specifically because the thieves put dirt in their place—remember?—that the miracle happened through the dirt itself. So the bad itself was good. That was the level of Nachum Ish Gamzu. With Rabbi Akiva, it was “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good.” The thing itself was not visibly good. The donkey was killed, the rooster died, the lamp went out, and so on, and he had nowhere to sleep. The events themselves were not good; rather, their later outcome, the benefit that came from them, was that his life was saved. So that is a lower level. The Rebbe explains that this is also why “This too is for the good” was said in the Holy Tongue, while “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good” was said in Aramaic. In the Holy Tongue, holiness shines more openly. Nachum Ish Gamzu also lived in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, when holiness was more openly revealed and it was possible to reveal the inner good within the bad more openly. That is why, for him, the bad itself was transformed. But Rabbi Akiva was already after the destruction, in the time of exile, when these things are not so readily grasped in the world. So he said in Aramaic, “Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good,” and for him it remained more concealed. In other words, in practice they saw the benefit—that it worked out for the good—but not that the thing itself was transformed. These are two levels in how one relates to suffering. The Rebbe

11:56 explains this in Likkutei Sichos. Here the Alter Rebbe does not go into all the details, but that is the point of what he means when he says that no evil descends from above and everything is good, “only it is not apprehended because of its greatness and abundant goodness.” It is good, but it is such a lofty good, as we explained in the previous class. It is the level of Chochmah. So it is such a lofty kind of good that, as things are revealed down here, they appear down here to be something undesirable. But in truth, it is good. The Alter Rebbe continues and says that this is why man was created, and “this is the essence of the faith for which man was created.” The point being explained here is that a Jew needs to know that at every moment, his entire existence is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And consequently, it is a matter of the Tree of Life. All right: “This is the essence of the faith for which man was created: to believe that there is no place devoid of Him,” in “the light of the King’s countenance is life.” Regarding the Alter Rebbe’s statement that this is the essence of the faith for which man was created—faith in what? Faith that “there is no place devoid of Him.” To believe that there is no place devoid of Him. This is very interesting. The Rebbe notes here, in his annotations to Tanya in Lessons in Tanya—the Rebbe has several notes there, and it is very interesting that there are many notes by the Rebbe on this chapter. On these words, the Rebbe refers to the Zohar on Parshas Vaeira, to Rambam’s Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, and also to Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. What does the Rebbe mean by these references? We can say that the point here is man: “the essence of the faith for which man was created.” Man was created to live with faith. That is, faith means believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists—faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe says no. The faith for which man was created is to believe that there is no place devoid of Him. Where did the Alter Rebbe get this from? That

14:21 is to say, this is a foundation, a fundamental principle in Chassidus. The faith a Jew needs to have—this is why man was created. Man was created in the world to believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But believing in Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not just believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists. Believing in Hakadosh Boruch Hu means believing that there is no place devoid of Him. It means believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everything. This is the faith for which man was created. Man was created in the world to believe in His true oneness. What is the source for this? He refers to the Zohar and Rambam. In Likkutei Sichos, volume 26, Parshas Yisro, the Rebbe explains that Rambam’s source is the Zohar. That is what the Rebbe means by this reference to the Zohar—the Zohar behind Rambam’s opening in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah. Rambam begins Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah by saying: “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a First Being, Who brings all beings into existence; and all beings in heaven and earth and everything between them exist only from the truth of His existence.” So Rambam states explicitly what faith is. Rambam then goes on to say that this is what is meant by “I am Hashem your G-d.” This is the mitzvah of faith. In other words, according to Rambam, what is the mitzvah of faith? It is not merely believing that G-dliness exists, that Hashem exists. That is not the mitzvah of faith. The mitzvah of faith is to believe that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the First Being and that He brings all beings into existence—not only in the past tense, but in the present. He brings them into existence now, at every moment, and “all beings in heaven and earth and everything between them exist only from the truth of His existence.” In other words, the true existence of every detail in the world is only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Put another way, in the words of the Zohar, this is the meaning of “there is no place devoid of Him”: there is no existence in the world that is not connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because all of

16:24 it exists from the truth of His existence. And Rambam says this is “the foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom.” So the mitzvah of faith is not just faith in Hashem’s existence; the mitzvah of faith is faith in Hashem’s oneness. Faith that “there is nothing else besides Him”—that is the mitzvah of faith for which man was created. The Rebbe explains this, with a number of analyses and proofs and so on. The Rebbe discusses it at length, there in Likkutei Sichos, volume 26, Parshas Yisro. The Rebbe brings that Rambam’s source is the Zohar on Parshas Vaeira. So here, in the notes to Tanya, the Rebbe refers to that Zohar and to Rambam, apparently to emphasize that this is the Alter Rebbe’s source for saying, “This is the essence of the faith for which man was created.” Man was created in the world. What is the essence of the faith for which man was created? In other words, the purpose of man’s creation in this world is faith. What faith? Faith that there is no place devoid of Him and that there is nothing else besides Him. And once it is engraved within you that there is no place devoid of Him and there is nothing else besides Him, then everything is G-dliness. Everything is His wisdom, and His wisdom is the source of life, goodness, and delight. And consequently, this is what he continues with: “Strength and joy are in His place,” and “in the light of the King’s countenance is life.” What do we learn from the verses “In the light of the King’s countenance is life” and “Strength and joy are in His place”? “In the light of the King’s countenance is life” tells us that when the King’s countenance is revealed, when the light of the King’s countenance shines, there is only life. There is nothing there that is the opposite of life. This idea of “in the light of the King’s countenance is life” is explained in maamarim of Chassidus through a physical analogy involving an earthly king. It is brought in Chassidus—the Rebbe brings it in the maamar beginning “Bayom Ashtei Asar,” 5731. It is based on maamarim of the earlier Rebbeim: when there is a trial, and a person is on trial—a difficult trial, may Hashem protect us, a matter of life and death—if

18:33 They judge whether he is liable for the death penalty, G-d forbid, or not. There is a prosecutor and a defender. One says this; the other says that. Now it says regarding this that “in the light of the king’s countenance” — if the king enters the courtroom, as was the practice in a monarchy, as it was with real kings, and they see the king’s face, everyone cries out: “Life!” It changes from death to life. Even a person who was liable for the death penalty — the moment he encounters the light of the king’s countenance, there is no room for punishment. They immediately pardon him, grant him clemency, release him, and change his sentence from death to life. That is true of a mortal king. How much more so when we speak of reaching Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The light of the king’s countenance is what is being discussed here: His wisdom. His wisdom is the king’s countenance, the light of the king’s countenance. That is chochmah. Chochmah is the level of “the beginning of everything”; it is the beginning, the light of the king’s countenance. Chochmah is the light of His countenance, the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, where the light of the king’s countenance shines. And what is found in the light of the king’s countenance? Only life. There is no room there for the opposite of life. In His wisdom there is only life, nothing that is the opposite of life. That is why it is called the source of goodness and delight. Where is His wisdom found? Where is it? In every single created being. This is the meaning of “There is no place devoid of Him.” A person needs to arrive at faith in His wisdom, which is the light of the king’s countenance. Life is present in every place, in every detail of creation, and so there is no place for the opposite, G-d forbid. In practice, then, a person is joyful at every moment. And similarly, the second verse

20:25 that he cites: “Strength and joy are in His place.” That means that in the king’s house, in the king’s chamber, there are only strength and joy. There is no room there for the opposite. Inside the king’s house there are only strength and joy. Someone who is sad in the king’s house is thrown out. The Zohar also says that if you are sad, they will not let you into the king’s house. No — in the king’s house there is only joy. That is the meaning of “Strength and joy are in His place”: in the place of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in the king’s place, there are strength and joy. Where is the king’s place? In G-dliness, in Atzilus. So that is what is being said here. Since this is the place of G-dliness, and “there is no place devoid of Him,” there is no place where the Shechinah is not present. Wherever Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, that is His place; and wherever His place is, there are strength and joy. Consequently, there should be joy in every place and at every moment. That is what the Alter Rebbe emphasizes in this explanation. There are two details here. This explanation brings us to the realization that there is no place anywhere in the world where Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not present, because everything is G-dliness. Every detail in every place is permeated with G-dliness, and consequently there is joy, life, goodness, and delight everywhere. “In the light of the king’s countenance is life” applies everywhere and at every moment. That is why the Alter Rebbe said that this contemplation applies at every moment. It is not something you contemplate once. Rather, at every moment, where is chochmah found? In every detail. So this applies both to time and to place. At every moment and in every place there should be joy. Now the Alter Rebbe continues and says, “And therefore.” The Alter Rebbe now draws a conclusion. After all this explanation, all of this discussion, “And therefore,” says the Alter Rebbe — let’s read it inside — “And therefore, first and foremost,

22:32 What does the Alter Rebbe mean by the wording “first and foremost”? What does he want to convey with those words? On a simple level, “first and foremost” is just a way of saying that this is the beginning. But the Rebbe asks: Why does the Alter Rebbe say “first and foremost”? Because what we are discussing here is “the beginning.” The whole foundation of this explanation rests on the word “beginning.” The beginning is chochmah, and chochmah is the source of all creation and every detail within it. So that is what the Alter Rebbe means when he says, “first and foremost.” Where does my entire existence, at every moment and in every detail, come from? From the beginning, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is the beginning of wisdom. There lies the source of life, goodness, and delight. “And therefore, first and foremost, a person should rejoice and be glad at every time and hour.” A person should be happy and joyful at every time and hour, at every moment. “And he should truly live by his faith in Hashem, who gives him life and bestows goodness upon him at every moment.” So at every time and hour a person should be joyful and “truly live.” That is very strong language. It is not merely that a person should be happy; his joy should be something he lives. It is his whole life. “Truly live” — as though this joy were his very life. “By his faith in Hashem, who gives him life and bestows goodness upon him at every moment.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives him life and bestows goodness upon him at every single moment. There is another very interesting explanation from the Rebbe here. The Rebbe asks: What is the Alter Rebbe adding now with “And therefore”? He has already said everything above. What does the Alter Rebbe want to conclude with “And therefore”? Is he just summarizing the point again? The Rebbe says no. The Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize that what we have been discussing — that a person should always be in a state of joy — must be

24:30 at every time and hour. First, it must be at every time and hour, and a person must “truly live by his faith in Hashem.” Yes, it must be at every time and hour because, as we said, this faith is the purpose for which the worlds were created. The purpose of creating the worlds is faith. And a person is alive all the time, at every time and hour. So since a person is alive at every time and hour, every moment that you are alive, you need to live with faith. Since the purpose of creating the worlds is faith, and the worlds are being created at every time and hour, you are alive all the time; therefore, you need to be joyful all the time, at every time and hour. In other words, it is not merely a general idea that a person contemplates something at some point in the day, becomes happy, and that is it. It must be at every time and hour. Why? Because this is the purpose of creation, and the purpose of creation must be present all the time. And he adds even more: “And he should truly live.” This, too, is not a separate point — one point being that it must be at every time and hour, and a second point being that he should truly live. It means that this must permeate the reality of your actual life, because it is your entire reality. Since Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings your entire existence into being through His wisdom, “he should truly live” means that this matter, this joy in Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s continual creation, must permeate your actual life. Then the Alter Rebbe adds, “And bestows goodness upon him at every moment.” That is another detail. One point concerns the person: since this is the purpose for which he was created, it must be with him at every time and every moment. The second point also concerns what comes from Above: since Divine Providence operates at every moment, he, too, must experience this

26:39 at every moment, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu bestows goodness upon him at every moment. These are all nuances we see in the Alter Rebbe’s wording. He is not simply repeating himself again and again. With each word, the Alter Rebbe adds another depth, another point, another detail about how this joy in Hakadosh Boruch Hu must permeate every moment and every detail of life, including a person’s physical life. The Alter Rebbe continues: “And one who is sad and complains” — a person who feels sadness and complains. Sadness is a feeling in the heart. Complaining is expressed with the mouth. These are two things. One person feels sad inside, while another complains aloud. He says things; he complains about his situation. The Alter Rebbe says, “And one who is sad and complains.” A person who feels sadness — either one or the other. It does not necessarily mean both; it can be either one. “One who is sad and complains shows about himself” — he shows that he has some misfortune and suffering, and that he lacks some good. When a person is sad or complains, what does he show through that behavior? He shows that he has some misfortune and suffering. He shows that something bad in his situation troubles him and that he lacks some good. “And this is like a denial, G-d forbid,” says the Alter Rebbe. This is, as it were, a form of denial, G-d forbid. Why such strong language? As the Rebbe explains here, in light of what we have said: faith in the oneness of Hashem encompasses all of reality. Everything is Hashem’s oneness; “there is nothing besides Him.” So if you feel the truth, the true faith that there is nothing besides Him,

28:50 So there is no way you should be in a state of sadness. Nothing is lacking. And if you are sad, it means something is lacking in your faith. What does a lack of faith mean? In other words, heresy, G-d forbid. It means that the unity of Hashem is not settled within you; that is like denying it, G-d forbid. There is a precise choice of words here, too. The Rebbe points it out. The Rebbe says, “He shows of himself.” What is the significance of “shows of himself”? What does that expression mean? It is strong language. Why does he say “shows of himself”? The Rebbe says that the wording “shows of himself” follows from what we explained: that the worlds were created for the sake of faith. In other words, a person’s entire being is his faith. That is what a person was created for—for faith. Since the entire world was created for the sake of faith, when it is lacking in you, “shows of himself” means that this touches your very existence. Your very existence is for the sake of faith. So when you complain, it is as though you are damaging your very existence. That is why the wording is “shows of himself”: his very existence runs counter to what he is meant to be. “And therefore the sages of truth distanced the trait of sadness to a very great extent.” This is why the sages of truth—the sages of Kabbalah—did so. We see that in the teachings of Kabbalah, especially in the inner dimension of Torah, where the unity of Hashem shines, the main concern of the sages of truth was to reveal the true unity of Hashem: there is nothing besides Him. So it is specifically among the sages of truth that we see how very strongly they distanced sadness, much more than in the revealed dimension of Torah. According to the revealed dimension of Torah, too, sadness is not a good thing. There are various teachings of our Sages about it: one must serve Hashem with joy. There are verses, teachings of our Sages, and so on. But in the revealed dimension of Torah, we do not see such a strong rejection of sadness.

30:40 By contrast, in the inner dimension of Torah we see sadness rejected. In practice, they distanced themselves from the whole matter of sadness completely, especially in the teachings of Chassidus. Look how strongly the Baal Shem Tov fought against the trait of sadness. So the Rebbe says that the sages of truth distanced the trait of sadness so strongly because it is the opposite of the faith for which we were created. The entire world exists for the sake of the unity of Hashem, and the moment a person complains, it means that the unity of Hashem is not shining within him. Therefore sadness is completely ruled out, because sadness shows that you feel yourself to be an independent existence. The truth of the true unity of Hashem is not shining within you.