Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 40 - Part 3

00:01 The Alter Rebbe explains here the difference between learning Torah with love and awe, which is called learning Torah lishmah, for its own sake, and learning Torah without love and awe. The love and awe may be deeply felt or intellectual, but either way, he learns Torah with love and awe. As we explained in the previous class, even if a person intends to fulfill the mitzvah of learning Torah, he may have no feeling of love and awe in it. He knows it is a mitzvah, but there is no emotional involvement—neither deeply felt nor intellectual love and awe. He does it out of habit, because “habit becomes second nature.” The Alter Rebbe explains the difference: if he lacks love and awe, then even though he learns in order to fulfill a mitzvah, it is not lishmah. It is not learning for an ulterior motive either; he is simply learning Torah. In such a case, the Torah and mitzvos ascend to the chambers and abodes of Yetzirah and Asiyah, and even angels are created from them. And not just any angels—angels with a body and a soul. He does have an intention, only it is not an intention of lishmah, so both a body and a soul are created from it. But does it unite with the sefiros? No, because the sefiros are G-dliness. For Torah and mitzvos to ascend and unite with the sefiros of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with the sefiros in the worlds of Yetzirah and Beriah, there must specifically be an intention of love and awe. That was the point the Alter Rebbe explained. So when a person fulfills a mitzvah but lacks love and awe, even though angels are created from it, and even though it ascends to higher levels and chambers, it does not unite with the sefiros. To unite with those sefiros,

02:05 it must specifically be Torah learned lishmah. That was the point made earlier. Before we continue, there is one point I wanted to explain, just a brief word. The Alter Rebbe mentions chambers here several times, both in the previous chapter and now: there are chambers above. This is not discussed much in Chassidus. Usually, when we speak about the worlds, we speak about the sefiros—the lights, the vessels, the souls and the angels. Chambers are not discussed much in Chassidus. They are discussed extensively in Kabbalah; there is even an entire Kabbalistic work, a midrash called Pirkei Heichalos. But in Chassidus, we do not find much discussion of chambers. The Alter Rebbe mentions them here many times but does not explain exactly what defines a chamber. There is a little about it in Chassidus, briefly, on one particular point. There are chambers even in the world of Atzilus. In each world, besides its sefiros, souls and angels, there is the concept of a chamber. What defines a chamber? This is a metaphor, of course; all these descriptions are metaphors. A chamber is a place, an area where things are found. In other words, the chamber itself is, so to speak, like a kind of vessel. But it is not quite a vessel either, because the chamber is like a house. You cannot really call a house a vessel: a small person can live in a large house. A vessel, by definition, is proportionate to the light, and the light to the vessel. That is what a vessel is: it unites with what it contains. A chamber implies something more distant. In other words, not necessarily... If we speak about

04:16 this in spiritual terms, a chamber emphasizes greater distance. It is as though we are saying that it is the lowest aspect of the world. It is not the sefiros—the lights and vessels—and it is not the things found there, the souls and angels. The chamber is, so to speak, the place, the area where the souls and angels are found, and through the chamber they have a connection with the sefiros. Perhaps we can put it this way: the chamber is something of an intermediary between the sefiros and the created beings of that world. Every world has its sefiros and its created beings—the souls and angels found in that world. The chamber is, so to speak, the intermediary. It is the place where various lights and influences from the sefiros are revealed and received. By way of analogy, think of a king who has various rooms. There is one room and another room, and each contains the things that belong there. As in the Baal Shem Tov’s analogy: when a person enters the king’s chambers, the first room contains various treasures. The second room has still more treasures, and the third has more yet. Each time you come closer to the king’s room, there are more and more treasures, more things. So what are these rooms? A room is the place where things belonging to the king are revealed. The people there receive them through the room. The room is, as it were, an intermediary through which those things are revealed. The treasures themselves are not the room, and those who are among the treasures and receive from them are not the room either. The room is the place where things from the treasures are revealed and received. There are further

06:18 analogies for this in Chassidus. And, of course, Chassidus explains that this is why the Hebrew word for “chamber,” heichal, has the same numerical value as Ad-nai. What is the name Ad-nai? It is a name associated with contraction, a name already associated with the world. As the Alter Rebbe says in [unclear], the name Ad-nai is associated with lordship: He is Master of all the earth. And heichal has the same numerical value as Ad-nai. In other words, Ad-nai is a vessel for Havayah; it is a lower level. It says, “Havayah is in His holy chamber.” So besides “all the earth,” there is “Havayah is in His holy chamber.” That means the chamber is not Havayah; the chamber is, so to speak, like the vessel in which Havayah is revealed. Sometimes it is also written that “chamber” refers to the sefirah of Binah. “A point in a chamber” is a well-known expression in Chassidus. The point is Chochmah, and Binah is called a chamber because it is a vessel in relation to Chochmah. But those are higher levels. Binah is called a chamber in relation to Chochmah, or Ad-nai is called a chamber in relation to the name Havayah, because it is like a vessel. But when we speak about all the worlds, the chamber of each world means, as it were, the bounds of that world—the area where the souls and angels are found, and where they receive the flow and light that belong to that world. So that is what the Alter Rebbe says here: Torah and mitzvos ascend to the chambers, and the soul also ascends to the chambers. But the question is whether they come to unite with the sefiros themselves. For that, there must also be love and awe. That is the point he explains. Let us continue inside the text. If you want to look at sources that explain a little about chambers, along with a few details we have not discussed now, there is a maamar of the Rebbe in Sefer Hamaamarim, titled “Bereishis Bara Elokim.” There the Rebbe explains it at somewhat greater length, more than is explained

08:34 Elsewhere, in the discussion of the heichalos. Let’s continue inside the text. “But Torah studied not for its own sake.” Yes, do you have it? The line beginning “But Torah.” “But Torah studied explicitly not for its own sake.” What happens when a person learns Torah in that way? He learns Torah explicitly not for its own sake. What does that mean? The Alter Rebbe explains: “For example, in order to become a Torah scholar.” A person learns Torah with a secondary goal. That is already a different issue. Here we’re talking about someone who learns Torah not for its own sake; he has a specific intention that is not for its own sake. Before, there was no particular intention. Now we’re talking about learning explicitly not for its own sake, “for example, to become a Torah scholar, and the like.” As we mentioned, the Alter Rebbe does not bring the lower levels here, although the Gemara also speaks of learning not for its own sake in order to provoke others or to boast of one’s Torah knowledge. There are lower levels of learning not for its own sake, too. [unclear] But since the Alter Rebbe’s book is for beinonim, he does not go too low. He uses the subtler example of learning not for its own sake: learning in order to become a Torah scholar, and the like. Such Torah “does not ascend above at all, not even to the heichalos and abodes of the angels of holiness.” So this Torah does not ascend at all. It does not even reach the heichalos and abodes of the angels of holiness, but remains below. Where is that? In the abode of the kelipos. Since this Torah was learned with an intention associated with kelipah—to become a Torah scholar, which involves a sense of self, and that sense of self belongs to kelipah—the Torah remains in a place corresponding to the intention with which he learned it. He learned with a motive that was not for its own sake, so the Torah remains below, in the abode of the kelipos. As the Alter Rebbe said earlier, at the end of chapter 39, this is before he does teshuvah. After he does teshuvah, Torah is Torah, after all. He can

10:27 bring it out of there, out of the abode of the kelipos. As it says in the Zohar, volume 3—we’re quoting the Zohar, yes?—as it says in the Zohar, volume 3, page 31b and page 121b; see there: “That word ascends and breaks through the heavens,” and so on. Every word a person says ascends and breaks through the heavens, “and arouses what it arouses.” If it arouses something good—meaning that his words were words of holiness, mentioning Hashem—then it has a good effect and ascends to a level where it brings about a positive influence: the sefiros and so on, as we discussed earlier. But if not, the Zohar goes on to say that it goes to the kelipos. See there, and page 105a: “A word of Torah produces a voice,” and every word of Torah creates a voice, “and ascends,” and so on. And on page 168b it says: “The voices of Torah and prayer break through.” The Rebbe adds that a word is missing here: “ascend,” or “break through the heavens.” In each place, the word “ascend” needs to be added, because the point the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize from this Zohar is that all the Torah and mitzvos—everything a person learns in Torah and says in prayer—ascend. There is an ascent; it goes upward. The question is whether or not it unites with the ten sefiros. But every word of Torah or prayer ascends. They “ascend and break through the heavens.” They break through the barriers of the heavens and rise upward. Everything ascends, but the question is whether it ascends and unites with the ten sefiros, or ascends and remains in the heichalos. Here we’re speaking about someone who learns Torah for its own sake, in which case it ascends and unites with the ten sefiros themselves, through his bittul and desire; or, at least, someone who learns without any particular intention, in which case it also ascends, but remains in the heichalos, as we said. But when it is not for its own sake, then

12:27 the kelipah—the intention of learning not for its own sake—prevents it from ascending. The Alter Rebbe is brief on this point here, but later, in Kuntres Acharon—you know that the Alter Rebbe wrote Kuntres Acharon—there is an explanation. When someone looks in Kuntres Acharon, usually by the time he gets to it, he finds a lot of Kabbalah there, expressed in allusions. It is hard to understand what the Alter Rebbe is saying. By the time you get to Kuntres Acharon, you read it with kabbolas ol. But Kuntres Acharon has four sections that are all explanations of chapter 40 of Tanya. In Kuntres Acharon, the Alter Rebbe writes about several chapters in Likkutei Amarim, part one, including chapter 40. That is how the Alter Rebbe does it: he says, “See Likkutei Amarim, chapter 40,” and then there are four sections entirely devoted to explaining what he discusses here in chapter 40. This is described in the letter of the Alter Rebbe’s sons, in the approbation by the author’s sons. They tell us what they found. They write that it contains a Kuntres Acharon on certain chapters, “which he wrote while composing the book Likkutei Amarim: intricate discussion and deep analysis of passages in the Zohar and Eitz Chaim that appear to contradict one another. With his discerning insight, he reconciles each of them in accordance with what he wrote in Likkutei Amarim.” That is what the Alter Rebbe’s sons tell us in their approbation. In other words, when the Alter Rebbe wrote this chapter, there were various apparent contradictions involved. He addresses some of them briefly here. The Alter Rebbe does not say outright that there are contradictions; he only alludes to them. But there is a whole intricate discussion of how to reconcile this with various concepts in Kabbalah. Here you see the Alter Rebbe’s tremendous genius in Kabbalah; you see it in these sections. The Alter Rebbe reconciles all the apparent contradictions found throughout the writings of the Arizal,

14:31 Eitz Chaim, the Zohar, and other sources, showing how they do not contradict one another. At first glance, there are many contradictions in this subject. These are very complicated questions concerning how everything a person does down here has an effect. After all, one of the foundations of Kabbalah is that everything a person does below leaves an impression. That is the principle, the foundation. The Zohar reveals—as Kabbalah does—that every action and every word a person speaks leaves an impression. What does “leaves an impression” mean? It means that it has some effect Above. There is actually an allusion to this in Pirkei Avos, too: “And all your deeds are written in a book.” In Pirkei Avos, it sounds like a figure of speech. What does “written in a book” mean? According to Kabbalah, it means that everything I do is lasting, and every word I speak is lasting. That means it ascends somewhere and remains there—both good things and bad things. The question is where it remains. Here we’re talking about Torah, yes? That has a higher quality. But this also applies to idle talk, lashon hara, and all sorts of things—to everything. Our question here concerns Torah, and there are apparent contradictions. So the Alter Rebbe explains. Here he speaks, in general, of three possibilities. There is Torah learned for its own sake, which ascends and unites even with the ten sefiros of actual G-dliness themselves. There is Torah learned without any particular intention, which ascends to the heichalos and abodes, including those of Yetzirah and Asiyah. It depends on whether it is Torah or mitzvos: Torah reaches Yetzirah and mitzvos reach Asiyah, but only the heichalos and abodes, from which angels come. And there is Torah learned not for its own sake. Even though it breaks through the heavens, it remains down here, in Asiyah, among the kelipos, because the intention of learning not for its own sake prevents it from ascending above. But that applies only here.

16:18 No, no, I’m not going to go over what the Alter Rebbe explains there in Kuntres Acharon now. If anyone wants to, they can look at what it says there and puzzle out what the Alter Rebbe is trying to explain. But there are two points he discusses there that are interesting to mention. One is an interesting explanation he gives in Kuntres Acharon: Why does everything depend on the intention with which a person learns? If it’s with love and awe, it ascends to the sefiros. If it’s without love and awe, it ascends to the heichalos. If the intention is not for its own sake, but for some ulterior purpose, it enters the kelipos. So here’s the idea. The Alter Rebbe says that intention is like the soul of an action or of speech. Intention and action or speech are like soul and body. Intention is the life of the thing, its soul. So when a person does something or says something, the speech is the body—the words. What he feels as he says those words, the intention he has, is like the engine, the soul of those words. So if the soul of those words is love and awe, if it’s G-dliness, then the intention raises the words to the sefiros of G-dliness. If it isn’t G-dliness, if it’s just as we said, it raises them to a world, but only to its outer dimension: the heichalos, where the angels are. If it’s kelipah, then the intention, which is the soul, holds the words back. The words themselves want to ascend. They’re words of Torah. In terms of the letters themselves, these are letters of Torah and mitzvos, so they are holy letters. Torah is Torah, and a mitzvah is a mitzvah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the engine here is the soul, the life within it. It’s a life

18:14 connected to kelipah. So that life remains in kelipah and, as it were, holds on to the words. It doesn’t let them ascend; it keeps them in the realm of kelipah and doesn’t let them rise to where they want to go, to connect with the higher realms. And therefore, since the letters themselves are holy letters, the moment he does teshuvah, he releases the letters and raises them to holiness. That’s an explanation the Alter Rebbe adds—a particular point explaining why intention changes which world, which place, which level, everything ascends to, or whether it doesn’t ascend and instead descends. That’s one explanation. Another point the Alter Rebbe explains there concerns Torah and davening. It sounds as though Torah learned without any particular intention ascends to the heichalos, as we just said. But regarding davening, he says that if the davening is not for its own sake—no, not that; if he davens without concentrating, without kavannah, even when he has no ulterior intention, it sounds as though it remains below and doesn’t ascend. In other words, Torah ascends even without kavannah, while davening doesn’t. What’s the difference between Torah and davening? What changes? So the Alter Rebbe gives a very interesting explanation. He says, simply: When you learn Torah, you understand what you’re learning. You learn Torah and you understand it. What are you missing? The intention of love and awe? You’re missing the feeling that you’re learning Torah in order to connect with G-dliness. But the basic meaning of what you’re learning—you are learning it. You understand what you’re learning. Because if we’re talking about someone who doesn’t understand what he’s learning, he hasn’t fulfilled the mitzvah of Torah study. The point there is to understand. If someone reads the words and doesn’t understand them, he isn’t really learning at all. So there’s nothing missing in the words themselves. He learns and understands what he’s learning. What, then, is he missing?

20:01 A feeling of love and awe. So since, after all, he does have some intention in his Torah study, that Torah ascends. Davening without kavannah is different. What does davening without kavannah mean? It means he’s thinking distracting thoughts. It isn’t that he understands what he’s saying in davening but merely lacks love and awe. When someone davens without feeling and love, it means he says the words but isn’t thinking about what they mean. He’s thinking about the birds and the flowers. He’s thinking distracting thoughts, and therefore the davening remains below. So that’s the distinction between Torah without kavannah and davening without kavannah. All right, let’s continue inside. “And as it says in the Zohar on the verse, ‘What gain does a person have from all his toil at which he toils beneath the sun?’” The Zohar says about this verse—King Shlomo says in Koheles: What benefit is there in a person’s toil beneath the sun? On the plain level, King Shlomo, the wisest of all men, is saying that he came to the conclusion that all the toil a person goes through in this world—all the work and trouble of earning a living and everything else—brings no benefit. “What gain does a person have?” There’s no benefit to it. It follows everything King Shlomo tells us in Koheles, that it’s all vanity of vanities. “Vanity of vanities, says Koheles; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Nothing is worth anything; it’s all an illusion. “What gain does a person have from all his toil at which he toils beneath the sun?” The Zohar offers a remarkable insight: “Even the toil of Torah, if he does it for his own honor, etc.” What is the Zohar saying? To understand it, we first need to understand what the Gemara says. The Gemara explains the verse. So the Zohar is saying that even the toil of Torah, if he does

21:54 it for his own honor—he learns Torah so that he’ll become a Torah scholar, so that he’ll become a rosh yeshivah, and so on—if he does it for his own honor, that Torah remains beneath the sun. What does the Zohar mean? First we need to know what the Gemara says. The Gemara in Tractate Shabbos discusses the verse, “What gain does a person have from all his toil at which he toils beneath the sun?” The Gemara says this refers to worldly toil. Some people know this from a song by one of today’s singers, Reb Avraham Fried or Reb Chaim Dovid. There’s a song: “What gain does a person have from all his toil at which he toils beneath the sun? Worldly toil.” Yes—but the toil of Torah is different. That’s the Gemara. Boruch Hashem, thanks to these singers, some people who otherwise wouldn’t know it know a few teachings of our Sages. So the Gemara says that when King Shlomo says there’s no benefit in toiling beneath the sun, “beneath the sun” means matters of this world. Torah, however, is above the sun. Rashi explains that the toil of Torah is above the sun. As for this world, the sun represents, as it were, the highest thing among the heavenly bodies. “Beneath the sun” means everything connected with the world. So it’s about worldly toil, which is beneath the sun, that King Shlomo asks, “What gain is there?” But the toil of Torah is above the sun, and there certainly is gain in that. That’s what the Gemara says. The Zohar goes further. Even when it comes to the toil of Torah, the Zohar says, there’s a distinction. If the Torah study is for its own sake, if a person learns Torah with love and awe in order to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, that Torah is above the sun, and there is gain in it. But if he learns Torah not for its own sake,

23:53 for his own honor, that too is called “beneath the sun,” and it doesn’t ascend above the sun. That’s what he brings here: even Torah study, even “the toil of Torah.” In other words, the Gemara says the toil of Torah is above the sun. The Zohar adds a further qualification: even the toil of Torah, if he does it for his own honor, does not rise above the sun. What does it mean that it doesn’t rise above the sun? It means it remains down here, as explained here. It remains down here in the world of Asiyah. That’s the meaning according to what the Tanya explains here. This also explains the saying, “Fortunate is the one who comes here with his learning in hand.” This too is in the Gemara: “Fortunate is the one who comes here with his learning in hand.” The Gemara uses that expression, “Fortunate is the one who comes here”—it’s talking about Gan Eden. When a person arrives in Gan Eden: “Fortunate is the one who comes here with his learning in hand.” What does that mean? Simply, it means that if a person learned Torah in this world, then when he arrives in Gan Eden, he has something there. If he learned nothing, there’s nothing to give him in Gan Eden. The whole idea of Gan Eden, as the plain explanation of the subject sets out, and as Chassidus also explains, is that a person is shown secrets of the Torah he learned in this world. In this world he learns the revealed dimension of Torah; when he reaches Gan Eden, the inner dimension of what he learned is revealed to him, as brought in the maamarim of 5687. We learned about this whole subject on Shavuos, in the maamarim we’ve been learning now. Yes, the whole idea of Shavuos is that there is Torah on every level. [unclear] There is Gan Eden. So a person learns the revealed dimension down here, and when he reaches above, the inner dimension of the subject is revealed to him, as it exists above. That is “Fortunate is the one who comes here with his learning”

25:45 In his hand. When you have your learning in hand, you have Torah in your hands. Then you arrive Above, and they reveal to you the secret of what you learned. But look, he adds another point here, which we’ll get to. This is the meaning of “Fortunate is the one who comes here with his learning in hand.” The Alter Rebbe adds another point to the explanation: that the learning did not remain down here in this world. What does it mean to come here “with his learning in hand”? It does not mean only that he studied the revealed Torah in this world, but that he studied it in a way that it did not remain down below. “His learning in hand”—what is the significance of “in hand”? It means that the Torah ascended together with him. If he studied Torah, even a great deal of the revealed Torah, but studied it not for its own sake, then he does not have his learning in hand; it remains in this world. The soul goes to Gan Eden, but the Torah does not ascend with him because he studied it not for its own sake. So that doesn’t help. By contrast, “his learning in hand” means that he studied Torah for its own sake. Then, when the soul ascends to Gan Eden with that Torah, the Torah ascends together with him. And then he is fortunate, because he can receive all the revelations and secrets revealed to him through the Torah he studied in this world. Chassidus also gives another, distinctive explanation of “his learning in hand”: “in hand” means that he also has love and awe of Hashem. That is the significance of “in hand”—the hand. What does the hand have to do with it? Learning is in the mind, in the head. Why specifically “in hand”? Because the hands correspond to chesed and gevurah; they relate to the emotions. “His learning in hand” means that he also has love and awe in his learning. That is connected with “his hand.” Sometimes it is written as “his hand.” That, too, is an aspect of Torah study and learning. The second way is studying Torah for its own sake. That is when the Torah also leads him

27:35 to action. Now, there is a short story about this, about the Baal Shem Tov, told in the seforim. It is a well-known story: the Baal Shem Tov once entered a beis midrash. Where was that written? Where was it—in Brod? Great Torah scholars were sitting there and learning. The Baal Shem Tov said, “The air here is full of Torah. The air here is full of Torah.” Afterward, they asked the Baal Shem Tov, “How could you give them such praise? Why did they deserve such praise?” The Baal Shem Tov said that he meant that when people study Torah for its own sake, the Torah ascends Above. But because the people here study Torah not for its own sake, all their Torah remains down here, and so the air there is full of Torah. It is full of Torah because the Torah remains there; it has not ascended. They are not raising the Torah Above as they should.