Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 36 - Part 1

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re doing chapter 36, page 45b. Chapter 36 is one of the most fundamental chapters in Tanya, you could say. So many of the Rebbe’s sichos in Likkutei Sichos deal with it. I haven’t checked, but I imagine it’s the chapter discussed most extensively there: chapter 36, with the whole subject of a dwelling place in the lower realms. That is such a central subject in the Rebbe’s teachings. It encompasses all of Judaism. Everything is founded on this chapter, chapter 36. In any case, what are we learning here as the discussion continues? In chapter 35, the Alter Rebbe began explaining the idea of “to do it.” Why does “to do it” matter so much? They emphasize that this applies to the beinoni, the level attainable by every person, and that the main thing is “to do it”—that it come down to actual practice. In other words, the Alter Rebbe asked: What is the whole purpose of creating the beinoni? He cannot transform his emotions and intellect; he always remains a beinoni. So why did he come down into this world? Why does the G-dly soul enter the animal soul? What is the point of it all? The Alter Rebbe then cites the well-known passage from the Zohar about the Yenuka, in Parshas Balak. The Yenuka says that for the Shechinah to rest upon a person, there must be good deeds—actual good deeds. It is like a lamp and its wick: for the flame to remain on the wick, there must be oil. Without oil, the flame will not remain there. So too with a person’s soul: the wick is the body, and the flame is the resting of the Shechinah. For the Shechinah to rest upon a person in an enduring way, there must specifically be good deeds. The Alter Rebbe then asks: Why specifically good deeds? Why isn’t

02:46 Speaker 1 love and awe enough? Especially for tzaddikim, who have love, awe, and spiritual delight—why isn’t that enough for the Shechinah to rest upon them? Why are deeds specifically needed? Seemingly, the Alter Rebbe says, it should be something more spiritual. With oil, we look for something finer, more refined—the most ethereal thing—to serve as a vessel for the flame. Here too, it should seemingly be spiritual service, not physical action. The Alter Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation in chapter 35: The Shechinah can rest only where there is bittul, self-nullification. Without bittul, the Shechinah cannot rest. Why? Because the Shechinah means a revelation of G-dliness, and a revelation of G-dliness means “there is nothing besides Him.” For “there is nothing besides Him” to be revealed, a person must have bittul. As long as he senses himself as an independent existence, even in the most elevated way, that is incompatible with G-dliness. It is not “there is nothing besides Him,” so the Shechinah cannot rest there. Love and awe involve a person’s sense of self; they are his emotions. Therefore, even if he reaches the most elevated love and awe, that does not bring about the resting of the Shechinah. Torah and mitzvos, by contrast, are the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They are not a person’s own feelings, but a matter of “for He commanded us to perform this mitzvah.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu commands it, so here there is bittul to Him: “I have written and given My very self.” That is why Torah and mitzvos specifically are the vessel for the Shechinah to rest. That was the point the rabbi explained. Yes. Are you following? Huh? That was the point of chapter 35. More specifically, that was the first half of chapter 35. In the second half, the Alter Rebbe went on to explain that, within this,

04:40 Speaker 1 there is a difference between Torah and mitzvos. The Shechinah rests primarily through mitzvos specifically. In general, he spoke about Torah and mitzvos: both involve bittul, as we explained. But even here, mitzvos have an advantage over Torah. Why? He explained several details. The general point is that Torah is spiritual; it is intellectual. So Torah affects only the spiritual faculties. First, it affects only the G-dly soul, not the animal soul. Second, it affects only the soul’s spiritual faculties, not its external faculty, the power of action. Performing a mitzvah, by contrast, affects not only the G-dly soul but also the animal soul; and not only the soul’s spiritual faculties but also the physical faculties—the power of action, the body, and the animal soul itself, through which the mitzvos can be performed. So this is the goal: that a person fulfill the mitzvos. Through that, he draws the light of the Shechinah onto his body and animal soul, and onto his power of action as well. That was the point of chapter 35. Now we can understand all the questions we asked. We understand why it says specifically “good deeds,” emphasizing deeds. It is not only that the passage does not speak of love and awe; it does not speak of Torah study either. Specifically action—good deeds, the performance of mitzvos—is the vessel, the oil that draws down the light of the Shechinah. We also understand why, in serving Hashem, there is such a demand for “to do it,” such emphasis on action. And we understand how a beinoni can fulfill the purpose of his soul even though he cannot transform his inner faculties. Since action is primary, and that is where the Shechinah rests, the beinoni accomplishes this too. That, in general, is the point of

06:21 Speaker 1 chapter 35. So what is the problem now? What remains to be explained as the Alter Rebbe reaches chapter 36? The question is seemingly a difficult one: Why is it so important that this reach the body and animal soul? What would be wrong with a person bringing the Shechinah to rest upon his spiritual faculties? I understand the reality: Torah affects the spiritual faculties, while a mitzvah also affects the physical faculties. But seemingly, who says that—what? What is the explanation? Why does it matter so much that a person bring the Shechinah to rest upon his body and animal soul through his actions? What would be wrong with a person studying Torah and bringing the Shechinah to rest upon his G-dly soul? What is the problem? What is lacking? Why does it matter so much that it also come down into action—to the point that this, specifically, is the main thing? To answer this, the Alter Rebbe now begins, in chapter 36, to explain the whole concept of a dwelling place in the lower realms. Here we reach the most fundamental foundation in Chassidus: Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place in the lower realms. His desire, the entire purpose of creation, and the original purpose of the soul’s descent are specifically to accomplish something in the lower realms. This principle explains why it matters that the Shechinah rest not only upon the inner faculties of the G-dly soul, and not only upon the G-dly soul at all, but specifically upon the body and animal soul, through the faculty of action. Why? Because, given the purpose of a dwelling place in the lower realms, this specifically is the main thing. That is the general progression of these chapters, and what chapter 36 comes to explain after chapter 35. Ah, it all makes sense. Now let’s start learning a little inside the text. We’re beginning a new chapter, so it’s an opportune time for everyone who fell off the wagon to jump back on. A new chapter, a fresh start. That’s the beauty of life. “And behold…”

08:24 Speaker 1 “It is known from the words of our Sages that the purpose of the creation of this world is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling in the lower realms.” What do our Sages tell us? What is the whole purpose of creating this world? That Hakadosh Boruch Hu had a desire for a dwelling in the lower realms. His desire is to have a dwelling here below, in this lowly world. That is His desire. This teaching of our Sages appears in Midrash Tanchuma, if I’m not mistaken. It appears in several places in Tanchuma—in Parshas Shelach, Parshas Terumah, and elsewhere. Several of the places that discuss this are cited. The Midrash speaks about it a number of times. The surprising thing is that, although it is written in the Midrash, it was not so widely known. It was not so widely known or put into practice. In other words, when people come to explain the purpose of creation, they give all sorts of accounts. Even in the Zohar, in the Midrashim, in the writings explaining the teachings of the Arizal, in works of Jewish philosophy, and in all kinds of books by great Jewish sages—when they discuss the purpose of creation, they hardly mention this idea. And even if they do mention it, they explain it differently from its plain meaning, in an entirely different way. Everyone knows that the question of the purpose of creating this world is one that concerns every Jew and all the great Jewish sages. Everyone who has dealt with questions of Jewish thought asks: What is the reason? What is the purpose of creating this world? And there are many answers. Among them is the well-known idea of “doing good to His creations”—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to bestow goodness and kindness upon His creatures. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted the Jewish people to be a vehicle

10:23 Speaker 1 for Him. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted “that they should know Him”—that we should be able to know and recognize G-dliness. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to reveal the perfection of His powers and His actions. There are all kinds of formulations and explanations, each of which is an entire subject requiring a great deal of explanation. But the Midrash gives one line. The Midrash says, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling in the lower realms.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu had a desire. You ask, “What is the purpose of creating this world?” The answer is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling in the lower realms. In other words, the Midrash does not answer why. It only tells us what. There are two questions here: What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want, and why does He want it? People investigate the why. By “people,” I mean all sorts of works of Jewish thought, mussar, philosophy, and Kabbalah investigate the why. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create the world? What does He gain from it? What is the benefit? That is one question. There is another question: What, exactly, does He want from the world? As for the why, the Midrash gives no answer at all. It says, “He desired.” “He desired” is not an explanation. It means a desire. You ask why? Because that is what He wanted. That is what the word “desired” means. There is no explanation for it. That is what He wanted. You might ask, “What do you mean there is no explanation?” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is beyond intellect, and He created intellect. He is not bound by any explanations. He does not need to give you explanations, because explanations do not apply to Him. It is not merely that He does not need to give you one. The whole concept of explanations is something Hakadosh Boruch Hu created, but He is beyond intellect. So the question of why is not applicable in the first place. Why? Because He desired it; that is what He wanted. What, then,

12:17 Speaker 1 is the point? What does He want? The Midrash says what He wants: He wants a dwelling in the lower realms. He does not want Gan Eden. He does not want the World to Come. What He wants is a dwelling in the lower realms. That is the point. This is the foundation on which Chassidus built all of... all of Yiddishkeit and the central point of the teachings of Chassidus. The entire intellectual framework of Chassidus, and especially its practical approach, is founded on this point: He desired to have a dwelling in the lower realms. And here the Alter Rebbe begins to explain what this whole idea means. “Now, in relation to Him, blessed be He, the distinctions of above and below do not apply.” First of all, what does “lower realms” mean? The Alter Rebbe comes to explain each point. It sounds simple: “in the lower realms.” What does that refer to? What are these “lower realms” in which, we say, Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted a dwelling? So the Alter Rebbe first says that, when speaking in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the entire concept of higher and lower, above and below, does not apply. Why? “For He, blessed be He, fills all worlds equally.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu fills all the worlds equally. Here he does not mean “fills all worlds” as that expression is discussed throughout Chassidus, as a particular level studied in maamarim. Rather, he means the plain sense of the words “fills all worlds”: He is everywhere. If you are speaking in relation to Him, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, what do “higher” and “lower” mean? Is Hakadosh Boruch Hu more present above than below? Higher and lower—if you speak of higher and lower,

14:07 Speaker 1 what is the basis for that distinction? Higher and lower can refer to physical space. Take a physical example: this yeshiva has a whole building. The dormitory is on the fifth or sixth floor, so that is higher, while the Chabad House is downstairs, so that is lower. There is such a distinction. But that kind of higher and lower is a matter of physical space and location. Clearly, you cannot say that about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You might say there is a higher and lower in spiritual terms. What does higher and lower mean spiritually? Higher means on a higher level; lower means on a lower level. When can you say that one is higher and another lower? In comparing created beings, you can say that one is closer and another less so; one perceives or understands more, or feels more, and is therefore on a higher level. One Torah scholar is greater, so he is on a higher level. A Torah scholar on a lower level has less knowledge. That is a matter of levels. But what can you say in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Hakadosh Boruch Hu is infinite. Infinite means that He is everywhere, and everywhere it is the same Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Is there less of Hakadosh Boruch Hu here and more of Him there? Can you make such a distinction? So what does higher or lower mean in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is infinite? To Him, it is all equal, all the same. The entire concept of higher and lower does not apply in relation to Him. He fills everything. He is present with the same force, in the same way, throughout this lower world; it is all the same Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is when you speak in relation to Him, in terms of His infinity. If so, what does “lower realms” mean? Rather,

16:04 Speaker 1 “For before the world was created, He, blessed be He, was alone, singular and unique, and filled all this space in which He created the world.” So the Alter Rebbe begins to explain. We’ve been talking about what surrounds us, and now we come to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So we need to know about Hakadosh Boruch Hu as well. We say that before the worlds were created, Hakadosh Boruch Hu was singular and unique and filled all the space. There was only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There was nothing besides Him. What does it mean that He “filled all this space” of the world? This is what the texts say: before the tzimtzum, the Ein Sof filled all of existence. In other words, there was a reality, and that reality existed in such a way that the Ein Sof filled all of it. That means the existence of worlds—the existence of something finite, the dimensions of the worlds—did not first come into being after the tzimtzum. The possibility of worlds had always been there. Nothing truly new came into being after the tzimtzum. The only thing that arose after the tzimtzum was concealment and obscuring. There was no new reality in essence. Everything was already there, including this possibility of worlds. In the language of Chassidus, this is called the power of limitation. Limitation was already there on the part of the Ein Sof: this aspect, this reality called worlds. At that point, though, the Ein Sof filled all of existence. Before the tzimtzum, the Ein Sof filled all of existence. That means the Ein Sof was what was felt throughout existence. The Ein Sof filled all of existence. There was no sense of a reality outside the Ein Sof. Everything was Ein Sof. That is how it was before the creation of the worlds. To help us understand this, there is a very interesting analogy brought in the Sefer Hamaamarim.

18:09 Speaker 1 The analogy in the book goes like this: Imagine a person learning Tosafos. That is the analogy given there. The Alter Rebbe uses this analogy in discussing malchus. Someone is studying a passage of Tosafos by Ri, one of the authors of Tosafos. So the person is learning Ri’s line of reasoning. Ri’s reasoning is written in Tosafos in a few lines. Ri states his argument in three, four, or five lines. Now, we see the letters of Ri’s argument. We do not see Ri’s thought. We look at Tosafos and see only letters, right? But when you learn it, you know the Holy Tongue and you have already learned the Gemara. So you study the letters and understand the thought expressed in them. At first you understand only the plain meaning. But what was Ri thinking when he wrote it? Certainly, he perceived a deeper meaning. Each time you study it, you discover another layer of meaning, more and more depth, until perhaps you come close to the depth of Ri’s reasoning as he understood it. Now imagine something that does not actually happen: imagine that Ri’s thought shone openly within the letters. In other words, when you read the letters Ri wrote, you would see in those letters the full depth of his reasoning. You would not see the letters as a separate entity. You would see them as letters through which the thought of Tosafos, Ri’s thought, is revealed. The Alter Rebbe says that this is an analogy for the state before the tzimtzum. This is what “He filled all of existence” means. There was a reality, and that reality was letters: the letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu

19:59 Speaker 1 created the entire seder hishtalshelus. As is known, the entire seder hishtalshelus was created through letters. There are 231 gates, forward and backward. There are the letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the entire seder hishtalshelus, the word of Hashem with which He created physical beings. There are also letters associated with the keilim. The entire seder hishtalshelus came about through letters. So when we say that the Ein Sof filled all of existence, we mean that the Ein Sof filled the letters, filled that reality, completely. That is what it means that He was singular and unique. There is nothing besides Him. There is only Him. And so it is possible to say there that He “filled” it. The Alter Rebbe continues: “And even now it is so before Him, blessed be He.”

20:40 Speaker 2 But what letters were there?

20:41 Speaker 1 None.

20:42 Speaker 2 What letters were there beforehand?

20:43 Speaker 1 The letters with which the worlds were later created. But the letters were already there. That’s clear. The reality was already there, and that reality was filled with the Ein Sof. There was a reality, and the Ein Sof filled all of it. After that, “and even now.” In fact, one of the fundamental principles of Chassidus is that the tzimtzum is not literal, as the Alter Rebbe discusses at length in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. That is why I said, “And even now it is so.” What does “now” refer to? Nothing has changed. Even now it is like that. From the perspective of the Ein Sof, the Ein Sof still fills all of existence. That is, from the perspective of the light, of the boundless, of the Ein Sof, the Ein Sof remains present throughout all of existence even now. Although we say that a hollow space, an empty space, came into being, that is all, how shall I put it, from our perspective. For the Ein Sof, He is openly present in that hollow space even now, just as before. “Before Him, blessed be He.” The change is only for those who receive His vitality and light. The entire difference we speak of between before and after the tzimtzum is in relation to the recipients, those who stand outside the light. From the perspective of the light, the Ein Sof is present now, after the tzimtzum, just as it was before the tzimtzum. So from the perspective of the Ein Sof, what does “even now” add? But from the perspective of the recipients, it is like what we said before: looking at the letters apart from the thought—or, let’s say, a person looking at the letters without grasping the thought—he sees letters without the thought. But Ri, the author of Tosafos, when he looks at those letters even now, what does he see in them? All of the thought and all of its depth. He does not see the letters as separate letters. He sees in them the whole depth of his thought. What, then, did the tzimtzum bring about? It brought about a situation in which the recipients see the letters without seeing in them

22:32 Speaker 1 the thought, even though all of the thought is still present in the letters. So the change is for those who receive His vitality and light. They receive it through many garments that cover and conceal His light. This applies to the recipients. From their perspective, the Ein Sof is revealed through many garments. There are various kinds of garments—these are the tzimtzumim—which cover and conceal His light. This gives rise to the entire seder hishtalshelus, a descent in which each world receives a different degree of revelation of G-dliness, but does not receive the light as it is. As it is written, “For man shall not see Me and live.” On the plain level, this refers to a person down here in this physical world: “man shall not see Me.” But here the Alter Rebbe wants to exclude not only a person in the lower world. He wants to exclude all the worlds: no one receives the Ein Sof as it is. All receive it through garments. So he immediately cites the interpretation of our Sages, that the verse does not refer only to a human being: even angels, which are called chayos, do not see, and so on. He explains “For man shall not see Me and live.” The words “and live” do not mean that the person cannot remain alive. Rather, it means “man and chayah”: “man” refers to human beings, and “chayah” to angels. “For man shall not see Me and live”—this applies to human beings and to angels as well. Even the highest angels cannot receive the Ein Sof as it is. For the Ein Sof to be revealed within recipients, there must be many tzimtzumim, many garments. Only in this way is it possible.