Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 33 - Part 7

00:01 We’re in the middle of chapter 33, on page 52, the fifth line: “And this is what our Sages said: 613 mitzvos were given to Israel.” That’s where we are in the lesson. What is the Alter Rebbe discussing here? In chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe comes to explain how a Jew can reach a state of joy. We are meant to “serve Hashem with joy.” Here, the Alter Rebbe gives a way, a piece of advice, for a person to awaken himself to be joyful, especially at times when he needs to refine himself, rouse himself, and put himself in a joyful frame of mind. He does this through the explanation he gives here. What does the Alter Rebbe explain? Until now, he has been explaining Hashem’s true oneness. When a person contemplates Hashem’s true oneness—not merely that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one, but that “there is nothing else besides Him,” that nothing in the world exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because everything is Him alone and there is none besides Him. The Alter Rebbe explains this at some length, with several analogies and explanations. When a person contemplates this, he experiences the greatest joy: the joy of closeness to Hashem, of Hakadosh Boruch Hu being close to him. This is the idea of a dwelling place in the lower realms: Hakadosh Boruch Hu dwells here below in the world. That is the entire purpose for which man was created. A person came down into this world—the soul descended into this world—and the purpose of the creation of all the worlds is that there should be a dwelling place in the lower realms. This dwelling place comes about when a Jew contemplates Hashem’s oneness, when he awakens within himself faith in Hashem’s oneness. Through that, a dwelling place is created in the lower realms. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him, here below in the lower realms, and that is the greatest joy there can

02:15 be. The Alter Rebbe gives an analogy: a king comes to stay in the home of an ordinary person. And not only does he stay there as a guest—he makes it his permanent home. What greater joy could there be than having the king come to live in my house? So it is here, too: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with each and every person permanently when he awakens within himself faith in Hashem’s oneness. The Alter Rebbe then explains what we say in our prayers every morning: “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion, and how beautiful is our inheritance.” What makes us so happy? A Jew gets up in the morning and says, every morning, “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion.” What is the source of that joy? Our joy comes from our inheritance. And what inheritance is that? “Our forefathers bequeathed to us the true oneness of Hashem.” The inheritance we received is faith. We received it from Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu was the first of the believers, and we inherited it from him. It is a Jew’s inheritance to believe in Hashem’s oneness. This faith in Hashem’s oneness—that “there is nothing else besides Him”—shone within Avraham Avinu. He was the first Jew in whom this faith in Hashem’s oneness shone, and from him it was passed down as an inheritance. So each and every one of us has this faith. That is the meaning of “how beautiful is our inheritance.” Just as a person rejoices when he receives a very large inheritance without having worked for it—he receives great wealth simply by inheritance, and he is overjoyed—so too, and even more so, a Jew should rejoice in the inheritance of Hashem’s oneness that we received from our forefather, the truth that “there is nothing else besides Him.” This itself is the dwelling place in the lower realms: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here below, within a person’s soul, when he contemplates Hashem’s oneness. That is what we learned before. Now we begin—we continue

04:16 on page 52b, as we said, on the fifth line: “And this is what our Sages said.” “And this is what our Sages said: 613 mitzvos were given to Israel; Chavakuk came and established them on one.” What does this mean? What we have discussed until now—that the joy of having the King as a guest is the greatest joy there can be—is what allows us to understand this statement of our Sages in Tractate Makkos, says the Alter Rebbe. The Gemara says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave 613 mitzvos, and Chavakuk came and established them on one, as it says, “The righteous shall live by his faith.” “The righteous” does not mean that everyone is a tzaddik; it refers to every Jew. What does a Jew live by? He lives by faith. So Chavakuk established all 613 mitzvos on one thing: faith. That is what the Gemara says. The Gemara in Tractate Makkos says that Moshe Rabbeinu received 613 mitzvos. Then King David came and established them on eleven. Then came—or was it thirteen? Eleven. Then Yeshayahu came and established them on six. Then Chavakuk came and established them on one. Reading the Gemara simply, one might think, G-d forbid, that Moshe Rabbeinu gave 613 mitzvos and that was very difficult. It’s a lot—613 mitzvos is a great many. So Yeshayahu came and said: You don’t need them all; eleven mitzvos are enough, and with those you’re a good Jew. If you keep those eleven mitzvos, you’re fine. What are those eleven mitzvos? They’re what we say in Psalm 15: “Hashem, who may dwell in Your tent, and who may abide on Your holy mountain? He who walks uprightly and acts justly.” Well, the boys here were saying that not so long ago. How long has it been? How many years? Two hundred and three. “He does not slander with his tongue, he has done no evil to his fellow, nor taken up a reproach against one close to him; in his eyes, a contemptible person is despised.” [unclear] All the details written in Psalm 15 are the things King David

06:28 King David said—that was his answer. He put everything into eleven things. Then Yeshayahu came and made it even more, even more—uh, concise, more succinct, how do you say it? He put it into six mitzvos. Then Chavakuk came and put it into one mitzvah. So, on a superficial reading, people think he simply shortened it and said: This is enough. G-d forbid. That is the progression, and Rashi also explains explicitly there that the meaning is not, G-d forbid, that he took away any of the mitzvos and said we do not need to keep them all, only some. Rather, he expressed them as general principles. A person hears “613 mitzvos”—so many details—and sometimes the sheer number of details can make him despair. He thinks: This is too much. So King David gathered all those details into general principles, eleven principles. Later generations grew weaker and needed it condensed further, so they were expressed as six principles. Until Chavakuk came and expressed them as one principle: faith. Here, the Alter Rebbe adds a deeper explanation. That is, this foundation is what it means that Chavakuk came and established them on one: “The righteous shall live by his faith.” It means that he made faith the general principle that encompasses all 613 mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe explains what this means. “Established them on one”—that faith encompasses the 613 mitzvos. In other words, look inside. The Alter Rebbe says the meaning is as though he has only one mitzvah. The point is that the Alter Rebbe is giving a somewhat deeper interpretation. On the simple level—I mean, when we learn the plain meaning—of course, to think that King David or Chavakuk reduced it to only one mitzvah is nonsense.

08:07 We’re not dealing with fools. Obviously, that’s not what it means. So how do the commentators explain it? That he made it into a general principle encompassing all the mitzvos. But look, the Alter Rebbe makes a deeper point. What does “the righteous person shall live by his faith” mean? Chavakuk made it as though a person had only one mitzvah. It’s as if you say: you need to invest effort. You come to a Jew and tell him he has to invest effort in 613 mitzvos, to toil over 613 separate details. That’s a lot. So the Alter Rebbe comes and says: No, there is one mitzvah in which you need to toil and invest effort, as though I have only one mitzvah. I have one mitzvah that I need to work at. What do I need to work at? Faith: awakening it, contemplating it, and strengthening it. It is “as though he had only this one mitzvah alone,” faith, “for through faith alone he will come to fulfill the entire Torah and mitzvos.” Once a person toils and invests effort in the mitzvah of faith, then through faith he will naturally come to fulfill the entire Torah and mitzvos. So he won’t need to toil and invest effort over every part of the Torah and mitzvos, because faith will already give him the strength to do it all. That is, “his heart should rejoice and be glad in his faith in the unity of Hashem, with the utmost joy.” A person should have tremendous joy. As we said earlier, he should be deeply joyful because he believes in the unity of Havayah, and that will awaken the greatest joy within him. So it is as though he had only this one mitzvah. The joy is so great that it’s as though there is nothing else in my world. I have only this mitzvah of the unity of Havayah, and it alone is the purpose of the creation of all the worlds. That is the whole point of the unity of Havayah. It’s the purpose for which I came into the world, and it is the purpose

10:07 of the creation of all the worlds. “For with the strength and vitality his soul derives from this great joy, his soul will rise higher and higher above all the obstacles to fulfilling the entire Torah and mitzvos.” That, in essence, is the strength it gives him. It enables a person to rise above and overcome all the obstacles and hindrances that can stand in the way of fulfilling the Torah and mitzvos. Once a person feels genuine joy in the unity of Havayah, it lifts him up and gives him the strength to overcome all those obstacles and hindrances. And once he overcomes them, fulfilling the entire Torah and mitzvos comes easily. In other words, it works like this. The Alter Rebbe is explaining here how a person can do this. The point of what the Gemara tells us about Dovid, Yeshayahu, and Chavakuk is that they sought a way to bring Jews to fulfill the Torah and mitzvos with joy and ease, without so many concealments and obstructions. In earlier generations, Moshe Rabbeinu came and said: Torah and mitzvos, Torah and mitzvos. Moshe Rabbeinu was speaking to a generation of understanding, a strong, mighty generation. What do you have? The Torah and mitzvos, and you must fulfill them all with full force. So you face concealments and obstructions? Work, toil, overcome them. It was possible to demand that a person overcome the concealment and obstruction surrounding each mitzvah. When a person comes to give tzedakah, he faces an obstacle to giving tzedakah. Why give away the money? It’s my money; I could buy other things with it. It’s hard. So he has an obstacle to giving tzedakah. When he comes to daven, he faces an obstacle to davening. No, no, no—he doesn’t feel like it, he’s tired, he’s hungry. When it comes to davening, all sorts of distractions arise. When he comes to learn Gemara, then there’s

11:52 “I don’t feel like learning Gemara. The Tosafos, the sugya—it’s too deep, not so interesting, and I don’t have a good chavrusa.” In the same way, you can find a separate concealment and obstruction for every aspect of the Torah and mitzvos. Each one has its own. So if a person has to overcome every concealment and obstruction separately, that’s hard. But the Alter Rebbe says that Chavakuk came and “based them all on one.” What does “based them all on one” mean? He brought all 613 mitzvos together into one point. You don’t have to struggle with each matter separately. A person needs to work on faith. Faith in what? Faith in the unity of Havayah. And once a person has that point of the unity of Havayah—what does the unity of Havayah mean? That there is nothing besides Him, that nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So once I have that point of the unity of Havayah—and not only that, but I’m also happy about it. This is what the Alter Rebbe adds here. The Gemara doesn’t say that what Chavakuk asks of us is not only to believe in the unity of Havayah, but also to awaken joy within ourselves over it. A person rejoices in the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present, that He is the only true existence and there is nothing besides Him. Then, through this joy in the unity of Havayah, all the obstacles and hindrances fall away. You no longer have to fight a separate battle over each thing. I no longer have to fight over tzedakah separately, over davening separately—all the obstacles and hindrances, from within and from without. There are obstacles and hindrances—wait, that is, there are two kinds of obstacles and hindrances that everyone faces. There are obstacles from within, meaning inside oneself: the yetzer hara, the animal soul. Everyone has his own little package, his own personal yetzer hara that interferes with his Torah and mitzvos. That’s called “from within.” Then there are obstacles and hindrances from without.

13:35 Sometimes a person wants to do a mitzvah and to learn, but his parents won’t let him learn. Sometimes it may be his friends. Sometimes it may be all kinds of external things: the place, the environment, things outside him that get in his way and prevent him from fulfilling the mitzvos properly. That’s called “from without.” So with the obstacles and hindrances from within and from without, when a person works on one point—faith in the unity of Havayah, in such a way that he rejoices in the unity of Havayah—then, once he has that sense of unity and is joyful about it, there are no more obstacles and hindrances. Why? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere, and there is nothing besides Him. So there are no more obstacles and hindrances, no more distractions. When can there be a distraction? When something has an existence of its own. If the world has an existence of its own, then there’s something there that can distract you. A distraction from here, a distraction from there. He has this excuse, that excuse. But once I feel that there is nothing besides Him, and I have joy in that fact, it gives me the strength to overcome every obstacle and hindrance that could exist in the world. And this is what “he based them all on one” means. He established the pillar, the foundation, on which all 613 mitzvos stand. “Stand” means that they endure. It’s like the expression davar hama’amid, something that makes a thing stand, which appears in the laws of the Shulchan Aruch. We learned in Choshen: a davar hama’amid is something that gives food its stability. You put something into the food that makes it hold together and gives it permanence; that’s called a davar hama’amid. It comes up in halachah in various contexts. Yes, it’s as though this is the thing on which the whole matter stands. It’s the foundation.

15:19 on which everything stands. That is the meaning of “he established them upon one”: he made the oneness of Hashem the foundation on which all 613 mitzvos rest. This passage of Tanya that we’ve just learned is well known—the idea of “the righteous person shall live by his faith,” that the oneness of Hashem gives life to all 613 mitzvos. This passage, and this chapter in general, particularly this part of Tanya, is well known. It was the subject of the great disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. As is known, the Alter Rebbe had disagreements not only with the misnagdim, but also with chassidim—students of the Baal Shem Tov and students of the Maggid—over a number of matters concerning the spreading of Chassidus. That is the meaning of the well-known saying that the Alter Rebbe was like Yosef: “His brothers were jealous of him.” His own brothers, too, were jealous of Yosef. Similarly, some of the Maggid’s students opposed the Alter Rebbe on various matters. One of the best-known points of disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and several of the Maggid’s students concerned “the righteous person shall live by his faith.” The Alter Rebbe wrote this explanation in Tanya. There is a letter from Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. After Tanya was published—well, the Alter Rebbe had two very close colleagues who went to Eretz Yisroel, as is known. There was Reb Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, Reb Menachem Mendel of Horodok, who was one of the Alter Rebbe’s closest colleagues, and there was Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. These were two students of the Maggid who traveled there. It is known that the Alter Rebbe also wanted to go with them, but on the way they told him he had to turn back, because if he went, there would be no Chassidus left in Russia.

17:06 Someone had to see to the spreading of Chassidus in Russia, so the Alter Rebbe returned to Russia, while they went to Eretz Yisroel. The Alter Rebbe looked after them and maintained very close contact; there are letters throughout that period. I won’t go over the whole story of Colel Chabad and how the Alter Rebbe continually sent money. Their connection was very strong. So much so that, as is known, in the introduction to Tanya the Alter Rebbe mentions “our teachers in the Holy Land”—in Eretz Yisroel. It is written there in the introduction to Tanya. The Alter Rebbe means these two: Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk. “Our teachers in the Holy Land”—he means those two Jews, Reb Avraham of Kalisk and Reb Mendel of Horodok. Now, Reb Mendel of Horodok, Reb Mendel of Vitebsk, passed away in 5548, as is known. That means he passed away quite young, before the Alter Rebbe had printed Tanya, before there was a published book of Chabad Chassidus. Although it was already known that the Alter Rebbe had a profound approach, an approach based on contemplation, it had not yet become so widely known. After Reb Mendel of Horodok passed away, Reb Avraham of Kalisk remained. Once Tanya came out, Reb Avraham of Kalisk spoke out very strongly against it. He argued that this was not the path of Chassidus they had received from the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid. One of his main objections was specifically to what the Alter Rebbe writes here: that serving Hashem must involve contemplation. The Alter Rebbe says that the foundation of the whole Tanya is that every person can serve Hashem through what? Through contemplating the oneness of Hashem, contemplating the concepts of “He fills all worlds” and “He encompasses all worlds.” Then this can be within everyone’s reach, in one’s mouth and in one’s actions.

18:51 Here, in chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe explains “the righteous person shall live by his faith.” The meaning is that a Jew must contemplate the oneness of Hashem, and the joy that comes from contemplating His oneness gives him the strength to fulfill all of Torah and mitzvos. In response, Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk wrote the well-known statement that this is not the approach of the Baal Shem Tov; it is an entirely different approach. Do not read “shall live,” but “shall give life.” The approach of the Baal Shem Tov’s Chassidus, he said, is that “the righteous person” does not mean a righteous person in the ordinary sense—not each and every person, as the Alter Rebbe explains it here. Rather, it means the tzaddik, the Rebbe. The tzaddik is the subject, a particular figure. And “the righteous person shall live by his faith” means: do not read “shall live,” but “shall give life.” Through chassidim connecting themselves to their Rebbe, traveling to him, receiving his blessing and being given strength, the Rebbe instills faith in them. In other words, there is no need for contemplation, for delving into profound mysteries and contemplating the oneness of Hashem. What is needed is simple faith, without intellectual reasoning, without contemplation, without scholarly understanding, without philosophies. Simple faith, without intellectualizing. Yes, simple faith. But we know what is written in the teachings of Chassidus: simple faith remains transcendent. It does not affect the person inwardly. A person can believe and nevertheless fail to observe Torah and mitzvos. “A thief at the mouth of a tunnel calls upon the Merciful One,” as is known from Bava Metzia. So they—Rabbi Avraham of Kalisk and the group with him—argued that one receives this through the Rebbe. When a chossid travels to his Rebbe and receives spiritual influence from him, the Rebbe helps him make his faith a source of vitality for all of Torah and mitzvos. Their approach was that everything is received from the Rebbe, not truly achieved through one’s own effort.

20:41 And the Alter Rebbe said no. The Alter Rebbe maintained that the main part of the work must specifically be done through one’s own effort. That was the basis of the whole disagreement over this passage of Tanya. The Alter Rebbe explains that “the righteous person shall live by his faith” means the faith of each and every person. “Shall live” means that a person must live with his own faith, internalize it, and become joyful through contemplating the oneness of Hashem. He must bring about genuine joy in his own faith, and specifically through this he can overcome all his troubles. There is the well-known story of Reb Shlomo of Karlin. Reb Shlomo of Karlin wanted to settle in the area belonging to the Alter Rebbe. After the Maggid passed away, the territories were divided up. Each of the Maggid’s students had his own area; they were given different parts of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and other places in Europe. Each was a leader in his own place. The Alter Rebbe received Russia, and Reb Shlomo of Karlin wanted to come and live there. So the Alter Rebbe set three conditions for him. One was that he must not disparage Torah scholars, even if they were not chassidim. The second was that he must not disparage Jews who have a natural fear of Heaven, even if it does not come from Chassidus but is something they were born with. He must not disparage that either. And the third was “the righteous person shall live by his faith”: his service must be through his own effort. He must not rely on the tzaddik to rescue him from his situation; rather, each person must work and toil through his own effort. It is known that Reb Shlomo of Karlin said he agreed to the first two, but under no circumstances would he agree to the third. For him, this was a firmly held approach, something they had received

22:31 From the Maggid and the Baal Shem Tov—that the path of Chassidus demands that a person not work on faith through his own efforts, but receive faith through the tzaddik. The Alter Rebbe would not give up this point under any circumstances. So Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin had to travel there. There is a long story about this, involving Reb Meltzker [unclear] and so on. This is not the place to tell the whole story. Everyone can read it in Likkutei Likkutim, where the Alter Rebbe tells the entire story in detail. But what do we see here? The two schools of Chassidus had two very firmly held approaches. The Alter Rebbe’s approach was that a person must work through his own efforts, contemplating the oneness of Hashem, and in that way each person must live with faith. Ah, then why do we need a Rebbe? The Rebbe gives a blessing. The Rebbe helps and gives strength. The Rebbe imparts to us. But the actual work of contemplation—the effort to contemplate the oneness of Hashem—that is something a person must do himself. The Rebbe can teach you, give you guidance and approval, give you maamarim, explanations, and understanding, and explain the true oneness of Hashem. That is what the Rebbeim did. Throughout the generations, from the Alter Rebbe to the Rebbe, the Rebbeim invested tremendous effort in explaining Chassidus, with maamar after maamar after maamar, explaining, revealing, and clarifying the true oneness of Hashem. But afterward, each person has to toil at it through his own efforts: study the sources, work on them, struggle with them, and awaken within himself that joy of the soul of which the Alter Rebbe speaks. Through this, one can overcome and rise above every obstacle and difficulty, within and without. There is a story told about one of the chassidim in connection with what the Alter Rebbe says here: through a person’s work and the joy he takes in it,

24:13 he can overcome all kinds of obstacles. So there is a story people tell. It is a little off topic, but it is a good story in this connection. They say there was once a chossid whose wife caused him a great deal of trouble. She was not an easy person to live with, and not only that: she had a very sharp tongue and could come up with a different curse every day, one she had not used the day before. Sometimes she even made trouble for him with her hands. In any case, he would often come to shul in the morning looking broken, worn down, depressed—in that kind of mood. [unclear] That was how he arrived. Then this Jew would sit down to learn Chassidus for several hours and daven. After davening, he was a happy man; you could hardly recognize him. He was not the same person who had come in that morning. By the end of davening, he was in a completely different state, full of joy. Once, one of the chassidim asked him, “Tell me, why are you so happy? Do you think that when you go home after davening, all your problems will be over? Why do you become happy after davening?” He answered, “You see, I go home, and my wife gives me trouble. I suffer terribly from it, until I really cannot take any more. Then I come to daven. I begin contemplating the oneness of Hashem. I contemplate how Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings the world into being at every moment, and the world has no existence of its own; there is nothing besides Him, and so on. I go through that whole contemplation, and I reach the conclusion that if Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings the world into being at every moment,

26:01 and it can be a completely new world, then surely He has now created a beautiful world, a perfect world. So my wife, too, will no longer be the same wife she was yesterday. She will be a woman with good character traits and will not bother me, and so on and so forth. That is why, after davening, I say, ‘Today I’m going home, and everything will be good and happy.’ Well, I get home, and it is the same wife. What happened? Hashem created the world anew, didn’t He? True, He renews it at every moment, but He made it exactly as it was yesterday. He didn’t change it. So I hope that tomorrow, when I daven...” The point here is not to say that contemplating the world’s constant renewal should make us deny its difficulties. Of course we should ask Hashem that there should not be so much suffering. But the Alter Rebbe’s point here is that when a person is in a state of great joy, that joy removes the force of all kinds of difficulties. The obstacles lose their hold on him, and he overcomes them. This is connected to something else as well. We are about to begin the month of Adar. In another day—tomorrow night—we will already be counting the first and second days and beginning Adar, entering a new period. In yeshiva too, we are entering a new period on the calendar—how do you say it?—on the Jewish calendar. “When Adar begins, we increase in joy.” Chassidus teaches us how a person can be joyful: true joy comes from having a lasting companion. It comes when a Jew contemplates and lives with the oneness of Hashem. That is true joy: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everywhere. Surely that is what awakens joy in a Jew, the joy of “we increase in joy.” That is why the Rebbe once said at a farbrengen that the word Adar

27:58 is made up of the letters alef, dalet, reish. Alef refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the Master of the world. And dalet alludes to poverty. This is the joy of the month of Adar: a Jew contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu—as the Alter Rebbe also says in Tanya—makes His dwelling with him. The fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here with us, when it becomes real to us, is the source of the joy that we increase in Adar. That is the true joy available to every person.