Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 34 - Part 3

00:00 What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? The Alter Rebbe explains the joy a Jew should feel because of his faith in the oneness of Hashem. The very fact that he believes in the oneness of Hashem brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu into this world. He makes a dwelling for Him in the lower realms within his own faith, within his own soul, within his own mind, and through that, he brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu into his home. It is like a person’s joy at saying, “The king himself has come to my house and is living with me.” What greater joy could there be? That is why a Jew should rejoice that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here below. But so far, this is only through the power of faith. How do we bring it into every part of a person’s actual life? So the Alter Rebbe begins with an introduction: for the Patriarchs and the prophets, and for all of those people, it was revealed. Their faith permeated all the faculties of their souls. As he illustrates with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon. In other words, the oneness of Hashem was present throughout their lives, throughout their entire being. But the Jewish people in general... [unclear] 00:01:31-00:01:33 [unclear]. Look, it is enough that there are two. You have to make three and four. [unclear]. Very convenient; you have to do [unclear]. The Alter Rebbe says here that for the Jewish people in general, faith in the oneness of Hashem is not actually revealed in them, and so they need to awaken it. He says that at the Giving of the Torah, it happened just once: Hashem was revealed and descended upon Mount Sinai, and the oneness of Hashem was revealed to every Jew. But it happened in such a way that their souls flew out of their bodies; the body was not a vessel for it.

02:13 Afterward, it was revealed through the Beis Hamikdash, the Holy of Holies, and the Holy Ark. There, the oneness of Hashem shone through the Beis Hamikdash and the Holy of Holies, and was revealed to the Jewish people as well. Now, since the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, the Alter Rebbe says, since the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing in His world except the four cubits of halachah.” The Alter Rebbe does not say the word “alone.” We see that it is written that way, but the Alter Rebbe does not say “alone.” There is an explanation for that too, as we will see later. In any case, the Alter Rebbe says that now, when we have no Beis Hamikdash, how can a person draw down upon himself the oneness of Hashem? What do we have today in place of the Beis Hamikdash? In place of the Holy of Holies, we have the four cubits of halachah. There is a sicha of the Rebbe on this. One point before we continue in Tanya: a very beautiful sicha in which the Rebbe explains this wording, “the four cubits of halachah.” Why does it say “the four cubits of halachah”? It should have said, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing in His world except Torah study.” What does “four cubits” mean? What does halachah have to do with four cubits? What? What? What? It is such an unusual expression. What is meant by “the four cubits of halachah”? The Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation. In short, the Rebbe first cites the Rambam. In his introduction to the Mishnah, the Rambam writes what “Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing except the four cubits of halachah” means. The Rambam says that the four cubits of halachah are “wisdom and action.” That is the Rambam’s wording: “wisdom and action.” In other words, when a Jew sits and studies Torah and then acts, that wisdom and action constitute the four cubits of halachah. So we are being told that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing

04:09 in His world—that now, if you want to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is specifically through the four cubits of halachah. It is through a Jew’s engagement in wisdom and action. What is wisdom? The Rebbe says that the Rambam says this in connection with [unclear] Eretz Yisroel. So the Rebbe asks: Where, in the expression “the four cubits of halachah,” are wisdom and action alluded to? Where does it say wisdom and action here? The Rebbe explains that it is alluded to in the words “four cubits.” What defines four cubits? We look in the Gemara. The Gemara asks why there are four cubits. What is the reason for this measure of four cubits? In the laws of acquisition, we say that a person’s four cubits acquire property for him. Why does acquisition involve four cubits? The Gemara in Eruvin says that four cubits come from the fact that a person has... An ordinary, average person is about three cubits tall. It is a little hard to understand exactly how that measurement works, but that is what the Gemara says: a person’s usual height is three cubits. When he raises his hand above his head—yes, when a person raises his hands above his head—it becomes four cubits. Four cubits is about two meters. A person standing with his hands above his head can generally reach two meters, because that is an ordinary person’s height this way. The question is: What is this? What is the idea of a person having to stand with his hands above his head? Why measure a person like that, with his hands above his head? If, for example, we want to state a person’s height, let it be three cubits. Why define it as three cubits with his hands above his head? That is something

05:53 unusual. So the answer is that the lesson is this: a person’s structure consists of a head, a body, and feet. That is what a person is; that is his complete form. But a person’s purpose in coming down into this world is not merely to be what he is, but to add something, to bring about a refinement. So he has three cubits to refine. The whole purpose of a person’s descent into the world is to add refinement to the world beyond what it is on its own. And this is accomplished specifically through performing a mitzvah. Yes, “The essential thing is not study, but action.” When a Jew fulfills a mitzvah in deed, through that action he brings about refinement. He adds a perfection to creation beyond what creation has on its own. That is, creation as it is on its own. As it says, the world was created complete—that is the world on its own. But a Jew must make this world more than it is on its own, and he does that by fulfilling mitzvos. So a person elevates the world beyond its natural state. That is the allusion in speaking of three cubits together with hands and feet: it emphasizes that a person takes his intellect and puts it into practice. It does not remain only in his mind as wisdom; rather, he brings his wisdom into his learning and brings it into actual doing and action. Through that, he rises above what he is by nature. That is what is alluded to by the hands rising above the head. The body itself is only three cubits; with this addition, it becomes four cubits. In other words, he rises above what the world is on its own. This is true spiritually as well. The world on its own consists of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—three levels—and through this we elevate the world. We bring about a revelation of the level

07:36 of Atzilus as well, which is a fourth level. So, broadly speaking, this is what “the four cubits of halachah” alludes to: when a person takes the Torah he studies and puts it into practice, that produces the four cubits. This is also the allusion the Rebbe wants to convey in the sicha: now that we have no Beis Hamikdash, through what do we draw down the aspect of Eretz Yisroel? Through the four cubits of halachah. In other words, through Torah study—but in what manner? In a manner that brings him to practical halachah. It is specifically then that we draw the oneness of Hashem into the world, into the world’s actual reality. That, in short, is the point of the sicha. Anyone who wants to can study the sicha at greater length. It is in volume 16, Parshas Ki Sisa. Now, as the Alter Rebbe continues, we are picking up here on the line that begins with “halachos,” in the middle of the line. Yes, you all have the Tanya open in front of you. “Halachos. Therefore, after a person has deeply contemplated the aforementioned bittul to the best of his ability.” After this whole introduction, the Alter Rebbe says that once a person has thought deeply about what we learned in chapter 33, deeply considered the subject of the oneness of Hashem through faith, after all the explanation and engagement with the oneness of Hashem, then, after all that, the Alter Rebbe says, “He should take this to heart,” to the best of his ability. A person has limitations, as we said. So, “he should take this to heart.” A person needs to tell himself—yes, take it to heart, answer his heart. In other words, his heart has a problem. Yes, it has an objection. It says, “What will contemplating the oneness of Hashem do for me? Suppose I sit for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. I’ll study the oneness of Hashem, I’ll contemplate the oneness of Hashem, and I’ll be stirred”

09:31 in faith in the oneness of Hashem. But what will I gain from that? Afterward, I finish davening. I finish thinking it through, and I am not like the tzaddikim who live with the oneness of Hashem. Suddenly I return to the world and become disconnected from it. So what does a person need to tell himself in order to be happy? He could fall back into feeling down because he lacks that sense of Hashem’s oneness throughout the day. This is what the Alter Rebbe says: “He should take this to heart.” A person is, so to speak, answering himself in order to restore his joy. He says: “For my intellect and the root of my soul are too limited to contain it.” My intellect is limited, and the root of my soul is on a lower level. I do not have the soul of a tzaddik. I was given the soul of a rasha, the soul of a beinoni. As the Alter Rebbe said earlier, in chapter 27, there are two kinds of souls, and most Jews do not have the souls of tzaddikim. So it is not my fault. That is what the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize here. A person should not feel bad that he cannot live with the oneness of Hashem twenty-four hours a day. It does not mean he is at fault. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created me in such a way that I am not like the Patriarchs, who could live with the oneness of Hashem all day, twenty-four hours a day. My intellect is limited and my soul is on a lower level, and that is why. So I cannot be a vessel “to contain His unity, to be a chariot and dwelling place for Him in the truest sense.” I cannot bring myself to be a chariot and dwelling place for His unity in the truest sense. “In the truest sense” is what existed

11:06 on the level of the Patriarchs, the level of Moshe Rabbeinu. But I cannot be like that in the truest sense. “In the truest sense” means that there is not a single moment that is not bound up with the oneness of Hashem. That is called truth in the truest sense: it is real, it is enduring, and it never stops. I cannot live that way. “And since my thought cannot grasp or comprehend Him at all.” Why? Because of the limitations of my intellect, I cannot hold on to the oneness of Hashem—“not even the slightest trace of the comprehension of the Patriarchs and the prophets.” Because of all this, because of the limitations of my intellect and the limitations that come from the root of my soul, I cannot be a vessel for the oneness of Hashem. So this is what it means: “Therefore I will make Him a dwelling place and a place for Him to reside, through engaging in Torah study.” I do it through an actual deed. Where is the oneness of Hashem revealed now? Today, when there is no Beis Hamikdash, it is revealed in the laws of the Torah. When a Jew sits and studies Torah, that is where the oneness of Hashem rests. So that is what I will do. I will make a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the act of speaking: I study Torah. “I will make Him a dwelling place and a place for Him to reside.” I will make a Mishkan as there was then. When the Jewish people could not receive the revelation at Mount Sinai, Hakadosh Boruch Hu told them to make a Mishkan, through which the Shechinah would dwell in the world. How will I do that now? Through Torah study, through engaging in Torah study. According to the free time I have, I sit and study Torah, setting fixed times during the day and at night—sitting down to study at regular times. Then I study Torah both by day

12:57 and by night, every day. That is, as it says, a person must study Torah at least during the day and at night, with a study session in each. “As prescribed for each individual in the laws of Torah study”—according to the rules set out in the Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of Torah study, concerning how much each person must study. There are distinctions in this according to halachah. The Shulchan Aruch says that a Jew who can sit and study all day because he has no worries about earning a living—like a yeshivah student—must study Torah around the clock. He has no other obligation that would exempt him. He must study Torah all day and all night, apart from the times when he needs to sleep, eat, and daven. At every other free moment, he must sit and study. If he does not, he is guilty of neglecting Torah study. There is a consequence for neglecting Torah study even for a student. But there are businesspeople who cannot study Torah all day, as the Alter Rebbe writes in the Shulchan Aruch. According to the Torah, they are exempt from studying all day, but they are still obligated to study at least during the day and at night. That is what they can do. So this is what a person tells himself: I cannot live with the Shechinah dwelling within me twenty-four hours a day; it is impossible. But I can draw down the indwelling of the Shechinah through Torah study. So at least in the time I have, when I am able to study—in my free time, at least once in the morning and once in the evening—I will study Torah, and then I

14:35 will bring the indwelling of the Shechinah into actual practice. It will not remain only in my mind; it will also become the actual study of Torah. “As our Sages said, even one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening.” Through this action, a Jew brings his avodah into Torah study and studies as much as he can, and “his heart will rejoice.” A person should feel joy and revelation. Not only joy, but revelation too. As we said about chapter 33, there is joy and there is revelation, which is even greater than joy. “And he should give thanks for his portion with joy and gladness of heart.” A person should rejoice and be glad, and thank Hakadosh Boruch Hu joyfully and wholeheartedly “for having merited to be a host to the Almighty twice each day.” For this very fact—that he has merited to be a host. “A host” is like the ushpizin on Sukkos: a guest. No, not a guest, sorry—a host. The ushpizin are guests. Here he is the homeowner who hosts Hakadosh Boruch Hu within his soul twice each day. I cannot keep the house open all day, because I do not have time to study all day. But at least I have a study session in the morning and another in the evening. So I make my house ready and open for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I welcome Hakadosh Boruch Hu into my home as a host welcomes a guest, at least twice a day, “according to his time and availability.” That means according to the free time I have, according to the free time Hakadosh Boruch Hu has given me. For each person, Hakadosh Boruch Hu determines how much free time he will have to study, based on how much time he needs to work. As the Alter Rebbe

16:24 explains in Likkutei Torah, how does a person know what he needs to do? Some people are told to study Torah day and night. Others are told that even one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening is enough. How does a person know how much he needs to study? What is expected of him? Does he need to study more or less? This depends on the root of his soul. Some souls need more Torah, and some souls need less Torah. How does a person know? The Alter Rebbe writes about this in Likkutei Torah. I do not remember where just now. It has to do with, uh, Divine providence—hashgachah pratis. In other words, if through hashgachah pratis Hakadosh Boruch Hu has helped you in life, so that three hours of work provide enough income for your household, you do not need to spend the whole day at your business. It means you are expected to sit and study for longer. And if hashgachah pratis has arranged things so that someone must work hard for fifteen hours a day, like a donkey, to provide for his household and can barely make ends meet, that is a sign that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is telling him: For you, a little study in the morning and a little at night is enough, because you cannot study more. That is hashgachah pratis: the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu guides a person and arranges his life. Some people earn their livelihood in the manner of “bread from the earth,” while for others it is “bread from heaven”; some need more, some less. This is called an allotted measure: each person is given from Above the amount of time he needs to study. But in any case, a person must do

18:02 make his own reckoning and say, “I want to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but I can’t be consciously connected with Him all day. So how do I bring Him into my actual actions? Through learning Torah. How much Torah do I learn? As much as I can. If I can learn only one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, then that’s what I learn.” Here we can see how precise every word in Tanya is. The Alter Rebbe chooses the expression “becomes a host to the Almighty.” What did we say that means? He brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu into himself. He welcomes Hakadosh Boruch Hu into his own soul. What did we see in chapter 33? The Alter Rebbe said that faith is like bringing a king into one’s home, “where he stays and dwells with him in his house.” In chapter 33, the Alter Rebbe speaks not only of a guest who stays, but also of someone who dwells there. We explained in our classes on chapter 33 that when a Jew who is not connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu contemplates faith, Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes to live with him, to dwell in his home. Here, the Alter Rebbe uses an expression meaning “host,” which implies welcoming a guest, not someone who lives there permanently. Why the difference? Because there we are speaking about faith, and faith is constant. Faith is always present in a Jew. The only thing missing, as we said earlier, is that ordinary people cannot always bring their faith into practice in its full depth. But faith itself is always present in a Jew, even when he is not contemplating it. He still has faith. So when speaking of our faith, which is with us all the time, the expression there

19:46 is one of dwelling. But it is different when it comes to learning Torah. Here the Alter Rebbe is speaking about a person who cannot learn Torah all day. He learns only one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening. So you cannot call it dwelling. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not with him on a permanent basis through Torah study, because he does not learn Torah all day. He learns a little in the morning and a little in the evening. That is why it is described as hosting a guest. At any rate, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with him as a guest, and that too should arouse joy. So up to this point in Tanya, we have seen two ways a person experiences the resting of the Shechinah: through faith and through learning Torah. In fact, these are not separate matters. Faith, too, is a way of bringing the Shechinah into the world, while Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose that the Shechinah should rest within Torah. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills a person while he is learning the halachos. This relates to an important point worth discussing often: when learning Torah, a person should feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is Torah study? Some Jews learn Torah without connecting it at all to the resting of the Shechinah. A person can sit and learn Torah—learn about the angel who writes, or learn the laws of Shabbos—and still not think about Hakadosh Boruch Hu at all. He learns without thinking that this is His wisdom, the word of the King of the world, His Holy of Holies. Then he is missing the whole point of the resting of the Shechinah.

21:29 Yisroel. He learns Torah, but it is not connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is the meaning of the well-known expression often cited in Chassidus: “They did not recite the blessing over the Torah first.” The Gemara asks: Why was the Beis Hamikdash destroyed? Why was the Land lost? What does that mean—didn’t they learn Torah? After all, there were great scholars there. The explanation given is that they did not recite the blessing over the Torah first: they learned Torah, but the blessing over Torah was missing. What does that mean? Does it simply mean they failed to say the blessing? Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn’t, but that is not the sin at issue here. The main point is that they did not bring—as the Zohar puts it—the Giver of the Torah into their Torah learning. They learned Torah as they would study an intellectual subject, without thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So they learned Torah without its holiness. A person can sit and learn Torah, discuss interpretations, and do it with anger, without feeling that he is dealing with the holiness of Torah. We need to learn with feeling—not just absorb the arguments for ourselves and use our Torah knowledge to feel superior to someone else. We should not speak in a way that dismisses another person, saying [unclear], and so on. Torah study should be such that a person feels it is the wisdom of the Creator, of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is why the Alter Rebbe emphasizes this here. First comes the contemplation of faith in the oneness of Hashem, which we learned about in chapter 33. Then a person takes that understanding and connects it with Torah. He says, “I cannot remain consciously connected to the oneness of Hashem all day, so at least I will learn Torah, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in Torah study.” His Torah learning is then connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and he brings the oneness of Hashem

23:14 into his soul and into his body. Incidentally, from what the Alter Rebbe says here in Tanya, we can also learn a very important lesson in serving Hashem. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes that a person should know how to be happy even if he cannot sit and learn all day. If he can learn at least one chapter, one hour a day, he should be happy with his portion. Very often the yetzer hara comes to us and says, “Since I don’t learn all day, only part of the day, in the end I’m not really learning, so it isn’t worth anything.” Sometimes the yetzer hara speaks to people like this: “Since I’m not doing everything one hundred percent right anyway, what’s the point? Sometimes I daven, sometimes I learn, but it’s nothing.” That is how the yetzer hara talks.

24:15 “You didn’t learn during the first hour, so what—now you’re going to start learning and suddenly become a tzaddik? You haven’t learned properly today; the day is already off track. Start tomorrow.” You see? Sometimes this happens because things are not perfect. Here the Alter Rebbe teaches us that a person needs to be happy with his portion. So you have not reached true, ultimate perfection, and something is lacking. But a person can still say, “I have part of the day. I have a certain amount of time when I can find Hakadosh Boruch Hu and make myself a dwelling place for Him.” So be happy about that. Of course, if a person can do more, he should ask more of himself. But he should not say that what he has done amounts to nothing. A person should be happy with his portion—with every action he can take, every mitzvah he can do, every deed, every half hour or ten minutes he can sit and learn. That itself should arouse tremendous joy: at this moment, I have become a dwelling place for Him.