Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 36 - Part 7

00:00 [unclear]. You see that it says here that when Moshiach comes, there will be a dwelling place for Hashem in the lower realms. That means that the very Essence of G-dliness will be revealed here below, in this world, without any garments, concealments, or veils. That is what a dwelling place in the lower realms means. And specifically here, in this lowest world, below which there is no lower world, this revelation of the Essence itself will take place without any garment, yet we will be able to receive it without our existence being nullified. That is why the Torah was given: the Torah gives us the strength and capacity to receive His revelation without being nullified. The Rebbe then says that this is the purpose of the entire creation of the world. It will happen with the coming of Moshiach, because this is the purpose for which the world was created in the first place. Yes, we have learned all this already. The Rebbe continues: “And something akin to this has already happened before.” This revelation of the Essence here below, in the lower realms, has happened once before. In other words, it is not that it has never been revealed. It is not that the future will bring something entirely new that has never happened. Something akin to the future revelation of the Essence itself here below has happened before. When was that? At the Giving of the Torah. At the Giving of the Torah, there was something akin to what will happen in the future. As is well known, Chassidus often quotes the saying that the Giving of the Torah will not happen twice. Yes, this is a saying often quoted in the Rebbe’s name. It is one of the sayings passed down among our Rebbeim, from Rebbe to Rebbe, going back to the Alter Rebbe—perhaps even earlier: “There will not be another Giving of the Torah.”

02:18 The Giving of the Torah will not happen again. Yet Chassidus is constantly speaking about the wonders and revelations of the future. When Moshiach comes, there will be all kinds of exceedingly lofty things. As we just learned, the Essence will be revealed here below without garments, and so on. Nevertheless, the Giving of the Torah will not happen again. Especially regarding the Torah: we are told, “A new Torah will come forth from Me”—there will be a new revelation of Torah that has never been seen before. All the Torah we study now is considered as nothing compared with the Torah of Moshiach, and many wondrous things are said about it. Even so, we say that the Giving of the Torah will not happen again. Why not? Because there is no need. Not because of some punishment or shortcoming. On the contrary, there is no need, because everything that had to be given was already given at the Giving of the Torah. Even everything that a seasoned student will one day innovate, even the new Torah—that too is already contained in the Torah given at the Giving of the Torah. That is what the Rebbe is saying here: even the future revelations were already given at the Giving of the Torah. What, then, is the difference? As he will say later, at the Giving of the Torah it lasted only for a time, and afterward it departed. That is why all our work is needed: so that we can merit for it to be permanent and internalized, rather than merely a revelation. But in any case, at the Giving of the Torah there was already something akin to this very thing. Where do we see that the Essence was revealed here below at the Giving of the Torah? The verse says it explicitly: “You were shown, to know, that Havayah is Elokim.” The point is that at the Giving of the Torah there was “You.” Who is “You”? “You” refers to the Essence of the Infinite Light. What does “were shown” mean?

04:01 That the Essence was revealed. “To know”—so that we would know Him. And what were we to know? What was the knowledge and understanding conveyed by “You were shown”? That Havayah is Elokim. Yes, that Havayah and Elokim are entirely one. It is well known that Chassidus explains that the true meaning of Havayah and Elokim being entirely one is possible only from the perspective of the Essence. From the perspective of revelations, they cannot truly be entirely one. At the level of revelations, Havayah and Elokim are two distinct things, however much we try to join and connect them. Ultimately, Havayah and Elokim are two different modes, two different lines, two opposites. True, one supports the other, and both are needed. There are all the explanations in Chassidus about Havayah and Elokim. But in the end, they are still two distinct points. It is specifically from the perspective of the Essence that Havayah and Elokim are truly, entirely one. This is explained at length and in depth in the maamarim that discuss Havayah and Elokim. Of course, the Alter Rebbe does not go into that here. Among the maamarim that address this subject, there are two maamarim by the Rebbe. One is edited; it is the maamar [unclear] in volume four. The other is an unedited maamar, “Lema’an Da’as Kol Amei Ha’aretz,” from Tishrei 3. There are two maamarim by the Rebbe on this subject. There the Rebbe explains at length how the true unity of Havayah and Elokim is only from the perspective of the Essence. That was the revelation at the Giving of the Torah: “You were shown”—the revelation of the Essence. That is why they saw Havayah and Elokim as they are above, from the perspective of the Essence, where they are truly, entirely one. Then he adds, “There is nothing else besides Him.” This, too, is from the perspective of the Essence. The revelation is of the truth that no existence exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is specifically from the perspective of the Essence, because from that perspective—

05:55 We say that all existence is only Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and nothing exists apart from Him. That is the meaning of “There is nothing else besides Him.” So this verse is said in connection with the Giving of the Torah. In other words, at the Giving of the Torah there was a revelation of the unity of Havayah, a revelation of the dwelling place in the lower realms in its loftiest form. And “You were shown” means “You were literally shown.” The word used is “shown,” meaning actual, tangible sight. What does “shown” mean? He wants to rule out an interpretation some commentators might offer—that “shown” could mean something else. That is not the intent. Sight, prophecy, seeing: it could mean spiritual prophecy, the mind’s eye, all sorts of somewhat more spiritual kinds of seeing. But “shown” rules all that out. When it says “shown,” it means tangible sight. What is tangible sight? Sight connected with something embodied. That means this perception penetrated the lower realms. So that is the whole perspective you see here. He is trying to explain the point of this entire chapter: why specifically the lower realm? It is specifically here, in the lower realms, that the Essence itself is revealed. This is not a descent from something wondrous, but the very point of it. Everything descends from what is wondrous, but why, in the end, specifically the physical? It is not a descent; rather, the Essence itself is found here. We explained this earlier, and now there will be… This is the entire purpose: to reveal that specifically here below, in the lower realms, the very Essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is found. This revelation took place at the Giving of the Torah. That is why the Alter Rebbe says here, “And it has already happened before.” We began explaining in the previous class, last week, what the Alter Rebbe wants to convey by saying, “And it has already happened before.” We explained that it is so that, by knowing—

07:42 Since it has already happened once, that makes it easier to understand. We explained all this along the lines of what the Gemara says about the resurrection of the dead: since a resurrection has already happened once, it is easier to understand the concept of the resurrection of the dead. There is a deeper explanation here. Why does the Alter Rebbe want to explain here that “it has already happened before”? The Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize that the whole concept of a dwelling for Hashem in the lower realms is not something separate from the world. Because there is a question: the world, by its very nature, is an “olam,” a place of concealment. Its very definition is concealment, the opposite of a revelation of G-dliness. So if there will be a revelation of G-dliness in the world, that seems to run counter to the nature of the world. The revelation may be in the world, but what is the nature of the world itself? Concealment. That would mean the whole point of a dwelling in the lower realms is missing. You say the point is to make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms, without any garments, so that the very Essence is present down here in the lowest realms. But seemingly that is not so, because the world has no inherent connection to the revelation of Moshiach. That revelation would be something new, added to the world. It follows that the created world, by its own nature, has no connection to this revelation. The Alter Rebbe already answered this question with what he said earlier: “For this it was created from the outset.” We explained before that by adding those words, the Alter Rebbe addresses this very question. Since the purpose of all creation, from the very beginning, was to reach the days of Moshiach, it follows that, on a deeper level—

09:25 What is the nature of the world? Not concealment. Rather, the inner nature of the world is the days of Moshiach. “For this it was created from the outset.” But notice that he also adds, “It has already happened before,” to emphasize not only that this is inherent in the world, but that there was already a time when it was manifest in the world. The world has already experienced it. Moshiach’s coming does not mean that something entirely new, something that has never existed, will be revealed. These are the two sides of it: from the outset, the entire purpose of the world was to reach Moshiach, and this revelation has also already been present in the world. In other words, when Moshiach comes, something that already belongs to the world will be revealed. It just needs to be revealed in an inward way. But note the Alter Rebbe’s precise wording: “Something akin to this has happened before.” He does not say that the exact same thing has already happened. He says that something akin to the days of Moshiach has happened. Why the precise wording “akin to this”? Doesn’t that imply it was not quite the same thing? On the one hand, we say that at the Giving of the Torah there was already a revelation like that of Moshiach. On the other hand, the Alter Rebbe is careful to say it was not quite the same thing, only something akin to the revelation of Moshiach. The Rebbe explains this in his sichos, because ultimately there is a very great difference between the Giving of the Torah and the days of Moshiach. True, we say that at the Giving of the Torah there was a revelation of the Essence, but there is a major difference. In a nutshell, at the Giving of the Torah it came from above downward, whereas in the days of Moshiach it will come from below upward. In other words, the revelation of the Essence at the Giving of the Torah—“You were shown”—was given as a gift. The world had not yet been refined. The Jewish people had not yet—

11:14 The world had not yet been refined. They had just left Egypt, and [unclear]. They had forty-nine days of counting. Forty-nine days of counting cannot be compared to the revelation at the Giving of the Torah. You cannot say that in forty-nine days the Jews had become completely refined. They were ready to receive the Torah, so the entire revelation at the Giving of the Torah—the revelation of His very Essence here, when “all flesh shall see together”—came, generally speaking, from above. But down below there was no vessel for it on its own terms. That itself is why the world later reverted to its material state and the sin of the Golden Calf took place. Since the revelation had not come from below, once it departed, the Jews became confused again. They went back to how they had been before and began complaining, and that led to the whole episode of the Golden Calf. By contrast, the days of Moshiach will come after the refinement and purification accomplished through thousands of years of work and mitzvos. As a result, when Moshiach comes, the revelation of the Torah will be absorbed inwardly by creation itself, rather than coming from above downward. It will therefore be inward, permanent, and eternal, and so on. That is why the Alter Rebbe emphasizes both sides: on the one hand, “it has happened before”; on the other, it was only “something akin to this.” It was not the same thing, because ultimately it came through a revelation from above. Here, by contrast, the whole innovation is that it will be experienced by “all flesh”: even physical flesh will be refined and become a vessel for the revelation of G-dliness. These ideas are explained at length in the maamarim of the Rebbes who came afterward, particularly in the Rebbe’s sichos and maamarim. But it is interesting how all of it is already alluded to in Tanya. Tanya—

12:50 It is an all-encompassing explanation. In just two words, the Alter Rebbe already included this entire point. His wording is “akin to this.” With that, the Alter Rebbe included the entire explanation that is later developed at length in maamarim, in series of maamarim, and in sichos. All those detailed explanations are already stated briefly in Tanya. Time and again, the Alter Rebbe puts the whole point there. There is one more observation from the Rebbe here about “it has happened before.” [unclear] This is something the Rebbe said on Shavuos. I was there once, and the Rebbe spoke about the Torah and various other things. One of the things the Rebbe said then concerned the phrase “it has happened before.” What is the meaning of the word “before” here—literally, “in worlds,” in the plural? It is very interesting. This is an expression from Chazal or some other source; the Alter Rebbe took the expression from somewhere. But in Tanya, wording is never incidental. What does “it has happened in worlds” mean? He could simply have said, “It happened.” But he uses this expression, “it has happened in worlds.” So the Rebbe points out beautifully that “worlds” is plural. What does that mean? There are two meanings of the word “olam”: world in the sense of place, and “olam” in the sense of time. Yes, a world is a place, in the plain sense. But “olam” can also mean time, as in “he shall serve him forever,” meaning until the Jubilee. That appeared in Rashi on the weekly parsha, Parshas Ki Sisa, the previous parsha. So “it has happened in worlds” refers to both: in place and in time. In other words, the Rebbe wants to emphasize that the revelation of the Torah at the Giving of the Torah penetrated the world in the sense of place—it reached every place and every aspect of it—and also penetrated all of time. The dimension of time, too—

14:36 Both the dimension of time and the dimension of place. That is what defines the world: place and time. Both place and time felt the revelation of true G-dliness. That was the innovation of the revelation at the Giving of the Torah. He continues, “As it is written, ‘And all the people saw the sounds.’” He cites the verse “And all the people saw the sounds” to show that this was something perceived with the physical senses. It was not a spiritual vision; it means actual sight. Yes, “all the people saw the sounds.” And what do Chazal say about the words “saw the sounds”? They saw what is normally heard. Yes. In other words, the innovation at the Giving of the Torah was that even things normally in the realm of hearing were seen. That was the revelation at the Giving of the Torah: seeing what is normally heard. In particular, as the Rebbe explains in the well-known sicha on Parshas Yisro, what does “heard” mean here? It refers to matters of G-dliness. They are matters of the soul, something remote. A person cannot see them, because they are spiritual, G-dly things. The innovation at the Giving of the Torah was that they saw what is normally heard. Things in the realm of hearing, in the spiritual realm, are things a person can understand but cannot see. At the Giving of the Torah, they saw them. They became tangible, something real that people could sense as true. The whole situation was reversed. Before the Giving of the Torah, what was the situation? Physical things were close to a person; he could see them. He was certain of them; they were clear to him. Spiritual things, by contrast, could not be seen. A person had to believe—

16:12 In this, and therefore it is a matter of hearing. What was revealed at Matan Torah was that they “saw what is normally heard”: spiritual G-dly matters that come from Heaven became something they could see, something they could actually perceive. That was the whole innovation of Matan Torah: they saw how the oneness of Hashem is evident in the world. As our Sages explain: “They looked to the east and heard the utterance ‘I am’ coming forth,” and so on. Where were they looking? It was not that they looked at Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They looked at something, and there they saw “I am Hashem your G-d.” What does it mean that they saw? Our Sages are telling us what it means to see the sign of Hashem’s oneness here. They saw “I am” while looking to the east. In other words, where were the Jewish people looking? At the world. And in the world they saw “I am Hashem your G-d.” That is the whole task of recognizing Hashem’s oneness. The “I am” in “I am Hashem your G-d” refers to His very Essence. So that is what it means that they saw Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“I am Hashem your G-d.” Where did they see “I am”? “They looked to the east.” They looked eastward and saw it from the east. East is a place. The very space, the place called east, cried out, “I am Hashem your G-d.” The west, too, cried out, “I am Hashem your G-d.” That is the point. The place, the world, expressed the true oneness of Hashem. It was revealed that the world is “there is nothing else besides Him.” The world itself cried out, “I am Hashem your G-d,” because it was then revealed that apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, nothing else has any independent existence. That is the experience of Hashem’s true oneness that was revealed at the moment of Matan Torah. The world itself cried out His oneness: “There is nothing else besides Him.” “For the four directions, and above and below, as explained in the Tikkunim, ‘There is no place devoid of Him,’” and so on. “I am Hashem your G-d” did not mean that it came forth

17:57 as a voice from some particular place, from somewhere, and suddenly they saw. Rather, the meaning is that the entire, entire world cried out. Yes, the whole world proclaimed, “There is no place devoid of Him.” It was as though you looked at a table and the table cried out, “I am Hashem your G-d.” You looked around, and the whole world, all of creation, cried out together, “There is nothing else besides Him”—the oneness of Hashem. That was the revelation of Matan Torah. That was Hashem’s true oneness as it was revealed at Matan Torah. There is also one of the Rebbe’s sichos about this. In volume 31, if I’m not mistaken, there is a sicha on Parshas Yisro, a very interesting one. The Rebbe explains there the whole question of why, immediately after the Ten Commandments, it says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “You shall not make with Me gods of silver, and gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves.” The Rebbe has a wonderful sicha on this. Why was the first command after Matan Torah, “You shall not make with Me gods of silver, and gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves”? Why was that the first command after Matan Torah? In short, the Rebbe explains there that Matan Torah introduced two things. One was that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Torah and mitzvos to the Jewish people. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the Torah and mitzvos—the Ten Commandments, the 613 mitzvos. That is the plain meaning of Matan Torah. But there was another point revealed at Matan Torah: the oneness of Hashem. Beyond giving us the Torah and mitzvos, at Matan Torah Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Jewish people a sense of His oneness. The truth was revealed then: apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, nothing else has any independent existence. That is the oneness of Hashem. This is the point of the Midrashim cited here, that they “looked to the east” and saw it. There is also, for example, a Midrash

19:44 of our Sages that says that when Matan Torah took place, the entire world fell silent: no bird chirped, no fowl flew, the sea did not roar, and all of creation was quiet. Everything was so completely still. What is the Midrash telling us? Why do these details matter? What do the birds, the flowers, the fowl, the sea, and everything else have to do with what happened at Matan Torah? What are we being told by all this? Similarly, there is the well-known Midrash that the Rebbe also cites: there was no echo. The revelation of “I am” had no echo. Why do all these details matter? Because Matan Torah was not only about Hakadosh Boruch Hu giving us the Torah and mitzvos. At Matan Torah, the truth was revealed—the truth of Hashem’s oneness, which is what will be felt in the time of Moshiach. Yes, that is what was experienced at Matan Torah. At that moment, the Jewish people saw the truth, the true reality of everything. And the true reality of everything is that “there is nothing else besides Him.” That is what it means that the world cried out, “There is nothing else besides Him,” and that everything was nullified. In other words, all of creation was truly nullified before the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Apart from “I am Hashem,” nothing else existed. That is the point. So when a Jew comes to Matan Torah, he must take from it not only the Torah and mitzvos, but also the foundation of bittul. This also explains another sicha of the Rebbe about why we read Maaseh Merkavah on Shavuos. It is a well-known sicha in Likkutei Sichos in which the Rebbe explains why we read Maaseh Merkavah on Shavuos. Seemingly, people do not even understand what they are reading. In that well-known sicha, the Rebbe explains this point too, along the same lines. In other words, Matan Torah

21:31 revealed a profound point that changes a person’s entire view of the world: the world is not an existence apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But what happened at Matan Torah came from Above. That is what they experienced then, but we must work from below in order to feel it ourselves. That is the whole point of what he will say next.