Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 45 - Part 3

00:01 So we’re up to page 64b in Tanya, at the line beginning “And especially.” The Alter Rebbe is in the middle of describing the contemplation a person needs in order to awaken great compassion—great compassion before Hashem for his Divine spark. There’s a whole process of contemplation here. We said that it has two extremes. On the one hand, a person needs to contemplate the greatness of his soul’s revelation as it was Above, in its source of life in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. On the other hand, he needs to contemplate how low it has fallen: his soul descended into this world, into the lowliness of the body and the animal soul, and into this physical world, the place where the kelipos are at their strongest. Only by contemplating both extremes will great compassion be awakened in him. We explained that in the previous class. Now the Alter Rebbe adds another point. Until now, he has been speaking about the soul’s descent itself. Why is it such a great descent? Because of the state of the body, which is called “the skin of the serpent”—a body of kelipah—and because of this physical world, where the kelipos are at their strongest, as we explained. Now the Alter Rebbe adds another point, arising from what a person himself does. Beyond the descent into the body and the animal soul, which Hashem brought about, there is a further descent—the very lowest—when a person causes himself to fall even farther than was planned. That is what the Alter Rebbe goes on to say here: “And especially when he remembers all his deeds, words, and thoughts from the day he came into being.” When a person calls to mind everything that has happened throughout his life—his deeds, words, and thoughts from the day he came into being. In simple terms, from the day he was born: what his thoughts, speech, and actions have been, “which were not”

02:21 “good”—thoughts, speech, and actions that were not good, that were not on the side of holiness. This will deepen his bitterness and his feeling of great compassion for his soul. Yes: “The King is bound in the cords.” Here he adds another point concerning great compassion. Whenever a person thinks about undesirable things, matters of transgression, the King—who is the King? The King refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—is bound in the cords. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is tied with ropes. “Cords” here, in its simple sense, means ropes. He is bound—bound in the sense of tied up with ropes. Shtrikl. Yes. No, that isn’t English. “In the channels of the mind,” in the ropes of the mind. In other words, there are improper thoughts in his mind. Every time a person thinks an improper thought, he takes Hakadosh Boruch Hu along with him and, through the “channels of the mind,” ties Him with ropes to his mind. And when his mind is in the garbage, the King, so to speak, is there with him. This is also what Tanya mentions in chapter 24: he bends the King’s head and brings it into a lavatory. He takes the King with him, because the soul is a part of G-dliness, and so he takes Him along. The Alter Rebbe will now explain the connection. Why the King? When a Jew commits a transgression, or speaks or thinks something improper, why does he take Hakadosh Boruch Hu along with him? Before we continue with the explanation, let’s look at the expression “the channels of the mind.” It’s true that the simple translation of “cords” here is ropes, but “the channels of the mind” really means something else. Do you remember the explanation? We learned it here in the yeshivah before Rosh Hashanah. In Elul we learned chapter 7 of Igeres Hateshuvah, where we learned another interpretation that the Rebbe brings: the word for “channels” is related to water troughs.

04:39 Water troughs are channels; they are pools of water. As it says there in the account of Eliezer, Avraham’s servant, there were troughs for the water—like canals, channels of water—and Rivkah emptied water from her pitcher into the troughs for the camels to drink. Those are also called “troughs.” So what does the word mean? As we find in the Gemara, the related word means “to run.” That is its meaning in the language of the Gemara. The water troughs are where the water runs. You put water into these channels and it flows along; that is the nature of water. The water is drawn along and runs there. That is why they are called water channels. The same applies to “the channels of the mind”: the places where thoughts run, the flow of thoughts. What the Rebbe is hinting at here is not only thoughts a person deliberately thinks. After all, there are two kinds of improper thoughts. There is an improper thought that a person knows he is thinking: he sits and dwells on undesirable thoughts, may G-d spare us, on undesirable matters. He wants to sit and think about them. But there is another kind of improper thought that just runs through—es loyft durkh. A thought sort of runs through his mind. Or he looked at something, saw it, and a thought passed through his mind. Then he moves on. Even in the “channels of the mind,” with thoughts that run through the mind, he binds Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You have a thought; it runs through, passes, and then you move on and think about something else. Yet even with these thoughts running through the mind, the King, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, becomes bound up in them. This brings about the exile of the Shechinah, as the Alter Rebbe will now explain. This is what a person needs to contemplate. “And the channels of the mind, for ... for the cord”

06:51 “of His inheritance.” Why do we say that the King is connected to these things? The Alter Rebbe explains: because “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.” A Jew is compared to a cord connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The word “chevel” in its plain meaning can mean a portion or inheritance. But “chevel” can also mean a rope, as discussed at length in Igeres Hateshuvah in Tanya. The rope of connection is also explained in Basi Legani, through the analogy of someone pulling a rope. What is that analogy? When a rope is tied at one end to a place high above and at the other end to a place below, pulling its lower end also pulls the upper end, where the rope is tied. That is the idea here too, and it relates directly to our subject. A person’s soul, the rope, is connected Above to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is “an actual part of G-d Above,” connected, as the Alter Rebbe said earlier, to the Life of life, Hashem. Consequently, when the soul below falls into a poor state, this also brings about a descent Above, so to speak, G-d forbid. In this way, he binds Hakadosh Boruch Hu to his transgressions, to his undesirable conduct. That is the meaning of “The King is bound in the cords,” and it is the mystery of the exile of the Shechinah. What does that mean? What is the plain meaning of the mystery of the exile of the Shechinah? It is what the Gemara says—in which tractate? Megillah? Megillah, I don’t remember anymore. The scholars here will tell us. The Gemara says: “It was taught: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, wherever the Jewish people were exiled, the Shechinah went with them. They were exiled to Bavel, and the Shechinah went with them. They were exiled to Eilam”

08:57 The Shechinah is with them. When they were exiled to Edom, the Shechinah was with them. This means that the Shechinah went down into exile together with the Jewish people, and even when they are destined to be redeemed, the Shechinah is with them then, too. “Hashem your G-d will return with your captives”—it does not say “will bring back,” but “will return.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself returns from exile. This is the idea of the redemption of the Shechinah. So what does it mean? Here in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain what the exile of the Shechinah means. What defines it? It doesn’t simply mean that because the Jewish people went into exile, Hakadosh Boruch Hu went into exile too—as a way of telling us that He loves us, so when we go into exile, He goes too. Rather, it points to another reason. Since the soul is truly a part of G-d Above, when the soul descends into a state of exile, the Shechinah, which is connected to the soul by the cord of connection, goes down into exile as well. Chassidus explains that this is the meaning of “When they were exiled to Edom, the Shechinah was with them.” Edom here refers to the yetzer hara. The name Edom is related to adom, “red”—“that red, red stuff.” It refers to the deeds of Edom: when a person commits a transgression associated with Edom, with the force of the yetzer hara, particularly matters connected with anger and desire, which involve this redness. So when they are “exiled to Edom”—when a person does such a deed, with the blood boiling and all that—he causes the Shechinah to go with them. The Shechinah descends too. Chassidus also explains the other cases, “They were exiled to Bavel,” “They were exiled to Eilam,” and how each one expresses a different aspect of the animal soul. I spoke about this once in a class, perhaps... Well, that doesn’t

10:41 do them justice, but in any case, that is the point: this is what the exile of the Shechinah means. Why does the Alter Rebbe use the phrase “the secret of the exile of the Shechinah” here? What does “the secret of the exile of the Shechinah” mean? This is the exile of the Shechinah—but what makes it a secret? The Alter Rebbe is hinting that there is a secret here. There is a secret to the Shechinah being in exile. What is it? How does Hakadosh Boruch Hu allow such a thing to happen—that through the improper things a Jew does, says, or thinks, he can cause the Shechinah to descend into exile? There is a secret to that. Incidentally, the Rebbe writes in a letter that the secret of the exile of the Shechinah is the refinement of the spark. Ultimately, when a Jew does teshuvah, he extracts the sparks of holiness that fell into kelipah, and then there is “the advantage of light that comes from darkness.” He extracts the sparks that had been there beforehand as well. That is the whole idea of the advantage of light from darkness: “Man rules over man to his detriment.” The power Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives kelipah to rule over holiness is ultimately to kelipah’s detriment, because in the end, through teshuvah, the Jew restores what was lost. And he does more than restore it: “His deliberate sins become merits for him.” That is the secret of the exile of the Shechinah. On one hand, it is the exile of the Shechinah; on the other, there is also a positive aspect. Through falling and then doing teshuvah, he extracts the spark and raises it to a higher level. But that is through teshuvah. At the time, a person is certainly not thinking about that, so that is not... that is not the explanation. In any case, back to our subject.

12:42 The point the Alter Rebbe is explaining here is how a person should contemplate all these things so that great compassion will be aroused within him: how much he affects through his transgressions, bringing down his soul and also bringing down Hakadosh Boruch Hu—bringing Him into the depths of kelipah, G-d forbid. This is what the Alter Rebbe describes with the words “like the analogy of a rope,” and so on, as mentioned above. As explained here, his reference is to Igeres Hateshuvah, chapters 5 and 6, where the Alter Rebbe adds many details about this subject. Igeres Hateshuvah was printed several years after Tanya. Tanya was printed without Igeres Hateshuvah in 5557. Igeres Hateshuvah, as it says in Hayom Yom, was first printed in 5561—5561 or 5566, I don’t remember anymore. Even though Igeres Hateshuvah was printed several years later, the booklet of Igeres Hateshuvah was already in the hands of chassidim before Likkutei Amarim. There was a version called Igeres Hateshuvah, Mahadura Kama—the first edition. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. Igeres Hateshuvah, Mahadura Kama, has been printed. It’s somewhere; you’d have to look around for it. The wording is a little different, though it’s similar. There are a number of things there, more or less. It’s a similar text, but not the same as what the Alter Rebbe wrote at first, and the chassidim had it even before Likkutei Amarim. It was only a manuscript. The Alter Rebbe did not want to print it, and only later, several years after Tanya, did he print it separately. Only afterward did the Rebbe combine it with Tanya. So when the Alter Rebbe writes here “and so on,” he means to refer us

14:39 to the fuller explanation there, which gives a number of additional details about this subject. Another point we need to explain is what he means here by “from the day he came to be.” We explained it as meaning from the day he was born. But how can a person know what he thought from the day he was born? Huh? “From the day he came to be.” A person has to remember everything he did, said, and thought from the day he was born? I don’t know who in the world could remember all that. So some explain that “from the day he came to be” does not mean from his literal birth. It means from when he became a person. It doesn’t say “from the day he was born.” It means from when he became a person, from when he became conscious, as they say. He became a person; he began to have some control over his thought, speech, and action. From that point on, he needs to make an accounting of what he thought, said, and did. Unfortunately, I think many people can’t even remember what they thought, said, and did today. Ask someone, “Tell me every thought, word, and action you’ve had today—since you woke up this morning.” Huh? I don’t know if anyone here could make that accounting and remember every thought, word, and action even from today. Or, for that matter, even what he thought in the last hour. I don’t know how many bochurim could remember every thought, word, and action from the last hour. We are so lowly—how should I put it?—our thoughts are so scattered. So many things pass through our heads,

16:39 and we lack concentration. That is one of the biggest problems in our generation. Because of the—because of the, what do you call it—all the nonsense, all the media and everything else. People are running after a million things; they know about everything, see everything, hear everything. So they’re in a million places, occupied with a million things. A person is completely... Even thinking back over what happened in the past day, or even the past hour, and making an accounting of himself is hard for him. But a person who works on himself—there are stories, for example, about great chassidim, Reb Moshe Vilenker and Reb Yomi Kletzker [unclear]. I don’t remember which one said what. One said he could give an accounting of his every thought, word, and action over the past seven years. Seven years. Another said he could make an accounting of his thoughts, words, and actions over forty years. I don’t remember which one said seven and which one said forty, but they were among the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim, the great chassidim. Reb Moshe Vilenker was one of them, but I don’t remember what he said. There were Reb Moshe Vilenker and Reb Yomi Kletzker [unclear], zichron tzaddik livrachah. They say there was a discussion about how far back each one could go. It wasn’t a matter of pride. Who knows? Chassidim weren’t afraid to speak about themselves. To them it wasn’t self-importance; quite the opposite. They didn’t see it as showing off—only as that, and no more. In any case, that is the meaning of “from the day he came to be.” Another point: the Alter Rebbe writes here about things “that are not good.” The meaning of “not good” is not necessarily “bad.” The Alter Rebbe does not say “bad things” here. He is speaking here—he says

18:27 “They are not for Hashem.” “They are not for Hashem” means what the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 29: even thoughts, words, and deeds that are not forbidden, if they are not for the sake of Heaven, are also considered “not for Hashem.” Yes. Even permissible things, if they are not for Hashem. That is the Chassidic meaning of a “foreign thought.” It does not necessarily mean an improper thought; it means a thought foreign to the matter at hand. It has nothing to do with what you are doing right now. That, too, is something for which a person needs to do teshuvah. Since today is the Rebbetzin’s birthday, 25 Adar, there is a story. It’s a well-known story, but it relates exactly to this. The Rebbetzin once spoke about herself. She told—everyone knows the Rebbetzin did not speak much or tell many stories. In particular, she said almost nothing about herself. In practice, she was completely self-effacing; she devoted herself to the Rebbe to the point that she did not regard herself as a separate entity at all. That was the Rebbetzin’s greatness: she set herself aside entirely. Still, there are glimpses that chassidim relate. One of the stories known among chassidim, and it relates to serving Hashem, is something the Rebbetzin told about her life during the war. She confided in someone—I think it was Reb Berel Junik, if I’m not mistaken. She told him there was an incident in her life for which she could never forgive herself. Something had happened to her. That is how I remember hearing it. She could never forgive herself for what happened. What happened? She related that during the war, the Nazis, may their names be erased, were dropping

20:27 bombs constantly, and people had to flee, to run and run. Lives were in danger. People were falling all the time; there were casualties on every side of the road. It was simply a matter of life and death, and the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin were fleeing, running and running. This was when they had to flee France, from Paris to Nice, from Nice to... all the stages of the journey, until they reached... There were times when they simply had to flee, travel, and run through places where their lives were in danger from the bombs. So she related that once, while they were standing somewhere, she suddenly saw a bomb flying through the air. She saw a man standing there, lost in thought—a Jew standing there—and realized that the bomb was going to hit him. So the Rebbetzin grabbed the man and pushed him, pulled him aside so the bomb would not fall on him, and he fell to the ground. He fell to the ground, and in fact she saved his life. But the Rebbetzin said she could not forgive herself for the way she had done it. She had done it roughly, causing the man to fall to the ground, and she felt a pang of conscience about it all her life. Why couldn’t she have done it more gently, so that he would not fall, so that it would not happen to him like that? Maybe he was embarrassed; I don’t know what he felt. So think about this story. First of all, the Rebbetzin saved this man’s life. If he had remained standing, the bomb would have fallen on him. The Rebbetzin literally saved him from death. For someone else,

22:23 that would have been the main point: “You owe me your whole life. What do you mean? I saved your life, so you owe me for the rest of your life. You should be my servant, and no reward you give me will ever be enough. I saved your life!” But what troubled the Rebbetzin? That when she saved this man’s life, she did it in a way that made him fall to the ground and hurt him. That was the wrongdoing on her mind. She could not forgive herself. Of everything in her life, what was the one transgression she found, so to speak, that troubled her and that she could not forgive herself for? [unclear] What did she find? That once, when she saved this Jew, she did it in a way that was a little less than gentle, a little unpleasant for him. What a great, great Yid.