Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 5

00:01 Speaker 1 We’re on page 59, two lines from the bottom. “And the essence of daas.” The Alter Rebbe is explaining the passage about “For Moshe, it is a small matter.” The Gemara says this in connection with the verse, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?” The Gemara asks: Is fear of Hashem a small matter? And it answers: For Moshe, it is a small matter. The Alter Rebbe explains that “for Moshe” refers to every Jew—to the aspect of Moshe that each person has. For that aspect of Moshe, it is a small matter. What is this aspect of Moshe within each person? So far, the Alter Rebbe has explained two things. First, what we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu: he gives every Jew a vitality in G-dliness. In other words, a Jew’s feeling for G-dliness, his vitality in G-dliness, comes through Moshe Rabbeinu, the shepherd who draws the holiness of G-dliness into the souls of the Jewish people. That is one way. Then there is another matter: in every generation, sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul are invested in the bodies and souls of the sages of the generation, the eyes of the community. The Alter Rebbe continues below with a third point: “And the essence of daas is not knowledge alone—knowing the greatness of Hashem from teachers and from books.” The Alter Rebbe is saying that the essence of daas is not simply knowing, even when a person learns of Hashem’s greatness from teachers and books. “Rather, the main thing is to deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem and to firmly fix one’s thought on Hashem, with strength and resolve of heart and mind.” The essence of daas is that a person delves deeply into Hashem’s greatness. Until now, the Alter Rebbe has been speaking about things received from above, things that come from Moshe Rabbeinu from above downward. That is, there is the matter of

03:25 Speaker 1 what he said earlier. The first thing is the vitality in G-dliness that we receive through Moshe Rabbeinu. Then there is the matter of the Moshe Rabbeinu of each generation teaching daas. All of this is something we receive—either a feeling for G-dliness or knowledge, understanding and comprehension of G-dliness. Here the Alter Rebbe adds a third point: what a person does through his own avodah. The essence of daas, says the Alter Rebbe, is not what you receive from above downward, what Moshe Rabbeinu gives you, or what you receive from the holy tzaddik, from the Rebbe, from the spark that teaches you daas. The essence of daas is a Jew’s own effort to connect himself to G-dliness through his avodah. “Rather, the main thing is to deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem.” The essence of daas is that a person delves deeply into Hashem’s greatness and firmly fixes his thought on Hashem. “To deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem” means that a person needs depth of daas. He needs to immerse himself deeply in the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “And to firmly fix one’s thought on Hashem.” What is the difference between the two? In the first phrase, the Alter Rebbe says “in the greatness of Hashem”; in the second, he says “on Hashem.” There is another difference: first he says “to deepen one’s daas,” and then “to firmly fix one’s thought.” So the first concerns depth of daas—daas, understanding, comprehension and perspective. “To deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem”: the greatness of Hashem means the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, matters of G-dliness that can be grasped intellectually. Hashem’s greatness refers to aspects of G-dliness that relate to comprehending greatness—yes, sorry, I mean aspects of the greatness

05:45 Speaker 1 of Hashem: the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu within the worlds and His greatness beyond the worlds. The greatness of memalei kol almin, the greatness of sovev kol almin—all kinds of matters concerning Hashem’s greatness. About these, it says to deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem. A person must deepen his daas. You could study Hashem’s greatness the way you study some philosophy: you learn it and understand the subject, but you don’t enter into it. “To deepen one’s daas in the greatness of Hashem” means studying it in a way that you are immersed in it. We’ll see how the Alter Rebbe spells this out. That is the first point. The second is that the Alter Rebbe says, “to firmly fix one’s thought on Hashem.” That means one’s thinking in general should be connected to G-dliness. Here the Alter Rebbe does not say daas; he says thought, the faculty of thought. The faculty of thought needs to be connected to Hashem. Here he does not refer to Hashem’s greatness; he speaks of Hashem Himself. A person’s thoughts should habitually turn to matters of G-dliness. His mind should be fixed on G-dliness. Where is his mind? His mind is on Hashem. In every spare moment, what does he think about? G-dliness. The emphasis here is not on Hashem’s greatness—a particular aspect or detail of G-dliness—but on his thought being connected to G-dliness in general. These are the two details the Alter Rebbe gives as the essence of daas in relation to Hashem: a person must deepen his daas in Hashem’s greatness, delving deeply into the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and his mind in general must be fixed there, immersed in G-dliness. Where is it? Where does his mind rest? On matters of G-dliness. “With strength and resolve of heart and mind.” In what

07:42 Speaker 1 way must one deepen one’s daas? The Alter Rebbe says, “With strength and resolve of heart and mind”—with all one’s strength and determination, “until his thought is bound to Hashem with a firm bond.” His thoughts should be so strongly bound to G-dliness, with such a firm bond, “as they are bound to a physical thing that he sees with his eyes of flesh.” When a person sees a physical thing right before his eyes, he is engaged with it as something real. He lives with it, sees it; it is present to him and becomes part of him. He thinks about it and delves into what he sees before him. That is an inner, deep connection. The same applies here: a person should bind himself so closely to G-dliness, be so immersed in it and so connected to it, that G-dliness becomes something tangible to him, something that becomes part of him. Daas, then, is not merely looking at something, as in “And Adam knew,” and so on. That is what daas means: connection. That is why the verse says, “And Adam knew.” The Alter Rebbe explained this at length in chapter 3 of Tanya. There he explains at length what the faculty of daas is. What is the new point? Daas is not just another level of understanding and comprehension. There is chochmah, binah and daas. Chochmah is when a person grasps the foundations of an idea; he has its central point. Binah is when he develops that point. Chochmah and binah are both faculties of intellectual grasp and understanding: a person grasps an idea and then understands it in all its details, down to the finest detail. That is chochmah and binah. As long as a person’s understanding is incomplete, he cannot yet move on to the stage of daas. If so,

09:41 Speaker 1 So it turns out that daas is not another level of understanding—a deeper understanding, more and more details, until in the end I understand it better. No, all of that is binah. As long as you still need further explanation to understand the subject, the discussion, the maamar, the G-dly concept, that is still binah. So what does daas do? I’ve already understood it. Daas is one of the intellectual faculties, so what does it do? If there’s something I haven’t understood, then my binah is still lacking. And once I’ve understood it fully, I’ve understood it fully. What do I need daas for? What is its function? As explained here—and earlier, in chapter 3—the defining feature of daas is connection. In other words, daas is not more understanding or further explanation of the subject. Daas is when a person connects with what he understands. That is what connection means: a person connects with the idea he understands. You can study an idea and understand every last detail, but you and the idea remain two separate things. I’ve understood something abstract, something lofty, something good, but it has no connection to me. The power of daas is that after all that work, you return to the idea and connect with it. So the Alter Rebbe says here, with the strength and resolve of your heart and mind, you return to the idea again and again and again, until it becomes something where you and it are one—it becomes part of you. It is like a physical thing: in my mind, it is not something outside of me. You and the thing actually become one. It unites with me, and I feel it as a part of myself. There are many stories and teachings about this

11:23 Speaker 1 and explanations concerning this power of daas. And for the Alter Rebbe, daas is an especially central matter. In discussing daas, he cites something that the Rebbe brings. First, the Rebbe quotes the holy Shelah: “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him; the G-d of my father, and I will exalt Him,” in connection with daas. The Shelah explains the verse, “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him; the G-d of my father, and I will exalt Him.” The Shelah asks: Why, seemingly, the repetition? “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him”—He is my G-d, and I beautify Him. Fine. “The G-d of my father, and I will exalt Him”—seemingly the same thing. What is the difference? So the Rebbe explains that “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him”—the word translated “I will glorify Him,” ve’anveihu, can be read as ani vaHu, “I and He.” In other words, I and He together, in a single word. One word in which I and He become one. The Shelah is saying that when it is “my G-d,” when a person uses his power of daas, G-dliness becomes one with him. That is “This is my G-d.” When he reaches that point, it becomes “I and He”—I and He are united. The person and G-dliness become one. That is daas. By contrast, with “the G-d of my father,” a person can study Chassidus and study these things, but it remains “the G-d of my father”—my father’s. It is something my father knows, as though it were knowledge outside of me. Then “I will exalt Him,” from the word for exaltedness, means that it remains something exalted, something lofty. It is not his own. The chassidim tell a story about this. The Rebbe also told it once at a farbrengen—the well-known story about Reb Michoel der Alter. Reb Michoel der Alter was a mashpia in Tomchei Temimim, and he was known as the boys’ mother. He was very devoted to the students. So they said of Reb Michoel der Alter

13:15 Speaker 1 that he was... The Rebbe once related that at a farbrengen, Reb Michoel der Alter would farbreng with the students and demand of them that they develop daas. He would tell them a story. What was the story? There was once a man who lived in a village. The people living there were village settlers, people from... people of the village, campesinos, or

13:37 Speaker 2 [unclear]

13:39 Speaker 1 who could not read or write; they knew nothing. They had a teacher whom they paid. The teacher not only taught the children; he was also, in a sense, the rabbi. He took care of whatever needed doing in the village, since the surrounding villagers were non-Jews. So the Jewish villager employed the teacher to help him with various things. One day, a letter arrived from the big city. The villager could not read it, so he called the teacher, and the teacher began to read. The letter said that the villager’s father had passed away. At that moment, the villager collapsed and fainted, while the teacher went on reading as though nothing had happened. So Reb Michoel der Alter asked: “Who read the letter?” The teacher read it. If so, why did the villager faint? The teacher was the one reading; the teacher should have fainted! The answer is that it was the villager’s father, not the teacher’s. “Zayn tate”—his own father. When it is your father, you faint. It was not the teacher’s father, so it did not touch him. Along these lines, he said, this is the meaning of daas—connection. You can study Chassidus and know Chassidus and have all of it, but nevertheless it can remain outside of you. You have intellectual knowledge and understanding, but as long as there is no connection—as long as you do not connect yourself to the idea, become absorbed in it and live with it until you and the idea become one—then it is not your father. You are studying about someone

15:22 Speaker 1 else’s father. You are studying great and wondrous things, but they are not mine; they have not become part of me. That is the point of daas. That is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. So it is not enough that Moshe Rabbeinu gave every Jew a portion of G-dliness. It is me, a portion of G-dliness within me from above. But if you do not work on it and develop it, it will sit there [unclear]. Similarly, it is not enough to study the teachings of your Rebbe. That is the second point. Even if you traveled to the Rebbe, or took the maamarim and studied your Rebbe’s teachings—your Rebbe teaches you daas, gives you maamarim, gives you Chassidus—you can study many maamarim and a great deal of Chassidus and nevertheless remain outside of it. Why? Because you study it as something that came from someone else. It does not touch me. So this is what the Alter Rebbe demands here: the essence of daas is not what a person receives, but what it brings about. The main point of daas is the work a person must do with himself, work within his soul: to deepen his awareness of the greatness of Hashem and fix his thoughts on it with the strength and resolve of his heart, connecting so deeply with the idea that it becomes part of him. The Alter Rebbe says here that this connection must be like one’s connection to a physical thing seen with one’s own eyes. What does he mean—that it must be like one’s connection to a physical thing one sees? The chassidim say that this is also the role of a Rebbe. What helps with this, too, is having a Rebbe: one’s connection to G-dliness should be like one’s connection to a physical thing.

17:26 Speaker 1 The Rebbe also spoke about this once, in several... One of the innovations the Baal Shem Tov introduced was the idea of connecting to a Rebbe. So what is it that we see in a Rebbe? In the Rebbe, we see G-dliness clothed in a physical form. That is, you see a human being of flesh and blood, and yet you look at him and consider who he is and how he lives. His life doesn’t fit the usual rules at all. He is a human being, a G-dly person. On the one hand, he is clothed in flesh and blood, in a body; on the other hand, he is a G-dly person. [unclear] So this idea... The Rebbe once related, for example, after the passing of the Frierdiker Rebbe in 5710, that with the Frierdiker Rebbe you could see this quite literally and tangibly. The Frierdiker Rebbe was physically ill, and ill to such an extent that the doctors said he could not live. This was already in 5693, when the Frierdiker Rebbe became ill, and the doctors told him he did not have much time left—another few weeks or months. Nevertheless, the Frierdiker Rebbe managed to continue, even though he did not recover. Despite the condition he had, he lived almost another eighteen years, until 5710. Physically, according to the laws of nature, the Frierdiker Rebbe should not have been able to live because of a very serious heart condition. Yet he lived with it for another seventeen or eighteen years. So the Rebbe said that there you could tangibly see G-dliness with physical eyes. This idea of looking at a Rebbe and seeing, with physical eyes,

19:21 Speaker 1 a person whose entire being is G-dliness—that helps. It strengthens a person who studies Chassidus, who studies a concept of G-dliness, so that G-dliness becomes tangible to him. His connection to G-dliness becomes like seeing something physical with his own eyes. There is a sicha of the Rebbe about this, and we’ll come to it. In that sicha, the Rebbe explains what is written about the Giving of the Torah: “They saw what is heard and heard what is seen.” At the Giving of the Torah it says, “And all the people saw the sounds.” So the Rebbe explains: What, did Hakadosh Boruch Hu perform a miracle so they could see the spiritual—see what is heard and hear what is seen? Does Hakadosh Boruch Hu perform miracles for no reason? What was the purpose of the miracle? What does it have to do with the Giving of the Torah? The Rebbe explains here that the difference between what is heard and what is seen is the difference between the spiritual and the physical. This is also written in Tanya. We see physical things, and therefore they are certain to us. They are clear. We have no doubt about them. Everyone knows this is a table. We have no doubt—not because of some philosophical argument, but because it is close to us. It relates to us. It is part of our experience. So we see it, and we see it tangibly. By contrast, something a person does not see but only hears about is not as clear to him. He has doubts about it; it is not certain. In general, that is the difference between the physical and the spiritual. The physical is close to us, so we see it. The spiritual is distant from us, so we only hear about it, and therefore we lack certainty; there is doubt. That is what happened at the Giving of the Torah: they saw what is heard and heard what is seen. In other words,

20:59 Speaker 1 at the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people experienced G-dliness and spirituality—which until then had been something “heard,” something distant—as something tangible. G-dliness became something a Jew could “see,” something real and clear to him. G-dliness in tzitzis and [unclear]. Conversely, physical matters became distant. For a Jew, the whole realm of the physical was no longer something truly substantial; it was something imagined, something false, and so on, as discussed in the maamar. We received this capacity at the Giving of the Torah. And so, in relation to our subject, we can certainly bring this about. This is the faculty of daas in the soul. Every one of us has the faculty of daas in our soul, and that is the main point. The Rebbe writes this here in Tanya because, as we explained in the previous class, he wants to explain the approach of Chabad Chassidus. This was the Alter Rebbe’s approach in Chabad: a person has the faculty of daas. Why do we have it? Daas is a faculty of the soul that enables us to bind ourselves to G-dliness with a deep connection, so that G-dliness becomes as tangible to us as something we see with our physical eyes. We can certainly reach this, because every one of us has this capacity. We inherited this entire capacity from Moshe Rabbeinu.