Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 34 - Part 1

00:01 Chapter 34. The Alter Rebbe continues to clarify the point he began in chapter 33 and adds another aspect, a further point. What have we been discussing in these last chapters? We’ve been talking about joy. The Rebbe explains several approaches and ways a person can reach a state of genuine joy in serving Hashem, particularly after reflecting on bitterness. In chapters 29 and 30, the Alter Rebbe discussed various forms of soul-searching and reflection that bring a person to bitterness and dejection. So how does a person emerge from that bitterness and shift to the path of joy? Especially since joy is the main thing: in serving Hashem, a person should always be joyful, throughout his life. How do we get there? In chapter 31, the Alter Rebbe gave two things to reflect on. In chapter 33, he gave another two. In chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe began explaining that the way to reach genuine joy in G-dliness is to reflect on the unity of Hashem: to reflect on how the reality of the world is utterly nullified before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and therefore Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present down here. When a person reflects on this and awakens within himself the power of faith in the unity of Hashem, that itself creates the dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms. And a person should be joyful about that very fact. As we say every morning before davening, “How fortunate we are, how good is our portion, and how beautiful is our inheritance.” What are we happy about? We’re happy about the very fact that we received faith as an inheritance. A Jew didn’t have to work to acquire it; we inherited the power of faith from our forefathers. That itself brings a person tremendous joy: he has the ability to believe in the unity of

02:39 Hashem, and through his belief in the unity of Hashem, that itself creates a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms. He gives the analogy of a person’s joy when the king comes to live in his home—not merely to stay as a guest, but to live there. The same is true here. When a Jew awakens within himself the power of faith in the unity of Hashem, he causes Hakadosh Boruch Hu not merely to stay with him as a guest; Hakadosh Boruch Hu lives with him. There is no greater joy than that. At the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe adds that what we’ve discussed so far is one kind of joy: a Jew’s joy in his closeness to Hashem. But there is something deeper, the Rebbe says: a Jew rejoices in Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s joy. For when a Jew believes in Hashem here in this world and lives with the unity of Hashem in this physical world, darkness is transformed into light. That gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu the greatest pleasure. There is no greater joy for Hakadosh Boruch Hu than darkness being transformed into light. It brings Him tremendous joy. So a Jew should rejoice in Hashem’s joy. That is the meaning of “Let Israel rejoice”: he rejoices because Hakadosh Boruch Hu rejoices in the very fact that a Jew believes in Hashem. That is the point of chapter 33. What is still missing? The issue—the apparent shortcoming in this answer, which the Alter Rebbe now comes to explain in chapter 34—is that faith, after all, is not the whole person. Faith is only one faculty of the soul. True, it isn’t just any faculty; it is a very deep, all-encompassing faculty. But ultimately, it is not the whole person. A person, after all, is made up of 248

04:29 physical limbs and 365 sinews, with 248 corresponding spiritual faculties. There is intellect, there is the body, there are many different aspects; there are emotions, action, and senses. A person is made up of many things. When a person believes in the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that belief resides within his faculty of faith. And even if he thinks about it, how much does he think about it? He doesn’t think about it twenty-four hours a day. He thinks about it when he thinks about it—during davening, at Shacharis, now and then. But you can’t say that he’s focused on it twenty-four hours a day. So it would seem that this idea of the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, this faith in the unity of Hashem, resides only in a person’s faculty of faith. Something is still missing: it hasn’t permeated his entire being. A person could still come and complain: “Why are you telling me I should be happy? About what? That I’ll make a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms? Which part of me becomes that dwelling? My faculty of faith—that’s where the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu shines. But what about the rest of me? What about my power of action, my powers of thought and speech? And when I’m not living with this idea or thinking about it, what happens then? At those times, I’m seemingly outside that experience of faith, aren’t I? So part of me is not connected to it.” The Alter Rebbe therefore comes to explain how a person can bring this point, the unity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, into his everyday life, around the clock, into every action in actual practice, so that it permeates his whole body and his entire being. That is the point the Alter Rebbe comes

06:23 to explain in chapter 34. After all, we know that faith, as we’ve also discussed—and as the maamarim of Chassidus discuss, including the maamar of 5725, 5775, and so on—is something that encompasses a person; it is not the person himself. Even if a person thinks about his faith and rejoices in it, ultimately faith is not his whole being. The Alter Rebbe will now explain how a person can bring this point into actual practice in his daily life. Let’s begin chapter 34. “Now, the Patriarchs themselves are the chariot.” We said earlier that we received faith as an inheritance. The Rebbe earlier cited “how beautiful is our inheritance” and said that part of the joy in the unity of Hashem is that we received this faith by inheritance. From whom did we inherit it? From the Patriarchs. It is our forefathers’ inheritance, which they passed down to us. The Alter Rebbe says that when it came to the Patriarchs, this faith truly encompassed their entire being. So he says, “The Patriarchs themselves are the chariot.” The Patriarchs were literally a chariot for Hashem. But while the Patriarchs were like that, we are not. That is precisely the point: the Patriarchs themselves were the chariot, but we are not a chariot. So the question arises: what are we rejoicing about? For the Patriarchs, the unity of Hashem was present in them in the manner of a chariot. As he is about to explain, their entire being was permeated through and through with the unity of Hashem. But we are not on that level. So how can we rejoice in the unity of Hashem? So, once again, he…

08:15 It is known that “the Patriarchs are the chariot.” Actually, the Alter Rebbe himself already said this earlier. How many times does he cite the teaching of our Sages, “The Patriarchs are the chariot”? He said it earlier in chapter 18 in connection with the soul. The Alter Rebbe spoke of a chariot there, and he also mentioned it in chapter 23. Here the Alter Rebbe mentions it again. There is a difference in each place. Let’s continue; afterward I’ll come back to it. “For the Patriarchs are the chariot throughout all the days of their lives. They never ceased, even for a single hour, to bind their minds and souls to the Master of the World in the above-mentioned bittul.” This was true of the Patriarchs throughout their lives. They never stopped, even for a single hour, even for a moment, being wholly occupied with and connected to the bittul of His unity. Bittul to His unity—that was the defining quality of the Patriarchs. The wording of our Sages is “the Patriarchs are the chariot.” Every word our Sages use is precise. What are they emphasizing? The Patriarchs are a chariot; why say “they are the chariot”? Chassidus explains, in other maamarim, that the chariot is discussed many times in Chassidus, and there are several levels of it. Broadly speaking, there is the chariot of Yechezkel, the chariot of Yeshayahu, and the chariot of Zechariah. Let’s go from the highest downward, beginning with Yeshayahu’s chariot. It says that the prophet Yeshayahu saw, “I saw Hashem sitting upon a throne,” with “seraphim standing above Him,” each with six wings. That is the haftarah read on Parshas Yisro; it is Yeshayahu’s chariot. Yechezkel’s chariot is read on Shavuos. In chapter 1, he saw a storm wind and a great cloud—

10:19 and four faces, with faces for each one. He saw all four living creatures of the chariot: the face of a lion, the face of an ox, the face of an eagle, and the whole description. Then there is Zechariah’s chariot. It says that the prophet Zechariah saw a chariot of horses—red horses, black horses. His prophetic vision was of a chariot of horses. Chassidus says that these three chariots correspond to three worlds: one in Beriah, one in Yetzirah, and one in Asiyah. Yeshayahu’s chariot is the chariot of Beriah. He saw the highest level of the chariot. [Unclear] is called a city-dweller who sees the king, and that is why he is brief. In the Purim maamar—for those who studied it—there are several Purim maamarim that discuss this subject of the chariots. [Unclear.] This is discussed at length in Chassidus, and we’ll get to the chariot. Yes, the city-dweller and the villager. So Yechezkel—Yeshayahu saw the chariot in the world of Beriah. Yeshayahu saw the—sorry. Yeshayahu saw the chariot in Beriah, Yechezkel saw it in Yetzirah, and Zechariah saw a chariot of horses, which is the chariot of Asiyah. But what about Atzilus? That is why they say, “The Patriarchs are the chariot”: the chariot of Atzilus was the Patriarchs. Avraham was a chariot for the sefirah of Chessed, Yitzchak for the sefirah of Gevurah, and Yaakov for the sefirah of Tiferes. King David corresponded to the sefirah of Malchus. These are the four aspects of the chariot. Just as there is a chariot in Beriah, there is one in Atzilus: the four legs of the chariot, Chessed, Gevurah, Tiferes, and Malchus. So what are we saying here? “The Patriarchs are the chariot.” Although there are four levels of the chariot, it is specifically the Patriarchs who embody its true meaning. It says—

12:09 “They are the chariot.” They are the true chariot. With all the other chariots, Beriah is already a created world. You understand? Right? So all the others, even those in Beriah, are ultimately angels, and angels are created beings. However great their bittul may be, it is not absolute bittul. The same applies to the chariot of Yechezkel and—Yechezkel. In other words, those are all lower levels. By contrast, the chariot in the fullest sense is bittul. That is the precision of the wording: “The Patriarchs are the chariot”—the chariot in the truest sense. How was this expressed? The Alter Rebbe says: not only as they were in Atzilus, but also as they lived in this physical world. Their entire being, at every moment, was bound to Hashem’s unity. They never stopped, even for an instant. In other words, they did not have to look for ways to express their bittul to G-dliness. They did not need to perform actions in order to connect. It was their very essence. Hashem’s unity was their entire being, their whole life, twenty-four hours a day. And there is a formulation in a maamar of the Alter Rebbe that the Rebbe repeated several times. The Alter Rebbe says—even while they were asleep. That is what the Alter Rebbe says elsewhere, not in Tanya: the Patriarchs were the chariot even while asleep. How can someone be a chariot while asleep? The Rebbe once told a story about his sister-in-law, the daughter of the Frierdiker Rebbe. If I’m not mistaken, she was the one who asked this. I think so. Yes, Sheina, the sister of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, once asked this when they were talking at a meal.

14:04 The Rebbe Rashab said at the meal that on Shabbos, every aspect of a Jew’s life should be permeated with Shabbos. Everything a Jew does on Shabbos should be done with the intention of honoring the holiness of Shabbos. When he davens, when he learns, when he eats, when he sleeps—the meaning of Shabbos should permeate every action throughout its twenty-four hours. Rebbetzin Sheina was a little girl then, and she said she didn’t understand. She could understand davening with Shabbos in mind, learning, and eating—but she couldn’t understand sleeping with Shabbos in mind. A person is asleep. How can he remember Shabbos while he is sleeping? He’s asleep, after all. How can he live with Shabbos while asleep? The Rebbe related this story and explained that if one thinks about it before going to sleep, the whole period of sleep follows the thought one had beforehand. If, before going to sleep, a person intends for his sleep to serve that purpose, the entire sleep follows his original intention. This also relates to a Jew going to sleep each night in general. If he goes to sleep for the sake of Heaven, then even while he is asleep, his sleep is for the sake of Heaven. If before falling asleep he thinks about the letters of Tanya and about sleeping for the sake of Heaven, then even while asleep he is living for the sake of Heaven. Of course, compared with the Patriarchs, this is a lower level. As an explanation for a little child, it is enough. But of course, when we say that the Patriarchs were a chariot even while asleep, what we mean is—

15:50 That even while they were asleep, they lived with the concept of the oneness of Hashem. Now, we don’t understand how someone can live with—or think about—the oneness of Hashem while asleep. That’s why we are not a chariot. But with the Patriarchs, even when they slept, they were on a very high level. To help us understand this a little, people tell a story as an example. Actually, there are two stories, which I’ve mentioned before. One is about the Maggid. He had a practice of going to sleep for a while in the middle of the day, perhaps half an hour. While he slept, one of his attendants would sit beside him and read the Zohar. The Maggid really was asleep; he wasn’t pretending. But if the attendant made a mistake, the Maggid would call out in his sleep and correct his reading of the Zohar. That was the Maggid’s routine when he slept: the attendant read the Zohar, and even in his sleep, the Maggid would correct him if he said something incorrectly. These are lofty levels of tzaddikim. We see that even their sleep was, from the outset, on an entirely higher plane. Along these lines, there’s another story about the Frierdiker Rebbe. Someone once happened to be with him while he was asleep. I don’t know whether this was when he was young, before his marriage—perhaps that’s when the story took place. I don’t know, but I heard this story.

17:32 It was some years ago that I heard it: someone was there and saw the Frierdiker Rebbe asleep. A person turns over in his sleep, and each time the Frierdiker Rebbe turned over, he would straighten his tallis katan in his sleep. He would adjust it so that it sat as it should, covering his whole body, so that it wouldn’t... Yes. Well, that’s a story, of course. I don’t know what level of tzaddik that takes. Perhaps one doesn’t have to be a tzaddik; perhaps one simply has to have a very great fear of Heaven. The Rebbe once told a story about Reb Hillel of Paritch at a Purim farbrengen. The Rebbe wanted to explain the lofty levels of bittul that chassidim can reach through their connection to the Rebbe, and he told this story as an example. Reb Hillel of Paritch was traveling in a wagon and fell asleep. When the wagon reached a bridge—he was still asleep—he suddenly woke up and jumped out of the wagon onto the ground. Why? Because in the testament of Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid, or something like that, it says in the sefarim that there is a hiddur not to remain in a wagon while crossing a bridge. It says in some sefer not to be in a wagon when going over a bridge. Since there is such a stringency, such a hiddur, presumably it has to do with danger. I don’t know exactly what it is. Presumably this isn’t so relevant today; it probably refers to the bridges of those days, which were more dangerous. But it is written in one of the sefarim not to ride in a wagon while

19:32 crossing a bridge. Reb Hillel was asleep, but his fear of Heaven was so deeply ingrained that even in his sleep he sensed they were reaching a bridge, and he jumped out of the wagon. The Rebbe explained at that Purim farbrengen that this is the point of bittul. Through his connection to Chassidus and to the Rebbe, a Jew can reach such a level of fear of Heaven and connection to G-dliness that even when he is asleep, if he senses that something needs to be done according to halachah, it happens naturally. Of course, with all these stories we need to know precisely what level is being discussed. There are higher levels and lower levels. By the way, since we’ve come to the subject of sleep, there’s also the story about the difference between the Arizal and Reb Hillel of Paritch. It concerns Erev Shabbos. The Rebbe related several times that the Kabbalah sefarim say Erev Shabbos is a time of sleep Above. So what, they asked, is the difference between the Arizal and Reb Hillel? The Arizal would fall asleep on his own. And it wasn’t only the Arizal. It is known of all the Rebbeim that at the onset of Shabbos, sleep would come over them; they would fall asleep even while sitting. This is known about the Arizal, and also about the Rebbe Rashab. Reb Yankel Landau recounts in one of his diaries how the Rebbe Rashab sat on the sofa and fell asleep as Shabbos approached. And with the Rebbe, too, one could actually see it. I remember—I... you saw it with the Rebbe

21:18 on Friday night. The Rebbe would often be at the Kabbalas Shabbos prayers, and in the middle of Kabbalas Shabbos he would close his eyes like this. This is well known. Why? Because, spiritually, tremendous things are taking place Above in G-dliness. It is an aspect of dormita, sleep. There is something written in a sefer about Yaakov and sleep. Tzaddikim have no independent existence; their entire existence is G-dliness. So this affects them as well. Reb Hillel of Paritch would also fall asleep, but what was the difference? Reb Hillel would go to sleep, whereas the Rebbeim would fall asleep on their own. Reb Hillel had to bring it about in himself. That means Reb Hillel was not on quite so high a level. From the previous story, it sounds as though, when he reached the bridge, he jumped out on his own, out of fear of Heaven. This story suggests that there were things he had to bring about in himself. But from this we can understand what the Rebbe says there: when we say of the Patriarchs, “They themselves are the chariot,” we mean that throughout their days they were nullified to G-dliness. Their bittul to G-dliness was constant; it did not cease for even an hour. Even while they slept, the point of the four worlds shone within them in every detail, at every moment and at every time. By the way, since we’re discussing this, I’ll tell another story, told about the Tzemach Tzedek, if I’m not mistaken. They say that every night, after reciting Krias Shema before bed, the Tzemach Tzedek would say Hamapil and put his head down... No, that isn’t what they say about the Tzemach Tzedek. I’m mistaken. I think they say it about Reb Hillel of Paritch: he would finish Hamapil, put his head on the pillow, and immediately fall asleep. The moment his head touched the pillow,

23:06 he fell asleep straightaway. Nu, you can stop smiling over there. Nu. So he would fall asleep immediately. Someone once asked him how he did it. Ordinarily, when a person goes to bed wanting to sleep, he tosses this way and that. Every person has his own amount of time it takes. There are bochurim who fall asleep at once if they’re sitting in the middle of learning Torah, but in bed it doesn’t happen quite so readily. So they asked him how he did it. He said, “Who’s in charge here? Is my body in charge, or am I in charge? I’m in charge, so I’ll decide when to sleep—not my body.” That was clear to him. When a person is in charge of his body, he decides that the time to sleep has come, and so he sleeps. When the body is in charge of a person, he wants to sleep, but his body isn’t ready yet, so he tosses this way and that. But if a person works on himself so that his body becomes a vessel that listens to the instructions of his mind, then when he says, “Now is the time,” now is the time—not a moment before or a moment after. And that brings us back to our subject. What we see with the Patriarchs—“They themselves are the chariot”—is that their bittul to G-dliness, their bittul to Hashem, was constant, without a break of even an hour. As I said, the Alter Rebbe brings this same concept in other chapters. In chapter 23, for example, we also learned the idea that the Patriarchs themselves are the chariot, but there the Alter Rebbe emphasized a different point. There he emphasized their limbs. In chapter 23, when the Alter Rebbe says that the Patriarchs themselves are the chariot, he is speaking in relation to their limbs, not to time. He says that all the limbs of the Patriarchs—and this is what it means when it says of the Patriarchs, “They themselves are the chariot.”

25:06 All of their limbs were holy and set apart from the affairs of this world, and throughout their lives they became a vehicle solely for the Divine will. That is to say, these are two different points. They are connected, but they are two points. There, in chapter 23, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes, regarding the limbs, that the forefathers’ self-nullification to G-dliness as a vehicle permeated every one of their limbs. They did not have a single limb that was not a vessel for G-dliness. Every limb was in a state of self-nullification, a vehicle. In other words, they did not have a single limb that was not devoted to G-dliness. It is like what the Rebbe Rashab said: before his bar mitzvah, he worked to make all his limbs vessels for the Shulchan Aruch. As a result, every limb of his naturally acted in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch. When he was asked why he washed his hands three times, he said that he did not know the source just then, but before his bar mitzvah, at age twelve, he had made his body a vehicle for the Shulchan Aruch. Therefore, every limb of his naturally obeyed the Shulchan Aruch. If he washed three times, there must be a source for it. Afterward, they found the source: the Rosh in Tractate Tamid, in connection with the kohanim’s washing, where the Rosh writes that when hands are washed, it is done three times. That was a source the Rebbe had not [unclear] regarding washing the hands three times. But as to our subject: in chapter 23, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes how “they are the vehicle” was expressed in the forefathers with regard to the extent of their limbs. Here, in chapter 34, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes “they are the vehicle” with regard to time: not a single moment was left unoccupied. Their service of Hashem continued all the time, without interruption, every single moment. And after them came all the prophets, each according to the level of his soul and understanding. In

26:54 the same way, what was true of the forefathers was later true of the prophets as well, but for each prophet it was according to his own level. The level of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, surpassed them all, and it was said of him: “The Shechinah speaks from Moshe’s throat.” That is the very essence of it. Moshe Rabbeinu was on the highest level, higher than all the prophets. And apparently, the point is not only that he was higher than all the prophets, but that he was even higher than the forefathers. In being a vehicle, Moshe Rabbeinu was an even greater vehicle than the forefathers. Why? Because Avraham said, “I am dust and ashes,” whereas Moshe said, “What are we?” What does that mean? For Moshe Rabbeinu, “what” described his entire being: he was utterly self-nullified. With Avraham, it was only a limb that was a vehicle for the attribute of chesed—just one limb, one sefirah among all the sefiros. But Moshe Rabbeinu was a vehicle encompassing the entire realm of the sefiros.