Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 42 - Part 17

00:00 All right, we’re in the last classes on chapter 42. By Divine providence, we’re approaching Shavuos, and we’re finishing the chapter that has a special connection to this day. We’ll explain why shortly. At the end of chapter 42, the Alter Rebbe adds something else a person needs in order to bring himself to fear of Heaven and kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim—accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven—so that he actually turns away from evil, does good, and accepts the yoke. The Alter Rebbe says that a person should always remember the words of our Sages, “accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.” In one of the explanations, the Rebbe explains what the Alter Rebbe means here. What does he add in these last lines of the chapter that was missing from everything we’ve discussed until now? Seemingly, what is missing from the explanation the Alter Rebbe gave at length throughout the chapter? The Alter Rebbe explained that everyone has the faculty of daas, and through it, everyone can connect to G-dliness by contemplating that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is looking at him. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s glory fills the whole earth; He looks at him and examines his innermost thoughts and heart. This will bring him to fear of Heaven. The Alter Rebbe also adds the contemplation that the King is here, though He is clothed in garments. So seemingly, everything we’ve discussed until now should be enough to awaken fear of Heaven in a person. Why, then, does he need, at the very end, to always remember the words of our Sages, “accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven”? In the previous class, we explained one point. What was it? A person cannot always be in a state of contemplation. That is why he needs kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim. A person cannot be engaged in contemplation all the time. He cannot

02:18 always be in a state where he feels fear of Heaven. So the Alter Rebbe says that here is something a person can always have. Remembering the words of our Sages, “accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven,” does not depend on contemplation or on any feeling. It is a matter of a person training himself to remember that he is a servant of the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, by remembering those words. Then it reminds him in every kind of circumstance. Whether he is contemplating or not, whether he feels fear right now or not, he still has to accept the yoke—to accept doing what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. So this is something that applies at every moment, always, without limitation. That is one point we discussed in the previous class. The Rebbe adds another advantage over contemplation here: a person remembers the words of our Sages, “accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Rebbe explains that there is something else here. With the contemplation we learned about earlier, the feeling of fear and kabbolas ol is measured by the degree of contemplation. In other words, each person’s feeling of fear will correspond to his contemplation, to his mind and his capacity, as he reflects on “Behold, Hashem stands beside him,” on the great King and all His hosts, and on all these ideas. So it is measured and limited by the degree of contemplation and the degree of fear. That is not the case with

04:15 kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim. Here, it is not a matter of contemplation and limitation. There is the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven: whatever the Master wants. Its advantage is that one’s personal sense of self is also nullified, and a person gives himself over completely to the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is therefore beyond measure and limitation—even the limits of a person’s intellectual contemplation, even contemplation about fear of Heaven. These are the two advantages of the kabbolas ol we’re discussing. The first is that remembering kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim is enduring. It is constant; it does not change. A person can have kabbolas ol at all times, in every situation. The second advantage is that it is not measured or limited by the mind. It is not confined to a person’s own limits; it goes much further. So according to this explanation, even if a person is contemplating, he still needs it. According to the first explanation, when is remembering kabbolas ol an advantage? When he is not contemplating and does not feel fear. Even then, his kabbolas ol does not budge. But according to this second point, even if he is contemplating and even if he feels fear, that is not enough. It is not enough for a Jew to serve Hashem only because of his contemplation and the feeling of fear it produced. After all, that is still measured and limited. It has to be beyond measure and limitation. That comes specifically when the point of kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim is firmly established within him, and so it is without limitation. The connection between this explanation and Shavuos is explained

06:04 through something the Rebbe quotes in the name of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov says that the Jews said, “We will do and we will hear,” on 6 Sivan. The significance of 6 Sivan is that this was when “the Jewish people placed ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear.’” That is why the Rebbe would deliver maamarim on 6 Sivan. Generally, many of those maamarim began with the teaching of Rabbi Simai, “When they placed…” The Rebbe would then speak about this, because 6 Sivan is the time when they placed “we will do” before “we will hear.” Now, it also says that Hashem “held the mountain over them like a barrel.” So the Rebbe asks, quoting the Baal Shem Tov: How could that be? Since the Jewish people had already said, “We will do and we will hear,” why was it necessary to hold the mountain over them like a barrel? They had accepted it themselves. They wanted to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu; they had already accepted the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. Why, then, hold the mountain over them like a barrel? That sounds as though they did not want it and had to be compelled. But the Jewish people did want it. They said, “We will do and we will hear.” There are several explanations. One wonderful explanation in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, which the Rebbe quotes, is that if the Jewish people had only placed “we will do” before “we will hear”—if they had said it of their own free will—then it would have been limited. After all, a person is limited. So when a person says, “We will do and we will hear,” even though he is giving himself over, his commitment comes from his own will. There might then be tests and difficult times. He might go through such hardships, such problems, such

08:08 things that he says: “For me, this is too hard. I didn’t mean this. I said, ‘We will do and we will hear,’ because I thought it would be easier. I thought serving Hashem wouldn’t be so hard. I was in a state of emotional inspiration. I was caught up in the moment. I was at an enthusiastic age, and it affected me. But I didn’t know there would be tests like these. Had I known, I wouldn’t have accepted it.” But Hashem held the mountain over them like a barrel. That means Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Jewish people the strength for their commitment to come not from their own will, but from above. When it comes from a person’s own will, it is limited. A person can say, “I can’t. I didn’t mean it. I can go this far, but no further.” But when the strength comes from above—when Hakadosh Boruch Hu demands that we keep Torah and mitzvos—there is no limit to it, because it comes from the strength of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then no test, no concealment, can stand in its way. This is the strength a Jew has to keep the Shulchan Aruch and observe Torah and mitzvos, so that no concealment, whatever may happen during the time of galus, can throw him off course. It comes from the fact that He held the mountain over them. That is what “He held the mountain over them like a barrel” means. And through this I connect it to the meaning here in Tanya: the difference between something that comes from contemplation and feeling—which is also a form of kabbolas ol, also a matter of… but it is limited in proportion to a person’s limits—and when it comes from remembering what our Sages said about accepting the Kingdom of Heaven upon oneself. Then it is as though it comes

09:51 Because of the attitude of kabbolas ol that the Torah demands. So there is no limit to it, and a person can carry it through to the end without hesitation, because he accepts the yoke of Torah and mitzvos without any limitation at all. This is how the Alter Rebbe concludes the chapter. In the final passage, in the last lines of chapter 42: “And this is the meaning of bowing during the Shemoneh Esrei prayer.” The Alter Rebbe is saying that this point of accepting the yoke of Heaven—the act of acceptance—is also the meaning of the bowing we do during Shemoneh Esrei. What is the point of bowing during Shemoneh Esrei? “After accepting the yoke of Heaven in speech during the recitation of Shema, to accept it again in actual deed, etc.” In other words, why do we bow during Shemoneh Esrei? The Alter Rebbe says that bowing during Shemoneh Esrei is a continuation of Shema. When a person says, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” that is the moment of accepting the yoke of Heaven. That is what we mean when we say Shema. The intention of Shema is to acknowledge His kingship in the heavens, on earth, and in the four directions. In other words, what a Jew must intend during Shema is that he accepts the yoke of Heaven upon himself. That is why the Midrash says that at the giving of the Torah, when Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “I am Hashem your G-d,” the Jewish people said, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “You shall have no other gods,” and the Jewish people said, “Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.” That is where the verse of Shema comes in. That is how it is brought in the Midrash. Then, in the maamar, he explains at length the connection between these ideas. So it says in the Midrash that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu came to give the Torah and said to the

11:56 Jewish people, “Hear, O Israel...” the Jewish people said, “Our Father.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, “You shall have no other gods.” The Jewish people said, “Our Father.” There are different explanations of the connection in the Zohar and elsewhere, and so on. But to get back to our point: Shema, at its core, is about kabbolas ol. Yet in Shema, that acceptance is in speech and in one’s intention. Then comes Shemoneh Esrei. Shemoneh Esrei is not a separate matter, not something else. The bowing we do during Shemoneh Esrei brings that kabbolas ol into action, so that it is expressed even in a person’s physical body. Yes, because when a person bows, it means that he actually submits himself and accepts kabbolas ol in practice. In other words, the Alter Rebbe is explaining that kabbolas ol must permeate all of a person’s faculties. A person must think about kabbolas ol, bring it to mind and remember it in his thoughts. He must say it in speech—that is Shema—and afterward bring it into action, through bowing during Shemoneh Esrei. The Rebbe explains in a letter that the Gemara says there is no acceptance of the yoke of Heaven in Shemoneh Esrei; it is only in Shema. The Gemara says Shemoneh Esrei is not about kabbolas ol. That is what the Gemara says. So the Rebbe explains that this does not contradict what the Alter Rebbe writes here in Tanya, that bowing during Shemoneh Esrei is about kabbolas ol. The Gemara is speaking about the words of Shemoneh Esrei. According to halachah, Shemoneh Esrei is primarily a mitzvah performed through speech. As we learned today in Tanya, in today’s Chitas, the Alter Rebbe writes that there are mitzvos performed through speech, and mentions prayer as one of them. So the matter of

13:41 prayer as a mitzvah performed through speech—when the Gemara says that prayer is not kabbolas ol, it means the spoken part of prayer. In the spoken part, we talk about other matters. We make all kinds of requests, and so on. But here we are talking about bowing during Shemoneh Esrei. Bowing is another matter. The Sages added that, besides making requests, a person must also bow. Bowing is not part of Shemoneh Esrei as speech; it is an act. And what is the purpose of bowing? To bring kabbolas ol down into the physical body, so that the body, too, takes part in it. So what is the point we have been working on here in chapter 42? What have we been working on in these last two chapters, chapters 41 and 42? Well, boruch Hashem, we have spent quite a while on these chapters. But what is the point the Alter Rebbe keeps bringing us back to in them? It is yiras Shamayim, fear of Heaven. Or, to put it another way, it is accepting the yoke of Heaven, which is the beginning of service, its essence and its root. You have two chapters that go into this at length, with all the points in between, all the details and all the ideas. [unclear] explains how each and every person can and must come to serve Hashem, to be a servant, and to build the foundation of accepting the yoke of Heaven, of yiras Shamayim. Today is 5 Sivan, and the Rebbe explains in several places that every day we must live with the distinctive event associated with that day, as recorded in the Shulchan Aruch. So the Rebbe points out that on 5 Sivan the Jewish people said, “We will do and we will hear.” Rashi says this as well.

15:43 The Rebbe writes in the maamarim that during these twenty-four hours of 5 Sivan, our work, our understanding, and our resolve must focus on placing “we will do” before “we will hear.” In practical terms, that means simply taking up the maamarim. There are twenty maamarim; you can choose one of them. At least one maamar. There is a maamar from the Rebbe, and there are many maamarim on “When they placed ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear.’” Some are shorter, some are longer. There is one from 5693, one from 5695, from 5699 and 5690 and—well, I don’t know. There are so many maamarim on this subject; we only need to study one of them. But the main thing is to study these ideas and, above all, to take them to heart. What point does the Rebbe explain in the maamarim on “When they placed ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear’”? There is the well-known question asked in Chassidus. It says that when the Jewish people placed “we will do” before “we will hear,” the ministering angels came and tied two crowns on each person, one corresponding to “we will do” and one corresponding to “we will hear.” So the Rebbe asks: Based on this, there should be three crowns. There is the crown for “we will do,” the crown for “we will hear,” and the crown for placing “we will do” before “we will hear.” But here is the problem. At the beginning, it says that the reason they received the crowns was that they placed “we will do” before “we will hear.” Yet at the end, when it describes the crowns, it only says they received one crown for “we will do” and one for “we will hear.” It does not say they received a crown for placing “we will do” before “we will hear.” The Rebbe asks this question in the maamarim in different ways, but that is the question. There are several explanations, but one point, in terms of our avodah, brings us right back to where we are in these chapters. The Rebbe explains that there are three aspects to the avodah of kabbolas ol that precedes receiving the Torah. Before receiving the Torah, there was “we will do and we will hear,” and that itself contains three aspects. And below

17:44 On the higher level, the order is first “we will listen.” I’m speaking about the order from below upward. The order is like this: there is “we will listen.” There are several explanations of what “we will listen” means, but one explanation relevant to our discussion is that it refers to the details of Hashem’s will. A person devotes himself to the details of that will. In other words, he accepts it upon himself; he listens to every detail. What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want? And I carry out every detail. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants tefillin, so I put on tefillin. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants tzitzis, so I wear tzitzis, observing all the details. As it says, [unclear]. He is thus devoted to the details of the will. This is called “we will listen,” because “we will listen” concerns the details. That, too, is kabbolas ol. There are explanations in Chassidus of “we will listen” as a particular subject, a particular form of avodah, but a number of maamarim explain that “we will listen” is also an attitude of kabbolas ol. The difference is that here, the kabbolas ol concerns the details of the will—kabbolas ol for every detail. What needs to be done here, what needs to be done there? I submit myself and do what needs to be done. This concerns the details of the will. There is a higher level, which is “we will do.” “We will do” means that he submits to the will itself, not to its details. He submits to the essential point of the will: “Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” Whatever Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants, I do. I’m not entering into the details or dividing things into details—tzitzis, tefillin. Of course it has to come down to the details, but here the submission is higher than that of “we will listen.” With “we will listen,” a sense of division is already felt: there is tzitzis and there is tefillin, each with its own particular character and form. So a sense of division is felt more strongly—the matter of

19:24 mitzvos. By contrast, there is a higher submission: the general intention present in each and every mitzvah, in all the mitzvos. A general intention—the intention of submitting to the will. It is the will of the One who wills. What difference does it make to me whether it is tzitzis or tefillin, or [unclear]? Whether it is a great mitzvah or a minor one, a simple mitzvah or an important one? All the mitzvos are the will of the One who wills. We have to carry out the will of the One who wills. That is the meaning of “we will do.” But this still relates to the will. Will, in a subtle sense, is already an emergence, already a drawing forth. He wants something—Hakadosh Boruch Hu as He is expressed in the form of will, in a form of drawing forth. Consequently, the person’s own existence still has a little significance there. There is a higher submission: placing “we will do” before “we will listen.” The point of placing “we will do” before “we will listen” is precisely that precedence. It means submitting to the One who wills, who is beyond will. Here, neither the will nor its details are felt by the person at all. Rather, the person gives himself over completely to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, to the essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the One who wills. In relation to the One who wills, his submission is complete, and from that the will subsequently follows. Therefore, when he submits to the One who wills, he makes no calculations. That is how he comes to place “we will do” before “we will listen.” And this is why, the Rebbe explains, two crowns are received for “we will do” and “we will listen”: crowns are appropriate to “we will do” and “we will listen.” But the act of placing “we will do” before “we will listen” expresses such a lofty submission that it is beyond the category of a crown. It is beyond the category of a crown; it cannot be called a crown. A crown is an encompassing level, which already relates to some form of revelation. Submission to the One who wills, by contrast, is beyond the category of a crown. The Gemara says:

21:12 “When the Jewish people placed ‘we will do’ before ‘we will listen’”—when the Jewish people had this submission to the One who wills as their essential point—the ministering angels came with two crowns. But what were the two crowns for? They were not for the act of placing one before the other, because that is beyond a crown. The crowns were for “we will do” and for “we will listen.” Had they not placed “we will do” before “we will listen,” they would not have received crowns for either “we will do” or “we will listen,” because then it would have been a matter of obeying instructions. But by placing “we will do” before “we will listen,” they had submission to the One who wills. Consequently, their subsequent connection to the will—“we will do”—and then “we will listen,” were on a higher level, and so they received two crowns for “we will do” and “we will listen.” This is the essence of the explanation the Rebbe gives, and everyone can look it up in the text itself, in the Rebbe’s words. What matters for us in particular is what Chassidus demands of us when it comes to [unclear]: the very first thing must be kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim, accepting the yoke of Heaven’s sovereignty. The very first thing must be placing “we will do” before “we will listen.” That is how a Jew approaches [unclear]. If we want to begin by understanding everything—why, what is the explanation, explain it to me, what will happen, what will I get out of it, what is the benefit?—then we are not connected to this chapter. Often we want explanations for everything. Of course, there are explanations for everything, but that is not how one is trained in kabbolas ol. Once a person has this attitude of devoting himself—which is the essential foundation—once we have the attitude of commitment expressed by placing “we will do” before “we will listen,” submission to the One who wills, then we can become vessels for “we will do,” for “we will listen,” and for everything that comes

22:53 afterward, [unclear]. But what must the foundation be? The foundation must be placing “we will do” before “we will listen”—devotion to the One who wills. In practical avodah, this means, quite simply, that the first point for a chossid, for a Jew, must be kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim, accepting the yoke of Heaven’s sovereignty, and yiras Shamayim, fear of Heaven. This is what we have just learned here about “in relation to Moshe Rabbeinu, it is a small matter”: he gives us the strength. How can we reach it? The Rebbe explains in detail how it is relevant to every single person, and how one can attain the avodah of yiras Shamayim and kabbolas ol malchus Shamayim.