Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 32 - Part 1

00:01 We’re up to chapter 32 of Tanya. It’s hashgachah pratis that we’re here now; it wasn’t planned. Here in the yeshiva—and I’m saying this for the new students—we learn Tanya in order. We’ve been going through it in order for quite some time. We started at the beginning, and now we’re starting chapter 32. We finished chapter 31 before the month of Elul. During Elul we studied Igeres Hateshuvah, and now we’ve arrived at chapter 32. Everyone knows this is a very fundamental, well-known chapter. Presumably many of the students, perhaps all of them, know it by heart as well. If you don’t, you should. This is the chapter about which the Rebbe said that chapter 32 is the heart of Tanya. So it’s hashgachah pratis that we’re beginning it now. There’s another special aspect of hashgachah pratis here: the time we’re in. Everyone knows this is a Hakhel year. When the Rebbe spoke about a Hakhel year, he emphasized that one of its main points must be Ahavas Yisroel. Hakhel means unity. The whole meaning of the word is coming together. The Rebbe explains at length in a number of letters and sichos about Hakhel that the men, women, and children represent different kinds of Jews. Within each individual, too, there are the aspects of men, women, and children. And the Jewish people as a whole are divided into different groups. At Hakhel, the men, women, and children must be united. The king brings about the spiritual unity of the Jewish people, making them one. With Hashem’s help, we’ll speak about this in more detail over time, including how it relates to the details the Rebbe

02:35 mentions in chapter 32. In any case, that’s another connection: throughout this year, we need to place greater emphasis on unity because it’s a Hakhel year. And with Hashem’s help, we will surely accomplish what the Rebbe wanted—that each person should do something for Hakhel. Certainly this should be done especially in a Chabad yeshiva, with even greater strength and energy this year. People should feel that it’s a Hakhel year: more unity, more things that bring people together, more gatherings that foster unity. In any case, this really is the right time to study chapter 32. Now, chapter 32 is called the heart of Tanya. As we said, there’s a well-known story that the Rebbe related many times. You can also see this if you look at the first version of Tanya. As is known, chapter 32 wasn’t in Tanya’s original version. In other words, the entire chapter in which the Alter Rebbe discusses Ahavas Yisroel was absent from the first version of Tanya that he wrote. Only when the Alter Rebbe himself prepared the version for printing did he add this entire chapter. You can also see it plainly when you study Tanya: chapter 32 has no obvious, direct connection to what comes before it or to what comes after it. It really stands on its own. It explains Ahavas Yisroel, but it is a subject in its own right. It isn’t what these chapters are discussing, right? Everyone knows that in these chapters of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains the subject of

04:28 joy in serving Hashem, and the subject of bitterness, beginning in chapter 26. The Alter Rebbe began by explaining how important it is to serve Hashem specifically with joy, and gave all kinds of advice on how a person can rid himself of every worry, whether material or spiritual, and awaken within himself a feeling of joy in serving Hashem. After that, the Alter Rebbe also explained that sometimes there needs to be bitterness, and that bitterness doesn’t contradict joy. These are the explanations he gives through chapter 31. Then, in chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe continues with the same subject. Have you looked at chapter 33? Is he talking about joy? “And furthermore, this will be the soul’s true joy.” There, too, he continues discussing various ways a person can contemplate his own situation and attain joy. And he goes on through chapters 33 and 34. In other words, the Alter Rebbe is in the middle of discussing an entirely different subject, and within that discussion he inserts Ahavas Yisroel. Of course there is a connection, as we’ll see inside; the Alter Rebbe himself states it. But it isn’t a direct connection. It isn’t the main subject under discussion here. It’s a connection in the sense that one thing leads to another—one subject brings us to the next—but they aren’t actually the same subject. So why did the Alter Rebbe do this? The chassidim relate, and the Rebbe also spoke about it several times, that the Alter Rebbe wanted to convey this point. It’s more than a hint; it’s quite clear: this is the heart of all Chassidus. The heart is the center of the body, and a person’s whole body, all its limbs, depend on the heart.

06:17 The heart is central to its functioning. Likewise, when it comes to the teachings of Chassidus in Tanya, we need to know that Ahavas Yisroel is the heart of the entire Tanya. After all, what is Tanya? Tanya is a work of the inner dimension of Torah. It teaches a person how to serve Hashem according to the inner dimension of Torah. So the Alter Rebbe is telling us that the very heart of all Chassidus, the heart of the entire Tanya, is Ahavas Yisroel. This also relates to another well-known story, which is briefly explained in the maamar we’re studying this very week, Parshas [unclear], the maamar [unclear]. There he cites the well-known saying of the Alter Rebbe that Ahavas Yisroel is a vessel for love of Hashem. This is also brought in Hayom Yom several times. What’s the story? Chassidim were sitting together in the Alter Rebbe’s time. Apparently this was before Tanya was printed; that’s what the account seems to suggest. A debate arose among the chassidim about what was primary: love of Hashem or Ahavas Yisroel? What matters most in Chassidus? Or—I don’t know whether the question was what matters most in Chassidus or what is more important. I don’t remember the story’s exact wording, but the point was that the chassidim debated which was higher, more important, or more fundamental: love of Hashem or Ahavas Yisroel. Some said one thing and some said another, and they couldn’t reach a conclusion. So they came to the Alter Rebbe and asked what he said. What did the Alter Rebbe answer? He answered: “Love of Hashem and Ahavas Yisroel are both alike rooted in [unclear].” Sorry,

08:08 I don’t remember the exact wording, but both love of Hashem and Ahavas Yisroel are rooted in their Creator, in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Whatever the wording is there, whatever he writes. But even so, he says: “Great is Ahavas Yisroel, for one loves what one’s beloved loves.” There is an advantage to Ahavas Yisroel. Although love of Hashem and Ahavas Yisroel are both mitzvos, and since they are both mitzvos, both are the command and the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. From that standpoint, you can’t distinguish between them and say that one is greater and one is lesser. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted love of Hashem, so He wanted Ahavas Yisroel. From that standpoint, they are equal. But Ahavas Yisroel has an advantage: one loves what one’s beloved loves. In other words, when a Jew loves another Jew because Hakadosh Boruch Hu also loves Jews, there is the added quality of loving what Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves, an advantage found specifically in Ahavas Yisroel. So that was the explanation. In other words, the Alter Rebbe seems to imply that, ultimately, Ahavas Yisroel has an advantage even over love of Hashem. And there is something even stronger, brought in the conversations of the Chofetz Chaim with the Rebbe, also on this subject: the Alter Rebbe expressed that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, even sets aside love of Hashem for the sake of Ahavas Yisroel. We have to be very careful with that expression. You can’t use it in every context. But there is such an explanation in Chassidus, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, says that sometimes He sets aside eternal love for the sake of Ahavas Yisroel. Where do we see something like that? Giving up on the Jewish people? Of course, we have to be very careful with this. But this is apparently also the well-known sicha the Rebbe explains—the Rebbe spoke about it on Simchas Torah 5747. So

09:58 There is a well-known sicha in which the Rebbe spoke about Moshe Rabbeinu breaking the Tablets. And why does the Torah end with the breaking of the Tablets? Seemingly, that isn’t a good thing. How do you end on that? The sicha is in volume 34, yes, from Simchas Torah 5747. The Rebbe spoke about why the holy Moshe Rabbeinu broke the Tablets: because Ahavas Yisroel is greater. There, it is Ahavas Yisroel in relation to love of the Torah—Moshe Rabbeinu went and broke the Torah because of the Ahavas Yisroel he had. In any case, the point that emerges from all this is that Ahavas Yisroel is something very fundamental, very lofty, and very central in the teachings of Chassidus, to the extent that it is the heart of everything in Chassidus. And that is why the Alter Rebbe placed the subject of Ahavas Yisroel in the middle of Tanya, at its center, at its heart—because it is the heart of all Chassidus. And let’s begin with a close reading. The Alter Rebbe says: “And through fulfilling the above,” through a person putting into practice what we learned earlier, in the previous chapters. What was that? The Alter Rebbe gives a brief summary. What are “the above” things we’re talking about? He explains: “That his body should be despicable and loathsome in his eyes”—that a person should regard his body as despicable and loathsome. “While his joy should be the joy of the soul alone”—the joy he has is joy connected with the soul, the joy of the soul alone. That was the subject we discussed in the previous chapters. The Alter Rebbe says that “this”—this matter, this avodah, this approach—“is a direct and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah, ‘You shall love your fellow as yourself,’ toward every Jew, from the greatest to the smallest.” So this is the direct and easy path that can bring a person to genuine Ahavas Yisroel, to Ahavas Yisroel in the manner of “You shall love your fellow as yourself,” toward every Jew, from the greatest to the smallest. Let’s explain a little what we’re talking about here.

12:02 What did the Alter Rebbe discuss in the previous chapters that he now builds on, saying that through it one can attain genuine Ahavas Yisroel? Here are the points he explained in the previous chapters, briefly. The Alter Rebbe explains that a person may have dullness of heart: he wants to daven, but he feels that his heart is dull and he can’t daven. He wants to do teshuvah, but he can’t—his heart is dull. The Alter Rebbe says: What must he do to break through this dullness of heart? He needs to break his heart. He needs to bring himself to a state of brokenheartedness. He cited the saying: “A piece of wood that the fire does not catch must be struck.” Wood that won’t catch fire has to be broken. The same is true of the body: when it doesn’t respond, when the light of the soul, the matter of serving Hashem, does not enter it, it needs to be broken. How is that done? The Alter Rebbe explained at length in chapter 31, giving various ideas for a person to contemplate in order to bring himself to a state of bitterness: about his soul, about the fact that he has an animal soul, about his materiality, about various transgressions he committed in the past and has still not rectified, and other things. The Alter Rebbe also includes various ways of humbling oneself that a person uses to bring about brokenheartedness. The Alter Rebbe then explains that although contemplating all these things will bring a person to bitterness—and more than that, to sadness—he discusses this at length and explains that it is not for nothing. Sometimes it is good; to break the animal soul and one’s materiality, it is necessary. Nevertheless, it does not contradict joy. On the contrary, through bitterness one will afterward come

13:50 to joy. And how does he do that? The Alter Rebbe explains the principle in chapter 31. He explains that a person has to divide himself into two parts, and this is one of the foundations of Chassidus. You could say it is one of the foundations of Tanya: a person needs to look at himself as having two parts. There is “me myself”—that is, from the standpoint of the body and the animal soul, he is indeed despicable and loathsome. He looks at himself and knows all his shortcomings and all those things. At the same time, he needs to look at the Jew within him. There is another aspect: the soul is a part of G-dliness, my Jewish part, and that part is truly a part of G-d above. From that standpoint, on the contrary, one’s avodah has to be done with joy: the joy that through every mitzvah, through davening and through serving Hashem, I can leave the prison and draw close to G-dliness. That is essentially the point the Alter Rebbe makes. In other words, what is the service of Hashem that the Alter Rebbe asks of us in chapter 31? A person needs to reach a state in his avodah where, as far as the body, the animal soul, and his external concerns are concerned, his heart is broken and humbled. He finds them loathsome. But matters of the soul are important to him. For there in chapter 31, the Alter Rebbe asks: How can this be? How can you say a person should be happy because, while davening, he can leave the prison of the body? The body remains a body. When a person leaves prison, he leaves prison; he is happy that he got out. But I, after all, remain in prison. That is, the body remains a body, and the animal soul remains. So why should I be happy that while davening I connect to G-dliness? After all, the body remains; it remains amid abominations

15:51 And repulsive things. So what did the Alter Rebbe say about this in chapter 31? A person must hold the soul so dear that, because of this, the body does not occupy a place in his mind. What does that mean? We explained it when we learned chapter 31, but we’ll explain it here for the bochurim who weren’t here. What’s the point? The Alter Rebbe explained what this means. On the one hand, a person has a body and a soul, and yet the Alter Rebbe says he can be joyful on account of the soul, even while he finds the body repulsive. Where does all the joy come from? The explanation is by way of an example: Say someone has a special joy, a great joy—he’s going to a wedding—and at the same time he has things to worry about. A man is making a wedding for his son. He’s very happy that his son is getting married, but on the other hand, he has worries. He’ll have to pay the caterer, he’ll have to pay for the… what do you call it, the music. He’ll have to pay for the flowers and the pictures. Everything costs money. So he has worries about the debts he’s taking on for the wedding. On the other hand, he’s happy to be marrying off his son. What does he do during the wedding? Does he go around worrying, or does he go around happy? Right now, at the wedding, he’s happy. True, he has all sorts of thoughts: How am I going to pay all those debts tomorrow, all my creditors? But that’s just it: What is dear to me? When a person focuses, he asks himself, What is dear to me? My son’s wedding is dear to me. That’s what matters to me right now, and the worries don’t occupy my mind right now. Tomorrow,

17:43 when I wake up and the wedding is over, I really will have to start worrying. But right now, what is the essential thing? His son’s wedding is the joyful thing. So the joy of the wedding is dearer to him than his worries about other matters. You can find all sorts of examples along these lines. There’s an example of this right now in Rashi, at the end of Parshas Bereishis. Rashi brings the story of a heretic who asked Rabbi Yosi: Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create man if He knew that afterward he would do such things? Why create him in the first place? He gives the analogy of a man whose son is born and who rejoices. Why are you happy that you’ve had a son? You know he’s going to die. So what did he answer him? That the joy is joy. In other words, yes, that day will come, but what am I focusing on now? What is dear to me? That’s the point here too. So in serving Hashem, a person has to work on himself so that the soul is dear to him and the body is something lowly and repulsive in his eyes. Because the soul is so precious to him, the joy he has during davening, during the reading of the Megillah, during Tehillim, is so great that it overrides all the bitterness arising from other matters. So this is what the Alter Rebbe goes on to say here: When a person works on himself in serving Hashem so that matters of the soul are dear to him, while the body is lowly and repulsive in his eyes, “his joy will be the joy of the soul alone.” All his joy in serving Hashem comes from what? From

19:24 the higher soul. His joy comes from the soul. And this, he says, is the way to reach Ahavas Yisroel. Why? “To fulfill the mitzvah of ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ toward every Jewish soul, from the greatest to the least.” What’s the connection? Here the Alter Rebbe is introducing a remarkable new understanding of Ahavas Yisroel. The verse says, “Love your fellow as yourself.” You could say that this understanding of Ahavas Yisroel is one of the greatest revolutions in Chassidus. Chassidus brought a remarkable insight to Ahavas Yisroel. All the commentators examine this verse closely. It says, “Love your fellow as yourself.” So they all ask—the Ramban asks this, and other commentators ask—what does “Love your fellow as yourself” mean? It goes against reality, against human nature. It doesn’t seem possible. How can you demand that a person love his friend as he loves himself? It’s impossible. Why? Because I love myself because I am myself. It’s my very being; it’s me. The other person isn’t me. How can I love him as I love myself? It’s impossible, and you can’t fool yourself about it. You love the other person for other reasons. The Ramban raises this question in his commentary on the Chumash, and he says that the meaning of “as yourself”—that word of comparison—is “like yourself,” not literally the same. It means something similar, something along those lines. Or take the Rambam, for example. What does the Rambam say? He says, “It is a mitzvah for every person to love every Jew as himself and to be as concerned for his property as for his own body,” and so on. I don’t remember the exact wording there, but that’s the idea.

21:39 In practice, what is the Rambam saying? “Love your fellow as yourself” refers to action, not feeling. According to the Rambam, it means that in your actual conduct you must treat the other person as you treat yourself. That’s the meaning of “Love your fellow as yourself.” Just as I protect my own property and my own dignity and don’t want people to slight me, I must treat the other person that way too. Other commentators offer various explanations along these lines. There are even jokes about it. Just as an aside, there’s an explanation from the Kotzker. The Kotzker offers an interpretation of “Love your fellow as yourself.” He has a different problem with it. Everyone knows that the Kotzker was very sharp, and [unclear]. His question is: How can you say, “Love your fellow as yourself”? If it says “as yourself,” that implies that you have to love yourself too. How can a person love himself? That’s a matter of self-importance, of pride. Loving yourself—self-love—is one of the worst things in Chassidus. So the Kotzker says: “The meaning of ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ is: Just as you hate yourself, so you should love the other person.” That is thoroughly Kotzker. It isn’t so easy to understand, but that’s what he said. Just an interesting thing to hear: As a person hates himself, so he should be with his friend. But that’s not… What’s the alternative? What do we see here in Chassidus? This is the remarkable thing we see in Chassidus. Chassidus explains the deepest meaning, and it’s also the simplest meaning. On the one hand, Chassidus gives the deepest explanation of Ahavas Yisroel, and on the other hand,

23:47 precisely here, there’s no need to say [unclear]. It’s the plain meaning of the verse: “As yourself”—just as you love yourself. What does that mean? “Love your fellow as yourself” means that just as a person loves himself with an essential love, he has to reach that kind of love for another Jew: an essential love. What does that mean? Look, we don’t have time to go into it at length, but let’s at least give the main point, and with Hashem’s help, when the time comes, we’ll explain it in more detail. Let’s put it this way. We know that there are different kinds of love. There’s the love between two friends—not specifically the friendship of Ahavas Yisroel, but between people in general. It can be a love that depends on something. There’s a kind of love that comes from a particular reason. You did me a favor, so I love you because of the favor you did me. You saved my life. You helped me with something, so I love you. Or, more subtly, he’s a good person. He hasn’t necessarily done me a favor, but I look at him and see that he has good character traits, that he’s a good person, and I want to connect with him. I feel that I want to be close to him. Or he’s an intelligent person and I learn from him. There are all sorts of ways this can happen. In those cases, the love comes from a particular calculation, a particular reason. It isn’t an essential love. I don’t love the person for who he is in himself. I love his intellect, his character trait, the favor he did me. And along these lines, it isn’t really you that I love. My intellect loves your intellect; my character trait loves yours. That isn’t my essential self. It’s a calculation.

25:45 So the calculation isn’t about the person himself; it’s about his intellect, his character traits, his outward qualities. That’s what connects him with someone else. But the love between siblings, or the love for a father, is different. That love isn’t because of any particular reason. I don’t love my father because he’s a great scholar, or because he’s strong, or because he’s [unclear]. A person might make calculations: my father gives me presents. But I love my father because he’s my father. What does that mean? Because he’s part of me. That’s the essence. Just as I love myself because I am myself, my father and I share one essence. And Ahavas Yisroel has to reach that point. Why do I love another Jew? Because he’s a Jew. That’s the essence. It’s something essential, not a matter of calculation. And my own essence, too, is that I’m a Jew. This takes work; a person has to work on himself. That’s the continuation of what we’re discussing here. Through putting it into practice and making it a habit, a person brings himself to the point where his body isn’t what matters most to him. His soul is primary; it’s his essence. His Yiddishkeit, his Jewishness, his soul—that’s his essence. So when it comes to Ahavas Yisroel, to loving another Jew, why does he love him? Because he’s a Jew. And so he’s like me; it’s a love of one’s own self. It isn’t love based on some reason, on something additional, but on the very essence of who he is. In our very essence, you and I are one. We’re one point, one essence. And that applies from the greatest to the smallest, to every Jewish soul. There’s no more or less here. Everyone is the same, and each one is like me. It’s a love of one’s own self. All right, we still need to explain this in detail, but that’s apropos of the point we were just discussing.

27:32 In a moment I’ll actually begin explaining section 42 here.