Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 33 - Part 1

00:02 Today we’re starting a new chapter, chapter 33. Chapter 33 is a very fundamental, very important chapter. Of course, every chapter of Tanya has its own special quality, but chapter 33 especially so. The purpose of chapter 33 is to explain how a person can come to serve Hashem with joy—and not just with joy, but with genuine joy—as a result of contemplating the oneness of Hashem. When we contemplate and live with the concept of Hashem’s oneness, His true oneness as Tanya teaches it, we can experience genuine joy. That is the way to reach joy. Let’s explain a little of how this follows from what came before. In the recent chapters, beginning with chapter 26, the Alter Rebbe began explaining how essential it is to serve Hashem specifically with joy. In chapter 26, the Alter Rebbe set out a great principle in serving Hashem: the only way to overcome the yetzer hara is specifically through joy. It’s like two people fighting. If one of them is sluggish, he loses his quickness. So even if he actually has greater strength, he may still fall. It is specifically by acting with energy and joy, free of worries, that a person can overcome the yetzer hara. That is why, beginning in chapter 26, the Alter Rebbe explained how a person should work on himself. Over several chapters, the Alter Rebbe explained how to remove all the worries a person may have—material worries, spiritual worries, worries about all sorts of things—so that they won’t interfere with his joy in serving Hashem. That is what the Alter Rebbe addressed in chapters 26, 27, and 28: three chapters explaining how a person should relate to all sorts of

02:23 things that give him a sense of bitterness, sadness, or worry and take away his joy. Then, in chapter 29, the Alter Rebbe began explaining that there are, of course, times when bitterness is called for—when a person must take things to heart and reflect on the state of his soul. Such reflection produces a sense of bitterness and can sometimes even lead to sadness. The Alter Rebbe explained that the remedy for any sadness lies in recognizing that bitterness is not the goal in itself. Even though one must make an honest accounting of oneself from time to time, that is only a preparation for the joy that comes afterward. First, a person reflects on things that awaken bitterness about his personal and spiritual state, about his body and everything else within him. Through all that the Alter Rebbe explained, he comes to feel his own bitterness. But what is the purpose of that bitterness? To break through the coarseness of his material nature, to break the evil, to break the kelipah. It is like the analogy of wood that is broken up so that fire can catch in it. You break the wood into small pieces so the fire can enter and burn well. The same is true here. Sometimes the material coarseness of the animal soul and the body has to be broken so they can become vessels for G-dliness. But immediately after this bitterness of the soul, one must move into a state of joy. Indeed, the joy that comes after bitterness is much greater than ordinary joy, because light has an advantage when it comes out of darkness. This is what the Alter Rebbe explained in chapter 31: after a person contemplates matters that bring him to bitterness, he begins to reflect that all of that comes from the body and the animal soul. But within me there is a divine soul, and the divine soul is a part of G-d

04:18 above. A person has what matters most: he treasures his divine soul, and it is the most important thing to him. Through Torah and mitzvos and through the service of davening, the divine soul can leave its imprisonment in the body and animal soul and draw close to G-dliness. It is like a king’s son who was held captive and has left prison—there is no greater joy than that. When a person works on himself through this contemplation, the joy it produces awakens the joy of Hashem in His people. That is the joy that comes after bitterness. This is what the Alter Rebbe explained in chapter 31. But then the Alter Rebbe raised a question: after all, the body remains in its repulsive, loathsome state. What am I so happy about? I am so happy, so pleased, that I can free my divine soul and connect it to G-dliness. But I still have a body and an animal soul, desires, and all the other workings of the yetzer hara. I still have all that; I haven’t gotten rid of it. We’re talking about a person who has not yet gotten rid of it—so how can I be happy? The Alter Rebbe answered that a person should hold his soul dear and rejoice in its joy more than in the body. He works on himself until the concerns of the soul matter so much to him that, for the moment, he does not focus on the other things. In other words, the joy he feels because his soul, his divine soul, can connect to G-dliness is more precious to him than the disturbances that come from the body and animal soul. The Alter Rebbe adds another point: on the contrary, Hakadosh Boruch Hu made things this way. Why is there a body and an animal soul? Hakadosh Boruch Hu took the divine soul and brought it down into this world, into a body. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu did this.

06:01 It isn’t my fault. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all of this and did not put the power to change it in my hands. Why did He do it? So that a person would serve Hashem and feel the need to do so. Through all of this, then, a person can work on himself to attain genuine joy and grow in yiras Hashem. That was the point of chapter 31. In between came chapter 32. As we explained, chapter 32 does not seem, at first glance, to belong to the subject of joy. In chapter 32, the Alter Rebbe explained the subject of Ahavas Yisroel at length. What is the connection? As we explained earlier, chapter 32 teaches that the connection comes through a person working on himself to make the concerns of the soul more precious to him than those of the body. His body becomes lowly and loathsome in his eyes, in light of the explanation of his lowliness in chapters 29 and 30; on the other hand, his only joy is the true joy of the soul, as explained in chapter 31. When a person works on himself so that, on one hand, the body is lowly and loathsome to him and, on the other, the soul is precious to him and its joy is his joy, that is a direct path to Ahavas Yisroel. So the connection would seem to be incidental: it explains how this path also enables one to fulfill Ahavas Yisroel. And Ahavas Yisroel is not just one particular mitzvah. It is a general mitzvah, a great mitzvah, encompassing the entire Torah: “This is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary—go and learn it,” as the Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 32, along with all the details of the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel.

07:45 But there is a wonderful discussion by the Rebbe here. The Rebbe says that, in fact, we can explain it another way. This is also stated in a sicha. The view that chapter 32 is only incidental appears in several sichos as well. As is known, the Rebbe once explained that chapter 32 was not in the first edition. We spoke about this too: chapter 32 was absent from the first edition, and the Alter Rebbe added it in a later edition, which does make it seem that there is no direct connection. Nevertheless, the Rebbe says, we cannot say that about Tanya. Ultimately, we cannot say that the reason was merely that the Alter Rebbe wanted to emphasize the greatness of Ahavas Yisroel and make it the heart of Tanya, and therefore decided to insert it in the middle of Tanya—even though that is also true. We must also say that there is a direct connection and a continuity of ideas in Tanya. This will explain why chapter 32 comes between chapters 31 and 33, both of which discuss joy. So the Rebbe says as follows: throughout these chapters, the Alter Rebbe is discussing serving Hashem with joy. That is the theme of all the chapters from chapter 26 through chapter 34. In all these chapters, including chapter 34, the Alter Rebbe sets out to clarify what it means to serve Hashem with joy and all the ways to reach it. That is what he is explaining. So what does the Alter Rebbe add in chapter 32, on the subject of Ahavas Yisroel? The Alter Rebbe wants to add to the discussion of serving Hashem with joy. He wants to show us how important joy is. The Rebbe is coming to convince us why serving Hashem must be done with

09:29 Joy. Why is joy so important? The Alter Rebbe comes to emphasize this point. It is not only that, as we now understand, we serve Hashem with joy because that is the way to overcome the yetzer hara, and so on. There is another advantage: by serving Hashem with joy, a person can come to fulfill the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel. In other words, the Alter Rebbe is not trying to explain Ahavas Yisroel in chapter 32 as a subject in its own right. He is explaining it as another reason to serve Hashem with joy: joyful service helps a person achieve genuine Ahavas Yisroel. What does it mean to serve Hashem with joy? It means that, for him, the soul is what matters most. Otherwise, there cannot be true joy, as he explained in chapter 31. A person can have true joy only if his soul is more precious to him than his body. The Alter Rebbe says that the importance and value of serving Hashem with joy also lie in the fact that it can lead to Ahavas Yisroel. He goes on to explain that Ahavas Yisroel is an all-encompassing principle that includes the entire Torah. That, too, is not a side point. What is he trying to explain to us? So this is connected as well. All of this explains how great an advantage joy is. Why is it so important to serve Hashem with joy? Because through joy a person can achieve genuine Ahavas Yisroel, and Ahavas Yisroel is the entire Torah. So we understand just how important it is to serve Hashem with joy. We can also understand how chapter 32 continues the theme of the Baal Shem Tov and serving Hashem with joy. And this—

11:19 The Alter Rebbe now goes on to chapter 33. In chapter 33 he will present further lines of thought, another kind of contemplation that arouses a person to serve Hashem with joy—indeed, makes it imperative. How can we come to serve Hashem with joy, and not just any joy, but joy that comes with bittul? We will now begin chapter 33. By the way, I once heard a chossid say that, as everyone knows, the Rebbe said that chapter 32 is the heart of Tanya. That appears in several sichos, in several places. Chapter 32 is the heart of Tanya. That much I remember, I believe. Right? So everyone knows that the Rebbe explains in a sicha that chapter 32 is the heart of Tanya—hence 32, lev, “heart.” Now we come to chapter 33. I heard someone say this in the Rebbe’s name. I don’t remember whether the Rebbe said it in yechidus or wrote it in a letter to one of the chassidim. He even gave the name of the person to whom the Rebbe wrote it. Someone had written to the Rebbe that he was feeling down, that he was sad. The Rebbe instructed him to study chapter 33 of Tanya and contemplate it. The Rebbe wrote to him that the letters of 33, lamed-gimmel, spell gal. What is gal? As is well known from Chassidus, gal expresses revelation: “Uncover my eyes, that I may behold wonders from Your Torah.” Gal means uncovering the eyes so one can see the wonders of Your Torah. So the Rebbe said that chapter 33 is the gal of Tanya: here in Tanya, in chapter 33, the Alter—

13:31 Rebbe reveals an inner, fundamental, profound principle in serving Hashem, one of the foundations of Chassidus: the unity of Hashem. It is well known that the unity of Hashem is one of the foundations of Chassidus. The Baal Shem Tov revealed the meaning of Hashem’s unity, particularly His true unity. He revealed it in the sense of “There is nothing else besides Him”: not only is there no other divinity, but there is no other existence besides Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe explains the unity of Hashem here in chapter 33. But it is also mentioned in earlier chapters, including chapter 21, and in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. Here in chapter 33, though, the Alter Rebbe explains how Hashem’s unity finds expression in serving Him with joy. In other words, he explains that Hashem’s unity is a foundation not only of faith, but also of serving Hashem throughout the day. That is the idea of “Uncover my eyes”: it opens a person’s eyes so he can serve Hashem with true joy. So the Alter Rebbe says: “This, too, shall be the soul’s true joy, especially when one sees within oneself…” Here is something more. Beyond what we explained in chapter 31, there is another approach, another idea that brings about the soul’s true joy. Notice the Alter Rebbe’s wording: “the soul’s true joy.” Not simply joy of the soul, but true joy. What does that mean? In fact, the Alter Rebbe uses the phrase “the soul’s true joy” once in chapter 31 as well. But what is the significance of “true joy”? As the commentators explain, the point of calling it the soul’s true joy—

15:32 is that it includes the animal soul too. There can be a kind of joy felt by the G-dly soul alone, while the animal soul has no part in it. That cannot be called the soul’s true joy. The person is happy, but it is not true joy. What defines truth? Truth endures at all times. As is well known, Midrash Tehillim points out that the letters of emes, “truth,” are alef, mem, and tav. Alef is the first letter of the alphabet, mem is the middle letter, and tav is the last. This emphasizes that truth is there at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end—in every circumstance. It is not only at the beginning and the end, but in every situation, whatever it may be. If something holds true in one place but not another, its truth is lacking. If it were really true, why would it apply here but not there? Truth has to hold in every respect, in every situation and every place. That is what defines something as true. So if a person comes to serve Hashem with joy, but only the G-dly soul feels that joy—he contemplates ideas that only the G-dly soul grasps, while the animal soul has no connection to them and no part in them—then these are ideas that bring about the G-dly soul’s release. For example, the first explanation in chapter 31 is that the G-dly soul comes out of imprisonment, but the animal soul and the body remain imprisoned. So something is lacking in the truth of that joy, because the animal soul has no part in it. You forget about it, pay it no attention, put it—

17:20 aside, but you do not take it along with you. So in the world of the animal soul, joy is absent. But when the explanation is such that the animal soul, too, takes part in the joy, then the joy is true. And here in chapter 33, as we will see later in the chapter, the Alter Rebbe gives us an explanation in which the animal soul also takes part. In fact, unlike chapter 31, where I put the body aside, devalue the body, and cherish the soul, the joy in chapter 33 arises specifically from the body. As we will see at the end of chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe explains the whole idea of a dwelling place in the lower realms: specifically because of the body and the animal soul, the joy is even greater. That is why it is called true joy—it brings the body and the animal soul along as well. The Alter Rebbe says: “This, too, shall be the soul’s true joy, especially when one sees within oneself at appointed times…” The joy we are learning about here is especially helpful at particular times. Really, a person should always have this joy; this idea should always bring him joy. But at particular times, it is even more important. “When one sees within oneself at appointed times”—when a person sees within himself at certain times. Some say that “appointed times” means times when his heart is unsettled and the line of thought we discussed earlier, in chapter 31, does not work for him. At those times, he needs “to refine and illuminate it with joy of heart.” A person needs to refine the soul and illuminate it with a special joy. “Joy of heart”—there is significance to the word levav, with its two letters beis. It is explained that the letter beis appears twice. In other words, the Gemara says twice

19:13 It can come in two forms. So when we speak of “joy of heart,” the animal soul, too, is part of that joy. What, then, does a person need to do to bring himself to this joy? “He should delve deeply into his thoughts.” A person needs to think deeply and picture in his mind and understanding the matter of Hashem’s true unity. The Alter Rebbe is precise here: it must be an understanding of His true unity. In other words, there is His unity in a general sense, and there is His true unity. Everyone knows about the unity of Hashem as it was understood before the Baal Shem Tov taught about it: Hashem is one, and there is no other G-d. There is no other divine power, no partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in creation, no other authority. He alone rules. All of that. The Baal Shem Tov revealed the meaning of Hashem’s true unity: not only is there no other divinity, but there is no existence apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The entire world and all of existence are one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Nothing exists apart from Him. That is Hashem’s true unity. More specifically, even within the Baal Shem Tov’s explanation of Hashem’s unity, which includes the world, there are levels. And here, as we will see later in the chapter, the Alter Rebbe is speaking about Hashem’s true unity. That is, he is speaking about the unity of Hashem on its loftiest level. He explains here the unity of Hashem as it is on the very highest level of

21:01 Hashem’s unity—His true unity, even according to the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching that the unity of Hashem means “there is nothing besides Him.” And regarding this itself, the Alter Rebbe tells us that a general understanding is not enough. His precise words are, “He should delve deeply into his thoughts and picture it in his mind.” “Delve deeply into his thoughts” means sustained reflection. It is not enough that I have studied a maamar and know the whole line of reasoning. Some people have studied Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, or maamarim that explain the unity of Hashem, and they know the reasoning. They know the explanations and the proofs that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present everywhere, that all of existence is one with Him. They know all the analogies and explanations—the analogy of the letters, as explained there, and the analogy of the sun. They know the whole subject, but only as an explanation. That will not yet bring about joy in the soul. To reach real joy, the Alter Rebbe is precise: “He should delve deeply into his thoughts”—work at it, probing the idea deeply until it shapes his understanding and perspective. And he goes further: “and picture it in his mind.” To picture something is like making an image. When you look at a picture, you see what it depicts as though it were right before your eyes. What a wonderful image! You see it almost tangibly. In other words, by stressing that one must “picture it in his mind,” the Alter Rebbe is telling us that for the unity of Hashem to have an effect on the soul, an effect that brings a person to joy, he must also be able to picture it for himself. To picture it means to make it vivid, as though he were seeing it before his eyes. Sometimes a person contemplates an idea, but it remains something abstract, something

22:41 remote from his world—very abstract, very spiritual. “Picture it” means that a person imagines it as something alive before his eyes. That is what it means to picture it in his mind. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes in one of the maamarim: Why is it that when maamarim of Chassidus discuss the unity of Hashem, they so often give an example like a tree? Anyone who has studied this has seen it. They bring the example of a physical tree, with its branches, and explain that this fruit tree is being brought into existence at every moment. What does the example of the tree add to our understanding? The maamarim have already explained the idea of physical existence and its source. What does the fruit tree add? The analogy does not add anything to the explanation. The Frierdiker Rebbe writes that it is there so we can picture the idea. By giving a tangible, physical example—a physical tree—and using it to picture the unity of Hashem, the idea becomes more vivid and closer to a person. He can relate to it more readily, and it can therefore affect him throughout the day, wherever he is. The unity of Hashem becomes something real and tangible to him, to the point that it brings him to genuine joy.