Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 35 - Part 2

00:02 Speaker 1 The Zohar. What the Yenuka says is the basis for the explanation. The Alter Rebbe comes to comfort the beinoni, to explain the purpose of the beinoni’s soul descending into this world. Even though he will never finish the struggle and will never completely overcome his inner yetzer, he should nevertheless have great joy; he should gladden his heart. And it is specifically upon the beinoni’s head that the Shechinah rests. For this, the Alter Rebbe brings the Yenuka. What does the Yenuka say? In short, he says that a person’s body is like a wick, and the Shechinah above his head is like a flame. Oil is needed to keep the flame burning on the wick. What is the oil? Good deeds. That is what the Yenuka says in the Zohar. What is the oil that keeps it burning? In the physical world, if you want a flame to keep burning on a wick, you need oil. If you light a wick without oil, it will burn up in a second and be gone. But the same is true within a person. For the light of the Shechinah to be invested in the body—there is the Shechinah above the head, in the soul, which is a part of G-d above—but for it to reach the wick, to penetrate the body, there must be oil. What is oil? Good deeds. This is the meaning of “A wise man’s eyes are in his head.” A wise person, someone with bittul who truly wants Hakadosh Boruch Hu to dwell within him, needs his “eyes in his head.” Meaning, he must constantly think about how to keep the Shechinah here below, through good deeds. So what is the Yenuka’s great insight? To bring it back to our subject: we see from the Yenuka that good deeds are the key—the matter of action. That is

02:38 Speaker 1 what we go on to discuss here: the whole matter of doing. Actual action is precisely what is loftiest. It is what keeps G-dliness in the body. It is what brings the Shechinah to rest within a Jew’s body. As we continue, the Alter Rebbe now comes to explain the Yenuka’s teaching, and several details follow. First, there is a sicha of the Rebbe about the Yenuka and the fact that the Alter Rebbe cites him here. Why doesn’t the Alter Rebbe cite the rabbi from Kaminetz[?]? That is, if it were not relevant, why mention it? Here every allusion is precise. The Alter Rebbe specifically tells us who said it: the Yenuka. The Rebbe says this is deliberate, because the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize how relevant it is to every single person. The Yenuka was a child. Granted, he was no ordinary child; he had special revelations. But in the end, he was a child. You cannot demand of a child what you demand of an adult—he is a child, a yenuka. Especially in spiritual terms: a yenuka, spiritually speaking, means someone at a level of immaturity. His service of Hashem is at that level. That is what “yenuka” means. The Rebbe is pointing out that it is specifically the Yenuka—someone whose service of Hashem is at an immature level—who teaches us how the Shechinah must come to rest within us. For here the Alter Rebbe is explaining this to the beinoni. The beinoni comes and complains: What is the purpose of sending the soul down here? So the Alter Rebbe brings him the Zohar’s account of the Yenuka. In other words, the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize that this applies to every single person. These words of the Zohar were not said by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai or Rabbi Zechariah.

04:36 Speaker 1 If they had been said by people on very high spiritual levels, we might have thought they were speaking about very high levels. The Yenuka said them, so they apply to every single person. That is how the Rebbe explains why the Alter Rebbe names the Yenuka as the one who said this. One more point before we continue. This is already a saying of chassidim. The Alter Rebbe says here, “King Shlomo cried out and said.” Yes, King Shlomo cried out, “And let oil never be lacking upon your head”—a person should always have oil upon his head, meaning good deeds. I once heard a story. Reb Baruch Aharon was here a few years ago, and he shared a nice thought in the name of one of the elder chassidim of his time, who is no longer with us. There was a chossid named Reb Axelrod. What was his first name? Reb Avraham Meir Axelrod. He was one of the elder chassidim when the Frierdiker Rebbe arrived in America. He was also well known. There are very interesting stories about him. The Frierdiker Rebbe once said that America had not changed Reb Avraham Meir Axelrod at all. For years, he never even raised his head to look at Manhattan’s tall buildings. And there are various other sayings about Reb Avraham Meir. In any case, he was a very chassidishe Jew. They say Reb Axelrod once remarked: We see that when you want to accomplish something, sometimes you have to shout. If you want to bring something about, to have an effect, you have to shout; otherwise it does not get through. Even if what you are saying is true and right, sometimes it is not only the words you say but also the way you say them that has an effect. The proof is here, in Tanya, where the Alter Rebbe says—

06:34 Speaker 1 actually, the Zohar says it, but it is quoted in Tanya—that the Zohar says King Shlomo cried out, “And let oil never be lacking upon your head.” How did the Zohar know King Shlomo shouted? Maybe King Shlomo said it without shouting. The verse in Koheles says, “And let oil never be lacking upon your head.” Where does the verse say that King Shlomo shouted? Rather, the Zohar knew that King Shlomo had to shout it. If he had not shouted, it would not have had an effect. So he certainly shouted it. In other words, even though we have no source for that, there are verses you can be sure were said as a cry, not politely. It was the tone in which he said it, and that is why it affected people so deeply: he said it with a shout. There is a story about this. They tell a story from the Rebbe’s time. In those days, in all sorts of places, there were disputes between chassidim and misnagdim in the shul—about what to do and what not to do. It was not yet the case that every community had two shuls. In most shtetls there was still just one shul, and the chassidim would squeeze in there so they would be allowed to daven. In short, the story goes that in one shul, the chassidim would come after the misnagdim had finished davening and hold their own minyan there. What happened? One Pesach night, a great commotion broke out in the town. Why? The chassidim davened Maariv on Pesach night and said Hallel. Now, the Shulchan Aruch says that the custom is not to say Hallel on Pesach night. The Rema writes that in our countries the custom is not to say Hallel on Pesach night. That is the Ashkenazi custom—not to say Hallel. But the chassidim did have the custom to

08:29 Speaker 1 To say Hallel. After all, that is our custom. On the night of Pesach, we say Hallel after Maariv. In short, there was a great uproar in the town because the chassidim davened Maariv on the night of Pesach and said Hallel, contrary to the Rema. The whole community came with the rabbi and made a fuss: How could the chassidim say Hallel on Pesach? The Rema says not to. Eventually the complaint reached the Rebbe. They came to him and said, “How can chassidim go against the Rema? The Rema says we shouldn’t say it!” So the Rebbe told them: “The Rema writes, ‘In our countries, it is not customary to say Hallel on the night of Pesach.’ Who says the Rema wrote that so cheerfully? Perhaps he wrote it to the tune of Eichah: ‘In our countries, it is not customary.’ Really, we should say it—but what can we do? In our countries, it isn’t the custom.” Why are you so certain that the Rema wrote it as a ruling that there is no need to say Hallel? Perhaps the Rema also wanted people to say it. He was only stating the reality: what can you do? In our countries, that isn’t the custom. So sometimes knowing how to sing something, what tune it was said in and with what tone, changes the whole meaning. When you say it in a different tone, it changes the way the thing was said, not the words themselves. That brings us to our subject as well. King Shlomo didn’t merely say it; King Shlomo cried out, “And let oil never be lacking upon your head.” A person must constantly see to it that he has good deeds with which to keep G-dliness in the body, to keep the Shechinah in the body. That’s where this brings us. We’ll come to the point the Alter Rebbe raises. Now the Alter Rebbe begins to explain it. The explanation starts here, in chapter 35. Then the Alter Rebbe goes on to other subjects, and the conclusion of this explanation is at the end of Tanya. The explanation of this passage from the Yenuka is completed at the very end—

10:25 Speaker 1 of chapter 53. Yes, right at the end of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe finishes explaining a few more details. The main explanation is here in chapter 35. Now we return to page 54, [unclear]. Here is the explanation of why he compared the light of the Shechinah to the light of a lamp. To understand this comparison better: a lamp gives light only with a wick, and not without oil. The oil needs a wick in order to be drawn into it. Likewise, the Shechinah does not rest upon a person’s body, which is compared to the wick, except through good deeds. The Zohar says that good deeds specifically are needed for this. His soul is not enough. The fact that he has a soul, which is a part of G-d above, is not enough. Why isn’t the fact that a person also has a soul enough for it to serve as the oil for the wick? Why can’t the soul be the oil for the wick? The Alter Rebbe is asking a question here. He puts it smoothly, but it is actually a very strong question. We’ve completely forgotten about the soul! We compare the body to the wick and the Shechinah to the flame, and say that good deeds are the oil that connects the body to the Shechinah. But what about the soul? Why do we need good deeds? Besides a body, I have a soul, and the soul is a part of G-d above. Why isn’t it enough that I have a soul? Why can’t the soul be the oil connecting the wick to the flame? To understand the Alter Rebbe’s question better—it’s a simple question, but let’s look a little deeper—why is oil needed? Why, in the physical world—

12:29 Speaker 1 in the literal physical world—do you need oil? Why isn’t a wick enough? How does it work physically? You have a lamp, a wick and a flame. You need oil too. Why do you need oil at all? It’s simple: the wick is something coarse. It might be a wick or it might be wood—it is coarse material. Fire is something very fine. They are complete opposites. One is inanimate matter, and the other is not. One is earth and the other is fire, and earth and fire are opposite extremes. Of the four elements, fire is the finest, most spiritual, most ethereal element. A wick, by contrast, is coarse material. Because they are such opposites, they cannot work together on their own. If you put fire to the wick, either it won’t catch at all—the fire won’t connect with it—or, if it does catch, it will consume the wick and burn it up immediately. It won’t burn as it should. What can connect them? You need to find something intermediate: a material that is fine. It is physical too, but it is a finer, more delicate physical substance. Because it is finer and more delicate, it can serve as a vessel for the fire. That is the nature of oil. Oil, too, is a physical substance, but among physical substances it is very fine. You can see that oil is an essence, something extracted from physical things. In other words, oil is something fine and more delicate, so it has the capacity to connect—

14:22 Speaker 1 the wick and the fire. What do we learn from this? For the fire to take hold of the wick, you need something fine and delicate. That makes the Alter Rebbe’s question seemingly all the stronger. If we’re looking for something fine and delicate to keep the Shechinah attached to the wick, why would that be good deeds? On the contrary, the soul is more spiritual. The soul is a part of G-d above. It is spiritual; it is a part of G-dliness. So seemingly, the soul should be the intermediary that keeps the Shechinah there. On the one hand, it is a part of G-d above; on the other, it is enclothed in the body and present in the body. The soul should therefore be the best thing to connect G-dliness with the body. If you have the soul, what else do you need? Why isn’t it enough? And the question goes further, as we see later in Tanya. By “the soul,” we don’t mean only the soul’s very existence. We also mean the soul’s avodah. The soul doesn’t merely exist; it has work to do. It has chochmah, binah and daas; chessed, gevurah and tiferes. The soul is made up of ten faculties, and it can understand G-dliness, feel G-dliness and contemplate G-dliness. That is the soul’s avodah, a spiritual avodah. Surely that should be the oil for the wick. You’re looking for something fine and spiritual that will hold G-dliness—that will keep the Shechinah resting in the body. So, on the contrary, it should be matters connected with the soul, spiritual avodah. We should have said that what keeps the Shechinah in the body is matters connected with the soul—

16:26 Speaker 1 love and awe, and understanding in spiritual avodah. But what have we been told? What is the oil that holds G-dliness in the world? It is not spirituality, not love and awe, not the soul or understanding or contemplation, but specifically the light of Torah and good deeds—the matter of action. So that is the Alter Rebbe’s question. Based on what we’ve explained, it seems hard to understand why good deeds specifically are the oil for the wick, rather than a more spiritual avodah connected with the soul. That is a more detailed explanation of the Alter Rebbe’s question. The Alter Rebbe answers, “It is clear and understandable to every discerning person.” The answer to this question is clear and understandable to every discerning person. What is the central point of the explanation? There is a lengthy discussion here, but let’s state the main point first. With Hashem’s help, we’ll then explain it inside the text. This is a fundamental point in Chassidus. What the Alter Rebbe explains here is one of the most important points. You see it often in maamarim and in the Rebbe’s sichos. It is one of the strongest foundations of Chabad Chassidus, one of the things Chabad Chassidus revealed, and the Alter Rebbe says it here in this chapter. The point is that spiritual avodah, however lofty it may be, will always have some element of selfhood mixed into it. Any avodah that comes from a person—even the most elevated, refined, lofty and abstract avodah, reaching the utmost a person can attain—begins with a person. And a person, fundamentally, has a sense of self. So however much he nullifies himself, his bittul is always the bittul of a self. Incidentally, as we learn—most of the third-year students are here, yes, most of them—Reb Oftati[?]’s question, and most turn to... The point, the point we learn—

18:39 Speaker 1 In the chapter we’re studying tonight, we discuss the bittul of Yetzirah and the bittul of Beriah. As much as the Alter Rebbe tries to explain the bittul of Beriah—which is bittul of one’s very existence—he emphasizes that, in the end, it too is a certain kind of existence. In other words, it still acknowledges the created being. As long as the bittul comes from the person, even if he reaches the greatest degree of bittul possible for him, its foundation is always his own existence, and so some sense of self remains. That is why the soul’s love and awe are not a vessel, not a true vessel, for the indwelling of the Shechinah. Even for tzaddikim. However refined a person becomes, ultimately there remains a point at which he is still an entity in his own right. So the Shechinah cannot dwell there. The Shechinah can dwell only in something that is completely nullified. What is completely nullified? Something Hakadosh Boruch Hu determines—not I. It cannot come from me; it can come only from Above. And that is the idea of good deeds. Good deeds are what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants, not what I feel. The soul’s bittul still belongs to the soul’s own existence. After all, the soul is a created being. We’re talking here about the soul that descended into the world and became a created being. Yes, the soul is a created being. Even the soul’s avodah—its awe—is the awe of a created being. However refined it may be, it is still created. This is similar to the difference between the mitzvos the Avos performed before Matan Torah and the mitzvos performed after Matan Torah. The mitzvos the Avos performed before Matan Torah, even though they were on the highest spiritual level and they brought that spirituality into everything they had—[unclear]—ultimately could reach no higher than the peak attainable by created beings, because it had not yet come from Above; the decree had not yet been nullified. So a created being can reach the very highest

20:34 Speaker 1 level a created being can reach, but the foundation always remains that of a created being. Practical mitzvos, by contrast, are what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. I do not perform them because I understand or because I want to, but because that is what He wants of me. That is utter bittul. And so the indwelling of the Shechinah comes specifically through things that originate in G-dliness, not through what comes from the person. This is the idea of practical mitzvos: they, specifically, are the vessel into which the indwelling of the Shechinah is drawn—not love and awe and all the levels and aspects associated with the avodah of tzaddikim.

21:06 Speaker 2 The levels the soul reaches—[unclear].

21:10 Speaker 1 And another thing: everything I’ve said—the soul, the soul’s avodah, and all the levels associated with a person’s avodah from below upward—always retains some sense of self. But for the Shechinah to dwell, that sense of self cannot be present. The indwelling of the Shechinah can come only from G-dliness. A person cannot attain that through refinement; it has to come from Above. That is the idea of practical mitzvos: they are what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants, coming from Above. There’s a vort, a short story—I’m sorry, it relates to another subject, but it gives us a little understanding. They say the Baal Shem Tov had a chossid named Reb Zev Wolf of Zhitomir. He was quite a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov. They even say that he was on a higher level than the Baal Shem Tov—be that as it may. Wolf of Zhitomir was quite a chossid. Once they asked him, “You really are a holy, righteous Jew and so on, so what is the difference between you and the Baal Shem Tov? Why do you need to be a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov?” Wolf of Zhitomir answered, “The difference between me and the Baal Shem Tov is just one hair. Just one little hair separates me from the Baal Shem Tov. But that hair is one I will never be able to cross.” Just one hair between him and the Baal Shem Tov—remarkable. And yet that hair is something he has no way to cross; he can never reach beyond it. What is the explanation? It’s a matter of avodah. But what exactly? It’s that for Wolf of Zhitomir, it was from below upward. With the Baal Shem Tov, it was from Above downward. In other words, the Baal Shem Tov’s role was that Hakadosh

22:48 Speaker 1 Boruch Hu chose the Baal Shem Tov from Above and gave him [unclear]. It came to him from Above. Reb Wolf of Zhitomir, for all the greatness of his righteousness, reached the maximum a created being can reach. But the crossing from created being to Creator—that is the crossing between the position of a chossid and the position of a Rebbe. As it says in the well-known sicha, a Rebbe is “the Essence in a physical body.” That is something given from Above. Even if the difference is as fine as can be, it is a difference you can never bridge. This is just an analogy for what I’m describing here. True, it is a soul, and a soul is a part of G-dliness, and it experiences spiritual delight, but all of that is avodah. So some sense of self always remains. Mitzvos, by contrast, were given from Above, and therefore practical mitzvos, specifically, bring the indwelling of the Shechinah into this world.