Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 37 - Part 6

00:01 The line begins “through kelipas nogah,” and the word is “And it follows.” In short, to sum up: in this chapter, the Alter Rebbe explains how the revelation of Moshiach—the era of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead—comes as the fruit of all our work, our deeds and our service throughout the time of exile. This is the idea that “the reward for a mitzvah is a mitzvah”: the reward for a mitzvah is the revelation of the era of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead. At that time, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself will be revealed here below, in this world. So it all depends on our deeds and our service during the time of exile. Why? Because through our deeds and our service during exile, a Jew connects things in this world, which receive their vitality from kelipah—the things of the lower realms—with the supernal will. He redeems them, takes them out of kelipah, and connects them with His will itself through the mitzvah. In this way, he brings about a connection between the world and G-dliness. The Alter Rebbe’s lengthy explanation is about how this is accomplished in detail. After all, the ultimate goal is that when Moshiach comes, the entire world will become a dwelling place for Hashem in the lower realms. So the question is: the mitzvos a Jew performs involve only part of the world, and a very small part of it. How does performing them bring about the elevation of the entire world, so that the entire world becomes a dwelling place in the lower realms? The Alter Rebbe began in an orderly way. First he explained the effect of every mitzvah in general, including the physical object from the world used for the mitzvah. Then he spoke about the animal soul, which participates in the mitzvah and puts its energies into it. After that, he also spoke about the food and drink a person consumes, through which he gains strength in his

02:05 animal soul. He then takes those energies and puts them into holiness. So the food and drink are elevated too. Yes, and the Alter Rebbe began by saying that all the Jewish people will each fulfill the 613 mitzvos. Yes, 613 mitzvos. When all the Jewish people together fulfill the 613 mitzvos, with each person doing his part in their fulfillment, this will also have an effect on the world as a whole. The Alter Rebbe explained that mitzvos fall into two general categories: “turn away from evil and do good”—the 365 prohibitions and the 248 positive commandments—and explained their purpose. The Alter Rebbe explained that the purpose of the 365 prohibitions is to cut off the flow of vitality to kelipah, to its 365 sinews. The purpose of the positive commandments is to draw down G-dliness. These are the two things that must be done to make a dwelling place in the lower realms. Two actions are needed. One is to remove the filth, to remove the evil, and to ensure that kelipah cannot draw sustenance from this world. On the other hand, after that the light must also be drawn down, and this is accomplished through the mitzvah. Through all these actions, a dwelling place in the lower realms is brought about, when all the Jewish people together fulfill the 613 mitzvos. This happens after all the reincarnations and all the generations in which souls descend into the world, generation after generation. As it says in the writings of the Arizal—and the Alter Rebbe cites this several times—a soul needs to descend into the world many times in order to complete the 613 mitzvos. When all the souls of the Jewish people have finished fulfilling all 613 mitzvos, they will thereby bring about the nullification of all the vitality of this world that goes to kelipah, through observing the 365 prohibitions, and the revelation of the G-dly light

04:00 associated with the positive commandments. This will bring about a dwelling place in the lower realms. As we said just now, the lower realms will still exist, and He, blessed be He, will have a dwelling place in them. “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth,” and the entire vitality of kelipah, which now weighs down kelipas nogah, will be completely nullified. But when kelipas nogah is elevated to holiness through the fulfillment of mitzvos, G-dliness will be revealed in the world. The whole world, even the nations of the world—“the glory of Hashem will fill the whole earth”—will see the glory of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And the Jewish people speak of something even greater: “They will see eye to eye.” They will not only see His glory; they will see and behold Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. All this is accomplished through the 613 mitzvos. Now look: he goes on here, on page five, in the fifth line, and explains how the fulfillment of the 613 mitzvos by the souls will also bring about the elevation of the entire world. After all, the 613 mitzvos that Jews perform elevate the souls and bodies of all Jews, of the entire Jewish people. How does every Jew’s fulfillment of the 613 mitzvos refine their animal souls? And how does that affect the entire world as well? He continues here on page five, in the fifth line, and says: “It follows that the entire purpose of the era of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead.” You see, here he sums up the subject and also adds another point that he has not explained until now. “It follows that the entire purpose of the era of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead”—that is, the revelation and the purpose of the era of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead. What will happen then? “The revelation of His glory and His G-dliness, blessed be He.” At that time, the glory and G-dliness of Hakadosh Boruch

05:49 Hu will be revealed in the world. There are two expressions here: “His glory” and “His G-dliness.” “His glory” relates to the light we saw and discussed: “His glory will fill the whole earth.” It will reach the entire world. The term is “glory,” which is only a garment. It is not yet His essence; “G-dliness,” however, refers to the essence. It is not only glory, but G-dliness as well. That is to say, the essence of G-dliness will be revealed in the future. This is accomplished, as we said, through the positive commandments. “And to remove the spirit of impurity from the earth”—the other side of it is to remove all the filth and impurity from the world. This will be complete in the era of Moshiach. Both things will reach their fullest expression when Moshiach comes: the removal of the spirit of impurity and, on the other hand, the revelation of G-dliness in the most complete way. That is to say, His G-dliness, blessed be He, will be drawn down into the Jewish soul of every member of the Jewish people. So what does all this depend on? What does the entire revelation of Moshiach depend on? It depends on the actions we take now, at this time, during exile: a Jew drawing down His G-dliness, blessed be He, into his Jewish soul and all 248 limbs by fulfilling all 248 positive commandments. When a Jew performs a positive commandment—puts on tefillin, wears tzitzis, says a blessing, prays, performs acts that are positive commandments—he thereby draws G-dly light into his soul and body. In turn, he brings about the drawing down of G-dliness. That is one side: drawing down holiness. And now he states the other side: “And to remove the spirit of impurity from him”—to remove the spirit of impurity from the body, from the person. This is done by observing the 365 prohibitions, so that kelipah will not draw sustenance from his 365 sinews. So that the 365 sinews of a person will not provide sustenance

07:40 from impurity. So through the 248 positive mitzvos and the 365 prohibitions, G-dliness will be revealed throughout the world when Moshiach comes. But seemingly, what is the connection? The question arises: shouldn’t G-dliness be revealed among the Jewish people? Who keeps the Torah and mitzvos? A Jew keeps mitzvos; a non-Jew does not keep these mitzvos. So when Moshiach comes, and we say that the spirit of impurity will be removed from the earth and there will be this revelation of G-dliness and glory, seemingly that should concern the Jewish people, because they are the ones who keep the mitzvos. Why, then, do we say that it will not only reach the Jewish people, but that the dwelling place in the lower realms will encompass the entire world—that the spirit of impurity will be removed from the whole earth and the whole world will become a dwelling place for G-dliness? After all, only a Jew keeps the mitzvos. So here the Alter Rebbe concludes his explanation and says: “For the Jewish people as a whole, comprising 600,000 individual souls,” meaning the Jewish people as a whole. The general number of Jewish souls is 600,000. “They encompass the life force of the entire world.” Jewish souls encompass the life force of the whole world. Why? He says: “For it was created for their sake.” Everyone knows what Rashi says in his plain-meaning explanation of Bereishis. The very first Rashi, on “Bereishis”—two beginnings: for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of the Jewish people. All of creation was created for the Jewish people. It follows that Jewish souls are the inner dimension of the world. That is what “created for their sake” means: they are its inner purpose. The inner dimension of the world is the soul. So the soul is the inner dimension of the world—“it was created for their sake.”

09:44 Therefore, as soon as Jewish souls are elevated, the world, which is the external dimension of those souls, is elevated too. Take a person, in the simplest sense. A person has a body and a soul; a person is made up of body and soul. When the soul is elevated, the body is elevated with it. When a person refines himself and his soul rises to a higher level, his body rises as well. On Shabbos, for example, a Jew’s soul is in an elevated state, and his body is elevated too—a Shabbos body. A Jew’s body on Shabbos is a holier body, as explained in Chassidus, and this applies to everything. The same is true here. Since the souls are the inner dimension of the world—“for the sake of the Torah, for the sake of the Jewish people”—when Jewish souls are elevated, the entire world, which is their external dimension, is elevated with them. “For it was created for their sake.” “And each individual among them”—each of the 600,000. First he speaks in general terms: Jewish souls encompass the world as a whole, so when the Jewish people as a whole are elevated, the world as a whole is elevated. Now he goes into detail: “And each individual among them,” each of the 600,000, “encompasses and has associated with him the life force of one six-hundred-thousandth of the entire world.” Each individual soul among the 600,000 encompasses—that is, contains within it—and has associated with it the life force of one part of the world. In other words, the Alter Rebbe is saying something very interesting here, something perhaps not so widely known from the texts. Just as Jewish souls are divided into 600,000, the world is also divided into 600,000 parts. There is some way in which the world is divided, though we do not know exactly how to divide it. But

11:46 the world, too, is divided into 600,000 parts. There are 600,000 parts in the world. Why? Because a person is... because Jewish souls comprise 600,000 souls, and the entire world was created for the Jewish people. So the fact that there are 600,000 among the Jewish people is reflected in the world too: the world is also divided into 600,000. Every individual soul therefore has one of the 600,000 parts of the world. All the food that comes into my hands, the drinks and the clothes—I’ll mention more kinds of things in a moment—all of it comes from the one six-hundred-thousandth that belongs to me. How do I know which part that is? I don’t. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the One who arranges and governs every last detail, so that the part belonging to each person reaches him in some way. But everyone has his own part of the world, a part... that belongs to him, where he needs to be, which he needs to refine and rectify. It belongs to him. So that is the point. Through the Jewish people as a whole keeping Torah and mitzvos—and since the Jewish people as a whole encompass all 600,000 parts of the world—when they are elevated, the entire world is elevated too. “And each individual among them encompasses and has associated with him”—notice those two expressions, “encompasses” and “has associated with him.” Seemingly, they are two different concepts. “Encompasses” fits food and drink, things that become part of the body, becoming his own blood and flesh. “Has associated with him” refers to things outside the person: a house and other things that belong to him but are not part of him. Those are the two expressions. So this is another part of the 600,000 parts of the entire world, and the vital soul

13:50 ... all sorts of things that depend on the vital soul. A person needs to elevate them to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and they are elevated when the vital soul is elevated. This entire part of the world then rises together with it. “That is, because he uses it for the needs of his body and vital soul in serving Hashem.” When a person uses these things for the needs of his body and vital soul, and for serving Hashem, “such as eating, drinking, and the like.” If a person eats and drinks, “and the like” presumably refers to garments, clothes—various things a person uses to serve Hashem. When he uses food, drink, and other such things and serves Hashem with them, he affects that part of the world. So when the vital soul is elevated through fulfilling mitzvos, that entire part of the world is elevated too. “And his dwelling and all his utensils.” The same applies here. There are more external things that also belong to a person: the dwelling where he lives and his utensils. By “his utensils,” he means things outside the person. He has a car, he has a horse and wagon, he has a field—all sorts of things outside him that belong to him. These are the two expressions we mentioned earlier, “encompasses” and “has associated with him.” “Encompasses” refers to things that enter the body—food, drink, and all those things—while “has associated with him” refers to things outside us that belong to him. He uses all these things to serve Hashem. So when the vital soul performs a mitzvah, not only is the vital soul elevated; every part of the world belonging to that person is elevated too. Therefore, when the entire Jewish people together all do

15:44 their work, not only will the Jewish people be elevated, but the entire world, which is divided into 600,000 parts, will be elevated too. Along the lines of what he says here—that the world has 600,000 parts because there are 600,000 Jewish souls—we also find something similar with the number 613. ... It says in Basi Legani that there is the number 613: 613 mitzvos. Correspondingly, a person’s soul has 613 faculties, and a person’s body has 613 organs and sinews. Likewise, the world is also divided into 613. In other words, there are several ways to divide up the world. It can be divided according to the number of souls, or according to the number of mitzvos. So he writes there that... so... what is the source of this? There are 613 mitzvos. There are 613 mitzvos, and 613 faculties of the soul with which to fulfill them. There are 613 organs in which the soul is invested, so the body’s organs also number 613. And the world has a corresponding number of 613, because a person is a world... a person is a miniature world. So if the miniature world is made up of 613, the greater world is also made up of 613. Now the question is: what is the cause here, and what is the result? Where did the number 613 begin? Where does the number 613 begin? Where do we first find 613? At first glance, it would seem that the 613 mitzvos are the... the source. There are 613 mitzvos, which are the supernal will, and from there it developed that there should be 613 faculties of the soul, 613 bodily organs, and 613 parts of the world. So the Rebbe makes an interesting observation in Basi Legani.

17:49 There’s a maamar of the Rebbe from 5714, if I’m not mistaken, the Basi Legani maamar of Yud Shvat. There the Rebbe points out that it isn’t that way: the number 613 begins specifically with the human being. No—the reason there are 613 mitzvos is that a human being has 613 limbs and organs. What’s the explanation for that? How can—what? The Rebbe explains. It’s well known—there are two things that are well known, and he repeats this in many places—that the whole world was created for the Torah and for the Jewish people. But between the Torah and the Jewish people themselves, which comes first? The Jewish people come before the Torah. The Jewish people come first. “Command the Children of Israel”; “Speak to the Children of Israel.” So we see that the Jewish people preceded the Torah. At the very first source, then, the Jewish people come first. From the Jewish people comes the Torah, and from the Torah comes the world. So according to this, where does the number 613 come from? Here, though, we speak of 600,000. In other words, it seems that this number is essentially a spiritual number. The fact that in actual practice there are more doesn’t—especially since the 600,000 we see in Chumash, the 600,000 souls of the Jewish people when they left Egypt, were only men between the ages of twenty and sixty. If we also count those under twenty, the elderly over sixty, all the children who were there, and the women whom the Torah doesn’t count at all—then we have to say that the Jewish people numbered at least two million, not 600,000. The 600,000 were only men between twenty and sixty. There were at least more than two million people. If you calculate a number that includes everyone, then we see that the number 600,000 is a number

21:09 with a purpose. It’s an exact number. It’s something with a source that determines what the number has to be. And the reason you see more is that all the others are particulars and sparks, as he’s about to explain. In one of the Rebbe’s maamarim, he brings this—not as an original idea of the Rebbe’s; he cites it from earlier sources, but I happened to see it in the Rebbe’s maamarim. He says that the number 600,000 can be calculated from the Name Havayah. Yud, hei, vav. Vav is six, right? If we do ten times yud—how does it work? Yud times yud times hei times vav. That’s how it works. Ten times ten is a hundred. Now we do that times—yud times yud times hei. What does “times hei” mean? We have a hundred. Ten times ten, the first time, is a hundred. The second time, meaning ten times a hundred, is a thousand. The third time, ten times a thousand, is ten thousand. And then—so wait, that’s ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and a hundred thousand. Right? That’s five. Five times, ten times ten, brings it to a hundred thousand. Then a hundred thousand times six, vav, is 600,000. So that’s where the number 600,000 comes from. Do you understand how it works? You have the letter yud. The yud of the Name Havayah is ten. Then you do that. Then you take the hei, which is five, and do it five times. In other words, each time you add another zero: ten. Then you add another zero and it becomes a hundred. Another zero makes a thousand, another makes ten thousand, and another makes a hundred thousand. That

23:33 means you add a zero five times, and it becomes a hundred thousand. So you have a hundred thousand. Then you multiply it by vav. A hundred thousand times vav is 600,000. So it’s yud times yud times hei times vav. Right, so yud, hei, vav—those three letters—come to 600,000. What does that mean? The Jewish people, the souls—the souls of the Jewish people are connected with the sefiros of Atzilus, with Ze’eir Anpin, not Malchus. The final hei is Malchus; that’s something else. That’s already the aspect of the soul that is enclothed in a body. But the soul itself is connected specifically with the level of Ze’eir Anpin, Yisroel. Yisroel is Ze’eir Anpin. So that’s why we say there are 600,000 Jewish souls, because yud, hei, vav are the first three letters. There’s another way of counting: seventy souls. Why do we sometimes have 600,000 and sometimes seventy souls? Seventy is connected with the souls in Malchus, so there the number is seventy. That’s why it corresponds to the seventy nations; it’s a different number. So sometimes the number associated with the Jewish people is seventy, connected with Malchus, and sometimes it’s 600,000, connected with Ze’eir Anpin. That’s yud times hei times vav.

25:01 Now the question is, from what we see, there are many more souls than 600,000. So the Rebbe now answers that. These 600,000 individual souls are roots. Now we’re saying that the 600,000 souls are only roots, and each root divides into 600,000 sparks. Well, if you can do the math, that’s 600,000 times 600,000, because each of the 600,000 is a root containing 600,000 sparks. So it’s 600,000 times 600,000, with each spark being one soul. That gives you 600,000 times 600,000 souls at the level of neshamah. And likewise at the levels of nefesh and ruach. At the level of nefesh, too, there are 600,000 times 600,000. And at the level of ruach there are 600,000 times 600,000—these are all different levels. And that’s in each of the four worlds, Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, the Rebbe says. You have to multiply the whole thing four times, because in each of the four worlds you have nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, and each nefesh, ruach, and neshamah is multiplied by 600,000 times 600,000. Anyone who feels like doing the calculation will get a number with lots and lots of zeros. You’ll see how many billions—billions, I don’t know what it comes to. It’s a long number with a lot of zeros at the end. In any case, this calculation can account for the number of Jewish people from the time in the wilderness until now. There’s just one point I wanted to make about the basic idea the Rebbe writes here: when a person’s vital soul is elevated to holiness, it isn’t only the vital soul that is elevated; his entire portion in the world is elevated too. Yes, including

27:00 the things he uses, his clothing, his home, what he eats and what he drinks. Yes, because all of this—this becomes something very weighty for a person who serves Hashem. Through him, all of it is elevated and becomes a dwelling place. This is one of the explanations of the whole matter of Didan Notzach. Now, today is 2 Kislev, which is also connected with Didan Notzach. On this day, twenty-two years ago, the books were returned. Yes, the Rebbe’s books were returned. So that was part of the story of Didan Notzach. On 5 Teves there was Didan Notzach, the court ruling. After that there was still an appeal. On 8 Cheshvan the appeal was dismissed. But in practice, the books were returned on 2 Kislev. So today marks the main conclusion of Didan Notzach: the books returned to the Rebbe’s house. And we saw that for the Rebbe, the whole matter was something that touched his very soul. In the sicha where the Rebbe spoke about items and books being taken from the Frierdiker Rebbe’s room, from his home, from his library, for the Rebbe this meant that—what had been taken, in effect, was the Frierdiker Rebbe himself. The Rebbe himself used very strong words, saying that they wanted to hold another funeral for the previous Rebbe. Very strong language; the Rebbe spoke sharply. What’s the connection? We’re talking only about books, only about belongings, other things. Granted, they’re a Rebbe’s belongings; they’re holy. But why does this go so far? It’s something that touches the soul. It touches the very soul. They’re taking the Rebbe—but according to this understanding, there’s more to it: we see that all the things a person uses, his belongings, and all these things are included in him and belong to him. In other words, a person isn’t just the person himself, but the person

28:49 A person’s portion in the world—that is his concern. It is part of him. And when these things are elevated together with him, that means they are considered part of his very being. There is also a teaching from the Baal Shem Tov: What does the Gemara mean when it says that the righteous value their possessions more than their bodies? How can you say that about the righteous? They guard their money more carefully than they guard their bodies. What does that mean? We learn it from our forefather Yaakov, who went back for some small jars. How could he go back to look for small jars? He knew that there was danger from Esav’s angel in the middle of the night—and there really was danger from Esav’s angel. That is the story of Esav. The explanation is that those objects contain very great sparks. In fact, the more material something is, the loftier the sparks within it. And those sparks belong to that particular tzaddik; they are his portion in the world, and he needs to elevate them. That is why a tzaddik puts himself at risk for these things: they are his portion in the world. So we need to understand the significance of a tzaddik’s possessions and books. They are his portion in the world, connected to his soul. That’s it.