Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 1

00:00 We’re up to chapter 42. Chapter 42 is a very important, foundational chapter in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe explains several fundamental points in serving Hashem specifically here in chapter 42. First, let’s explain how the discussion continues, so we know what the Alter Rebbe is coming to explain here. After that, we’ll begin looking inside the text. Chapter 42 is really a continuation of chapter 41. Everyone remembers, everyone knows that in chapter 41 the Alter Rebbe began explaining yirah tata’ah, the lower level of fear. The Alter Rebbe opened chapter 41: “One must always remember the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root”—the matter of fear of Heaven, yirah tata’ah, and kabbolas ol of the kingdom of Heaven. The Alter Rebbe explained that although we said in the previous chapters that “Torah without fear and love does not soar upward”—that for a person to succeed in serving Hashem, and for his Torah and mitzvos to ascend and connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the act of the mitzvah is not enough. Although the act is the main thing, and it makes the dwelling place in the lower worlds, for it to connect with G-dliness there must be love and fear. Love and fear are the wings, like the wings of a bird. The wings enable the bird to fly upward. In the same way, a person’s love and fear enable all his Torah and mitzvos to ascend and connect with G-dliness, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the Alter Rebbe explained that “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root” is specifically fear. And within fear itself, which kind of fear? Yirah tata’ah—the fear of rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every Jew has this by the nature of his soul. A Jew does not want to, and cannot, be separate from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A Jew has a fear, an awe; he does not want to rebel against the King. So this fear is there by nature. It needs to be brought from concealment into revelation. And the Alter Rebbe gave several levels, several

02:35 details and meditations one needs to engage in to awaken fear of Heaven. This goes as far as the point the Alter Rebbe brings there: “He looks upon him and examines his innermost thoughts and heart to see whether he serves Him properly; therefore, he must serve Him with dread and awe, as one standing before the king.” After that, the Alter Rebbe goes into all sorts of details—fear in the heart, fear in the mind, and different levels of it—but that is the general idea. That is what the Alter Rebbe discussed in chapter 41. But here I mean the first half of chapter 41. Then the Alter Rebbe turns to the subject of love. In the second half of chapter 41, the Alter Rebbe said that just as fear must be there, as “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root,” and one cannot do without it, fear alone is also not enough. If a person has only fear of Heaven and not a drop of love of Hashem, he is like a bird with one wing, missing the second wing. There must also be love. And within love itself, there must be active love—the fundamental love, the love that makes a person want to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through Torah and mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe discusses a number of details within this as well. That is the point of chapter 41. Continuing from this, the Alter Rebbe comes to chapter 42 and explains several more details about serving Hashem with fear of Heaven. That is mainly what chapter 42 is about. The Alter Rebbe returns to the beginning of chapter 41, as though there had been an aside here, almost as though the entire second half of chapter 41 had been in parentheses. Of course, you can’t call anything in Tanya an aside, can you? Every subject is of the greatest importance in its own right. But if you follow the flow of ideas in Tanya, it is as though the entire second half of chapter 41 was

04:24 something of an aside. Since the Alter Rebbe was speaking about fear and how vital fear of Heaven is, and about Raaya Mehemna, the Alter Rebbe wanted to say that love is vital too, and to give several details about love—what kind of love is the fundamental love that everyone needs. But now that he has finished with love, he returns to the beginning of chapter 41, to the subject of fear. Throughout chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe explains yirah tata’ah. Broadly speaking, chapter 42 is divided into three parts. In the first part, the Alter Rebbe explains how fear of Heaven is relevant to every single person. The Alter Rebbe gives several details showing how it is relevant to everyone, and how everyone can awaken fear of Heaven. Then, in the second part of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe explains that even so, although it is true that everyone has a connection to it and everyone can attain it, effort and toil are still needed to awaken it. It doesn’t mean that it is so simple. Everyone has it, and we have all the capacities for it, but because the soul has descended into a body, and because of the coarseness of the body, the animal soul, and all sorts of other factors, it takes toil of the soul and toil of the flesh. Then, at the end of the chapter, in its third part, the Alter Rebbe explains several more kinds of meditation. In addition to what he explained in chapter 41—the meditation on the King of kings and His blessed unity, everything he explained at the beginning of chapter 41—here in chapter 42, on the last two pages, the Alter Rebbe adds several more details, several more kinds of meditation, to awaken fear of Heaven and kabbolas ol of the kingdom of Heaven.

06:11 That is the general point of chapter 42. And there is another very important, lofty, and fundamental subject that we will learn, with Hashem’s help, in chapter 42: the subject of a rebbe. In chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe explains the subject of a rebbe, the subject of Moshe Rabbeinu. As is well known, the whole concept of a rebbe is something that was revealed by the Baal Shem Tov. In other words, it existed with Moshe Rabbeinu, but the revelation of this concept is one of the revelations of the teachings of Chassidus. Along with revealing the teachings of Chassidus, the Baal Shem Tov also revealed the idea that Moshe is present in every generation—the concept of a rebbe. From the time of the Baal Shem Tov, the whole subject of a rebbe, of the bond between a rebbe and a chossid, began to be revealed. There are several places in Tanya where the Alter Rebbe addresses the relationship between a rebbe and a chossid. One place everyone knows is at the beginning of Tanya, chapter 2. There the Alter Rebbe writes that the life of the G-dly soul comes through the rebbe, who is the brain. Right? It is like a body, which has fingernails and all its other limbs, and it has the brain. That is the nasi, the Rebbe, the head of the Jewish people, who is the brain that connects all the souls together. That is in chapter 2. Here in chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe returns to the subject of a rebbe in connection with fear of Heaven. So the Alter Rebbe will explain to us here that to have genuine fear of Heaven, one can receive it only through a bond with Moshe Rabbeinu. One can have fear of Heaven—an outward fear of Heaven, fear of Heaven of the kind found among the mussar people, as they say, the baalei mussar, yes.

07:52 So a person may have fear of Heaven because he’s afraid of punishment, or afraid of Gehinnom, or afraid of spirits—all kinds of things connected with Hashem. He has all sorts of fears like that, but this isn’t the pure fear of Heaven that Chassidus calls for. To have genuine fear of Heaven, the way is through connecting oneself to the Rebbe. That will also explain the whole subject of a Rebbe here in chapter 42. That’s what we’re discussing. There’s a saying, a story. Once, a bar mitzvah boy went in to the Frierdiker Rebbe for yechidus. This was already in America, in the later years. An American boy went in with his father to receive a blessing for his bar mitzvah. Apparently, they were close to Chassidus, perhaps baalei teshuvah. They weren’t chassidim; they were a family of friends who were close—I don’t know exactly. The father asked the Frierdiker Rebbe to bless his son for his bar mitzvah. The Frierdiker Rebbe told the boy: “Now that you’re being called up to the Torah, may Hakadosh Boruch Hu help you become a G-d-fearing Jew and a Torah scholar, and then you’ll also be a chossid.” That’s how the Frierdiker Rebbe put it: “Be G-d-fearing and a Torah scholar, and then you’ll also be a chossid.” Then the Frierdiker Rebbe explained why. Why would being G-d-fearing and a Torah scholar make him a chossid? The Frierdiker Rebbe explained it to him like this: “If you’re G-d-fearing without being a Torah scholar, that isn’t a chossid. In common parlance, that’s called a mussarnik, a follower of the Mussar movement. Mussarniks have fear of Heaven, but they don’t have the intellectual understanding. That’s without being a Torah scholar, without intellectual understanding. And if you’re a Torah scholar but don’t

09:58 have fear of Heaven, you’ll be a misnaged. Yes, a misnaged. If you’re…” When the Frierdiker Rebbe said “misnaged,” that’s interesting—did he mean a particular group? He meant the idea of a misnaged. Yes. In other words, someone who only studies Torah and has no fear of Heaven. If you study Torah without fear of Heaven, that’s a misnaged. If you have fear of Heaven but don’t study, you’ll be a mussarnik. But when Torah—being a Torah scholar—is joined with fear of Heaven, then you’re a chossid. A chossid is a Jew who has both Torah and fear of Heaven together. Fear of Heaven together with wisdom, not fear of Heaven alone—fear of Heaven that comes together with intellectual understanding. And that brings us back to our subject. Here the Alter Rebbe will explain how, specifically through connecting oneself to Moshe Rabbeinu, one can attain genuine fear of Heaven. So let’s continue. I’ll start chapter 42. “And with what was explained above concerning the lower level of fear”—what we explained earlier in chapter 41 about the lower level of fear—“we can well understand what the Gemara says about the verse, ‘And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, other than to fear Hashem your G-d?’” In Parshas Eikev, Moshe Rabbeinu says to the Jewish people: “And now, Israel”—“now,” yes? What does “now” mean? Now, after all forty years in the wilderness, as you’re about to enter the Land of Israel, Moshe Rabbeinu tells them: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu ask of you, the Jewish people? What does He ask? “Other than to fear”—He asks only that you have fear of Heaven. The Gemara asks: “Is fear of Heaven such a small matter?” Is fear

12:04 of Heaven a small thing? The verse says “other than to fear,” as though it were something small. Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t asking anything extraordinary of you; He’s asking for just one small thing: “other than to fear.” So the Gemara asks: Is fear of Heaven a small thing? That’s the Gemara’s question. Now, if we look at the Gemara, there are several other details there that the Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring here. It’s interesting—the Rebbe discusses why the Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring all the other details. The Gemara begins, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” That’s how it starts. I don’t remember right now whether it’s Rabbi Chanina or Abaye who says it: “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” In other words, everything comes from Above, in the hands of Heaven. It’s all through Divine providence from Above; Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it. But fear of Heaven is something each person has to achieve himself: “except fear of Heaven.” As it says, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, other than to fear?” So the Gemara cites that verse. The straightforward meaning is: What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu ask of you? Everything else is given to you from Above. The one thing you’re asked to do is “to fear.” The Gemara then goes on to ask: “Is fear of Heaven such a small matter?” Does “other than to fear” mean fear of Heaven is a small thing? Didn’t one of the Sages say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has nothing in His treasury except a storehouse of fear of Heaven? That is what’s found in the treasury of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: fear of Heaven. As it says, “The fear of Hashem is His treasure.” Fear

14:03 of Heaven is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s treasure—the treasure of fear of Heaven. But notice: he’ll bring this detail later, on page 61, the next page—the verse “The fear of Hashem is His treasure,” this idea of a treasure of fear of Heaven. But the Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring it here. The Gemara brings it as a challenge: How can you say fear of Heaven is a small matter? It says that fear of Heaven is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s treasure. He has nothing in His treasury except a storehouse of fear of Heaven. So it’s an extraordinarily lofty thing. How can you call it a small matter? Then the Gemara gives the answer that the Alter Rebbe will bring shortly: “Yes, for Moshe it is a small matter,” and so on. That’s the Gemara’s answer about why it’s called a small matter: it’s small in relation to Moshe. So the Rebbe asks: Why doesn’t the Alter Rebbe bring this whole section of the Gemara here? He doesn’t bring the Sages’ statement, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” Nor does he bring the Gemara’s subsequent proof that fear of Heaven is something lofty, a treasure of fear of Heaven. He doesn’t even write it where… Later on, he does write where the Gemara derives this point concerning Moshe. But on the main point itself, the Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring all this. Why not? It’s interesting. The Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation. The Gemara asks, “Is fear of Heaven such a small matter?” The question is that fear of Heaven isn’t a small thing. For whom is it not a small thing? There are

15:55 two aspects in which fear of Heaven is a great thing: for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and for the Jewish people. “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, other than to fear?” There is the One asking, and there are those being asked. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the One asking for fear of Heaven, and the Jewish people are the ones being asked. When the Gemara asks, “Is fear of Heaven such a small matter?”—is fear a small thing?—fear isn’t small; it’s a great thing. So the question applies from both sides: from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and from the perspective of the person. From a person’s perspective, of course, it’s obvious; there’s no need to bring proof. Fear of Heaven is no small thing for a person. Everyone sees that in himself every day. Ask anyone: Is it easy? Is it easy to be G-d-fearing? Anyone who thinks fear of Heaven is easy, raise your hand. Well, perhaps there are some boys for whom it comes easily, but I don’t think so. Maybe there are; I don’t know. But we all know that fear of Heaven is very hard. Plain fear of Heaven—we’re not talking about lofty levels, not love of Hashem or a higher fear of G-d. Simple fear of Heaven: for a young man to have fear in his heart, so that he actually takes care to turn away from evil and do good—that’s very hard. It takes exertion of both soul and body. The Gemara needs no proof for that; the question is obvious. But the Gemara’s question isn’t only from the perspective of the Jewish people. From the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, too, fear of Heaven is a great thing. And for that, the Gemara brings the statement of Rabbi Chanina, who says

17:36 There, there is fear of Heaven... “It is His treasure,” meaning that even from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, fear of Heaven is considered something lofty and great: Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s treasure, a treasure of fear of Heaven. That is the Gemara’s question from both sides. This also explains why the Gemara begins with the teaching of our Sages before bringing the verse: “Everything is in the hands of Heaven”—how does it say it there?—“Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven.” Seemingly, the Gemara did not need to bring that teaching at all. It could have asked its question about the verse itself. The verse says, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?” That itself implies that fear is a small thing, from the words “but to fear Him.” So the Gemara should have asked right there: “Is fear of Heaven a small matter?” Instead, the Gemara first brings the teaching, “Everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven,” then brings the verse “And now, Israel,” and only then asks its question. That is because the Gemara is asking a twofold question. Its question, “Is fear of Heaven a small matter?” is both from the person’s perspective and from the perspective of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. On the one hand, it sounds like a small thing, because it depends on the person; on the other hand, it sounds like a great thing, something great even to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is in the Gemara. Here in Tanya, though, the whole question of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective is not relevant right now. Here in Tanya, the Rebbe is speaking about the person. Tanya is a book for beinonim, and the Rebbe wants to explain avodas Hashem. He wants to explain, following what he said in chapter 41, that “the beginning of the service, and its mainstay and root” is fear of Heaven. Right? And the Rebbe explained that fear of Heaven exists naturally in every Jew; it only needs to be awakened. So the Rebbe

19:18 wants to explain all of this from the perspective of [unclear]. So here there is no need to ask what fear of Heaven is from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s perspective—whether it is a great thing or a small thing to Him. That is not relevant here. What matters here is only the perspective of the Jewish people. That is why the Alter Rebbe begins directly with the verse, without any introduction: “And now, Israel.” The one speaking to the Jewish people says to them, “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?” That implies that it is easy, something small even for those being asked—the Jewish people. And about that he asks, “Is fear a small matter?” Seemingly, for the Jewish people it is not a small matter. That is why he does not need to bring the continuation of the Gemara, which emphasizes fear of Heaven, because the question here is from the perspective of the Jewish people. From their perspective, no proof is needed that fear of Heaven is difficult. Everyone knows for themselves that fear of Heaven is difficult. This is an explanation of the Rebbe Rashab. The Rebbe Rashab explains it in a note that was recently discovered among the Rebbe’s notes on Tanya. In any event, back to our subject. The Alter Rebbe, then, brings the Gemara. The Gemara asks—as the Alter Rebbe cites it—on the one hand, the verse makes fear of Heaven sound like a small thing. So the Gemara asks: How can fear of Heaven be called a small thing? Fear of Heaven is something great, something difficult. And the Gemara answers: Yes, for Moshe it is a small matter. That is, for Moshe Rabbeinu. Who said “And now, Israel”? Moshe Rabbeinu said it. And for Moshe Rabbeinu, fear of Heaven is a small matter. That is what the Gemara says. The Alter Rebbe then asks: Seemingly, the answer is not understood,

21:00 for it says, “ask of you.” The Alter Rebbe asks a simple question: What kind of answer is that? How can the Gemara say that for Moshe it is a small matter? How can we say that this verse is referring to Moshe Rabbeinu—that for Moshe it is a small matter? Moshe may be the one who said it, and fear may be a small matter on Moshe’s level. But to whom is Moshe speaking? Moshe is speaking to the Jewish people: “And now, Israel,” “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” So how can Moshe Rabbeinu ask the Jewish people to regard fear as a small matter? For the Jewish people, it is not a small matter. “Ask of you”—of the Jewish people. For them it is not a small matter. So what does the Gemara mean by answering that for Moshe it is a small matter? Rather, the point is this. Here the Alter Rebbe gives the essence of the answer: Every single soul of the House of Israel contains an aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him. The Alter Rebbe explains that the Gemara means there is a Moshe Rabbeinu within every single person. When the Gemara says that for Moshe it is a small matter, it does not mean only Moshe himself. It means the Moshe within every person. When Moshe Rabbeinu speaks to the Jewish people and tells them, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?” he is speaking to the Moshe within each one of them. He is speaking to the spark of Moshe within every Jew. And to them he says, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem ask of you?” For the Moshe within every Jew, fear of Heaven is a small matter. What does it mean that every member of the House of Israel has an aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu? The Alter Rebbe explains: Because he is one of the seven shepherds who draw down vitality and G-dliness to the Jewish souls as a whole. Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the seven shepherds who bring vitality and G-dliness into Jewish souls. What are the seven shepherds? The Alter Rebbe says they are

23:16 called “shepherds.” There is this idea of the seven shepherds. A shepherd—a pastor, pastor, that is what it is in English—is someone who feeds and sustains the flock. So Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the seven shepherds. The seven shepherds are mentioned in the Gemara in Sukkah. It says there, “And I will raise up against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men.” And the Gemara lists who the seven shepherds are. There are two—there are two sets of seven shepherds: the seven shepherds mentioned in the Gemara in Sukkah, and the seven shepherds mentioned in the Zohar in connection with Sukkos. Who are the seven shepherds in the Gemara in Sukkah? Adam, Mesushelach, Chanoch, Avraham, Yaakov, and David. I don’t think so. Ah, no. Yaakov, Moshe, and David. No. Avraham, Moshe, and David. I can’t remember anymore. Avraham, Mesushelach, Chanoch, Avraham... Yaakov, Moshe, and David. Why? Yitzchak is among the princes. After all, there is one prince in the world. That is in the Gemara in Sukkah. So there, the seven shepherds means something different. Then there are the ushpizin we speak of on Sukkos: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef, and David. What the two lists have in common is that Moshe is one of the shepherds in both. Or, as the Rebbe explains later, he is not merely one of the shepherds. Hm? There is a hint here. Hm? He is not merely one of the shepherds. He is all—all the shepherds. Right? All the shepherds. The shepherd of them all. We will soon see what this means. But in any event, these are the seven shepherds. All right, just one more point, and with that we will finish. The Rebbe says here that the seven shepherds draw down vitality and G-dliness. Now, as is well known, there is a story handed down among chassidim about the Rebbe—about the Rebbe himself. It is not certain, yes?—that the Rebbe spent several weeks on this one letter: whether to write it with a vav or without one.

25:48 It is one of the stories illustrating how the Rebbe labored over Tanya, over every letter and every word. The story concerns these words, “vitality and G-dliness.” The Rebbe was unsure whether to write “vitality and G-dliness” or “G-dly vitality.” He spent weeks on it, until he finally decided to write it with a vav: “vitality and G-dliness.” The chassidim explained—what exactly the Rebbe spent six weeks on, we do not know. But in any event, the point the chassidim explained was this: What is the difference? What does “vitality and G-dliness” mean? They are two things. The chassidim explained that “vitality” means love and fear, while “G-dliness” means bittul, self-nullification. And these are two aspects of Moshe Rabbeinu: as the shepherd of Israel, he draws down vitality—love and fear—and beyond that, he draws down bittul, the aspect of G-dliness. With Hashem’s help, we will explain this next time.