Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 10

00:01 We stopped in the lesson at the words, “So one must dig with tremendous effort.” The Alter Rebbe is explaining here the effort of the soul and the effort of the body needed to awaken fear of Heaven. He says this applies to every person, each according to his circumstances. Someone whose soul is naturally refined needs less effort; someone whose soul is naturally lowly needs more. In particular, someone with sins of youth needs even more effort. But through effort, he will certainly succeed in awakening fear of Heaven, at least the natural fear. So he cites the teaching of our Sages: “If you have labored and found, believe it.” He also cites the verse: “If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of Hashem.” Through effort, fear of Heaven will be revealed. That brings us to the end of this point. He says that just as a person searching for a hidden treasure must search with tremendous effort, so too one must dig with tremendous effort. At the top of page 61, fourth column: “So one must dig with tremendous effort to reveal the treasure of fear of Heaven.” One has to dig, as we explained in the previous lesson. Digging means removing the— the earth, the darkness, the dust, the sand that conceals fear of Heaven. One must dig with tremendous effort to reveal the treasure of fear of Heaven, to reveal the treasure inside every Jew. As we said in the previous lesson, this treasure of fear of Heaven is like a hidden treasure whose presence you know for certain. So you work at it with much greater effort and much greater vitality, because you know it is there. You just have to remove the dust. That knowledge—that you know for certain it is there, because every Jew certainly has a treasure of fear of Heaven—this is the expression

02:14 of our Sages: “a treasure of fear of Heaven.” So all one needs to do is remove the things that conceal it. He digs with tremendous effort “to reveal the treasure of fear of Heaven, hidden and concealed in the understanding of the heart of every Jew.” The treasure of fear of Heaven is something hidden and concealed. It is hidden and concealed in the understanding of the heart of every Jew, “which is a level and degree above time.” This fear of Heaven is found in the understanding of the heart—that is, in an inner place in the heart of every Jew—and it is a level and degree above time. It is, in fact, something above time: “the natural fear hidden in the heart of every Jew.” This is the natural fear we spoke about at the beginning of chapter 42, where the Alter Rebbe says that every Jew has a natural fear of Heaven. We just have to awaken it. That natural fear of Heaven is the treasure of fear of Heaven being discussed here. It is present in every Jew, in the understanding of the heart, and it is above time. He then says that it is a level and degree above time. Why does the Alter Rebbe want to emphasize here that it is a level and degree above time? First, the straightforward meaning: the Alter Rebbe is saying that the fear of Heaven every Jew possesses comes from a level of the soul that is above the order of hishtalshelus. In other words, fear of Heaven—the natural fear—does not arise from a level of the soul bound up with time and place, with hishtalshelus and defined existence. Rather, it comes from a level of the soul above hishtalshelus, and therefore above time. So every Jew has something above time within him.

04:21 That is, above the order of hishtalshelus. He has this within him; we just need to reveal it, as the Alter Rebbe explains here. But why is it important for the Alter Rebbe to emphasize that here? And why does he single out the point that it is above time? What does he want to add by saying that? Essentially, the point the Alter Rebbe wants to explain is that a person should know that at any moment—after all, the whole purpose of chapter 42 is to explain that fear of Heaven is “a small matter,” that every Jew is capable of it. All of chapter 42 explains chapter 41, where the Alter Rebbe began by saying that fear of Heaven is “the beginning of the service, its essence and its root,” and that it applies to every Jew. There must be some measure of fear. Every Jew, whoever he may be, can attain fear of Heaven; it is present within everyone. We just need to reveal it. And it is the beginning of the service, its essence and its root—it comes before everything else. So the Alter Rebbe adds that it is above time to emphasize that, since the power of fear of Heaven is above time, a person can awaken it at any moment. It does not depend on other particular conditions or limitations. There are aspects of the soul that are subject to the limits of time, and there are times when they can be awakened more readily and times when they can be awakened less readily. As explained in the sefarim, different times make a great difference. Some forms of avodah are connected to a particular time: the avodah of the days of Moshiach, the avodah of Shabbos, or avodah connected with 19 Kislev or the month of Nissan.

06:04 Today is Rosh Chodesh Nissan, so certain aspects of the soul associated with this particular time are revealed. Nissan is a time of miracles, so a special aspect of the soul connected with it will be revealed—something connected with the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, or with transcending limitations. In other words, some things depend on time. They have the parameters of time; they belong to a particular time. But fear of Heaven comes from a level of the soul above time. And since it is above time, a Jew can awaken fear of Heaven at any moment. It is not tied to any particular time. There are things for which, as the Alter Rebbe said earlier in chapter 12, for example, there is an opportune time. Prayer is an opportune time for awakening love. In other words, when it comes to love, a person cannot awaken it at any moment. We said that love is subject to limitations, and regarding love the Alter Rebbe explicitly says that there is an opportune time—for example, during prayer—when [unclear], and one can awaken love. But a Jew can awaken fear of Heaven at any moment. Of course, there may be times when it is easier and times when it is harder. Fear, however, is in its essence above time, so a Jew can awaken fear of Heaven at any moment. That is one explanation for why the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that fear of Heaven comes from a place in the soul that is above time. There is another explanation: he wants to emphasize that undesirable things cannot weaken it. Because it is above time, all the concealments cannot obscure it. As the Alter Rebbe said earlier, in chapter 25, the power of mesirus nefesh is above time,

08:00 and therefore a Jew always has the power of mesirus nefesh. Nothing can obscure that power. Even the most unworthy Jew, even one who has transgressed, has the power of mesirus nefesh. Similarly, the Alter Rebbe says here that the essential fear of Heaven is above time. A person goes through changes over time: there are times when he performs mitzvos and times when he commits a transgression, times when he is a rasha and times when he is not. But those changes cannot... It is like what the Alter Rebbe says about the union achieved through a mitzvah: it is above time and lasts for all eternity. The changes in which, at one moment, a person is connected to G-dliness and, at another, he is separate belong to the world of time. But there is a realm above time. So whenever a Jew performs a mitzvah, the union it brings about lasts for all eternity. Similarly, the Alter Rebbe tells us here that the essence of a Jew’s fear of Heaven is above time. Whatever changes he undergoes cannot weaken it. This is another point that shows how fear of Heaven is eternal, something intrinsic to every Jew. He possesses it above time, and no limitation can limit it. We just need to reveal it. There is yet another explanation for why the Alter Rebbe says “above time” here: to emphasize the great loftiness of fear of Heaven. By stressing that it is above time, the Alter Rebbe is emphasizing that fear of Heaven is a power drawn from such a lofty level of the soul that it transcends time.

09:37 To emphasize the great significance of yiras Shamayim. In other words... yiras Shamayim is a level of the soul where there is no limitation of time. It is the soul’s boundlessness. And with this, the Alter Rebbe explains the teaching of our Sages that he quoted earlier, “I toiled and I found.” So, all right: why does it say “I found”? The Rebbe explains in many sichos and maamarim: Why does it say “I toiled and I found”? It should have said, “I toiled and I learned,” “I toiled and I understood,” “I toiled and...” After all, this is an expression connected with Torah study. So I toiled and attained something—but “I found”? Why specifically the language of finding? One explanation is that a find is out of all proportion to the effort. When a person buys something, he spends money in proportion to what he wants to buy. You want to buy an item? Then you spend an amount of money commensurate with the item you want to get. You can’t spend a million dollars to acquire something worth ten dollars, or, conversely, spend ten dollars and get something worth a million dollars. There has to be some proportion. A find is not proportionate to the effort. A find can be... a find. A person finds a million dollars one day, and he hasn’t done anything; he just looked. That is the remarkable thing about a find: it comes out of all proportion to the effort a person put in. The same applies here. This is what the Alter Rebbe explains about why, specifically with regard to yirah, the language of finding is used. With regard to... with regard to Torah, too, it is the same: the result is out of proportion to the effort. We say the same thing about Torah, but here the Alter Rebbe is not talking about Torah. He is talking about yiras Shamayim. Yiras

11:46 Shamayim, too, is out of proportion to the effort, because yiras Shamayim is beyond time. In other words, it is an aspect and level of the soul that is beyond time, beyond limitation, and therefore it is a find that is out of proportion to the effort. A person toils within the bounds of time; his effort is subject to the limitation of time. But what he finds—what he receives—is yiras Shamayim, which is beyond time. So these are several explanations of the Alter Rebbe’s emphasis here that yiras Shamayim is beyond time. But there is also a broader point here that matters for understanding the entire chapter. Here, in chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that yiras Shamayim is an aspect and level beyond time. This is really important for understanding the whole subject the Alter Rebbe explains in this chapter. The Alter Rebbe is speaking here about yiras Shamayim. If we look carefully, we notice it in several places. We will soon see how, in light of this, several details in the chapter become clear: the Alter Rebbe emphasizes a particular quality found specifically in yiras Shamayim and not in something else. What is it about yiras Shamayim? What is that particular point? Chassidus explains the difference between serving Hashem through love and serving Him through yirah. There are several differences. Chassidus discusses several differences between serving through love and serving through yirah. But what is relevant to us is a very fundamental distinction between love and yirah. What is it? Chassidus explains that love arises from the person himself—from, let’s say, the person’s heart. Love arises from a person’s intellect. A person contemplates the goodness of something, and love is aroused in him. We are speaking about G-dliness: a person contemplates the goodness of G-dliness, and something is aroused in him, as in “Taste and see that Hashem is good.” Through understanding, love is aroused; this is how one comes to love Hashem. We say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,”

14:10 followed by “And you shall love.” A person contemplates Hashem’s oneness, contemplates His greatness, all right? That contemplation arouses love in him. He comes to love, because contemplation is really the foundation of love. But with yirah, it is not like that. The very existence of yirah does not come from contemplation. Yirah arises from the essence of the soul. In other words, a Jew inherently has yirah; it is a quality of the neshamah. And this is one of the differences between yirah and love: yirah is an essential self-nullification. And this is not just fear of punishment. It applies to every kind of yirah—to yirah in general, to its essential point. Yirah is the soul’s essential self-nullification. By virtue of his neshamah, a Jew’s soul is nullified to G-dliness. The essence of the neshamah—what is called the yechidah—is united with it. So the neshamah is nullified to G-dliness, to the point of mesirus nefesh, and so on. A Jew has this point of bittul, the essential self-nullification within the neshamah. It is there by the very nature of the neshamah. A Jew has it by virtue of his neshamah. It needs to be awakened; it needs to be revealed. So the work is not to create yirah. The work is to reveal yirah, and that is the difference between yirah and love. Love is something a person creates. At least he creates it—not necessarily every level of love, but at its various levels, a person brings about love through his contemplation; he brings it about. Understanding leads to love. By contrast, understanding does not lead to yirah. Why? Because understanding and yirah are opposites. Understanding involves a sense of self. However much you understand, the very nature of understanding involves a sense of self, because understanding means “I understand.” There is a self there, a person. Yirah is the opposite: yirah is bittul. So understanding, in itself, will not bring about

16:27 yirah. Understanding will bring about love, not yirah. For yirah to exist, there has to be a movement of bittul, the opposite of understanding. Therefore, yirah is the essential bittul present in the neshamah. Understanding is only a means of awakening it. This helps us understand quite a few details here in Tanya. This fundamental distinction between love and yirah helps explain several details in Tanya. First of all, why is it specifically with regard to yirah that we speak of a “treasure of yiras Shamayim”? We do not find the expression “a treasure of love of Hashem.” The expression is “a treasure of yiras Shamayim.” Yirah is described as Hashem’s treasure; that is the expression used for it. The Alter Rebbe quotes it here: Hashem has no treasure in His world other than a treasure of yiras Shamayim. Why is yiras Shamayim specifically called a treasure? Why is love not called a treasure? Because this is the difference. Yiras Shamayim is a treasure. A treasure is something that already exists, hidden away. It only needs to be uncovered. Love does not fit the definition of a treasure. It is not something that exists hidden away and needs to be awakened. Love is something a person must create through inner contemplation. That is why we do not find the expression “a treasure of love of Hashem.” That is one point. Similarly, if we look here in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe says that with regard to yirah—with all that he says about needing to exert one’s mind, to toil inwardly, to spend a long time contemplating matters of yiras Shamayim—what is the wording he uses for what one must toil to do? The Alter Rebbe says here: “to find G-dliness in his thoughts.” One must find G-dliness in his thoughts. Why does the Alter Rebbe say “to find G-dliness in his thoughts”? To find yirah in one’s thoughts. A person toils in order to find yirah.

18:31 Heaven. We’re talking here about yirah, fear of Hashem. So he tells me to exert my mind to find yirah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does “find” mean? It means G-dliness. So this, too, comes from the same point. With love, intellectual understanding brings about love. A person contemplates the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the more you understand His greatness—that He is great, that He is good, that He gives, that He watches over us, that He provides for us, and so on—whatever understanding you arrive at in your soul will awaken a love connected to that understanding, to the greatness, to the idea you grasped. Understanding brings about love. But with yirah, it isn’t the understanding that brings about... the yirah; it’s the G-dliness that brings it about. It isn’t the particular details you contemplate. It’s the inner point of what you grasp in your soul, the G-dliness in it. To find G-dliness in one’s thoughts. To attain yirah, a person has to do more than contemplate. You study maamarim of Chassidus. You contemplate matters of G-dliness. But yirah awakens when you sense the G-dliness in what you’ve understood, not just the understanding itself. With love, because love is a matter of felt existence, a matter of understanding—it is something felt in the soul—what do you contemplate? The reality of G-dliness: its greatness, its exaltedness, its influence, some G-dly concept. That gives you a picture, an understanding of the matter. Yirah, by contrast, is defined by bittul, self-nullification. It isn’t a movement of self-assertion; it’s a movement of bittul. [unclear] bittul. That is what yirah means: a movement of bittul. So what do you need in order to reach yirah? Not an understanding of lofty concepts, but G-dliness itself. It comes when a person senses the G-dliness in the matter. No, it’s not hard to explain this

20:35 in words. Not the concepts you grasp, but the G-dliness—the sense that we’re speaking here about something G-dly. There must be a feeling that this is something G-dly. G-dliness brings about bittul. G-dliness brings about yirah. Understanding lays the foundations; greatness brings about love. But when you sense the G-dliness within that greatness, the G-dliness in the matter, that abstract quality, the G-dliness in it that transcends any defined reality, it affects a person with a movement of yirah, a movement of... a movement of bittul. And that is why he says that one may be unable to find the G-dliness. In the next section, it is also clear why the Rebbe distinguishes between the different levels. There is a refined soul: as soon as such a person contemplates, yirah is immediately awakened. This distinction applies specifically to yirah, not to love. These distinctions between a refined soul and an unrefined soul relate specifically to yirah. Attaining love is not so dependent on whether the soul is refined or unrefined. To attain love, you have to contemplate. You can have a refined soul, but if you don’t study, don’t contemplate, and have no details to contemplate, love won’t awaken in you. Love is connected to understanding. So there, the main thing, what matters, is understanding. The more a person understands, the more love he has; the less he understands, the less love he has. That is because love results from contemplation. The more you contemplate, the more love you have. Yirah is different, because yirah is not tied to contemplation. Yirah is tied to bittul: sensing the G-dliness in the matter—not the understanding, but the bittul. Sensing the G-dliness in the matter is what brings about bittul in the soul. For that, it matters whether the soul is refined or unrefined. With a refined soul, as soon as a person contemplates a G-dly matter, he immediately senses the G-dliness in it. That is what fills him with reverence. He grasps it; he senses not only—not only the explanation of what we’re discussing, but

22:38 the G-dly light becomes palpable to him, the G-dliness, the bittul, what this is really about. And so it stirs in him a movement of love, a movement of yirah. With an unrefined soul, by contrast, a person can be a great intellectual, as we said last week. He understands the whole subject and every detail, but he doesn’t sense the G-dliness in it. So he won’t attain yirah; it won’t bring about yirah in him. It takes a great deal of exertion of soul and body to find the G-dliness. That is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here as well. And to reach what is beyond time. Yiras Shamayim is something beyond time. In other words, essentially, Yiras Shamayim is an instinct within the soul, at a level of the soul that is beyond time, beyond the soul’s ordinary framework. That, that is its essence. It is who I am. So on the one hand, every Jew has it. The soul’s essential bittul is something every Jew has inherently. It only needs to be revealed. On the other hand, revealing it requires tremendous effort. But the effort is not to create the yirah. That is the difference between love and yirah. With love, the effort is to create the love. I don’t naturally have love for G-dliness. By nature, I love to eat something else. I don’t love G-dliness. I don’t have that love; I don’t have it by nature. I have to create it. So the effort is to create the love. You have to move beyond the love of material things, the love of your own body. That is where the effort lies: contemplating, developing the soul, awakening this quality—to reveal, to create the love. With yirah, the effort is not to create the yirah, because the yirah is already there. The soul already has essential bittul. The effort is to reach that bittul. In other words, the effort, the greater effort, is not so much in developing a sense of self, but

24:20 in bittul. The effort is to move beyond your own sense of self so that the point of bittul can be revealed within you. Then you have yirah as a matter of course; it was already there within you. To reach the level that is beyond time—that is where the effort lies. This point also helps us understand a few other things. For example, in Chassidus there seems to be a contradiction between several maamarim. Where does the effort lie—in love or in yirah? Here, it would seem that the main effort is in yirah, right? “If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of Hashem.” It is specifically about yirah that the verse says one must exert oneself. Similarly, the Rebbe quotes the expression, “Woe to the flesh that has not labored in yirah.” That is the wording of the Zohar. Specifically about yirah, it says, “Woe to the flesh that has not labored to attain Yiras Shamayim.” The wording says that one must labor in yirah. And similarly, there is the wording in the Gemara, where a person is asked, “Did you labor in yirah?” So we find the term “labor” used specifically in connection with yirah. Indeed, the Alter Rebbe says: Why? Because yirah requires effort. Love, by contrast, the Alter Rebbe says, does not require quite so much effort. It awakens; it comes after yirah, and there are all sorts of expressions to that effect in Tanya. So it seems that the effort is specifically in yirah. Yet sometimes Chassidus says the opposite: “There is no service like the service of love.” The main avodah that requires effort is specifically love. In Kuntres HaAvodah, the Rebbe Rashab points out that there is such a thing as natural Yiras Shamayim. With love, there is no natural love. People are not born with a natural love of Hashem. That is evident. Right? Some people do have natural Yiras Shamayim. You can see it: some people attain Yiras Shamayim even without working at it. Love, by contrast,

26:29 A natural love of Hashem? No... If he doesn’t study or contemplate, no such love will come. He loves Hashem by nature. What’s the difference? Here we see that the effort is specifically in love. There’s also a kind of effort involved in awe, but these are two different kinds of effort. With awe, the effort is to set aside his sense of self. The effort is in self-nullification. He has all kinds of, as they say, coverings that conceal it, and he needs to remove everything that conceals it—the effort of the soul and the effort of the body—to reveal the awe within his soul. In other words, the awe is already there. He doesn’t need to create it. The effort is just to step out of his sense of self, to make room for self-nullification, so that the self-nullification within his soul can be revealed. That’s where the effort lies. That is the main effort involved in awe. And that’s why, specifically with awe, he must labor with his body: it is the effort of self-nullification, the effort to set himself aside, to step out of himself. Then the awe is already there; it only needs to be revealed. With love, by contrast, where does the effort lie? In his sense of self, not in setting it aside. The effort of love is to change his whole being from something physical to something spiritual, from an expansion of self to an expansion of G-dliness. He needs to... Love is not self-nullification. Love is an expansion: I love it; it feels good to me. It’s something I feel good about, something I’m comfortable with. That’s me; that’s who I am. It’s not my self-nullification. Rather, what is it? Instead of my sense of self being rooted in its own nature, it should be rooted in G-dliness, in the holiness of Hashem, in the matter of... The effort is in changing who the person is. That’s why this effort is... “There is no service like the service of love,” and so on. That’s the point. And that’s what the Alter Rebbe is saying here: a person can have a natural fear of Heaven, right? Because the fear of

28:30 Heaven is already there, essentially. It’s not something that needs to be created. Rather, there are things on the outside that keep it from being revealed. So for some people it’s more revealed—a refined soul as opposed to a coarse soul. It can be more revealed or less revealed. The effort is only to remove what conceals it. Love, by contrast, means changing from one state to another: from a physical state, from a state of kelipah, to a state of holiness, and from a love of this world to a state of... Just as they cannot coexist... Love of Hashem—this is another difference that follows from it. That’s why love of Hashem cannot coexist with another love. You can’t love this world and G-dliness together. Just as water and fire cannot dwell in one vessel, so love of Hashem and love of this world cannot dwell in one heart. A person can’t love this world and G-dliness. With awe, by contrast, it isn’t a contradiction. But look at what it says now... There are people who have a natural fear of Heaven, and nevertheless have coarseness and physicality, and so on. Because, ultimately, awe comes from somewhere else. Awe isn’t bound up with who the person is; love is who the person is. So your sense of self is either here or there. You can’t... You can’t be two different things at once. So this expansion, right? What am I? That’s the question of... what? Am I holiness, or am I kelipah? That’s the point of... Awe is not “me”; it’s where I step out of myself, where I’m no longer like that. So it’s possible that my “I” is simply caught up in desire, but I still have awe, because awe isn’t “me.” It’s the setting aside of the “I,” stepping out of the “I” toward something else. So a person may have a moment of

30:05 awe, something... even though his underlying character is different. Let’s say there’s a great deal more to discuss here. I’ve strayed a little from the subject, right? Maybe quite a lot, but the point is relevant to our discussion too—and we’ve also run out of time. Sorry. Yes, this idea is brought here in the Tanya passage as well. That’s why the Alter Rebbe emphasizes this whole point several times in Tanya. When we get to awe, all the contemplation and all the effort and all these things—it’s not that the contemplation itself brings about awe. It’s contemplation of Hashem’s sovereignty. All the effort of the soul and the effort of the body here are meant to reveal the treasure of fear of Heaven that we have in the essence of the soul. We only need to reveal it, and all the... to reveal this.