Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 6

00:00 The Rabbi spoke here about three points, three points connected with daas. What do we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu? First, the Alter Rebbe said that because Moshe Rabbeinu was a soul of the level of the faithful shepherd, the level of daas—higher daas—he drew down into the souls of all generations a sense of G-dliness. What does daas of G-dliness mean? That they should feel G-dliness. The whole capacity for daas of G-dliness, which is the source of all the emotions, we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. Then the Alter Rebbe says there is another aspect, which we receive from each rabbi and each tzaddik in his generation. It comes through the sparks that become invested in the Rebbe’s body and soul. Through this, they teach us daas; they teach us about knowing G-dliness. This can lead to the birth of the emotions, which daas brings about. We receive this from Moshe Rabbeinu too. But how does Moshe Rabbeinu convey it? Through the leaders of the Jewish people in each generation. Then he brings a third point: there is the essential aspect of daas. What is the essential aspect of daas? Not what a person receives as a matter of course, but what he labors to achieve through his own strength and efforts. He makes an effort, strengthens and emboldens his heart, and works to bind his thoughts, his daas, to G-dliness, until it becomes as real to him as something he sees. It becomes truly real to him, as though he sees it. That is the essential aspect of daas: when, through his efforts, a person reaches a connection with G-dliness like his connection with something visible. That is what we have learned so far. We are on page one hundred and eighteen, section two, line one hundred and twenty-three, after thirteen. The Alter Rebbe says: “And this power and this capacity.” Bring it up for a moment. “And this power and this capacity to bind

02:59 his daas to Hashem.” This power, this capacity, to bind his daas to Hashem. So what do “this power” and “this capacity” mean? “This power” is a person’s power to deepen his daas in the whole matter. When a person has the strength and the courage and the—as he said, “strengthen and embolden his heart”—to put himself into it, to invest himself and bind himself to matters of G-dliness, that is called “this power.” “This capacity” is the faculty itself, the faculty of daas. In other words, “this power” is the person’s action: he puts himself into it and drives himself into it with all his strength. “This capacity” is the faculty that develops from it, the faculty of daas, of connection. “And this power and this capacity to bind his daas to Hashem exist in every Jewish soul.” Every Jew has this too. “Because it draws sustenance from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu.” The Alter Rebbe introduces a new point: even this aspect, even this power we spoke about—the third point, what a person must do through his own strength and efforts to bind himself to G-dliness—we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu too. In other words, even the power of daas that comes from a person’s own effort, his ability to bind himself to matters of G-dliness and become connected to them so deeply that they become one with him—even that comes from drawing sustenance from Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul. “But since the soul has become invested in a body, it requires great and immense effort, doubled and redoubled.” So even the power of daas comes to us through Moshe Rabbeinu. But since the soul is in a body, the body conceals the soul. That is why great and immense effort, doubled and redoubled, is needed. “Great” effort refers to quantity, an abundance of effort. “Immense” refers to quality. In other words, both its depth and extent are doubled and redoubled. This refers to what the Alter Rebbe will say in a moment,

05:26 about the effort of the soul and the effort of the flesh: there has to be great and immense effort on the part of both the soul and the flesh. In any case, that is what the Alter Rebbe is saying now. On the one hand, we receive this from Moshe Rabbeinu. The Alter Rebbe explained that it is all “a small matter,” since we receive it from Moshe Rabbeinu. On the other hand, the Alter Rebbe says that all of this is true of the soul, but the soul is confined in a body, and the body conceals it. So the challenge is not that we have to create something new that we do not possess. These are the two points the Alter Rebbe comes to explain in this chapter. On the one hand, he reveals that we do not have to create something new here. Every Jew is inherently capable of having fear of Heaven. And not only is every Jew capable of fear of Heaven: for every Jew, fear of Heaven is “a small matter.” That is, in the context of serving Hashem, it is a form of service within everyone’s reach. He has it. Why does every Jew have it? Because we have daas, and within daas itself we have all three aspects: the daas we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu, the whole capacity to feel G-dliness, and also the daas we receive through each rabbi in his generation. So we also have the path of Chassidus, the path through which each rabbi in his generation conveys matters of G-dliness to the people of that generation. And we also have the power we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu to work on ourselves and become connected to Hashem as we should. We receive that from Moshe Rabbeinu too. That is one side of it. Yet this must involve labor and effort through our own strength. Why? If we receive everything from Moshe Rabbeinu, why do we need to labor and make an effort? The Alter Rebbe explains: because the body conceals the soul’s

07:11 capacities, work and effort are needed to remove all the veils that dim them. Then what we inherently possess is revealed. This point is really the whole point. You could say—and we began explaining this in one of the previous classes—that these two sides the Alter Rebbe explains here are the foundation of the Alter Rebbe’s innovation and of the whole approach of Chabad Chassidus. This was the point of disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and the other disciples of the Maggid. What was their disagreement? As we said, they differed on two things. First, the other disciples held that the work is not in daas; the work is in faith. There are two points that distinguish the Alter Rebbe’s approach from that of his fellow disciples of the Maggid. The other disciples of the Maggid held that the main part of serving Hashem must be simple faith specifically, without intellectual explanations, without... Simple faith awakens simple faith. The Alter Rebbe says: No, daas. Faith is not where the main work lies, and faith does not need to be worked on. Every Jew has faith; we are “believers, the children of believers.” The work is to bring faith inward, which is what Tanya calls daas—with all the explanations of daas that we have discussed. That is the first point. The second point is that, in their approach, one receives simple faith from the Rebbe, from the tzaddik. By connecting to the tzaddik and believing in the tzaddik, the tzaddik restores one’s wholehearted faith. Nothing more is needed. The Alter Rebbe says: No. First of all, we receive not only faith from the tzaddik; we also receive daas from the tzaddik. The Alter Rebbe also agrees that we need the tzaddik for this. It is a foundation of the path of Chassidus that we must come to the tzaddik. There is Moshe Rabbeinu and a Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation, and it is specifically through connecting to the tzaddik—“They believed in Hashem and in Moshe His servant”; “I stand between

09:18 “between Hashem and you”—that it is specifically through the tzaddik that we receive all the understanding and all the spiritual influence. The difference is what the Alter Rebbe adds here. First, from Moshe Rabbeinu we receive not only faith, but also daas—deep understanding. Second, connecting to him is not enough. There has to be personal effort and toil, both spiritual and physical. The fear of Heaven—you have that from Moshe Rabbeinu. So the Alter Rebbe comes and explains: Yes, we receive it from Moshe Rabbeinu, but the body and the animal soul conceal it, and the Rebbe does not remove that concealment for you. Each person has to do that through his own work and effort, tremendous effort, to remove the concealment of the body and animal soul so that we can become vessels for the daas we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. This is the well-known story involving Reb Yoel of Kletzk, the Alter Rebbe, and Reb Shlomo of Karlin. Reb Shlomo of Karlin visited the Alter Rebbe, and afterward he wanted to take Reb Yoel of Kletzk with him. What was the disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and Reb Shlomo of Karlin? It concerned three things. The Alter Rebbe required three things of Reb Shlomo of Karlin. First, not to do away with the practice of studying nigleh for the sake of purity. Second, not to dismiss simple people who have an inner fear of Heaven. Third, that a person must do his own spiritual work—not be satisfied with simple faith, with faith in a tzaddik, but do his own spiritual work. These were three things the Alter Rebbe insisted on very strongly. Among those chassidim, these three things were not there; that was not how it worked. They were found among Reb Shlomo of Karlin’s followers, but beyond that, there was a large group of chassidim at the time called the Tulg[unclear] chassidim. Have you ever heard of the Tulg[unclear] chassidim? At that time there was a group

11:37 of chassidim called the Tulg[unclear] chassidim. What does Tulg[unclear] mean? Tulg[unclear] is a Yiddish word meaning “tachlis,” the practical point. Tulg[unclear] is tachlis. Tulg[unclear] is T-K-L; those are its letters, T-K-L. This was in those years, around 5530, a little later, but in that period. There was a group of the Maggid’s students, Reb Avraham of Kalisk and several others from that circle, who conducted themselves with a rejection of the world, but not as a result of inner work. Their self-nullification took the form of wildness, of force. They would do [unclear], roll around in the streets, make noises, and do all sorts of things meant to reject the world. Among other things, they would mock the misnagdim, saying that they had no Torah—that the Torah they studied was not for its own sake. And they would mock simple people who were not chassidim, saying that their fear of Heaven was not genuine, and so on. Besides that, they held that you are connected to the Rebbe, and that is enough. Faith in tzaddikim lifts you out of any mess, right? Hold on to faith in the tzaddik, and the tzaddik will get you out of all your problems. The Alter Rebbe wanted to set this right. He came to bring order to the whole matter of Chassidus, and he fought against these three things. Incidentally, the main point relevant to us here was that Reb Shlomo of Karlin argued, “The tzaddik will give life through his faith”—reading the verse not as “he shall live,” but as “he shall give life.” By being connected to the tzaddik, the tzaddik gives you life. The Alter Rebbe, however, maintained that “the righteous person shall live by his faith.” The meaning is that every

13:33 individual must work with his own faith so that he himself lives by it: bring faith inward through deep daas, and work at it, engage with it, and so on. So here, in this chapter up to this passage, the Alter Rebbe explains the entire approach of Chabad Chassidus very clearly. On the one hand, the Alter Rebbe certainly does not come, G-d forbid, to diminish the role of a Rebbe. On the contrary, he elevates it. What we receive from a Rebbe is not merely simple faith; from a Rebbe we receive daas, with all the details the Alter Rebbe has explained here. All of that we receive in potential through the tzaddik, through a Rebbe. But the work itself must be done through our own efforts. Why? Because the body and animal soul conceal it, and each person has to deal with that himself. The Alter Rebbe will now explain how to bring these ideas into our daas, into our inner lives, so that every person can attain genuine fear of Heaven. We were talking about the Tulg chassidim. So what is hinted at here? But then what about Purim? Yes, what is hinted at here? Since we are in the days close to Purim, we need to emphasize this point about the Tulg chassidim. Purim arrives, and some people make a mistake: they take the whole idea of Purim and turn it into the very opposite of what Purim is about. People who do not know what Purim is because they have not studied Chassidus do not understand it. So there are two extremes. In the wider world, we see two

15:19 extremes. There are those who see that the Shulchan Aruch says that on Purim, “A person is obligated to become intoxicated until he does not know.” Drinking on Purim is permitted and is a mitzvah. So when Purim comes, they drink. The rest of the year, no one tells them to drink; it is not the custom. But on Purim it is a mitzvah. So Purim arrives, and you see some Jews drinking, going wild, doing all sorts of foolish things, and crossing every boundary of common sense and seriousness. They show the whole world all the foolishness that comes out of them. It is utter chaos. On the other hand, there are those who are the opposite. They cannot stand the Yom Tov of Purim, because they cannot understand how Mordechai could have thought of such a thing—making it a mitzvah to drink until one does not know. As the Rebbe once put it in a few words: What if Mordechai had been a chossid? If Mordechai had been a misnaged, he would not have instituted drinking until one does not know. He would have done everything differently. He would have studied Gemara, but not instituted “until one does not know.” Only a chossid could think of such an observance for a Yom Tov. But some people cannot bear it, so they look for all sorts of excuses not to fulfill it. As the Rebbe would joke about those who drink milk or go to sleep: they look for an excuse to get around it without making it obvious. Neither extreme is good, neither this one nor that one. When you study Chassidus, which explains the whole idea of being obligated to become intoxicated until one does not know, you begin to understand that

17:05 this “until one does not know” is something very great in serving Hashem. It is not, G-d forbid, a license to act without restraint. Nor is it something to fear. A chossid studies Chassidus, so he understands that when Purim comes, there must be genuine joy. What does “until one does not know” mean? It does not mean, G-d forbid, confused thinking. Rather, “not know” means going beyond daas, rising to the level of yechidah. As explained in the maamarim, a person rises beyond daas, to an understanding of G-dliness in a way of “not knowing”—an understanding of G-dliness beyond reason. That is the understanding attained on Purim. This is why Purim is even higher than Yom Kippur. This joy takes a person beyond his limits and lifts him to a level beyond reason. That experience then brings vitality into the entire year. As the Rebbe explains in a maamar, from Purim’s “until one does not know,” we receive vitality and daas for the whole year. And this, simply put, is the difference between the drunkenness of a non-Jew, the drunkenness of Haman and Achashverosh—throughout the Megillah, we see Achashverosh getting drunk—and the “until one does not know” of a Jew. When Achashverosh says l’chaim, he does all sorts of foolish things. Here he kills his wife, there he does something else foolish, wherever you look. By contrast, when a Jew says l’chaim, he is uplifted, rises higher, is stirred to teshuvah, and feels genuine joy because he has sensed G-dliness. In general, we know that the Rebbe said several times that for yeshivah students, “until one does not know” does not apply in its literal sense. The Rebbe said this several times about yeshivah students. Anyone who wants to can look inside a Purim sicha: the Rebbe said explicitly that yeshivah students should not be

18:54 The idea of “ad delo yada” in the literal sense—getting drunk and so on—that’s not the way we were taught. In any case, yes, of course there needs to be the joy of Purim, saying l’chaim, and breaking out of the limits imposed by our inhibitions and the animal soul. But, G-d forbid, there must not be any recklessness, any confusion, or anything getting out of hand. That would be completely unbecoming. It’s not what the Rebbe wants, and it’s not what we knew back then. So we want to say this before Purim, so people understand it. And we warn everyone to take responsibility. We’re not talking about little children; we’re talking about older bochurim. Each person should take responsibility for celebrating Purim with joy and gladness, but in the way we learn in Chassidus—not with recklessness, G-d forbid, or with confusion of the mind and an upset stomach, G-d forbid. Nothing should happen that is unbecoming, and [unclear], and so on. We also need to remember that there are other Jews where we are. We’re not here in [unclear] or, how should I put it, in [unclear]. We’re in a place with many Jews from other communities. There are also baalei teshuvah. As [unclear] sometimes, and it has happened [unclear], there were Jews who distanced themselves from Chabad. In other words, there are Jews who, to this day, went elsewhere solely because of things like this—because people do all sorts of things that aren’t appropriate. It causes a chillul Hashem and [unclear]. So a wise person looks ahead. Yes, a wise person looks ahead. We should celebrate Purim—all well and good, with all the silliness—but at the same time, it should be in a way that accords with the Torah of Moshe, with holiness and life. And that brings us to the other side of the matter: what the Rebbe mentions here about the quality of daas in Tanya, in connection with the daas we receive from Moshe

20:58 Rabbeinu. But we see in the maamarim—this coming Shabbos is Parshas Zachor—that the maamarim for Parshas Zachor discuss the whole matter of Amalek. As is known, the many maamarim about Amalek address different aspects of it; almost every maamar discusses something different. But one of the things stated about Amalek is that he opposes Moshe. That is why Moshe was the one who fought Amalek. [unclear] Moshe. The Rebbe mentions in Likkutei Torah—sorry, not Likkutei Torah, in Torah Or for Parshas Zachor—what Amalek is about. Amalek opposes daas. “Amalek is the first of the nations.” Amalek is daas of kelipah, opposing the faculty of daas. That is to say, Amalek’s entire opposition is to daas. He does not allow there to be daas in holiness. As brought here, daas is the essential thing: it gives a person a connection to G-dliness. It is daas that brings about one’s standing, one’s avodah, and the feeling in one’s heart. Daas is the main thing, as the Rebbe says here, and Amalek specifically opposes daas. That is why he is the first of all the nations. The other nations represent individual middos. There are [unclear] that oppose a particular middah, [unclear], and one needs to address that specific middah on that particular point. Amalek does not oppose one particular aspect. Amalek opposes daas itself. What he does not want is a bond with G-dliness. So the way to fight Amalek is through our bond with Moshe Rabbeinu, with daas in holiness. [unclear] Moshe, [unclear] Moshe—this is the daas we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu, and through that daas we can fight Amalek. So the main thing for us now, as we approach Parshas Zachor, is to study

22:53 the maamarim about Amalek, because that is where we learn how to fight Amalek. And we see in Chassidus that this is a central theme of Chassidus. It speaks a great deal about the war against Amalek. The central issue with Amalek concerns Chassidus and daas. Moshe Rabbeinu—and Chabad Chassidus—is about daas, and that is what stands opposite Amalek. So we need to learn how to fight Amalek through the effort we make on the side of holiness, and how to bring that effort to bear.