Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 44 - Part 11

00:00 An inheritance from our forefathers. And if he awakens this love, it is called natural love. It gives him life. He observes mitzvos, learns Torah, and davens. On what basis? On the basis that he is a Jew. [unclear] The Alter Rebbe says that this is comparable to the living creature, to an animal. Why an animal? Because the love is natural. Just as an animal has natural love and fear for physical things, this Jew has natural love and fear for G-dliness. He did not produce this love through reason. It awakens in him by nature, because he inherited it from our forefathers. He is a child of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. So this level is akin to that of an animal. By contrast, when a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem through his intellect—he studies Hashem’s greatness, thinks it over, and then intellectual love and fear awaken within him—the Alter Rebbe says this is comparable to the speaking being, the human being. The person becomes a “speaking being.” What does that mean? His love and fear are based on understanding. They are not natural love and fear. They arose through intellectual contemplation, and he has thereby risen to a level where his love and fear are products of the intellect. He has become a “speaking being,” the level of binah. The Alter Rebbe says in chapter 38 of Tanya that the difference between these two levels, natural love and fear and intellectual love and fear, is like the difference between an animal and a human being. The Alter Rebbe says that, in the spiritual worlds, this is the difference between the World of Yetzirah and the World of Beriah—between the Lower Gan Eden and the Higher Gan Eden. The difference between the World of Yetzirah and the World of Beriah is enormous. What is the difference? The Zohar says that in the World of Beriah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s sefirah of binah is revealed, while in the World of Yetzirah, His emotional attributes are revealed.

01:59 Therefore, in the World of Beriah is the Higher Gan Eden, the place of souls that perceive G-dliness and serve Hashem according to their understanding. They enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah—that is the central feature of the World of Beriah, the Higher Gan Eden. There, they perceive G-dliness and experience the pleasure of that perception, as the Alter Rebbe also explains in chapter 4 of Tanya. Enjoying the radiance of the Shechinah, the pleasure of perception—that is the World of Beriah. By contrast, the central feature of the World of Yetzirah is the world of angels. What are angels? Angels have no foundation. For angels, the main part of their service is natural love and fear. Michael is the angel of chessed, on the right—the side of love. Gavriel is the angel of gevurah, and all their love and fear are natural. That is why the angels are called chayos, “living creatures”: the face of an ox, the face of a lion, the face of an eagle. Their service is in the manner of animals, and this is the idea of the Lower Gan Eden. So the Alter Rebbe says that when a person serves Hashem with natural love and fear—meaning that his main emphasis is on the emotions, awakening love according to his nature—his love belongs to the World of Yetzirah, the level of the living creature. So one might ask—hmm? His love and fear are on the level of the living creature, the World of Yetzirah. By contrast, when a person serves Hashem with intellectual love and fear, his love and fear rise to the World of Beriah, the world of understanding, the level of the speaking being. That is what is discussed in chapter 38 of Tanya. What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? What is new in this chapter? Here the Alter Rebbe is discussing a love connected with what? With “My soul yearns for You.” The love of “like a son who strives.” When a person loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is his very life. And likewise with “like a son who strives.” That is what the Alter Rebbe is discussing. And the Alter Rebbe says

04:08 that this love exists naturally in every Jew. It is an inheritance from our forefathers. Every Jew naturally has love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We received it as an inheritance from our forefathers, or from Moshe Rabbeinu. As he says here, we inherited a love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu: I love Hakadosh Boruch Hu just as I love being alive. I love Hakadosh Boruch Hu as a son loves his father. So, seemingly, according to what we have just explained, if the love is natural, to which world does it belong? The World of Yetzirah, the level of the living creature. After all, we just said, based on chapter 38 of Tanya, that when love and fear are natural, when you awaken natural love and fear, they belong to the World of Yetzirah. That is the world associated with living creatures, angels—literally chayos. Natural love and fear. Here the Alter Rebbe introduces something new: even within this love, although it is natural, there are two possibilities. There is a way for the love of “My soul yearns for You” and the love of “like a son who strives” to rise to the World of Beriah. This is what the Alter Rebbe says here, in what we studied on page 63b in the previous lesson. When is the love of “My soul yearns for You,” and likewise the love of “like a son who strives,” called natural love and fear, belonging to the World of Yetzirah, the level of the living creature? Only when it remains hidden in the heart. Then it belongs to the World of Yetzirah. But if a person brings this love and fear into the open in his heart, awakening them so that he feels them openly, then they are not called natural love and fear. What are they called? Love belonging to the World of Beriah. That is a major insight. After all, once again, we are talking about love and fear that we said every Jew possesses naturally: “My soul yearns for You” and “like a son who strives.” Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe says that they rise to the World of Beriah when they

06:20 become felt in the heart. If I feel this deeply—if I have a powerful feeling that Hashem is our life, that He is my very soul—then it rises to the World of Beriah. Why? What is the explanation? The Alter Rebbe explains this now, on page 64. Now we can understand what the Alter Rebbe is going to explain in the following lines, which we will read inside. Here the Alter Rebbe comes to explain why this love, when it becomes felt in the heart, belongs to the World of Beriah, the world of understanding—even though we inherited this love and possess it by nature. That is what the Alter Rebbe explains now. Let’s read the reason inside. The Alter Rebbe says: “For their emergence from the concealment and hiding of the heart into a state of revelation”—so that the feeling that Hashem is our life, and likewise the feeling that He is my very soul, comes to be felt in the heart and is awakened openly—“is through daas and firmly fixing one’s thought, with intense contemplation from the depths of the heart, exceedingly and constantly, upon the blessed Ein Sof.” For a person to awaken the feeling that Hashem is our Father, or the feeling that He is my very soul, so that he actually feels it in his heart, there must be very deep contemplation. It will not happen on its own. There must be very deep contemplation, through daas—a profound depth, from deep within the heart. “To contemplate how He is truly our life and our true Father, blessed be He.” Very deep contemplation is needed. How is Hakadosh Boruch Hu our true life? And how is Hakadosh Boruch Hu our true Father? Because deep contemplation is needed to reveal this. This is what is written in Tikkunim: “The Supernal Mother nests in the Throne,” which is the World of Beriah. And what is found there, in the Supernal Mother? The Supernal Mother is binah. Since, in order to awaken

08:27 To bring this love into the felt experience of the heart, he needed to develop an understanding—a deep understanding. Understanding belongs to the world of Beriah. That is why, here, this love and awe ascend to the world of Beriah. In other words, what is the Alter Rebbe resolving? What is the difference between the natural love and awe we learned about in chapter 38, which the Alter Rebbe says reach only the world of Yetzirah? If you awaken them, they still remain in the world of Yetzirah. Yet here the Alter Rebbe says that when you contemplate these natural feelings of love and awe and reveal them in the heart, they ascend to the world of Beriah. What is the difference? What is the Alter Rebbe’s explanation? The difference is this: To awaken the love and awe the Alter Rebbe discussed earlier—the love and awe every Jew inherits, through which a Jew does not want to be separated from G-dliness—you do not need understanding. That love is not connected with understanding. You only need to know that you are a Jew. Then this love, this feeling that I am a Jew, comes to light. A Jew feels: I am a Jew, and because I am a Jew, I do not want to be separated from G-dliness. I cannot be separated from G-dliness. Indeed, I am ready to give my life for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As the Alter Rebbe explained at length in the preceding chapters—18, 19, and the chapters that follow—a Jew always has this within him. So I only need to remember it, and then it will come to me; then a person will serve Hashem in this way. There, understanding is not needed to awaken it. You only need to awaken the feeling: I am a Jew. Therefore, even when it comes out into the open, it reaches only the world of Yetzirah, because this love and awe belong to the emotions, not to the intellect. By contrast, the love and awe discussed here in chapter 44 are

10:26 love and awe connected with “my soul.” One contemplates that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one’s soul, one’s life. Here you need to reflect: Why is He my soul? In what sense is He my soul? What does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is true life? There is already thought involved. So even though a Jew also has this love naturally, as the Alter Rebbe said earlier—even though a Jew has inherited from our forefathers this feeling that G-dliness is life, and feels deep within that G-dliness is life—for it to be felt in the heart, one needs a detailed understanding. What does “my soul” mean? Why is G-dliness one’s soul? Just as the soul gives life to the body, so Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world. There is an entire contemplation of this idea. The same applies to “our Father.” Why is Hakadosh Boruch Hu our Father? Why is a Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu the connection of a child to a father? Why is He our true Father? So understanding is involved here. Because understanding is needed to awaken this feeling in the heart, when it reaches the heart, it comes after extended, deep contemplation of “our Father” and “our life.” That is why this love and awe ascend to the world of Beriah. This is what chapter 44 adds to what the Alter Rebbe discussed in chapter 38. It is a kind of love and awe that, on the one hand, is natural. It is a distinctive kind of love and awe that the Alter Rebbe has not discussed until now. On the one hand, I have inherited it; it is part of my nature. For that reason, it may remain in the world of Yetzirah if it stays hidden in the recesses of the heart, as he explained. But it is possible to connect this love and awe with understanding, if there is

12:23 binah. That is the point, as the Alter Rebbe says here. And then it ascends to the world of Beriah. You’ll see: he finishes with one more line and says, “As Eliyahu said, ‘Binah is the heart, and through it the heart understands.’” Eliyahu Hanavi said this about the matter, right? He said, “Binah is the heart, and through it the heart understands.” We say this every week on Erev Shabbos in Patach Eliyahu. Eliyahu Hanavi says, “Binah is the heart, and through it the heart understands.” What does that mean? That binah is the heart, that the heart understands. That is what it says in Patach Eliyahu. What does it mean there? What connection does binah have to the heart? Binah is in the mind. That is what we know: binah is in the mind, not the heart. But here Eliyahu Hanavi says otherwise. Chochmah—what does he call it? “Binah is the heart.” The mind is chochmah; binah is the heart. Why is binah the heart? He says, “Through it the heart understands.” What does it mean that the heart understands? Where have you heard of such a thing? I know the head understands. The heart understands? In what way does the heart understand? But I say it every day in davening, don’t I? Every day in davening we say, “Place binah in our hearts so that we may understand.” What do you think those words mean? Place binah in our hearts so that we may understand. Why not place binah in our heads so that we may understand? No—we say, “Place binah in our hearts so that we may understand.” So we see that davening, too, associates binah with the heart. What is the connection? And why does he bring it here? Earlier, in chapter 38, the Alter Rebbe did not bring it. He brings it specifically here. But according to what we have explained, the whole point is very clear. What have we been explaining here? What is the point, the new insight the Alter Rebbe gives in this chapter? Essentially, we are speaking about love and awe connected with the emotions, not with the intellectual faculties. It is love and awe

14:34 that are natural. A Jew’s feeling of love—that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my life, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is my father—is a feeling of the heart. It is not an intellectual matter. We have it naturally, as an inheritance. But everything depends on binah. If you contemplate this idea, the feeling in the heart takes on an entirely different character. You contemplate “for He is our Father”; you contemplate “our life,” that He is our life. That contemplation affects what you feel in your heart. The feeling in the heart is elevated to the level of the mind, and then it becomes something that belongs to the world of Beriah. This is the whole point he wants to explain next, and that is why he brings the Zohar’s statement here: “Binah is the heart.” What does that mean? Binah is, of course, connected with the intellect. Binah is an intellectual faculty. But when is binah complete? When it penetrates the heart as well. Binah is not mere comprehension. A person can understand things, yes? He understands something abstractly, in theory. It remains an intellectual exercise for him but does not reach his heart. Then the shortcoming is not only in the heart; it is a shortcoming in his binah. What is true binah? When is binah complete? When the person connects with what he understands—when he not only understands the idea from a distance, but his understanding has an effect on him and he grasps it in a way he can feel. It connects with him; he becomes one with it; it is alive for him. That is called genuine binah. So this is what “binah is the heart” means. When is binah complete? When it extends all the way to the heart. When intellectual understanding remains in the mind, it has not yet become full understanding. It remains binah,

16:56 but it is not there yet. When is binah complete? When it penetrates the heart too, so that the heart also lives with what the mind understands. As for chochmah, chochmah is koach mah, self-nullification, and what happens in the heart is not the concern of chochmah. Chochmah is concerned with the truth: What is the idea? What is true? It does not matter to chochmah whether the heart feels it or not. This is the truth. On the contrary, chochmah is self-nullification: the person sets himself aside. His own feelings are not the point. But what is binah? It means that I understand. That is the whole difference between chochmah and binah. Chochmah asks what the idea is, what the truth is. Binah is about how I grasp it. So when is binah complete? When it penetrates the heart as well. Why? I have said a great deal about this. Because “binah is the heart”—and this is what we say every day in davening: “Place binah in our hearts so that we may understand.” We do not want merely to understand what we learn and have it remain in the mind. We want binah in our hearts, so that love and understanding come together in the heart’s feelings, so that the heart, too, understands—that the understanding takes hold strongly in the heart as well. Since Eliyahu Hanavi says, “Binah is the heart, and through it the heart understands,” binah means that the heart understands, that the heart connects with this understanding. Here, too, we are speaking about a feeling of the heart: the feeling that “He is our Father,” the feeling that He is “our life.” We have these feelings in our hearts, inherited from our forefathers. But when they do not merely remain hidden within me, and you contemplate them, as the Alter Rebbe says, there is a depth and strength to the understanding. Then the feeling becomes powerful. It pulses in the heart, and the heart is awakened with love of Hashem. That is “binah is the heart.” Therefore, this level of love and awe also ascends to the world of Beriah, since this love and awe is not

18:55 Love and awe associated with the emotions are love and awe associated with binah. “Binah is the heart.” Love and awe associated with binah belong to the World of Beriah, not the World of Yetzirah. That’s why this love and awe ascend to the World of Beriah. That’s the point of this chapter. All right, we’ll see—it’s already late.