Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 44 - Part 5

00:01 Speaker 1 Page 63. We’re in the middle of the page, on the line beginning “And a great love, greater than this,” after the period. Until now, the Alter Rebbe has been speaking about a love he calls “Nafshi”—“My soul, I desire You.” He is explaining here that there is a kind of love available to everyone, and it has all the advantages: both the quality of ahavah rabbah, great love, and the quality of ahavas olam, everlasting love. So, he spoke about a love called “My soul, I desire You.” When a Jew recognizes and feels what life truly is, he feels that real life is only G-dliness, and comes to recognize that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is “my soul.” Just as a person naturally loves his soul, longs for it, and wants to live, so too he will want G-dliness, because G-dliness is his soul, his true life. Now the Alter Rebbe goes on to describe another level of love that is also available to everyone, but is even greater than the previous love. Let’s read it inside: “And a great love, greater than this, which is also hidden in every Jewish soul as an inheritance from our forefathers.” There is a love even greater than the one we just discussed, the love of “my soul,” and it too is present in every Jew. It is a hidden love. We received it as an inheritance from our forefathers. What is this love? Interestingly, here the Alter Rebbe does not use the expression “equally accessible to every soul.” Remember? I told you in the previous classes that before speaking about the love of “my soul,” the Alter Rebbe used both expressions: “equally accessible to every soul” and “an inheritance from our forefathers.” He said both: that it is equally accessible to every soul

02:20 Speaker 1 and that it is an inheritance from our forefathers. Regarding this love, the Alter Rebbe writes that it is an inheritance from our forefathers, but he does not write that it is equally accessible to every soul. That implies that although it is an inheritance from our forefathers, it is still not quite the same. It is not equally accessible to every soul. We’ll soon see why. First, let’s see which love we’re talking about. The Alter Rebbe says: “It is what is written in Raaya Mehemna.” This love is spoken of in Raaya Mehemna. Raaya Mehemna is a section of the Zohar, the section attributed to Moshe Rabbeinu. As is known, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu’s soul, as it says in the sefarim. The Rebbe points out that Lag BaOmer, the day of Rashbi’s passing, has the numerical value of Moshe. He had a spark of Moshe Rabbeinu, and also, while he was in the cave, Moshe Rabbeinu taught him a number of secrets of the Torah. All the secrets Rashbi heard from Moshe Rabbeinu were compiled in the section called Raaya Mehemna, a section of the Zohar. So it says in Raaya Mehemna. We’ll soon see why that is relevant. Regarding what Moshe Rabbeinu says in Raaya Mehemna: “Like a son who strives on behalf of his father and mother.” Like a son who makes an effort for his father and mother. “Who loves them more than his body, his soul, and his spirit, etc.” The son occupies himself and makes an effort to help his parents, his father and mother. He loves them “more than his body, his soul, and his spirit, etc.” That is how great a son’s love for his father is. He loves his parents more than he loves himself, more than he loves his own body. “His body” means the body, and “his soul and his spirit” mean the soul and the spirit. Love for one’s father and mother is stronger than a person’s love for himself, for his own body and soul.

04:29 Speaker 1 Accordingly, the Alter Rebbe says of this: “For do we not all have one Father?” We have this love as an inheritance, since we all have one Father, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our true Father. The Alter Rebbe also quotes the phrase “We all have one Father” in Tanya, chapter 32. There he says that true Ahavas Yisroel, in which a Jew loves every other Jew as himself, comes from the fact that “we all have one Father.” It comes from feeling this in the soul: the soul is rooted in Hakadosh Boruch Hu and is “a part of G-d above.” What does “a part of G-d” mean? It comes from the level of chochmah, which is the aspect of “father”—that is the meaning of “we all have one Father.” When we feel that we all come from the same Father, there can be true Ahavas Yisroel, in which one Jew loves another. Here the Alter Rebbe says that this feeling also gives a Jew true love of Hashem. He loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu as a son loves his father, as a son devotes himself entirely to his father. He loves him more than he loves himself. That is what this love is like. Now, what does it mean that this love is “a great love, greater than this”? Why does the Alter Rebbe say that the love arising from “we all have one Father” is greater than the previous love? What makes it greater? What is the Alter Rebbe asking us to contemplate here? He asks us to contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our Father. Before, we explained the idea of “my soul”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our life, or our soul. Now we have explained that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our Father. Why is understanding that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our Father a greater love than the love of “my soul”? There are several explanations. The Alter Rebbe says

06:26 Speaker 1 it plainly: it is “a great love, greater than this.” But what is the explanation? Why is it greater? There are several explanations. One is that the love of “my soul” is a love that does not demand that a person go beyond himself. It is bound up with the person’s own existence. Why? Because “my soul” means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives him life. Why do I love Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my life. So this love does not take a person beyond his own existence. On the contrary, it says that G-dliness is my very existence. He remains within his own existence, but discovers that his existence is G-dliness. There is not so much a going beyond one’s limits here. By contrast, when a person feels that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is his Father, a son’s feeling for his father is such that he is ready to give his life for him. This kind of love awakens in the soul a movement beyond its limits. When I feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my Father, I am ready to give myself entirely for my Father. As it says there, “he loves them more than his body.” That is the wording. The Alter Rebbe does not quote it—there is a reason for what he does quote—but when the passage speaks of a “son who strives on behalf of his father and mother,” it does not merely say that he loves them. It says here, too, that he loves them more than his body. And the wording the Alter Rebbe quotes from the Zohar is: “And he gives his life for them.” That is how strong a son’s bond with his father is. A son’s love for his father makes him ready to give his life to save his father. That is already a movement of self-sacrifice. That is why the Alter Rebbe says: “a great love, greater”

08:16 Speaker 1 This love is greater than the previous love, because it is a love bound up with mesirus nefesh—self-sacrifice. A son’s love for his father extends to the point of mesirus nefesh. Here the Alter Rebbe does not quote the wording explicitly; he writes “etc.” But in chapter 10, the Alter Rebbe also cites this passage from Raaya Mehemna. In chapter 10, he is speaking about attaining the level of the tzaddikim. He cites Raaya Mehemna and writes that the tzaddikim are called “bnei aliyah,” because they serve Hashem in a way of ascent: all their service is not for themselves, but only for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As it says in Raaya Mehemna, in Parshas Ki Seitzei: “Like a son who strives for his father and mother, whom he loves more than himself, his life, his spirit, and his soul, etc., and gives himself over to death for their sake, to redeem them.” So in chapter 10, the Alter Rebbe cites this Zohar as well. But there are two differences between the wording of the Zohar that he cites in chapter 44 and what he cites in chapter 10. One difference concerns mesirus nefesh. Here the Alter Rebbe does not state it explicitly. In chapter 10, he also quotes the Zohar’s words that the son is prepared to give his life to save his father. That is one difference. The second difference is that the wording in chapter 10 says “more than himself, his life, his spirit, and his soul”—the son loves his father more than he loves his own body, his nefesh, his ruach, and his neshamah. Here the Alter Rebbe writes “more than himself, his life, and his spirit.” He does not write “and his soul.” Every word in Tanya is precise. Why did the Alter Rebbe make these two changes? The answer is straightforward. In chapter 10, the Alter Rebbe is speaking about tzaddikim. Here he is speaking about a beinoni, something accessible to every soul. Here the Alter Rebbe wants to discuss, at least, what is relevant to every

10:25 Speaker 1 soul, what anyone can attain. He is explaining things that apply to each and every person. So the Alter Rebbe makes a very significant distinction. In chapter 10, we are speaking about tzaddikim. There, Moshe Rabbeinu is given as an example of a tzaddik whose love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu was utterly perfect. Indeed, with the great tzaddikim—the complete tzaddik, the bnei aliyah—their love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu is like a son’s love for his father. Their love expresses itself in actual mesirus nefesh. They are prepared to give up their lives entirely. And it is not only mesirus nefesh. In the Alter Rebbe’s wording, it is “more than his nefesh, his ruach, and his neshamah.” He is prepared to give up not only his nefesh and ruach, but even his neshamah. Neshamah is the highest level. When we speak of these levels, we speak of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. Nefesh relates to action. Ruach relates to the emotions. And neshamah relates to the intellect, the higher level. A beinoni does not necessarily have all these qualities. A beinoni has nefesh; he may have ruach. He has actual deeds; he works with action. He also has ruach, because he has love and awe. After all, the beinoni serves Hashem in his heart—not only through action, but also in his heart. But a beinoni does not necessarily have the level of neshamah. The service of the intellect is already the service of tzaddikim. In other words, the main aspect of neshamah is associated with tzaddikim. This explains the two differences between chapters 10 and 44. In chapter 10, he writes “more than his nefesh, his ruach, and his neshamah”: he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu more than he loves even his own neshamah. That is to say, he has all these levels. He has reached the level

12:18 Speaker 1 of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, and he is even prepared to give all of that up for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In chapter 44, he writes only “his nefesh and his ruach,” not “his neshamah,” because he is speaking about a beinoni. That is also why the Alter Rebbe does not explicitly say in chapter 44 that he is prepared to give his life: that is a higher level, one that belongs to tzaddikim. Here, by contrast, we are speaking about a beinoni, and this love does not reach the point of mesirus nefesh. Nevertheless, to understand why the Alter Rebbe writes that the love of “for You are our Father” is greater than “my soul desires You”: it is because the love of “my soul desires You” is connected to the person’s own existence, whereas the love of “for You are our Father” has to do with mesirus nefesh.

12:58 Speaker 2 How long were you at the institute?

13:00 Speaker 1 Huh?

13:01 Speaker 2 How long were you at the institute?

13:04 Speaker 1 That is what it says in Tanya. Yes. This is a different kind of mesirus nefesh. It is a different kind of mesirus nefesh. It is not mesirus nefesh that arises in response to a test. We are talking about mesirus nefesh as a way of being. Every Jew may have mesirus nefesh at the level of yechidah, but not in everyday life. For a tzaddik, that disposition of mesirus nefesh can be present in everyday life. It is a different kind of mesirus nefesh. Incidentally, there is another explanation of the advantage of “for You are our Father” over “my soul desires You.” According to this explanation, “my soul desires You” also involves mesirus nefesh, but there are two forms of it. There are two kinds of mesirus nefesh: giving up one’s body and giving up one’s soul. Chassidus explains—in the maamarim it is explained—the difference between the mesirus nefesh of “echad” and the mesirus nefesh of “with all your soul.” There is giving up one’s soul for “echad,” and there is mesirus nefesh in “with all your soul,” even if He takes your soul. Chassidus explains that these are two levels of mesirus nefesh: giving up the body and giving up the soul. What does giving up the body mean? It means being prepared to die al kiddush Hashem. A Jew is prepared to give up his body for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Giving up the body is one kind of sacrifice. He is prepared to relinquish his body. Giving up the soul means that he is prepared to give up not only his body, his physical life, but also his spiritual life. That is actually a higher level. Sometimes it is also described as a virtue, but when we speak of levels of mesirus nefesh, it is a higher level than giving up the body. Giving up the soul means: not only am I prepared to give up my physical life, I am prepared to give up my spiritual life as well, even my share in the World to Come. That is already a more difficult level. Along

15:12 Speaker 1 those lines, the Rebbe explains in a sicha in volume 8 about the Akeidah of Yitzchak. Presumably some of the bochurim have learned it. In that sicha, the Rebbe asks why the mesirus nefesh of the Akeidah was so much greater than every other act of mesirus nefesh. Ordinarily, mesirus nefesh means giving up the body: a person is prepared to die. There are even non-Jews who are prepared to die for their ideals. A person may be prepared to give up his body so that he will have life in Gan Eden, in the World to Come. He has various things he believes he will attain by giving up his body. But the mesirus nefesh of the Akeidah was entirely beyond reason. At the Akeidah, Avraham Avinu was not only giving up his son’s physical life; he was giving up the spiritual future as well. Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him to offer Yitzchak as a sacrifice. Think about it: the entire spiritual future of the Jewish people, everything spiritual bound up with it—that was what he had to give up. There was no prospect of attaining some greater perfection through it. What does it mean to give something up in order to reach a greater perfection? Here there was no such perfection. So that is the point of mesirus nefesh. Accordingly, there are these two aspects: giving up the body and giving up the soul. That is the difference between the two explanations. If I contemplate that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is “my soul,” if a person reflects and comes to the conclusion that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is his soul, or his life, then, if this is genuine, it is a matter of life itself. So I give everything for that life. Sometimes a person has to give up the life of the body for G-dliness, just as, in the physical realm, a person is prepared to do so. We said in previous classes that sometimes a person is prepared, G-d forbid, to have part of his body removed, or to undergo an operation, to cause pain to his body in order to save his life. Yes, sometimes

17:04 Speaker 1 You tell a person that, G-d forbid, an organ has to be removed to save his whole body. He is willing to give it up, to have that organ removed so his body can live. The same is true spiritually. He is willing to give up all sorts of physical desires for G-dliness. That, too, is a kind of mesirus nefesh. But it is a sacrifice of the body: he gives up physical things for G-dliness. It comes from contemplating that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is his life—the true life. So he is willing to give up physical desires for true life, for G-dliness. But it is different when it comes to “For You are our Father.” When a person feels “For You are our Father,” he is willing to give his Father, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, not only his physical life but also his spiritual life. With that feeling of “You are our Father,” all his boundaries fall away, even his spiritual boundaries. In other words, he would be willing to give up even his World to Come—and not only his World to Come, but his own spiritual welfare—for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is the true mesirus nefesh that Chassidus speaks about: setting aside not only my physical needs for another Jew, but my spiritual needs as well. It is like the Alter Rebbe’s well-known teaching. The Alter Rebbe said: What is a chossid? A chossid is someone who gives up his own benefit to help another Jew. “A chossid burns them”—his nail clippings. Here we are talking about physical welfare: he harms himself by burning the clippings so that a pregnant woman will not be harmed by them. He gives up his physical welfare for another Jew’s physical welfare. But Chassidus explains that the same applies to spiritual matters: sometimes, in serving Hashem, a person is asked to give up even his own spiritual welfare in order to do a favor for another Jew.

18:50 Speaker 1 There is the story of the Baal Shem Tov, who once wanted to help a Jew who was having difficulties. The Baal Shem Tov exerted himself so greatly that he managed to annul a decree against that Jew. But this went against the will Above; he went against everything that had been decided there. The entire heavenly court had decided that this person should receive something, and the Baal Shem Tov stood against that whole process Above. Then, at night, he was told that his punishment was the loss of his entire World to Come. The Baal Shem Tov got up in the morning—he told this story several times—and he was happy. He danced. Why did he dance? He said, “Boruch Hashem, now I can serve Hashem with joy. Until now I had a World to Come; now that I know I have no World to Come, I can begin to serve Hashem.” Because, of course, they knew, they saw that the punishment did not work on him. In any event, the point is that in serving Hashem, a person is willing to give up even his World to Come, his spiritual welfare, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, for His will. There is, of course, much more to say about this, and there are several stories about tzaddikim and rabbis. But that is the point here. The Alter Rebbe says [unclear] that the love of “You are our Father” is greater. Now, if we look at this according to halachah—at this idea of “You are our Father”—then according to halachah it really is not so. There is no halachah requiring a son to give up his life for his father.

20:30 Speaker 1 According to halachah, it is the opposite. When we speak of a father, of honoring one’s father, a person is not obligated by law to give up his life for him. “You shall live by them” applies to a son and his father as well. Yet here we are saying that the son actually gives up his life for his Father. The Alter Rebbe explains in Likkutei Amarim—and the Rebbe also discusses this in several maamarim—that there is a very great difference between a human father and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, between the analogy of a father and son down here and what it represents Above. A son is part of his father for as long as he has not yet been born. Once he is born, he is separate from his father. Physically, he becomes a separate being. He has a part of his father’s mind within him, as the Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya, but he has nevertheless become a separate being. His life is therefore his own, not his father’s. That is why, according to halachah, he is not obligated to give up his life for his father. Above, however, nothing exists outside of Him. The soul has never left its Father. It is as though we have always remained within the Father’s mind. A Jew, even after being created and descending into this world as a soul in a body, is separate only outwardly. In truth, inwardly, a Jew always remains within the Father’s mind. So “our Father,” when we are speaking of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, means something far deeper than a physical father down here. With regard to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, a Jew is indeed obligated in mesirus nefesh. This explains why the feeling of “You are our Father” is loftier than the idea of “my life.” Since we are now at 20 Cheshvan, I will first tell a short story connected to this idea of “our Father,” to 20 Cheshvan, and to the one whose birthday it is.

22:30 Speaker 1 In the time of the Rebbe Rashab, nishmaso eden, he founded Tomchei Temimim and there were a number of mashpi’im for its students, in different periods. One of the mashpi’im in Tomchei Temimim was Reb Gronem. Gronem was one of the older mashpi’im; he had already been with the Rebbe Maharash. In fact, he was a chossid of the Rebbe Maharash. There is a story about that too, but never mind. Later there was a mashpia named Shilem. Shilem was a young mashpia. He himself had been a student at Tomchei Temimim and afterward became a mashpia. So Shilem was young and Gronem was older. They say Gronem once said of Shilem, “He has surpassed me”—er iz mir ibergegangen—as though Shilem had reached a higher level than Gronem. In any case, there were various conflicts between Shilem and Gronem. So they say; there were some problems between them, various things that came up. But among the students, the argument was that Gronem had remained with the Rebbe Maharash: he was not connected to the Rebbe Rashab. The claim was that Gronem studied the maamarim of the Rebbe Maharash but did not live with the maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab, nishmaso eden. These were the kinds of matters of Chassidus the students cared about. Shilem, too, had his issues with Gronem. In short, all sorts of things were going on. One story they tell is that Gronem once traveled to—I don’t know when this happened—Gronem traveled to Kapust. Do you know what Kapust was? Kapust was a branch of Lubavitch.

24:56 Speaker 1 Its Rebbe was a brother of the Rebbe Maharash. The Rebbe Maharash had a brother. When the Tzemach Tzedek passed away, he left several sons. One of them was Rabbi Yehudah Leib, the Maharil, who became the Rebbe in Kapust, while the Rebbe Maharash was in Lubavitch. There was a struggle, a great commotion over who would lead. There were many disputes between Kapust and Lubavitch. When the Maharil passed away, his son succeeded him; his name was Reb Shlomo Zalman of Kapust. So there was Kapust Chassidus: they were Lubavitcher chassidim, but in Kapust. The Rebbe Maharash and the Rebbe Rashab were in Lubavitch. Once, Gronem wanted to see what was going on in Kapust. He did not, G-d forbid, want to become a Kapuster chossid. He wanted to see how things were done there, what sort of Chassidus the Rebbe there taught. He wanted to see. In short, Gronem went to Kapust. It was a Shabbos in Elul, and Gronem was in Kapust. He had done it secretly; he did not want anyone to know. But the students know all the secrets. In fact, the students in Lubavitch found out that Gronem had gone to spend Shabbos in Kapust. In short, there was an uproar, a whole commotion—especially because he had gone to Kapust. And Shilem was still a student then. He was not yet a mashpia; he was still a student, and he was among those most fervently opposed.

26:41 Speaker 1 They didn’t want to go into the classes, and they didn’t want to go to their rooms. Look, by the way, [unclear]. And Greinov was a tough man. He wasn’t embarrassed in front of the bochurim, and he maintained that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He said, “I didn’t go there to become a Kapuster, a follower of his. I just wanted to see the Kapuster. I wanted to see what he was like. Curiosity. There was nothing more to it.” That’s how it went. On Sukkos there was a farbrengen, and in the middle of the farbrengen the fellows had some mashke. Then Sholom said to Greinov, “Greinov, you have a father, and there’s someone who bothers your father, who causes him distress. Would you go visit that man? Surely you wouldn’t go to him.” That was all Sholom said to him. [unclear]. At that moment Greinov burst into tears, and the next day he went into yechidus and asked the Rebbe Maharash for a way to make amends for having gone to Kapust. He realized that he had done something wrong. So what happened here? All along Greinov had been saying, “What’s wrong with it?” But the moment he felt that this was about a father—my father, that the Rebbe is my father, and I had gone to someone who caused my father pain—then, then, then he grasped [unclear], as I told you. What was it? This is connected with [unclear]. The Rebbe speaks about [unclear] in connection with tzaddikim; it is about the concept of “our father’s love” and a chossid’s feelings toward the Rebbe.