Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 41 - Part 6

00:00 We’re moving to page 57a, the fifth line, “as written in the Zohar.” So here, at the end of the discussion, the Alter Rebbe explains this whole point. In this chapter, the Alter Rebbe explains that although we say love belongs to “do good” and fear of Hashem belongs to “turn away from evil,” nevertheless, fear must come first in our service—the first thing has to be fear, and not only for turning away from evil but also for doing good. Even doing good must be preceded specifically by fear, by kabbolas ol. The Alter Rebbe concludes here: Why is that? Why are fear and kabbolas ol so important even when it comes to doing good? Why can’t doing good come from love alone? The Alter Rebbe explains that only then is it called avodah, service. The Alter Rebbe explains that only then is it called avodah. If it comes from love alone, love is not considered avodah. When is it considered avodah? Avodah means the service of an eved, a servant. A servant, after all, is characterized by bittul, self-nullification. That is connected specifically with fear and kabbolas ol. Since the Torah says, “You shall serve Hashem your G-d,” fulfilling the mitzvos—not only the prohibitions, but the positive mitzvos as well—must be service. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes here that even with positive mitzvos, it must be in a way of avodah, in a way of servitude and bittul, of kabbolas ol. So even for doing good, kabbolas ol and fear are essential. That is the point the Alter Rebbe has explained until now. The Alter Rebbe now continues and brings proof from the Zohar. This idea that we say

02:31 that even for doing good there must be kabbolas ol and fear—he brings proof for it from the Zohar. It says, “Like an ox, on which they first place a yoke.” Right? Okay. They put it on the ox first of all; the first thing they place on it is a yoke. Why do they place a yoke on it first? “In order to bring forth good from it for the world.” That is what they do with a physical ox: the first thing they place on it is a yoke. A yoke is a particular implement, a piece of wood, something they place on the ox so it cannot go wherever it wants. The yoke they put on the ox restrains it. What is the purpose of that yoke? So that afterward they can bring forth good from it for the world. After all, an ox is associated with plowing. An ox is for the yoke, a donkey for carrying loads. The ox takes on the yoke, and what does it do with its yoke? When it carries the yoke, it goes through the field where they want it to go, and it plows. So it is only because... In other words, the purpose of placing the yoke on the ox is not just to keep it from doing anything negative, not just to stop it from causing harm. That is not the only purpose of placing the yoke on the ox. It is not just so it won’t be, uh, how do you say it, a wild, wild animal—so it won’t be an unrestrained ox that causes harm. Rather, they put the yoke on the ox so they can guide it through the field, have it go in the right direction, and bring forth good from it for the world. In other words, it is about doing good. So just as with

04:43 an ox, we see that the reason they place a yoke on it is to bring forth good from it for the world. That is a positive purpose. Similarly, “a person, too, must first accept upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Good—so the same applies to a person. First of all, before any service, a person must accept upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, when a person takes on kabbolas ol at the beginning of his service, at the beginning of the day, it is for the same purpose as with the ox: to bring forth good from him. From this we have proof that kabbolas ol is needed even for doing good. That is the Alter Rebbe’s proof. Because we might have thought that kabbolas ol and fear of Heaven are only for turning away from evil. That is how it seemed from the preceding chapters. For doing good, love is enough; love belongs to doing good. But here, from this Zohar, we see that no—even for doing good, and not necessarily out of love, kabbolas ol is needed. The Alter Rebbe also quotes the continuation of the Zohar: “And if this is not found in him.” If a person does not have this—meaning, if he lacks kabbolas ol “at the outset,” if he lacks the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven—“holiness does not rest upon him.” So holiness does not rest upon him at all. In other words, the resting of holiness. Holiness rests upon a person through his service in general, and specifically through doing good. Turning away from evil is primarily about preventing impurity from resting on him. So that is the matter of turning away from evil. The resting of holiness, by contrast, is connected with doing good. The Zohar says that if a person does not have kabbolas ol at the outset, even if he has

06:30 love of Hashem and, out of love of Hashem, fulfills mitzvos and studies Torah all day—if he lacks the foundation of kabbolas ol, the Zohar uses even stronger words: “Holiness does not rest upon him.” Holiness does not rest upon him. So here we see that even for doing good, fear of Heaven and kabbolas ol at the outset are essential. And proof from... Well, we’ll leave the proof for later. First let’s explain this Zohar. The Alter Rebbe cites a wonderful passage from the Zohar here. In this Zohar we see the entire point the Alter Rebbe has explained so far: even for doing good, there has to be kabbolas ol—a yoke at the outset. Now, there are several details in this Zohar that we need to understand. First, there are some general questions to understand here. Why does the Alter Rebbe quote the entire Zohar, its full wording—the analogy of the ox and the explanation? It isn’t clear what the analogy of the ox adds. Why does the Alter Rebbe need to—yes, the Zohar brings an analogy of an ox, a beautiful analogy, that the ox needs the yoke “to bring forth good from it for the world.” But what does the analogy of the ox add to the explanation? The Alter Rebbe could have gone straight to the words that state the point. He could have copied from the Zohar only the words explaining that there must be a yoke, that there must be kabbolas ol at the beginning of one’s service. So the Alter Rebbe could have quoted only the words, “A person must first accept upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Ah, but where is doing good explained here? That is stated too. The Alter Rebbe—well, the Zohar says, “And if this is not found in him, holiness does not rest upon him.” What does “holiness does not rest upon him” mean? As we explained, what does the resting of

08:25 holiness mean? The resting of holiness is a matter of doing good. So it would have been enough to bring just the application to the person. The Alter Rebbe could have quoted only the Zohar’s words about the person: a person must first accept upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, and if he does not accept it, holiness does not rest upon him. From that we learn that kabbolas ol is needed not only for turning away from evil, but also for doing good, for the resting of holiness. That, too, requires kabbolas ol. What does the analogy add? This is a question the Rebbe asks in Likkutei Sichos, volume 33, Parshas Behar. It is a wonderful sicha, and the Rebbe raises this question there. The point is that the Rebbe explains that the analogy of the ox adds a deeper dimension to the whole matter the Alter Rebbe discusses here in Tanya, and it is also connected with the beginning of the chapter. We’ll see that shortly. This will also help us understand several details at the beginning of the chapter. We say that a person needs kabbolas ol not only to turn away from evil, but also to do good. What is the Alter Rebbe’s new point here in Tanya? A person needs kabbolas ol not only to keep him from committing aveiros. Yes, kabbolas ol is not just so a child won’t grow up doing foolish things and so on, doing things that are not good. Kabbolas ol is needed for doing good as well. The question is why. Why does a person need kabbolas ol even to do good? Why isn’t love enough for doing good? What is the reasoning? There are two ways to explain it, two aspects. One has to do with the person himself. As long as a person does not have kabbolas ol, he is not a vessel for G-dliness. As long as he does not have kabbolas ol, he is not a vessel for G-dliness. In the simple sense, that concerns the person.

10:30 A person is a separate entity, not absorbed in G-dliness, and so he remains a separate entity. That is impurity, kelipah. The Alter Rebbe explained in the earlier chapters of Tanya what defines kelipah: anything that is not nullified to Hashem is a separate entity. That is kelipah and sitra achra. Because a person is a separate entity, he is not a vessel for G-dliness; therefore, without kabbolas ol, he is not a vessel for G-dliness. Kabbolas ol is bittul, self-nullification. Now, he may have love—he may have love for Hashem. But as we have already explained, the early authorities write that love for Hashem is not bittul. Love involves a sense of self; love is the good feeling you have toward Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You love Him, and that is wonderful. It is good, but bittul is not felt in love. That bittul is missing. So if a person has love but not kabbolas ol, he has no bittul, and he is not a vessel. Holiness does not rest upon him; holiness is not revealed. As the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 35 of Tanya, the spirit of holiness does not rest in a place where there is a sense of self. That is why kabbolas ol is needed not only for “turn away from evil,” but also for “do good”: so that a person will be nullified to G-dliness and the Shechinah, holiness, can rest upon him. That is one point. But there is another point. If the whole issue were only the person himself—that he must be nullified so he can become a vessel for the Shechinah—then, by that reasoning, it would be enough for a person to have kabbolas ol for “turn away from evil.” He would not need kabbolas ol for “do good.” Because if the entire aim is for the person to have bittul, then, according to

12:24 this, a person could say: Why do I need bittul for “do good”? It is enough to have bittul for “turn away from evil.” Someone may not have kabbolas ol for “do good,” but he does have kabbolas ol for “turn away from evil.” He already has kabbolas ol. If the whole point is for a person to have an attitude of bittul, that attitude can also be present in other matters. He has bittul in matters of “turn away from evil,” so he is already in a state of bittul. That should be enough to remove the distance, allowing holiness to be revealed upon him. But there is another reason kabbolas ol is needed for the very matter of “do good.” It is not only about the person and whether he is able to receive holiness; it is also about “do good” itself. “Do good” requires that the good be done with bittul, so that it is done as it should be. In other words, for the good a person does—the mitzvah he performs—to be able to draw down the infinite light, it must be done with bittul. So there are two distinct points here, one beyond the other. First, the person must have bittul. If he does not, holiness does not rest upon him. Second, “do good” itself must be done as it should be, and that requires bittul. It is not enough for the person to have bittul; his “do good” must also be done with bittul. That is why it is not enough for a person to have kabbolas ol concerning “turn away from evil.” The “do good” itself must be done with kabbolas ol and bittul. Why? What is the explanation? The explanation is that the Creator and the created being are of an entirely different order.

14:07 We spoke about this in one of the classes at the beginning of the chapter as well. Because the Creator and the created being are utterly incomparable, a created being cannot, on his own, draw down something of the Creator. For the Creator to be drawn down, there must be bittul. When a person asserts himself as an independent entity, G-dliness cannot be drawn down. G-dliness can be drawn down only through bittul, because only then can G-dliness rest upon him. In other words, drawing down the Creator—drawing down G-dliness into the world through “do good”—must happen when the created being who does good is acting not from his own sense of self, but from G-dliness. That is accomplished through kabbolas ol. It follows that there are two aspects to kabbolas ol. One is that a person should not be a transgressor, should not become an entity of kelipah. Then there is another aspect: enabling the mitzvah to accomplish its purpose. For the mitzvah to have its effect and thereby draw G-dliness into the world, the drawing down must come not from the person but from G-dliness. That requires kabbolas ol. So it is not enough that I have kabbolas ol in other matters. I need kabbolas ol in “do good.” And this is why the Rebbe specifically brings the analogy from the Zohar here. This point is understood specifically through the analogy of the ox. Why? If the Rebbe had cited only the teaching without the analogy, what would it say? It says that a person must accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven upon himself, because if he has no kabbolas ol, what happens?

15:44 Holiness will not rest upon him. That is about the person: holiness cannot rest upon him if he sees himself as a separate entity. He must have bittul, kabbolas ol, and then he is a vessel for holiness. That is a point about the person. If that were the only reason, it would follow that kabbolas ol is not needed for “do good” itself. Kabbolas ol is needed so that the person will be a vessel for G-dliness. That is a different matter entirely. It would not mean that “do good” itself requires kabbolas ol. By contrast, in the analogy of the ox, why is the yoke placed on the ox? “To bring forth good from it for the world.” In other words, for good to be drawn into the world—which is the purpose of “do good”—and for the mitzvah to accomplish its purpose of drawing down G-dliness, the yoke is needed. That particular point is understood specifically from the analogy: kabbolas ol matters not only so that the person will not remain separate, but so that the mitzvah will have its effect, so that it can draw down G-dliness. This is what the analogy explains: “to bring forth good from it for the world.” Drawing G-dliness into the world is the whole purpose of positive mitzvos, and it happens specifically through kabbolas ol. This also explains the beginning of Tanya. So, first of all, we can now understand very well what the Rebbe is saying. The Rebbe did not bring a proof from the Zohar just for its own sake. The Zohar provides the explanation; through it, we understand the whole subject. The Rebbe is saying here in Tanya that

17:33 kabbolas ol must be a person’s “beginning of the service, its core and its root.” There are several aspects to this. Why do we say that a person needs kabbolas ol? Why must it be the beginning of his service? First, there is “turn away from evil”: the first thing is to avoid the opposite of kabbolas ol, to avoid casting off the yoke. Certainly, casting off the yoke is the root of all sins and transgressions. Kabbolas ol keeps him from committing transgressions and restrains his senses—not to look, not to listen and not to speak inappropriately. These are all the matters described in chapter 2 of Hilchos Avodah Zarah: kabbolas ol so that he will not rebel. Second, the Rebbe adds in this chapter that kabbolas ol is also needed for “do good.” This, too, has two aspects. Why is kabbolas ol needed for “do good”? First, so that the person will not obstruct G-dliness, and holiness can rest within his soul. As long as he has no bittul, the resting of holiness within him is lacking. Love is not bittul. Kabbolas ol is bittul; awe is bittul. Beyond that, it is needed not only for the person to be a vessel, but for the very act of drawing down G-dliness. For a positive mitzvah to draw down G-dliness, that cannot come from an independent entity. An independent entity cannot draw down G-dliness, because he is a created being, and a created being cannot draw down the Creator. Drawing down the Creator, drawing down G-dliness, can come only from G-dliness, from the Creator. So a person must put himself completely aside and be nullified. Only then can the mitzvah draw down G-dliness, because the drawing down does not come from him; it comes from G-dliness. And that is understood specifically from the analogy of the ox. “To bring forth good from it for the world”: G-dliness is drawn into the world specifically through the yoke.

19:08 And here he concludes. According to this, we can understand very well what the Alter Rebbe says at the beginning of chapter 41. We asked—I don’t know if you remember, when we learned the beginning of the chapter—why does the Alter Rebbe say, “Although fear is the root of turning away from evil, and love of doing good, nevertheless, it is not enough to arouse love alone in order to do good”? Why mention fear here at all? He isn’t telling us anything new about fear in this chapter. We already discussed that turning away from evil requires fear, and here he says again that fear is necessary. The whole innovation seems to be about doing good: until now, we thought love was enough for that, and the Alter Rebbe comes and says no, doing good requires fear as well, not just love. So he could have begun, “Although love is the root of doing good, love alone is not enough.” Why mention fear, when he apparently adds nothing new about it? But then he explains: no, there is a remarkable innovation here concerning fear too. According to this explanation, what was the connection we learned in the earlier chapters between fear and turning away from evil? Fear keeps a person from committing a transgression.

21:08 He is afraid; he has fear. Fear, then, keeps him from doing wrong. But what the Alter Rebbe introduces in this chapter is not fear as a feeling of being afraid—being afraid to commit a transgression or to rebel against Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Rather, he teaches that there must be bittul, self-nullification. Without bittul, you aren’t really performing a mitzvah; the act doesn’t accomplish what it should. If you lack bittul and kabbolas ol, everything you do is an expression of your own self. You haven’t served Hakadosh Boruch Hu at all. There is no service of Hashem here, no bittul, because [unclear]. So this is what the Alter Rebbe introduces here: even when he speaks of fear as the root of turning away from evil, he means a different kind of fear. Not fear merely as a feeling: “I’m afraid of what will happen to me.” In that kind of fear, my own self is still felt. “I’m afraid to rebel against Hakadosh Boruch Hu”—but the focus can still be on myself. Fear, too, can actually be an expression of self. Here, though, the point is bittul: one’s own self is not felt. And it is specifically through bittul that turning away from evil becomes service of Hashem. Without bittul, even if a person doesn’t commit a transgression, it isn’t called service of Hashem. That is what the Alter Rebbe is explaining throughout this discussion. Do you understand what we’re talking about? This also answers another question we discussed: why does the Alter Rebbe say, “And love is the root

23:09 of doing good”? We asked: in chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe writes, “Love is the root of the 248 positive mitzvos.” Here he changes the wording and writes, “Love is the root of doing good.” He doesn’t say “the 248 positive mitzvos”; he says “doing good.” That is his innovation here. What does “doing good” mean? It means drawing down Divine kindness. When a person performs a mitzvah, there are two aspects to it. He does it because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants him to, and failing to do it would be very wrong. But there is another aspect to doing good: bringing good into the world, drawing down G-dliness and light into the world. A positive mitzvah isn’t just about avoiding something negative. I put on tefillin not only because failing to do so would be a transgression. I put on tefillin because through tefillin, G-dliness is drawn down into the world. So I might have thought: granted, one needs fear of Heaven and kabbolas ol even to put on tefillin—but for which aspect of tefillin? For the “turn away from evil” aspect: so that one won’t fail to put them on. For that, a person needs kabbolas ol. But no: even the “do good” aspect of tefillin—the positive effect of a mitzvah, through which Divine light is drawn down—requires kabbolas ol. For a positive mitzvah to draw light into the world, the “do good” must include kabbolas ol. Without bittul, no G-dliness is drawn down into the world. That is the point the Alter Rebbe explains here, and it is really the main innovation of this chapter: that the beginning, the essence, and the root of divine service is kabbolas ol. Now, what is the straightforward way people understand chapter 41? What is the Alter Rebbe coming to say there? Simply put,

25:05 a person has to know not to commit a transgression, not to cast off the yoke. Casting off the yoke is the root of all evil. So the first thing must be kabbolas ol. Without it, you haven’t even begun; it is the foundation of everything. In other words, kabbolas ol is needed as an expression of fear. But the Alter Rebbe’s innovation is something much deeper. Kabbolas ol must be the beginning of divine service because, without it, all the mitzvos accomplish nothing. They do not draw down G-dliness—neither on the person’s part, because he is not a vessel for holiness to rest upon, nor on the part of the drawing down itself. G-dliness is not drawn down through a sense of self; it is drawn down specifically through bittul. The Rebbe had an expression he would often quote in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe. It relates to an ox, on which a yoke is placed. The Rebbe said he had heard the Frierdiker Rebbe use the expression “an ol beheima” several times, but he didn’t know what it meant until the Frierdiker Rebbe explained it to him. “An ol beheima” is an animal with no owner. It wanders around with no one in charge of it. An animal that has an owner has someone to tell it what to do and look after it. But an animal with no owner comes and goes and does as it pleases; it has no yoke. The Rebbe used that expression many times: “an ol beheima”—a person who has no yoke upon himself.

27:29 In other words, there is no one to tell him what to do. On the contrary, he does what he wants. Even if he does good things, that isn’t service of Hashem. It has nothing to do with Torah study. Even if the things he does are good, he does them because he feels like it. There are many stories about this, but it’s already getting late. We’ll leave the stories for next time. In any case, this understanding of divine service in Tanya is a very fundamental point to grasp. Anyone who wants can look it up for themselves. As we said, it’s in chapter 7 of Chassidus Mevueres, where the Rebbe explains it himself.