Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 37 - Part 1

00:00 As for the ultimate purpose and the whole point of it all: why did this happen? Based on the principle we learned in the last few chapters about making a dwelling in the lower realms, it is clear that the purpose is for this physical, lower world to become a dwelling for Him, blessed be He. Making that dwelling in the physical world happens primarily through action, and therefore action is the main thing. According to this, the [unclear] would seem to be the same. Someone who says the words of a prayer fulfills his obligation even if he did not have the proper intention, apart from particular cases where the Torah tells us that intention is also indispensable. One example is the first verse of Shema, where intention is included. Why? Because the first verse of Shema is not just a mitzvah performed through speech. It is the mitzvah of affirming Hashem’s oneness, and that means a person has to think about Hashem’s oneness. If someone says, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” but does not think about Hashem’s oneness, then he simply has not fulfilled that mitzvah. So this is a mitzvah in which intention is included, because intention is part of the mitzvah itself. There are particular mitzvos that specifically require intention—well-known mitzvos such as affirming Hashem’s oneness, the mitzvah of Shabbos, positive mitzvos and prohibitions. There are mitzvos whose essential requirement is a physical act. So where intention is part of what the mitzvah requires, a person does not fulfill it by speaking without that intention; he has not done the mitzvah. But with mitzvos whose essential requirement is speech, such as prayers and blessings, there is a great deal of discussion about this. Even though they, too, require

03:36 intention, since the mitzvah itself is connected with speech, if he says the words, he fulfills his obligation. The mitzvah is the actual act. That is one side of the matter. This completes the explanation so far. Now, in chapter 38, the Alter Rebbe goes on to say that nevertheless, this does not mean we can perform mitzvos without intention. If that were the conclusion, we would say: since action is the main thing, what difference do intention, our approach, the feeling we bring to it, and all those things make? They do not accomplish the purpose of making a dwelling in the lower realms. So what does intention add to a mitzvah? Here the Alter Rebbe comes to explain the role of intention. Despite all the value that action has in making a dwelling in the lower realms, there is still something distinctive and especially valuable about performing a mitzvah specifically with intention. These two points are among the strongest things we see in Chabad Chassidus. Looking at these two extremes, we see something remarkable. You can look around the world and see two approaches. There are Jews for whom the main thing is action—what you actually do. There is no life in it, no... No, no, no. The main thing is to actually carry out the command and fulfill the mitzvah; they do not talk at all about feeling, intention or vitality. Right? There are people like that. I am not going to name names now; anyone who wants to can recognize them. This is not about the politics of it. This is about the truth of the matter. But we do see Jews who observe all the mitzvos, and there are

05:25 some whose main emphasis is on actual practice and habit, while intention is not so important. It does not matter to them whether you do it only because you are afraid of Gehinnom or because you were in shul, in order to be a religious Jew. Others take the opposite approach. They put so much emphasis on feeling and intention that actual deeds fall by the wayside. The main thing, they argue, is to have the right feeling. Today there are even people who study not only the meaning of the Talmud, but Kabbalah and all sorts of Kabbalistic secrets, and yet when it comes to actual conduct, their behavior can be very low. These are two extremes, each taking one side. What do we see in Chabad Chassidus? We see that it speaks about both with equal force. On the one hand, Chabad Chassidus emphasizes that action is the main thing. We see this plainly: throughout the maamarim, the emphasis is on what one actually does. This stands out particularly in our generation, in the mitzvah campaigns: going to another Jew and helping him do mitzvos, even though he does not yet understand or feel it. “We will do, and we will hear.” That is a powerful emphasis. At the same time that Chassidus emphasizes action, it also emphasizes intention. It is not that one matters less and the other more. At the very same time, Chassidus stresses the intention behind a mitzvah and explains at length, in maamarim and books, the inner content of every mitzvah. Think about it: the whole subject of Chassidus is to understand, grasp, define and articulate. It discusses matters concerning the Creator and what He has made, matters of intention, in order to explain to us the intention behind every

07:08 mitzvah. The ultimate purpose calls for both, at the same time. The foundation for all this is Tanya, here in these chapters. In chapters 35, 36 and 37, the Alter Rebbe’s main focus was explaining action. From the standpoint of making a dwelling in the lower realms, Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired precisely the lowest realm, beneath which there is none lower. Not feeling, not intention, not emotions or intellect, but the physical. The physical does not become absorbed and cease to be itself. It is precisely as something with its own existence that it becomes a dwelling for Him in the lower realms. This is expressed primarily through action, through the act of performing a mitzvah. Therefore action is the main thing. That is why we tell a person that the main thing is the actual practice. Speech, too, is an act; feeling is not so much a part of that action. Speaking the words of a mitzvah counts. Now the Alter Rebbe explains that, nevertheless, intention has a special role, and lacking intention in a mitzvah is a very serious matter. He explains it here in the following way. Let us look at it. Here is the Alter Rebbe, chapter 38, page 50a. Afterward, we will need to understand the example. Here in chapter 38, he says that prayer or a blessing without intention is like a body without a soul. With prayer, you can see this. The Alter Rebbe gives these examples because they are the ones he brought earlier: even in halachah, we see that speech is the main thing. If someone says the words of the prayer, even if he lacks the feeling and intention, he has fulfilled the mitzvah of prayer—apart from the first blessing. But the mitzvah of prayer is such that the mitzvah itself is speaking the words of the prayer. Prayer also has an element of... yes, that is why. So the Alter Rebbe says that our Sages teach: when a person says the words—indeed, with any mitzvah performed without intention—it is like a body without a soul. And why call it a body without a soul? Even before we look inside and see the explanation, that expression itself shows us that intention is absolutely crucial. Everyone understands that the difference between a dead body and a living body is not merely a difference in degree; they are worlds apart. True, it is the same body. When you look at it, you see the same body, with a brain, limbs, flesh and sinews when it is dead, and the same brain, limbs, flesh and sinews when it is alive. It is not that a living person has more limbs, more sinews or more blood. No, the number of limbs is the same. The only difference is whether the person is alive or dead. And yet everyone knows that the difference between living and dead is like heaven and earth. They are complete opposites. One is alive; the other is dead. That is an essential difference. The same is true, in simple terms, when you have a mitzvah but lack intention. True, you have the body of the mitzvah—you have the mitzvah—but you lack its soul. It is like a body without a soul. You have a mitzvah, but it lacks life. That is the simple meaning. What does intention add to a mitzvah? It makes the mitzvah alive. But after all, it is still not clear, in light of what the Alter Rebbe has explained up to now, why

08:52 prayer—where the mitzvah itself is saying the words—is different. So that is why the Alter Rebbe says what our Sages say: if a person says the words, then with any mitzvah he performs without intention, it is said to be like a body without a soul. Why do they call it a body without a soul? Even on its own, before we look at the explanation inside, the plain meaning shows us that intention is critically important. Everyone understands that the difference between a dead body and a living body is not just a difference in degree, but a difference from one extreme to the other. Granted, it is the same body: you look at it and see the same brain, limbs, flesh and sinews, whether it is dead or alive. A living body does not have more limbs or sinews, or more blood. No, it has the same number of limbs. The difference is simply whether it is alive or dead. Nevertheless, everyone knows that the difference between life and death is like heaven and earth, an essential difference. One is alive and the other is dead. That is also the plain meaning here: when a mitzvah lacks intention, you do have the body of the mitzvah, but it lacks a soul. It is like a body without a soul. You have a mitzvah, but it lacks life. That is the plain meaning. Intention makes the mitzvah alive. But ultimately, in light of what the Alter Rebbe has explained so far, it is still not clear why...

10:36 That the mitzvah is life. The main thing is that we have to develop this. We’ll get to the actual performance of the mitzvah, but why is the intention so important? And what does it mean when our Sages say that a mitzvah is like a body without a soul? Here the Alter Rebbe gives a somewhat deeper explanation of what our Sages said. Let’s look at it. “Explanation: Every creature in this world has a body and a soul—the soul of every living thing and the spirit of every human being.” Every living thing. And in all of them there is a flow of life that sustains them. As we say, every person—everything in the world—is made up of a body and a soul. Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings all these things into being and gives them life. Even the body, even a stone or the earth, has some life from Him, blessed be He. Everything in the world has some life from Hakadosh Boruch Hu; otherwise it would revert to absolute nothingness. If it had no life from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it would go back to being nothing, as it was before. Yes, this is a fundamental principle we know from the Baal Shem Tov and from Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, which explains at length that everything in the world exists at every single moment only through the word of Hashem. That is the power that brings it into being and gives it life at every moment. This applies both to the body and to the soul. For example, we read here that Hakadosh Boruch Hu took dust from the earth to make man. “Hashem Elokim formed man from dust of the earth.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a human body from dust of the earth. So we know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “Let us make man,” formed him from the earth, and then made a body from that dust. The next thing is

12:35 what relates to the human body: the body’s entire existence, life, and sustenance. Then we read in Parshas Bereishis, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu took the soul—that is something else. There is a body and there is a soul. “And He breathed into his nostrils”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu breathed a soul into him. So it turns out that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created two things. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a body through His speech, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu also created a soul. He created both, brings both into being, gives them life, and sustains them—both the body and the soul. All of this comes through the word of Hashem, which brings things into being at every moment. He explains this too ... and all of this. “If so, there is no comparison whatsoever between the life-force ... in the body and the life-force of the soul, which is the soul of every living thing.” There is no comparison between the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s life-force flows into the soul and the way it flows into the body. What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? He is making a wonderful distinction. It is not simply the usual comparison between intention and the body and soul. There is another point here as well. The Alter Rebbe says that the comparison to a body and soul is about the vast difference between them. After all, we see that both the body and the soul come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and He gives life to both and brings both into being. Hakadosh Boruch Hu brings the body into being and gives it life, and He does the same for the soul. Both are creations that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created and continues to create at every moment. So the existence of both the body and the soul, of

14:28 people and inanimate objects and everything else, comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu at every moment. Nevertheless, when you look at what is revealed, there is absolutely no comparison. There is no comparison between the flow of G-dliness, the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, as it is evident in the soul, and the flow of His light as it is evident in the body. What is the difference? They are worlds apart. “The soul is truly a part of G-d above.” In the soul, G-dliness is revealed. That is, even after Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it a created being, the soul remains a revealed part of G-d above. As explained ... in Tanya, even when it actually descends into this world, the soul remains, in a revealed way, a part of G-d. It is spiritual, and G-dliness shines openly in the soul. With the soul, there is no question: you can plainly understand that its entire existence is G-dliness. This is not only true from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; the soul itself openly senses that its entire existence is G-dliness. With the body, it is the opposite. What does the body sense? That it is an independent entity. It feels its own existence, not the power that sustains it. So what do we see? The difference between body and soul is a difference from one extreme to the other. And that vast difference between body and soul is the vast difference between performing a mitzvah and having intention in the mitzvah. That is what the Alter Rebbe wants to say here. Although the actual performance of a mitzvah is the main thing, both the performance and the intention are the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If we take the analogy, both the performance of the mitzvah and the intention in it are His will, just as

16:18 we say regarding the body and soul that both are His creations: Hakadosh Boruch Hu created them and brings them into being every moment. The same is true of mitzvos. Both the mitzvah itself and the intention in it, both the act of performing the mitzvah and its intention, are His will. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted the mitzvah to be performed, and He also wants the intention. He wants both. So on the one hand, both are His will. But when it comes to what is revealed, they are worlds apart, like the difference between body and soul. In essence, both are His creations, but in one, G-dliness is openly visible, while in the other it is hidden. That is why there is no comparison between body and soul. And this is also why there is no comparison between the intention in a mitzvah and its actual performance. In the intention, G-dliness shines openly. When a person performs a mitzvah with intention, that intention is revealed G-dliness, because the intention is the G-dliness in the act. What does intention in a mitzvah mean? “Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” Through the mitzvah, you connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu; you become attached and close to Him. So in the intention, G-dliness shines openly. By contrast, although the act of performing a mitzvah is also His will—even the act itself without intention, as we said, is His will—because that will takes the form of a physical action, when you look at the act from the outside, you do not see it openly. So in terms of what is revealed, there is no comparison between the act of performing a mitzvah and the intention in it. This is the meaning of “A mitzvah without intention is like a body without a soul.” Just as there is no comparison between body and soul—G-dliness does not shine openly in the body, whereas it does in the soul—so too, the difference between performing a mitzvah and having intention in it is that G-dliness shines in the intention.

18:02 By contrast, in the act of performing a mitzvah, the life-force does not shine openly. From this we understand why intention in a mitzvah matters so much. Why? Because the life-force does not shine openly in the act itself, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants the mitzvah to be fulfilled not merely as an action, but in a way that the life-force shines openly within the action. For that life-force to shine openly, intention is needed. That is the general point. Now we’ll go into more detail about how the Rebbe presents it, but in general, this life-force is what the Rebbe is addressing now in this chapter—the whole subject of intention in a mitzvah. There is a teaching from the Maggid of Mezritch that the Rebbe repeated many times. The Maggid of Mezritch spoke about the verse, “You shall observe My statutes and My judgments, which a person shall do and live by them”—something like that. I don’t know the exact wording. It’s a verse in the straightforward meaning of the passage. Yes: “You shall observe My statutes and My judgments, which a person shall do and live by them.” The Maggid of Mezritch explains that “You shall observe My statutes and My judgments” refers to performing a mitzvah. He explains that the verse alludes to the three modes of thought, speech, and action: “My statutes” refers to thought, “My judgments” to speech, and “which a person shall do” to action. He explains there that the performance of the mitzvah is alluded to in this verse, and afterward it says, “and live by them.” The Maggid of Mezritch says: What does “and live by them” mean? It refers to the intention in the mitzvah. So there are two elements in the verse. There is “You shall observe My statutes and My judgments, which a person shall do”—the performance of the mitzvah. Then the verse says, “and live by them.” What does “and live by them” mean? That we must put life into the performance of the mitzvah, so that the mitzvah is not done in a way of [unclear], but rather in a way

20:17 Of something alive, alive in the world. The Maggid says, “And you shall live by them”—meaning that the deed itself should be alive [unclear]. “And you shall live by them” means that the life should be in the deeds, that the deed should become something alive. In other words, he says, sometimes a person performs a deed and has an intention, but the intention remains separate. When he performs the deed, that is a deed. When he has the intention, that is an intention. The intention and the deed are two things, two things that are not connected to each other. He reflects and connects with all these ideas, but the deed remains a separate deed. When he finishes with the intention, that is one thing in its own right, and the deed is also something in its own right. The Maggid says, “And you shall live by them”: the deed itself must become something alive. The intention must penetrate the deed in such a way that the deed becomes something alive. This is closer to the meaning of the teaching of our Sages, “Mitzvos without intention are like a body without a soul.” It means that the intention must penetrate the deed, the body. A deed without intention is a body without a soul; a deed with intention is a body with a soul. Yes, and the Maggid goes even further. He says that when a person puts on tzitzis, the tzitzis themselves, before he put them on, were an object, but there was no mitzvah in them. You have tzitzis lying in a store, or on a table, or in a closet. As long as a Jew has not come and put them on, the tzitzis are not yet a mitzvah. When do the tzitzis become a mitzvah in the literal sense? The moment a Jew wears them. For example, if a non-Jew were to put on tefillin. The Rebbe brings this up in [unclear]. When the Baal Shem Tov gave this example, he said that if a non-Jew puts on tefillin, nothing happens.

22:15 If a non-Jew puts on tefillin, it is exactly like putting tefillin in a closet. Putting tefillin in a closet does not fulfill any mitzvah. Putting tefillin on a non-Jew’s head does not fulfill any mitzvah either. It is the same as putting them on a table. Why? Because the tefillin exist as an object, but as long as a Jew is not involved, there is no life in them. The moment a Jew is involved and connects himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he makes the tefillin an object of connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the meaning of “And you shall live by them.” It means precisely this: the tefillin themselves—not just the act—become a tangible means of connection. Before the Jew put on the tefillin, they were an object, but they were not yet a means of connection. The moment a Jew puts them on, the tefillin become alive. The Rebbe spoke about this even further. The Rebbe said that if you looked at the tzitzis—there is this story about the Baal Shem Tov’s tzitzis—you could see that although the Baal Shem Tov would often stand in prayer as still as a stone, without swaying, his tzitzis would sway on their own. We also saw the Rebbe stand without swaying. The Baal Shem Tov would stand utterly still, like an inanimate stone, and yet his tzitzis would sway by themselves. There was a movement of life in the tzitzis. You could physically see the Baal Shem Tov’s tzitzis moving even though the Baal Shem Tov himself did not move. So that means—

23:43 that “and you shall live by them” was now quite literal. It was as though the Baal Shem Tov’s tzitzis [unclear]. You could see that there was life in them. This brings me to a story about tzaddikim. There is a story about the Tzemach Tzedek that illustrates what “alive” means. The Tzemach Tzedek had someone who would collect money and distribute it. He was one of the Tzemach Tzedek’s relatives. His name was Rabbi Yosef HaMaggid [unclear], or Baal Yosef [unclear]. He was the Tzemach Tzedek’s uncle and served as his emissary, traveling to various places to collect money for the Tzemach Tzedek’s communities. He would arrive with a box containing all the coins, notes, and funds collected from the community. He would come to the Tzemach Tzedek’s home and hand over the box. The Tzemach Tzedek would take the money out and divide it among the communities. He would make separate piles of it. The collector wanted to understand why the Tzemach Tzedek did this. Of course, he did not have to ask, but he wanted to know whether there was a precise reason for it, because the Tzemach Tzedek was selecting specific coins from what had been brought to him. He was not simply dividing the money up in the usual way. So the next time the collector went to collect money, he took some from one of the Tzemach Tzedek’s chassidim, Reb Nechemiah of Dubrovna. Reb Nechemiah of Dubrovna lived there in the area and was one of the chassidim. The collector took the money to Reb—

25:37 Nechemiah of Dubrovna, who gave him the coins. The collector wanted to mark the money so that he would know which coins had come from Reb Nechemiah of Dubrovna. He put them in with the other money and, on the return trip, placed the coins in several different parts of the box. He wanted to see what would happen. He came to the Tzemach Tzedek and saw him searching through the box, taking out one coin here, another coin there, another coin there. The coins were not together at all, but the Tzemach Tzedek took them out one after another and put them all in one place. He immediately understood that the Tzemach Tzedek knew exactly which coins each person had given, whether much or little. Not all the coins looked the same to him. The Tzemach Tzedek knew exactly which chossid had given each coin and could separate them accordingly. The collector could hardly contain himself and said, “Rebbe, Rebbe, that’s a miracle!” The Tzemach Tzedek told him it was not a miracle at all. What was happening? When a person performs a mitzvah, there is the act of the mitzvah and there is the intention behind it. The act is the body, but when he performs the mitzvah with intention, it becomes alive. That brings life into the mitzvah. The deeper and more inward the intention, the more bittul and spiritual feeling he brings to it, the more life there is within it. So the Tzemach Tzedek said, “I don’t know who gave this money. I just look at a coin, see that it is a living coin, and put it aside.” It carried the greater bittul with which it had been given. So that is—

27:18 how he looked at things and saw what was in them. He said, “I don’t know who gave it.” The collector thought the Tzemach Tzedek knew it was Reb Nechemiah of Dubrovna’s money, but the Tzemach Tzedek said, “I don’t know who gave the money. I only see it and put it aside.”