Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 3

00:02 The Alter Rebbe brings up here the idea that “fear is a small matter.” The Gemara asks: Is fear really a small matter? And the Gemara answers that for Moshe, it is a small matter. So the Alter Rebbe asks: The verse says “of you,” meaning that this is asked of every Jew. What does it mean to say that it is a small matter for Moshe? The Alter Rebbe explains that every soul of the Jewish people, every Jew, has within it an aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu. When the Gemara says that it is a small matter for Moshe, it means the aspect of Moshe within each and every Jew. What is this aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu? The Alter Rebbe explains that Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the seven shepherds, who draw down life and G-dliness to the souls of the Jewish people. More specifically, Moshe Rabbeinu is the general shepherd: he imparts not just particular qualities, but the entire faculty of daas. Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul is rooted in the supernal daas of Atzilus, and from there he draws down daas to all Jews, enabling them to know Hashem. The capacity a Jew has to know Hakadosh Boruch Hu—we receive that from Moshe Rabbeinu. So each of us has this capacity, and because of it, fear of Heaven is a small matter. Through the soul’s faculty of daas, which enables it to know Hashem, each person can attain fear of Heaven as a small matter. That brings us to what the Alter Rebbe says here. Before we continue, there are two or three points from what we read in the previous class that we did not have time to explain. One is the Alter Rebbe’s wording here, “each according to the capacity of his soul’s understanding and its root above.” Every Jew

02:17 has the daas we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu, “each according to the capacity of his soul’s understanding and its root above.” It is explained elsewhere that “the capacity of his soul’s understanding” refers to the faculties through which he understands. Each person has a different capacity for understanding in the soul. One person has a stronger faculty of chochmah, another has a stronger faculty of binah, and another has a stronger ability to explain [?]. So there are the faculties of understanding—“the capacity of his soul’s understanding.” Each person understands in a different way because of those faculties of the soul. Then there is the further matter of “its root above.” Besides the faculties of understanding, there is also the soul’s root above, and each person has a different root. A person might have a tremendous capacity for understanding, but the question is where the root of his soul is. Souls have their roots at different levels. For example, there is the well-known story about the Arizal and the Alshich. Some say the story was about Abaye and Rava, but in some places it says it was about the Alshich, if I’m not mistaken. The Alshich would come to the Arizal’s afternoon classes in Kabbalah, and he would fall asleep. It happened again and again. He felt very humbled by this, and the Alshich was no ordinary person. He was a great Torah scholar of a very high level. Many experts in these matters draw on the Alshich’s commentary. Yet he could not understand the Arizal’s classes. This caused him great distress, until one day he spoke to the Arizal about it. The Arizal told him that his soul came from the branch of derush, and so he was suited to understanding derush. His soul, however, did not belong to

04:15 the world of Kabbalah, and that was why he did not understand Kabbalah. In other words, in terms of his soul’s capacity for understanding, he had the faculties to grasp a subject broadly and in depth. Nevertheless, his root was in the world of derush. There are souls suited to pshat, such as Rashi’s, while the Ramban’s soul was rooted in the world of Kabbalah. Every soul has its root in a particular world. There are several aspects to this. One is that the world from which a soul receives determines which kind of subject it takes in more readily than another. Something similar is told about the Rogatchover. The Rebbe once related a story about the Rogatchover, who was once with the Rebbe Rashab when the Rebbe Rashab delivered a maamar. He did not quite understand its depth. A question about the maamar troubled him, and he was very distressed. The Rebbe Rashab told him not to be upset. Why? Because when he was a child, his father—what was his father’s name? [unclear]—his father was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek, and he took him to the Tzemach Tzedek as a young child. The Tzemach Tzedek placed his hand on the Rogatchover’s head and blessed him to become a genius in nigleh, the revealed dimension of Torah. So my grandfather blessed you to be a genius in nigleh. He did not bless you to be a genius in nistar, the hidden dimension of Torah. Naturally, that is where your aptitude lies—in nigleh. And that was true. In any case, we see from this that souls differ in their levels not only because of their faculties of understanding, but also because of their roots above. Those are the two expressions the Alter Rebbe uses here. So, in general, every Jew has the faculty of daas, which

06:05 we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu—daas in G-dliness, the capacity to know G-dliness. Nevertheless, there are differences in how fully it is expressed: more in one person, less in another. But everyone has the essential capacity for daas in G-dliness, and therefore everyone can attain fear of Heaven. For Moshe, fear of Heaven is a small matter, and that refers to the aspect of daas within the soul. There is another point here. The Alter Rebbe says that Moshe Rabbeinu is rooted in the supernal daas of the sefiros of Atzilus. So he emphasizes supernal daas. What is the significance of that emphasis? As is well known in Chassidus, there are two levels of daas: lower daas and supernal daas. What is the difference between them? There are several ways to explain it, at different levels. One explanation is given at length by the Tzemach Tzedek in Derech Mitzvosecha: lower daas is the daas of souls from Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, and involves bittul hayesh, the self-nullification of an existent being. Supernal daas belongs to souls of Atzilus and involves bittul bimetzius, complete self-nullification. Daas means attachment. But when a person attaches himself to G-dliness as a soul from Beriah, Yetzirah, or Asiyah, he cannot reach bittul bimetzius. The most such a soul can attain is bittul hayesh. Why? Because a soul from those worlds is a created being; it has an existence of its own. So the highest level of attachment to G-dliness it can attain is bittul hayesh, and this is called lower daas. A soul of Atzilus, by contrast, can attain attachment to G-dliness on the level of supernal daas, bittul bimetzius. In the Tzemach Tzedek’s terminology, these are called “the seed of man” and “the seed of beast.” Souls of Atzilus are called “the seed of man,” and souls of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah are called

08:15 “the seed of beast.” Why are they called “the seed of beast”? Because in relation to supernal daas, they are considered like animals, as beings with a sense of self. An animal represents this sense of independent existence. So in relation to true self-nullification, their self-nullification is not considered complete. That is why they are called “the seed of beast”: their self-nullification is only bittul hayesh. They lack complete self-nullification, bittul bimetzius. Accordingly, the Alter Rebbe does not merely say that Moshe Rabbeinu is rooted in daas; Moshe Rabbeinu is rooted in supernal daas. That is one explanation, on a relatively lower level. A higher explanation appears in the Rebbe Rashab’s maamarim of 5666, and the Rebbe cites it in several places. On this level, the distinction between lower and supernal daas exists even within Atzilus. Everyone familiar with diagrams of the sefiros knows that there are two ways of drawing them. Where do we find a diagram of the sefiros? On the title page of Tanya there is a diagram with all ten sefiros. I don’t remember whether it runs from top to bottom or bottom to top, but the sefiros are arranged in their usual order: chochmah, binah, daas, one beneath the other. There is also a diagram of the ten sefiros arranged in three columns: chochmah on the right, binah on the left, daas in the middle; chesed on the right, gevurah on the left, tiferes in the middle; netzach on the right, hod on the left, and yesod in the middle. That shows the ten sefiros divided into the right, left, and middle columns. The difference between these two arrangements is where daas is placed. When the sefiros are drawn one beneath the other, where is daas? Between binah and chesed—that is, between the intellectual faculties and the emotions. And what is daas’s function there? Its function is to connect and link the intellectual faculties

10:12 with the middos. As the Rebbe explains in Tanya, chapter 3, what is the role of daas? Through the mind’s connection to and contemplation of a subject, daas acts upon binah to give rise to middos, so that they will be genuine feelings of love and awe, rather than groundless imaginings without daas. So here daas connects binah with chessed—that is, the intellect with the middos. But if we draw the diagram with daas on the middle line, then daas is beneath keser. That means daas has a direct line to keser. It is on the middle line, beneath keser, and its role is to connect chochmah and binah. It does not only connect the intellect with the middos; it also connects chochmah and binah. That is a higher dimension of daas. It is not only that daas has the power to connect intellect with feeling, to connect what a person understands with the feelings of the heart, so that a feeling in the heart emerges from it. That too is daas, but it is a lower level of daas, because middos already involve a defined existence. A feeling already has a defined existence; it brings the idea down to a lower level. By contrast, daas elyon is the daas that receives from keser. The inner power of keser shines within daas, and simplicity shines within daas. What is keser? Keser is the simplicity of the Infinite. The inner dimension of keser in particular is infinite simplicity. It is the deepest level of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, as He is beyond any form, and it is revealed in daas. This is the true explanation of what Tanya means here when it says that Moshe Rabbeinu is daas elyon. Moshe Rabbeinu is not merely a level of daas connected with the middos, which would already give it a connection to middos—and middos already have a defined form. Even in Atzilus, that is already

11:58 a matter of form, of definition. So we say more than that: the root of Moshe Rabbeinu is in the daas of Zeir Anpin. The root of Moshe Rabbeinu is this level of the daas of Zeir Anpin, where the inner dimension of keser shines. That is what is meant when we say that daas is keser. What does that mean? [unclear] Yes, bleiben sitzen. [unclear] Yes, the daas of Zeir Anpin means this level of daas, where the inner dimension of keser shines. In other words, G-dliness shines there as it exists in its truest state, without form, without limitation, [unclear] tzimtzumim. This is Moshe Rabbeinu’s power: the daas of Zeir Anpin. And because Moshe Rabbeinu possessed the daas of Zeir Anpin—daas on a higher level—he could draw daas all the way down to the lowest levels. This is explained in the maamarim. We learned it on Shabbos, in the maamar of... that the Rebbe... It is explained in the maamarim that “Moshe, Moshe” is written without the cantillation marks and without a break. With Moshe Rabbeinu, his name is written twice without a break. That means that even as Moshe Rabbeinu was here below, the highest level of daas shone within him. That is why he, specifically, draws true bittul, true feeling, true comprehension—the power of daas to know Hashem—into the souls of the Jewish people. Through this, a Jew can serve Hashem to the point of awe, so that in relation to this level, awe is a small matter. In any case, that is the point we have discussed up to here, on page 50: “from the root of his soul, which is in the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation,” and afterward, “an opening of the heart.” Now the Alter Rebbe speaks of another thing we receive through Moshe Rabbeinu, but in a different way. In other words, this is another aspect of Moshe in every generation, but it comes in a different form. The Alter Rebbe says—let’s look inside—

13:59 “Furthermore.” You all have the Tanya in front of you: “the root of his soul, which is in the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation.” “Furthermore, beyond this”—something additional to what we said before. There is the influence of Moshe Rabbeinu, through which he draws daas to all souls. The Alter Rebbe says: “Furthermore, beyond this.” There is something still greater, still higher. “In every generation, sparks descend.” In every generation, sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu descend into the world. “Sparks from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, descend.” Sparks from Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul descend into the world and are invested in the body and soul of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation. They are invested in the body and soul of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation. This refers to many of the tzaddikim in whom sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu are invested. It says: “in the body and soul of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation, to teach the people daas.” Through the sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu within them, they have the power to teach the people daas, “to know the greatness of Hashem and to serve Him with heart and soul.” To know the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and serve Hashem with all one’s heart and all one’s soul. What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? He is adding something. What is he adding now? Earlier we discussed the influence that the souls of the entire Jewish people receive through Moshe Rabbeinu. Every Jew has something of Moshe Rabbeinu within him: the faculty of daas, to know Hashem. We receive that through Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu has a direct influence on the soul even now. Moshe Rabbeinu lived some three thousand three hundred years ago, but nevertheless, as the Gemara says in Sotah, “Just as he stood and served there, so too he stands and serves here.” In other words, even now, after his passing, Moshe Rabbeinu continues to impart life to the souls of the Jewish people. This is what the Gemara means when it says that Moshe did not die. That

16:15 means there is an aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu that continues even now to influence the soul, to impart daas to the souls of the Jewish people. That is one kind of influence. The Alter Rebbe adds that there is another way Moshe Rabbeinu reaches us: through the tzaddikim. In every generation there are Jews who are the tzaddikim of that generation, its sages, and a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu is invested in their bodies and souls. What is the main point here? Why is it not enough to receive from Moshe Rabbeinu directly? Why must we receive something further through the sages of the generation, the eyes of the congregation? So, the distinction is—one of the distinctions, one of the points, is that what we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu is, as the Alter Rebbe said earlier, the level of daas. From Moshe Rabbeinu we receive the power of daas, the ability to know Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every Jew receives through Moshe Rabbeinu the ability to understand and know, to attain knowledge of G-dliness. Here the Alter Rebbe adds something else. Here he says: “to know the greatness of Hashem and to serve Him with heart and soul.” In other words, what comes through the spark of Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation is not only the power to know Hashem, but also for that knowledge of Hashem to produce a result. A person may know about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but that knowledge may not affect his service of the heart. It may not descend and penetrate him in a way that affects his service of the heart. That is the role of a rav, a tzaddik, a nasi of the Jewish people in every generation: they ensure that it does not remain merely knowledge of Hashem, but that this knowledge penetrates the heart and soul as well. In other words, daas also comes to expression in love and awe, along the lines of what we said earlier.

18:27 There are two aspects of daas. There is the higher daas, the essence of daas itself, which is not connected to the middos. It is the daas through which a person connects to G-dliness, the higher daas, where the inner depth of that connection lies. And there is the lower daas, which makes the connection. In other words, higher daas connects chochmah, while lower daas connects it with the middos. So both levels come into play, and these are the two things the Alter Rebbe has been addressing here. The Alter Rebbe spoke about the essence of daas: the higher daas, the power a Jew has to connect chochmah, to connect profound matters of G-dliness to his soul, so that the G-dliness he believes in becomes something he sees and desires. That is one thing we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. Beyond that, it must not remain only in daas. That daas must then come to life, bringing vitality into the middos and not remaining only within the soul. That comes through the sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu. That is one point. But there is another point here: the Alter Rebbe uses the word “spark.” He says here that there is a spark. “Spark” is a precise word, and it also explains the extent of what is revealed here. What is a tzaddik? What is a Rebbe? The Alter Rebbe specifically says “spark.” Another remarkable thing the Alter Rebbe says here, which I had not noticed, is that these sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu become enclothed in the body and soul. In other words, the Alter Rebbe says not only in the soul, but in the body as well. It is not only the tzaddik’s soul that has something of Moshe Rabbeinu in it; the spark of Moshe is enclothed in the tzaddik’s body too. And to leave no room for misunderstanding, the Alter Rebbe mentions the body before the soul. In other words, I might have thought that Moshe Rabbeinu is enclothed primarily in the tzaddik’s soul. Incidentally, since the wording says that it is enclothed in the body, it follows that there is

20:24 an effect on the body too. So the Alter Rebbe writes “body” first, and then “soul.” That emphasizes that the spark of Moshe Rabbeinu is drawn into the tzaddik’s body from the outset. There is a direct flow into the tzaddik’s body. In the Rebbe’s body there is a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu. What does “spark” mean? A spark is part of the fire itself. It is not merely the fire’s light. A spark is a tiny piece of the fire itself that comes away. It is something tangible, something of its very substance. This is how the Alter Rebbe explains the difference between the first point and the second. What we discussed earlier—what Moshe has and what each and every person has, the Moshe within each person—is a spiritual matter, a root. We have the light of Moshe Rabbeinu, a connection with him. Yes, that has more to do with the spiritual light we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. But into the tzaddik, an actual spark is drawn. In other words, the tzaddik in every generation has a spark within him. He has something substantial, some minute trace of Moshe Rabbeinu’s very essence—a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, a trace of his essence, present in his body. And the Rebbe emphasizes that this spark is found both in the tzaddik’s body and in his soul. Because the tzaddik’s soul has a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, the tzaddik has the power, as the Rebbe says, to teach the people daas. He can teach G-dliness, teach righteousness, teach the people daas, so that they know Hashem’s greatness and serve Him with heart and soul. He can speak to them about all matters of Hashem; that is what the tzaddik speaks about. He has this power because he is a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu. That is the aspect of his soul. And there is also the tzaddik’s body. The Rebbe does not write it explicitly here, but it is explained in Chassidus, and the Rebbe also brought up this point in [unclear]

22:35 and added the matter of light as well. The Rebbe received this teaching: looking at a tzaddik’s face is a segulah for yiras Shamayim. There is the whole matter of seeing—simply looking at the tzaddik, looking at a tzaddik’s face. The very act of seeing him brings about yiras Shamayim. As brought in Hayom Yom, seeing a tzaddik has an effect. Indeed, this is mentioned in a number of places, this whole matter of looking at and seeing the tzaddik. We also saw this among the students of the Baal Shem Tov, and with the Baal Shem Tov himself. There were even tzaddikim among the Baal Shem Tov’s students who would not deliver Torah teachings. Why? There were tzaddikim who did not deliver Torah teachings, yet people would travel to them just to see them. That itself was the point. As we can understand from what the Alter Rebbe writes here in Tanya, the very sight of them had an effect, because a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu is enclothed in the tzaddik’s body. So merely looking at the tzaddik’s body has an effect. And as is also added there, this is something we can see for ourselves: when you look at the Rebbe, you never tire of it. You do not get your fill. A person can keep looking and looking, and never feel, “That’s it, I’ve looked enough.” In other words, this is something spiritual. There is something G-dly here, something exalted revealed in the tzaddik’s body, which is why you can look at the tzaddik’s face and never get your fill. For there is a spark of the higher daas here, a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu drawn into the tzaddik’s body—his body. It is not that it is drawn into the soul and reaches the body through the soul,

24:26 but that it is drawn into the tzaddik’s body from the outset. On this, the Rebbe wrote—even speaking after Yud Shvat, after the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe—about this same power of looking at the Rebbe’s face. Even now, one can do this through a photograph. This is something new that the Rebbe revealed, and through it the Rebbe also gave us the ability to do so today. We cannot see the Rebbe with our physical eyes, but we can see him by looking at his photograph. Even if one is not watching a video of him, a photograph of the Rebbe shows the tzaddik’s appearance, and the very act of looking at the Rebbe’s face brings about yiras Shamayim. All this is because the spark is present there, as we said. So in a certain sense, looking at the Rebbe’s face can sometimes accomplish even more than learning a maamar, learning a story, or doing other things, because there is a special power in seeing the tzaddik. In fact, the Rebbe’s side of this was also revealed recently, in what is displayed here outside, in the photograph hanging outside. The Rebbe himself wrote that when a chossid looks at the Rebbe, since the Rebbe is the faithful shepherd of the Jewish people, their true shepherd, at that very moment the Rebbe is also looking at the chossid. That too is something we did not know until the Rebbe himself revealed it. When a chossid looks at the Rebbe’s face, this brings a response from the tzaddik’s light: the Rebbe looks at him in return. Indeed, the Rebbe looks at the chossid first, and that awakens the chossid to look at the Rebbe. In any case,

26:20 this is something one needs to get used to. A chossid needs to make a practice of seeing the tzaddik. He looks at the Rebbe’s face, and that has a very great effect on his soul in matters of yiras Shamayim. But of course, as it says in Hayom Yom, “Seeing a tzaddik alone is not enough.” Just going out into the street and looking at a photograph of the Rebbe is not enough either, because on its own that is an external effect, something that remains an encompassing influence. For daas to be drawn inward and kindle the heart, one must learn the Rebbe’s maamarim and sichos. That is how one receives daas. As the Rebbe says here, “to teach daas ... to know the greatness of Hashem ... and to believe ...”