Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 30 - Part 2

00:01 Friends, we’re in the middle of chapter 30, page 38b, near the top, around the eighth line—the line with “the dwelling place of the mind,” in the middle of the line. Let’s briefly review the point again. We have such long breaks between sessions that we can lose the thread. Chapter 30, in particular, is not such a foundational chapter in serving Hashem. So the Alter Rebbe gives an account here of how a person can be humble before everyone, even before the most lowly of people. In other words, even if you are essentially on the level of a beinoni, you can still be humble before everyone, even before the most lowly. How is that possible, and how can that humility be genuine? The Alter Rebbe makes a calculation based on our Sages’ teaching: “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.” To judge someone else, a person has to assess himself. He has to consider how he compares with the other person in terms of that person’s circumstances and standing in serving Hashem. We’re talking about a lowly person who is out in the marketplace, idling on street corners. In other words, he finds himself in circumstances, in an environment, that exposes him to tests. And his animal soul has an exceptionally powerful yetzer hara that burns like fire. The beinoni, by contrast, doesn’t have that problem: his work doesn’t take him into the marketplace, and even if it does, by nature he doesn’t have that burning tendency. His yetzer hara doesn’t blaze like a flame. So that is the first calculation: do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place, because it is much harder for him to attain his level in serving Hashem than it is for a G-d-fearing person like you. On the other

02:16 hand, the Alter Rebbe says that the truth is that even a person in such a situation—out in the marketplace, idling on street corners, in a place of spiritual danger, with a yetzer hara that burns like a flame—has no excuses. It doesn’t mean that because he has a powerful yetzer hara and is in a difficult place that stirs it up, the Shulchan Aruch is more lenient with him. There is no leniency for him; nobody gets an exemption. Why? The Alter Rebbe says that a Jew’s fear of G-d must be so great, his fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, his yiras Shamayim, must be so strong, that through it he can overcome the desires of his heart and also restrain himself from looking where he shouldn’t. In the previous class we explained at length the precise wording here in Tanya: the Alter Rebbe uses two expressions, fear of Elokim and fear of Havayah. There is fear associated with the name Elokim and fear associated with the name Havayah, corresponding to two things. First there is what the eyes see: a person looks where he shouldn’t. For a person to restrain himself and control his eyes, not looking at places he is forbidden to look, fear of Elokim is enough—even a measure of fear associated with the name Elokim, which is a lower level, without conscious intent. But to reach a point where he can control his heart too, even if he has, G-d forbid, failed and seen something, so that it does not lead to a stirring of his heart—for that, fear of Elokim is not enough. Fear of Havayah is needed. That is why the Alter Rebbe changes his wording. When speaking about the eyes, he says fear of Elokim. When speaking about the heart, he says

04:09 fear of Havayah. But the Alter Rebbe says that a person can do this—even the most lowly person can do it. Why? Because “the mind rules over the heart.” This is one of the foundations of Tanya. Since the mind rules over the heart, even the most lowly person, once he thinks thoughts of yiras Shamayim—of G-d before him and Hashem before his eyes—should gain the strength to overcome his yetzer hara and guard his eyes and his heart. Even the most lowly person. But what does that take? It isn’t easy. And the Alter Rebbe continues—that’s where we are now: “And indeed, it is a great and mighty battle to break the yetzer that burns like a flame, out of fear of Hashem.” The Alter Rebbe does not say it is easy. He explicitly says—he understands the person—that yes, for a person to do this, for the mind to rule over the heart and overcome the yetzer hara, is very difficult. It is a great and mighty battle. “Great” refers to its extent, and “mighty” to its intensity. In other words, there are two aspects to it. In terms of extent, it takes a great deal of work and a great deal of time. And in terms of intensity, it is a difficult battle in which a person must invest much deeper strengths to overcome his yetzer hara. That is “great and mighty”: breaking the yetzer that burns like a flame out of fear of Hashem, “like an actual test.” It is that difficult. The battle with the yetzer hara, the Alter Rebbe says, is as difficult as a test. And we know that a test is no easy thing. For a person to withstand a test—

06:07 as is well known, Chassidus explains that there are several aspects of serving Hashem, which can be divided into three levels: turning away from evil, doing good, and facing tests. More broadly, they fall into two categories: the work of birurim—refining things—and the work of facing a test. Birurim is no easy work either. A person has to take material things, engage with them and use them for the sake of Heaven, drawing near what should be drawn near and distancing what should be distanced. That is a whole undertaking. Birurim includes turning away from evil and doing good: drawing near what needs to be drawn near and distancing what needs to be distanced. That too is hard work. Nevertheless, it does not approach the enormous difficulty of facing a test. The work of birurim is much easier. As Chassidus explains, what is the difference between birurim and a test? Why do we say that facing a test is so much harder than birurim? Chassidus explains it this way: in birurim, the thing has different parts. There is a spark of holiness in exile within it. In other words, the concealment is not so great. True, it is ultimately something material, but it has good elements and bad elements. There is its good part, and there is the other part. When a person eats food, there is the possibility of doing so for the sake of Heaven: the food gives him strength to serve Hashem. The task is to refine it and separate the good from the bad. Ultimately, there is a good part to work with. That is not the case when facing a test. Outwardly, it looks like something entirely bad, with no good part at all. The whole point of a test is simply to obstruct a person. That is its entire purpose:

08:07 to obstruct the person. The example given is Avraham Avinu on his way to the Akeidah, when a river appeared. The river stood in his way to separate him from his destination. In other words, a test is not like birurim, where there is a spark of holiness and you only have to find the good part and remove the bad. A test means that something has arisen whose whole purpose is to block the way, to conceal and obscure. That is why it seems so much harder. What confronts a person is much harder; it seems as though it is impossible to withstand. And there is another point. Chassidus says that in the work of birurim, a person works with the object, with the thing itself, finding the good part in it and distancing its bad part. But when facing a test, the work is not with the thing. The person has to work on himself. I’m not working here with some particular thing. There is nothing in that thing to repair or elevate. The entire task is for the person to stand firm and not be shaken—to act as though nothing is there, nothing will interfere with me, and I will keep going. There may be Amalekites there; I keep going as though nothing is there. To do that, a person must reveal much deeper strengths. That is the definition of a test. This is discussed at length in maamarim, particularly the maamarim of 12 Tammuz. There are several maamarim of 12 Tammuz—the first 12 Tammuz maamar, page 11, and then several maamarim in the Melukat collection. There is a long maamar, “Nasata Lireiecha,” in which the Rebbe also explains the whole difference between a test and birurim. And so the Alter Rebbe’s wording here is “like an actual test.” The work demanded of a person here, the work

09:54 of the struggle with the yetzer hara. The point the Alter Rebbe emphasizes here—what point? The struggle involved: the yetzer hara comes like a blazing fire. On the one hand, a person is placed in the marketplace. Hashem arranged for his livelihood to be there, so he has to walk through the street and places where he faces temptation. And He gave him a yetzer hara like a blazing fire. Yet this person is expected to have an even stronger fear of Heaven. So, he says, this is like a real test. In other words, the effort, the difficulty, the exertion required of me here—it is like an actual test. That is what the Tanya means by the words “like an actual test.” There is something interesting here: a story involving the Rebbe in connection with these words the Alter Rebbe says. When you look at the commentaries on the Tanya here—the well-known commentators, like Reb Gronem and his students—there are commentaries on the Tanya. There is Reb Gronem’s well-known commentary. Reb Gronem was a mashpia in Lubavitch, and he wrote an explanation of Tanya. It is one of the explanations accepted among chassidim. There aren’t many explanations of Tanya from earlier generations. The Rebbe used to lament that the early chassidim did not write down their explanations of Tanya, and so we have suffered. To this day we suffer from a lack of understanding of many parts of Tanya, because the early chassidim studied it but did not write down their explanations. But Reb Gronem was among the first to write explanations, and his students also wrote them. That is how we have several explanations of Tanya. There is a commentary on Tanya by Reb Shaul Brook—he was a student of Reb Gronem—and one by Reb Avraham Plotkin, who was also his student. In the commentary on Tanya that they cite here, on the words “like an actual test,” they bring a different, very interesting explanation. They ask: What does it mean that the struggle with the yetzer hara is “like an actual test”? It says in the books of the Baal Shem Tov.

12:02 The books of the Baal Shem Tov—those books. What defines a test? They ask: What does a test mean for a tzaddik? It says that Hashem tested Avraham Avinu. But seemingly, a tzaddik has no yetzer hara. It doesn’t apply. So how can there be tests? You can speak of tests for someone who is struggling, who finds things difficult. But a person who has no desires of the yetzer hara and wants only to do G-d’s will—what would constitute a test for him? Hashem puts him through tests, but if something is G-d’s will, he will want to do what Hashem wants. So that is not a test. Hashem tested Yosef, for example. That is the classic story brought as an example. Yosef Hatzaddik was in Egypt, and Potiphar’s wife was there, and he faced a test. How could that be? How could Yosef Hatzaddik face a test? He was a tzaddik. Certainly, committing a transgression was unthinkable for him. So how can we say he faced a test? The writings of the early chassidim of the Baal Shem Tov explain that a test for tzaddikim means that a person is stripped of all his spiritual levels. At that time, at that moment, Hashem takes all those levels away from the tzaddik, as though they suddenly leave him. He loses all his levels of holiness, and his desire is intensified. That is the wording in the writings of the chassidim. In other words, on the one hand, all his levels are taken away; on the other, his desire is intensified. Then it becomes a test. Suddenly he has this desire, and suddenly he also lacks the spiritual strength to hold on to. He has no levels of holiness to hold himself up with. That is what a test means for tzaddikim. You can understand, then, that it is an enormous test. Suddenly he has no levels of holiness, and he has

13:58 desire. That is what happens with a tzaddik. That is the definition of a test. So Reb Gronem writes that this is what the Alter Rebbe means here by “like an actual test”: for an ordinary person, for someone on the lowest level, a simple person whose yetzer hara burns like a blazing fire, who is also placed in the marketplace—it is like an actual test. He is given a yetzer hara like a blazing fire, and he has no lofty spiritual levels. He is a simple person, someone on the lowest level. So the struggle such a person must wage with his yetzer hara each and every day is like an actual test for tzaddikim. Like what tzaddikim experience in a test. For someone on the lowest level, this is his work every day. This is what is demanded of him. He has no lofty levels—not because they were taken away from him; he never had them to begin with. At the same time, he has a powerful yetzer hara. So the kind of test a tzaddik undergoes from time to time happens to the ordinary person every day. Reb Gronem writes that explicitly. When Shiurim B’Sefer HaTanya was being printed, they submitted this explanation here to the Rebbe. The Rebbe reviewed Shiurim B’Sefer HaTanya, and he put a question mark by it: What exactly is the source for this? They wrote back to the Rebbe that it came from Reb Gronem. The Rebbe then wrote: “I have not found this in any of the books...” He had not found this explanation of tests in the writings of the chassidim. That is what the Rebbe wrote: “I have not found this in the writings of the chassidim.” And afterward the Rebbe wrote—actually, first the Rebbe asked them to look for the source. They got back to him, but they did not know the source. So the Rebbe wrote to them that for the phrase about taking away all a person’s spiritual levels, he could point to a book of the Baal Shem Tov; and for the wording “his desire is intensified,”

16:02 the Rebbe pointed to Rashi on Parshas Bereishis. The expression “his desire is intensified” appears in Parshas Bereishis in connection with Adam Harishon. It says that after that whole story there, involving Yosef, he was thirty years old and got married. In that whole account in Parshas Bereishis, Rashi says that his desire was intensified; that is where they took those words from. Then the Rebbe wrote about this and said to delete it, because, seemingly, it is not the straightforward meaning of the Tanya. It may be a beautiful explanation, but it is not the meaning here in Tanya. So what does it mean? It means what we discussed earlier. That is, the Alter Rebbe is not referring here to the kind of test that tzaddikim undergo in the literal sense. What is a test in general? It demands tremendous effort from a person to struggle with himself. A test is exceedingly hard work, much harder than ordinary service of Hashem. A person’s service of Hashem in his struggle with the yetzer hara demands far more. That is the meaning in Tanya. I once heard this from Rabbi Weinberg. He spoke about it and said that there are many things in Shiurim B’Sefer HaTanya on which the Rebbe made comments, but sometimes something happened during the review process and no trace of it remained in the published work. The Rebbe had merely rejected an explanation, so it was not included in the book. That is how we hear an interesting story like this. In any case, “And therefore, every person must, according to his place and level in the service of Hashem...” After the Alter Rebbe explains how someone on the lowest level faces a struggle every day, every hour, and what a great and immense struggle he must wage—like an actual test—the Alter Rebbe now returns to the beinoni, to a person who does not face this test so intensely in everyday life. The Alter Rebbe says to the beinoni:

18:17 And therefore every person, whoever he may be—even someone who does not face this kind of struggle—must, according to who he is, his place and his level in serving Hashem, weigh and examine himself. He has to test himself: Am I serving Hashem with a struggle as intense as this? Am I, too, serving Hashem through the kind of struggle demanded of even the lowest of the low, and facing such a test in “do good”? In my own areas of “do good,” is there a struggle? The Alter Rebbe is not talking here about the wondrous levels of love you want to attain. This is the reckoning you need to make. People look—and it is our nature to look—at external things. We make external calculations. You look at someone from the outside: this person is among the lowest of the low; this one has great character traits, and that one does not. So this one is fine. That is how we usually measure a person. This one is a good bochur because he learns, he davens, he comes to seder, and he behaves like a decent bochur. And that one is not a good bochur because he does not learn well, because he has problems, because he has a yetzer hara, desires, and evil within him. The Alter Rebbe says: that is not the reckoning here. That is a very superficial, very external calculation. The reckoning here is how much effort he puts in, how hard he fights. You, the beinoni—in your own areas of “do good,” in keeping seder, in learning nigleh and Chassidus, in avodas hatefillah, in your “do good”—are you fighting and exerting yourself with the same intensity, the same effort, the same struggle that the other person has in facing his test? That is the reckoning we need to make. And this is what the Alter Rebbe says: every person must weigh and examine

20:21 himself. When I come to measure myself against the lowest of the low, what should I be measuring? Not whether I am better than he is. How many transgressions does he commit, and how many do I commit? Do I weigh the numbers—how many mitzvos and transgressions do I have, and how many does he have? That is not the reckoning here. The reckoning is how much effort there is. Is my effort in serving Hashem comparable to the effort required of the lowest of the low in his situation? We have a well-known teaching from the Rambam. This way of looking at it is very understandable. The Rambam says—everyone knows that the Gemara says this—that there are three books: the book of the righteous, the book of the wicked, and the book of the beinonim. On Rosh Hashanah, there are three books. The righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed for life; the wicked are immediately inscribed and sealed for death; and the beinonim wait until Yom Kippur. So how is it determined? There is a weighing: half merits, half transgressions. A righteous person is someone whose merits are in the majority. Half and half is a beinoni. That is what the Gemara says. The Alter Rebbe says—and the Rambam says, when he cites this in Hilchos Teshuvah—that this is not a matter of weighing quantities. A person did this and did that, and at the end of the year we take the balance sheet: he did three hundred mitzvos during the year and three hundred and one transgressions, so he has more transgressions than mitzvos and is wicked. The next person committed three hundred transgressions and performed three hundred mitzvos, so he did more mitzvos than transgressions and is righteous. It is not a numerical count. The Rambam’s wording is that only Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows how to weigh what matters more than what. In other words, it is not something weighed by quantity. A person may have

22:32 performed one mitzvah all year, and that mitzvah may be worth more than the many transgressions he committed during the year. Why? Because that mitzvah cost him so much. He put so much effort into it that it is worth more. That mitzvah is worth more than all the transgressions he committed during the year. And the reverse can also be true: a person committed one transgression, but because of its gravity, it outweighs everything else. So here the Alter Rebbe gives us a way to look at this whole matter. What, then, is the measure? How do we measure it? We measure how much he actually struggled. What is the point here? The point is how much effort and struggle a person has in serving Hashem. For one person, the struggle may be with simple matters of “turn away from evil,” while for another it is with matters of “do good.” But the question is: in your own areas of “do good,” how much struggle and effort do you actually put in? For example, in avodas hatefillah. The Alter Rebbe gives several examples concerning a person on the level of a beinoni, whose main work is in “do good”—examples of effort, such as “avodas hatefillah with concentration, pouring out his soul before Hashem with all his might.” When it comes to avodas hatefillah, what is demanded of the beinoni? What is demanded of him? That his avodas hatefillah not be just davening, but davening with concentration, pouring out his soul before Hashem with all his might—pouring out his soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu to the point of utter self-exhaustion. What does it mean to pour out his soul before Hakadosh Boruch Hu with all his might, to the point of utter self-exhaustion? That expression comes from a Midrash. But what it means here is that avodas hatefillah must be

24:40 such that during davening, a person gives himself over completely to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to the point of utter self-exhaustion. It is as though he uses up all his strength in avodas hatefillah. It is brought in sefarim and in sichos as well, about the students of the Baal Shem Tov, that before davening—this is an example of davening to the point of utter self-exhaustion among the students of the Baal Shem Tov—some would give instructions to their families as though making a will before going to daven. They would tell their families what to do if, G-d forbid, they did not return after davening. In other words, their avodas hatefillah involved such total devotion that they were not sure they would come back alive afterward. That was the extent of their avodas hatefillah. Now, of course, we are talking about very high levels that are beyond us. Yes, about whom? The Baal Shem Tov? That is how it is brought in Tzavaas Harivash. It says that avodas hatefillah should reach such a point of utter self-exhaustion that before davening, a person should give instructions to his family as though making a will, as though he cannot be sure what will happen afterward—that the davening might take him over completely. Of course, the great chassidim will come along and ask how this fits with Chassidus. After all, Chassidus explains throughout that there must be ratzo and shov, and one must—but that is how it is brought, in the name of the Baal Shem Tov: such a level of avodas hatefillah. So that is the whole idea of pouring out one’s soul before Hashem to the point of utter self-exhaustion. Of course, there are many levels to this. But among chassidim, avodas hatefillah meant putting all their strength into it. They simply put all their strength into davening, so that when they finished, they had no strength left. They had put all their energy into it.

26:43 All their strength. They tell a story, for example, about Reb Hillel of Paritch—another example of davening to the point of exhausting oneself. Reb Hillel was a person of tremendous feeling, and during davening he would dance and make all kinds of movements with his body out of sheer emotion. Once, the Mitteler Rebbe spoke about this and rejected outward displays of emotion. He said that the work of davening should involve inner effort, not outward movements. So Reb Hillel began working on himself: when he davened and felt stirred, he would make sure it didn’t show outwardly. But it’s said that from the sheer effort, a vein—or a tendon, I’m not sure exactly what it was called—burst. I think he suffered greatly from it afterward, all because of his exertion in the work of davening. That’s a story about Reb Hillel. Then there’s a story about Reb Isaac of Homil. Once, during Maariv—not Shacharis, Maariv; people think Maariv doesn’t require this—Reb Isaac of Homil was davening and reached the words, “And all this is true and established for us.” He began saying, “And all this is true and established for us, for He is Hashem our G-d, and there is none besides Him.” He became so absorbed in the meaning of the words that he began rolling on the floor and fainted. When they roused him and he came to, he continued, “And we, Israel, are His people.” Yes? After he had gone through all that—huh?—he continued, “And we, Israel, are His people.” Now, Reb Isaac’s greatness wasn’t that he fainted from contemplating “For He is Hashem our G-d, and there is none besides Him.” His greatness was that when he came to, he remembered where he was holding. He could continue, “And we, Israel, are His people.” At any rate, among chassidim, there was

28:45 this way of working on davening: they simply invested all their strength in it throughout the year. Those are stories from earlier generations. Then there’s a story even from later generations, about a chossid called Reb Yitzchak the Masmid. Yes? Reb Yitzchak the Masmid also davened for hours every day. They say that once, when he had a yahrzeit and needed to lead the davening, he went to the yeshivah’s mashpia, its supervisor. The supervisor in Nevel at the time was a Reb—I think his name was Shpeigel [unclear]. He asked permission to lead the davening, and the supervisor said no, he wouldn’t allow it. Why? Because when Reb Yitzchak davened—after all, the boys had classes, G-d forbid they should be delayed—they needed someone who would daven at a moderate pace. So he promised he wouldn’t do anything unusual. He would daven normally, properly, one hundred percent. In short, what happened? He began davening and everything was fine. Everything was calm until he reached the blessing of Yotzer. When he got to Yotzer, suddenly he began... he entered a different state of mind and forgot where he was standing. He left the amud and stood facing the... facing the wall. He began singing and crying out, and became so completely absorbed that they had to put someone else in—huh?—someone else to continue leading the davening. One of the chassidim there was Reb Mendel Futerfas, who was then a student in the yeshivah. Reb Mendel said to his friend, “Ah, it looks as though...” He began to make light of it a little. Chassidim, after all, didn’t like things done in a way that looked outwardly holy. He started to say something. But that was how it was among chassidim: serving Hashem to the point of exhausting oneself. That’s what the Torah is saying here,

31:10 that a person must work on davening as part of “do good.” A person has to make this reckoning: his “do good” should involve the same... the same effort, the same strength, as even the least observant person puts into the simplest matters [unclear].