Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 44 - Part 8

00:01 We’re up to page 63b in our Tanya class, in the section [unclear]. We still haven’t finished the explanation here. Let’s go back over where we are so we can continue explaining it. As everyone remembers, the Alter Rebbe discusses two kinds of love in this chapter—two levels of love that are within everyone’s reach. The first is the love of “My soul longs for You.” A person contemplates Hashem as “my soul”: just as a person loves the life of his own soul, and has a love for life, a desire for it and pleasure in it—physical life and spiritual life—so it should be with G-dliness. When he contemplates that G-dliness is real, that it is true life, that is the meaning of “my soul.” Then “My soul longs for You”: he develops a desire and longing for Hashem. A person always values life and wants to live, but he doesn’t feel that constantly. When does he feel it? When he reaches a time of distress, when life may be at stake, his awareness of “my soul” awakens. The same is true of G-dliness: at times when he contemplates concealment, a kind of night, “My soul longs for You” awakens within him. As the verse says, “My soul longs for You at night.” That is one level. The Alter Rebbe then says there is another, higher level of love, and that it too can be awakened through speech. This comes from contemplating “like a son who strives”: a person reflects that Hashem is our true Father. And just as a son loves his father—meaning that he gives himself over, that a son

02:17 strives, “like a son who strives for his father and mother,” giving himself over completely to his father, beyond himself, his soul and his spirit—so too a Jew should love Hashem because He is our true Father, to the point of being ready to give himself over to Hashem. Why is this second love greater? We gave several explanations, but the main point was that the first love is bound up with the person’s own existence. “My soul” means who I am, my life. It’s just that my life is not flesh or materiality; my life is G-dliness. When I contemplate that G-dliness is my life, I naturally feel love, but it doesn’t negate my sense of self. It doesn’t take me beyond my limitations. By contrast, the bond of a son with his father, which is the basis of “like a son who strives,” is expressed in self-sacrifice. He doesn’t act only within the bounds of his own existence; he is also prepared to set himself aside. Just as, in physical life, a son sets himself aside for his father’s sake, so too, when a Jew contemplates that Hashem is his Father, he becomes ready to show self-sacrifice for Hashem. That is why the love of “like a son who strives” is greater. The Alter Rebbe therefore raises a question: isn’t this such a high level that it belongs only to Moshe Rabbeinu? The Alter Rebbe explains that through Moshe Rabbeinu, this love was given to each and every person, through the extension of Moshe in every generation. So everyone has it as an inheritance. It is present in a concealed way, within the soul. We have this feeling of “like a son who strives”

04:05 in our hearts, and the Alter Rebbe immediately says that bringing it out of concealment is also within reach through speech. Why is it within reach through speech? “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart.” A person speaks about it with his mouth. He says in his prayers that Hashem is our Father. By speaking about it—not as an external act of speech, but in a way that awakens the intention in his heart—his words lead him to contemplate “like a son who strives.” Through this, the love of “like a son who strives” is awakened within him openly. The Alter Rebbe continues: sometimes a person feels that he doesn’t truly have this feeling. But the Alter Rebbe says that this is not a problem. Why not? Because, on the one hand, the love itself is entirely genuine. On the other hand, when it comes to practice—and the whole point here for the beinoni is that it should lead to action—that is what matters most. So if he does not feel it openly in his heart, if the love and the feeling of “like a son who strives” do not awaken openly within him, that is not a problem. In itself it is entirely genuine, as an inheritance we received from our father Moshe Rabbeinu. The feeling of “like a son who strives” is therefore true in itself, and in practice it leads him to Torah and mitzvos. That is the main thing for a Jew. These are the wings that lift his Torah and mitzvos upward. And the Alter Rebbe concludes here by bringing this contemplation of “like a son who strives” to action.

06:01 The main thing for the beinoni is that contemplating how Hashem is my Father must lead him to action. What action does the Alter Rebbe mean? He says it means studying Torah and fulfilling mitzvos in order to give Him nachas ruach, like a son serving his father. The purpose of contemplating “For You are our Father” is that it should lead to actual observance of Torah and mitzvos. With what intention? To give Hashem nachas ruach. Once a person feels, “He is my Father,” then, just as a son wants to give his father nachas ruach—he wants his father to be happy and pleased and to derive satisfaction from him—this is a healthy feeling that every normal son has toward his father, the desire to give him nachas ruach. So too, a Jew should want to give Hashem nachas ruach. That is the practical action. The Alter Rebbe then concludes here by discussing this nachas ruach. What does he mean by “nachas ruach”? Look at the line beginning “as above,” a little before section 2 in the middle of the page. I’ll read these two lines again. Yes, look inside. The Alter Rebbe says that the main thing is to give Hashem nachas ruach. What is that nachas ruach? The Alter Rebbe explains it in detail: “And the nachas ruach is…” How is it expressed? What is the nachas ruach that we give Hashem? “The nachas ruach is like the joy of a king whose son comes to him upon leaving prison, as explained above.” What gives Hashem this nachas ruach? The Alter Rebbe says: the nachas ruach is like the nachas ruach a king has…

08:07 It is like a father who is a king, whose son returns from prison. That is one kind of nachas. There is a king, and the king has an only son, a prince. The prince was in prison, in a state of exile and captivity. Then he left prison and returned to be with the king. That brings his father tremendous joy—great nachas from his son’s return. The same should be true of a Jew who reflects on the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our Father. Reflecting on that awakens in us a desire to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu nachas. What kind of nachas? The nachas of Hashem’s joy when we leave our imprisonment. When I study Torah and perform a mitzvah, at that moment I leave the imprisonment of the body and the animal soul and connect with G-dliness. That is a departure from prison to the King, and it gives the King tremendous pleasure. That, then, is my purpose in Torah and mitzvos: to give the King nachas. Now, when a prince leaves prison, if we think about it, there is actually a double joy. There are two joys: the prince’s joy—I, the prince, am also happy to return to my father’s home—and the father’s joy that his son has come home. So if I do not feel within myself that “You are our Father,” if, as a Jew, I lack that self-surrender and devotion to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, if I lack the inner feeling that “You are our Father,” then I am still attached

10:10 to myself, to my own sense of self. So what is the main source of my joy? That I am coming home. That is my main joy in Torah and mitzvos. In my avodah, the joy I chiefly feel is my own joy: I am coming home. But when I reflect on the fact that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is our Father, my joy, my sense of nachas, is not that I am happy to come home, but that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy when a Jew comes home. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is happy that a Jew has left prison. That is the kind of nachas that comes from the awareness that “You are our Father.” That is one aspect. “Or to make Him a dwelling in the lower realms, as explained above.” The Alter Rebbe speaks of another kind of nachas: the nachas of a dwelling in the lower realms. Hakadosh Boruch Hu derives nachas from having a dwelling in the lower realms. After all, we learned in Tanya, chapter 36, that the Midrash Tanchuma says Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling in the lower realms. That gives Him nachas: the Jewish people illuminate the dark world. This lowest world, below which there is none, a place of deep, doubled darkness, becomes a dwelling when a Jew fulfills Torah and mitzvos in this physical world. In doing so, he makes a dwelling in the lower realms. The fulfillment of that purpose gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu tremendous nachas. So this too, the Alter Rebbe says, is what it means for a Jew to want to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu nachas: Hakadosh Boruch Hu derives nachas when a dwelling is made for Him in the lower realms. So here we have two kinds of nachas, these two aspects of nachas.

12:13 The Alter Rebbe discussed them in the previous chapters. The Rebbe says here, “as explained above.” Where were they explained? Let us take the first one: the king’s joy when his son returns from prison. The Alter Rebbe discussed this in chapter 31. There he writes about being “all his days in great joy, with the joy of the soul,” and gives the analogy of a prince in captivity—the joy a Jew should feel upon leaving prison. That is in chapter 31. The second aspect is the nachas of a dwelling in the lower realms. The Alter Rebbe discussed this at the end of chapter 33. There he writes that there is a “double and redoubled joy”: besides the joy of the understanding soul at its closeness to Hashem and His dwelling with it, a person should “rejoice doubly in Hashem’s joy and the great nachas before Him when the sitra achra is subdued below.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu has great joy, a special joy and tremendous nachas, when the sitra achra is subdued and darkness is transformed into light. The Alter Rebbe cites the verse there—it is one of the verses children say in school; they know it by heart—“Yisroel shall rejoice in his Maker.” Everyone of the seed of Yisroel should rejoice in Hashem’s joy, for He delights and rejoices in a dwelling in the lower realms. What should a Jew rejoice in? In the joy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu feels. And what gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu joy? A dwelling in the lower realms. So these are the two kinds of nachas the Alter Rebbe discussed. What is the distinction between them? What practical difference is there between these two kinds of nachas? One simple explanation is that the first is more a movement of ratzo, while the second is more a movement of shov. In other words, the first nachas comes from the son leaving prison

14:38 and going to his father, the king. So the movement here is more one of ratzo: I leave prison. What prison? The prison of the body and the animal soul, and I draw closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Leaving the prison of the world to draw close to G-dliness gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu nachas. I therefore want to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu nachas, and that is my aim in performing the mitzvah. So the person’s state, movement, feeling, and level are more those of ratzo: fleeing the world to draw close to G-dliness. The second aspect, by contrast, is more a movement of shov. The nachas of a dwelling in the lower realms is more a matter of shov. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants this physical world—not for us to flee the world, but for this physical world, precisely as a lower realm, to become a place where the light of the Ein Sof is revealed, a dwelling in the lower realms. So one is a movement of ratzo and the other a movement of shov. What, then, is the difference in avodah between avodah of ratzo and avodah of shov? Broadly speaking, it is the difference between the avodah of prayer and the avodah of mitzvos. As is known, the main emphasis in the avodah of prayer is ratzo. In prayer, a person is like “a ladder set on the earth, with its top reaching heaven”—moving from below upward. When a person begins to pray, he feels himself in the prison of the body and the animal soul, and he wants to leave that prison and draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is a movement of ratzo. Torah study and the fulfillment of mitzvos, by contrast, are the opposite. Their main emphasis is on bringing Hakadosh Boruch Hu—His wisdom and His will—down here below through physical action and the fulfillment of mitzvos. Those are the two movements here. What the Rebbe writes encompasses all of this briefly. On a deeper level, the distinction between the two kinds of nachas that the Rebbe

16:42 He is speaking here on a deeper level. The first kind of satisfaction is more closely connected to the person’s own situation. True, the emphasis here is not on what I feel, not on my joy, but on the King’s joy. So there is bittul here. Nevertheless, what is the emphasis in this first kind of satisfaction? That the person leaves prison. The person himself is more present in it. What does he focus on? On what is happening to me. I am in prison; I am a Jew, I have a soul, and my soul is imprisoned. Now my soul leaves prison to serve Hashem. So the person has not stepped entirely beyond himself. On the contrary, he is thinking about himself. He is thinking about the fact that he is leaving prison. But he reflects that Hakadosh Boruch Hu derives satisfaction from it. And what gives Hakadosh Boruch Hu satisfaction? My leaving prison. So the person’s own existence is still felt. By contrast, with a dwelling in the lower realms, the main emphasis is not on my own existence. What do I get out of a dwelling in the lower realms? I gain nothing from it. The whole point is what Hashem wants. It is not about me. It adds nothing to my own perfection. On the contrary, it is not my concern; it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s concern. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has a desire for a dwelling in the lower realms, and by actually performing mitzvos, I fulfill His desire. So when a Jew thinks about wanting to make a dwelling in the lower realms through his service, the bittul required is much greater than in the first case.

18:45 In the first case, feeling the joy of leaving prison also requires bittul, but not as much. Ultimately, it is connected to my own situation: I am leaving prison. In the second case, by contrast, it is not about my own situation at all. It comes solely from the desire to fulfill the purpose of making a dwelling in the lower realms. Why does the Alter Rebbe bring all this up here? Why does he need to explain the precise details of the satisfaction? After all, he is not discussing now what brings about that satisfaction. He is explaining the idea of “like a son who strives for his father.” When a Jew comes to recognize that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my Father, he naturally wants to give his Father satisfaction. So why does the Alter Rebbe add all these details—that the satisfaction takes the form of the King’s joy when His only son returns, and then that there is another kind of satisfaction, connected with a dwelling in the lower realms? Why bring that in here? The point is that the Alter Rebbe wants to explain how the service of “like a son who strives for his father” is within everyone’s reach. He says that every Jew can attain this kind of service. But then a question arises: In chapter 41, the Alter Rebbe explicitly says that this level of “like a son who strives for his father”—near the top of page 58, or at the bottom of page 57b—is connected with the intention of “for the sake of uniting the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah.” They are learning about this now in the maamarim studied

21:12 in the yeshiva at night. When we come to the subject of “for the sake of uniting the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah,” the Alter Rebbe says that this intention is not for everyone: that the unity of Hashem alone should be in my heart, with a great love for Him alone, and that I should give Him satisfaction alone, without considering myself—rather, “like a son who strives for his father and mother, whom he loves more than himself and his own life.” The Alter Rebbe also writes there at greater length on this point. The Rebbe quotes the whole passage here. There, the Alter Rebbe writes that uniting the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah is not for everyone. It requires a great love, like that of a son who strives for his father. Then the Alter Rebbe says that, nevertheless, a person should accustom himself to this intention. Why? Because Hashem desires even a little of it and is satisfied with even a little of it—which implies that it is not fully genuine. Yet here the Alter Rebbe says that “like a son who strives for his father” applies to everyone. Isn’t that a contradiction between chapter 41 and here? So the Alter Rebbe adds this explanation: Here we are speaking about a lower level of “like a son who strives for his father.” A Jew who has that feeling openly, in the manner of Moshe Rabbeinu—whose feeling of striving for his Father is revealed and complete—will serve in a way that does not involve thinking of himself at all. He will devote himself entirely to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The only thing that will matter to him is uniting the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. “I do not need anything for myself. I do not care what happens to me.” That intention means that a person completely nullifies himself. He does not think about himself at all; he thinks only about that union. He wants the level of the Holy One, blessed be He,

23:15 to unite with the level of His Shechinah, and that is all that concerns him. As the Rebbe explains in the maamar they studied in Tosafos, to bring about this union one must attain the deepest bittul to Hashem’s Essence, which is above both of those levels, in order to unite them. The Rebbe explains that in the maamar. But even without the maamar’s explanation, the straightforward meaning of this intention is that I am not thinking about myself. I am not thinking about who I am, about my love for Hashem or about my becoming attached to G-dliness. I am not seeking my own closeness. I seek only the union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. That requires the love of “like a son who strives for his father” to be revealed and complete, and that is not within everyone’s reach. Here, by contrast, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain how “like a son who strives for his father” applies to every single person. As he says, what matters here is not that it be revealed and complete. What matters here is only ... That is why the Alter Rebbe needs to explain what kind of satisfaction is within everyone’s reach. He says that the feeling of “like a son who strives for his father” awakens in a person the desire to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu satisfaction. But what kind of satisfaction can an ordinary person—someone who has not reached the level of Moshe Rabbeinu or of a tzaddik—feel? The kind felt when a son returns from prison. This does not require me to step entirely beyond my own existence. As we said earlier, the person is still present in it: the joy is that he has left prison. So he still has a sense of his own existence. Everyone can feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu derives

25:00 satisfaction from my leaving prison. That is within every person’s reach. Then the Alter Rebbe adds: Or, as we said—though the first kind is the main point here. It is the first thing the Alter Rebbe brings: the satisfaction of the King’s son coming home. Every Jew can awaken that feeling within himself: “I give Hakadosh Boruch Hu satisfaction by coming home, by leaving prison.” That is within every soul’s reach. Then the Alter Rebbe adds that a person may also attain a higher level: wanting to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu satisfaction by making a dwelling in the lower realms. That, too, is possible. But it is harder, because it requires more bittul, as we just said. Still, it too is possible.