Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 46 - Part 10

00:01 The Alter Rebbe explains here the wording of the blessing, “Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” In the middle of this discussion, the Alter Rebbe speaks about “as water reflects a face to a face” and explains how this is expressed in the wording of the blessing over a mitzvah. He gives two explanations of “Who has sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us.” First, “sanctified us” is related to kiddushin, betrothal. What is kiddushin? A man sets a woman apart from everyone else and takes her for himself. That is the step that leads to their union. Similarly, as we discussed regarding “as water reflects a face to a face,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu descended to Egypt, “the nakedness of the land,” and took us from there. He took the lowly, despised person, lifted him from the refuse, and brought him into an innermost chamber. That is the point of “sanctified us with His mitzvos”: there is an act of setting apart. Through a mitzvah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sets us apart from the world. A person is separated from all his other concerns and united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the mitzvah. But the Alter Rebbe also explains “sanctified us with His mitzvos” not so much in terms of what happens to the person, but in terms of the level to which he rises. “Sanctified us,” says the Alter Rebbe, comes from the word kodesh, holiness. This connects directly with what we just learned in the maamar. We know what kodesh means, including the concept of chochmah as kodesh. Here the Alter Rebbe is speaking of something even higher. Kodesh refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. So what does “sanctified us with His mitzvos” mean? “Sanctified us,” from the word kodesh, refers to the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu in His own glory.

02:13 The level of holiness. Which level of holiness? As we explained in the previous class, it is the level of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s holiness that is completely above the worlds. Not merely sovev kol almin, but the true sovev, the aspect of Hakadosh Boruch Hu that is utterly separate from everything else and has no relationship to the worlds. So when a Jew performs a mitzvah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not merely sanctify him—that is, separate him from his surroundings and raise him to a higher level. To what level does He raise him? To the level expressed by “sanctified us with His mitzvos.” Through performing the mitzvah, the Jew rises to the level of kodesh, to the level of His holiness, the level of sovev. Now let’s continue. [unclear] After the period. Here the Alter Rebbe concludes his explanation: Through the soul’s union with and inclusion in Hashem, blessed be He—through performing the mitzvah, the soul is united with and included in Hashem—it is thereby truly on the level of the holiness of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. The Jew’s soul rises to the very level from which the mitzvah comes. It rises so far that it is actually on the level of His holiness. Someone looking at this might ask: How can we say “actually” about that level? But since he performed the mitzvah, he became one with it, and so he is now on a level of holiness. What is the remarkable insight the Alter Rebbe is giving us here? He is already hinting at one of the great insights of Tanya. We ordinarily understand “sanctified us with His mitzvos” as follows: Even if we say that the mitzvah is the supernal will, the will of the true sovev, an aspect of Hashem Himself—when you perform a mitzvah, what happens? You carry out the will of sovev; you carry out

04:25 the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So you connect with the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does “connect” mean? Simply, it means you do what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. That is the straightforward idea. A king commands his servant to do something for him. To use an example also given in Chassidus, a king or a great sage asks an ordinary person to do something—something simple, not grand. Make a cup of tea, perform some action, something the king can see being done. Since you fulfilled the king’s wish, you gained a connection with the king. That is the basic idea of a mitzvah: you gained a connection with the King. Here the Alter Rebbe adds a greater point. Not only do you gain a connection with the King by carrying out His wish; through doing so, you rise to the level from which the command comes. It is not merely that I gained a connection with the holiness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, while His holiness remains on its own level. What about the person? He carried out Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s command and gained a connection as one who fulfilled it, but that would not mean he himself reached that level. The Alter Rebbe’s explanation adds that through performing a mitzvah, a person rises to the level of “sanctified us with His mitzvos.” “Sanctified us” means that you rise to the level of kodesh. At the moment he performs a mitzvah, the Jew becomes part of this aspect of Kudsha Brich Hu. He rises to the level of Kudsha Brich Hu. Why does the Alter Rebbe emphasize this specifically here, in chapter 46? He wants to emphasize

06:10 this point because it is the whole point of “as water reflects a face to a face.” The full force of the Alter Rebbe’s illustration is that the king takes the lowly, despised man. He does not merely take him and say, “I want to be your friend; do things for me,” as though hiring him as a worker. The wonder in the Alter Rebbe’s illustration is that he raises him to a place where no minister or servant may enter. He takes the ordinary man and raises him to the king’s own level, into his innermost chamber, where no minister or servant is present, and unites with him there in complete union. That is the point. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes that this is what happens through performing mitzvos. Performing mitzvos is not only a matter of kiddushin—the first element of “as water reflects a face to a face,” lifting him out of his lowliness and setting him apart. Rather, performing mitzvos brings about union: complete union, in which the person rises to the level of Kudsha Brich Hu. He now becomes part of sovev. It becomes who he is. This point is explained at greater length in several of the Rebbe’s maamarim. One of them was studied here in the yeshiva recently. They are now studying Tractate Kiddushin, and they also studied a maamar of the Rebbe. If you remember, it was before Pesach. They studied the Rebbe’s maamar “Gan Na’ul” here. Do you remember the maamar “Gan Na’ul”? Yes, they studied it here. “Gan Na’ul Achosi Kallah,” and Beis Ziv. At the beginning, the beginning, the beginning of this term, the most recent term. There was a connection to Beis Ziv. They studied the maamar “Gan Na’ul Achosi Kallah” here, a maamar of Chassidus. There the Rebbe brings up the concept of kiddushin, and the Rebbe explains kiddushin. On the one hand, it is makif. The Rebbe explains there the concept

07:54 Of kiddushin and marriage. Kiddushin corresponds to mitzvos; marriage corresponds to Torah. A mitzvah is an encompassing connection; Torah is an internal one. Kiddushin establishes only the encompassing bond, setting you apart from the world. It is not yet an internal bond. Marriage, by contrast, is an internal union. So mitzvos create an encompassing bond, while Torah creates an internal bond. The Rebbe adds another point there. Now, mitzvos have this aspect of kiddushin. In kiddushin, a man gives a woman a coin with which she can buy something to sustain herself. On the one hand, we say kiddushin is encompassing, transcendent—a bond for life. That is what is meant here by “encompassing.” Yet at the same time, the coin must have value. What does that mean? It must be worth enough for the woman to buy something with it, something she can eat or benefit from. It has to provide sustenance. There are all sorts of intricate discussions about sustenance; it gets quite complicated. Yes, we study it in the morning and know all the different approaches, but the point is that kiddushin must be the kind of thing from which internal life can come. So what do we see? On the one hand it is encompassing; on the other, it gives internal life. The Rebbe points to the Tanya here. Yes, that is what the Rebbe says here in the Tanya. On the one hand, a mitzvah brings holiness from the encompassing level. Nevertheless, he says that the soul is united and joined in complete union with that encompassing level. In other words, it is a revelation of something encompassing, yet a Jew can live an internal life from it. The soul receives internal vitality from the encompassing level. In a simple sense, this is also connected to a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. It is not stated explicitly in the maamar, but it is connected to the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching about

09:57 “Where a person’s will is, that is where he is.” When a person wants to be in a certain place, he is immediately there. So when a person fulfills a mitzvah, he connects with the Divine will, with the encompassing level, and through that he is immediately in that place: he rises to that encompassing level. This is also the meaning of “which a person shall do and live by them”—“live by them.” That is the novel point about a mitzvah: although it is encompassing and transcendent, for a Jew it must be a matter of “live by them.” He must draw internal life from it. In other words, it becomes part of his very being. When he fulfills a mitzvah, he rises to that encompassing level. Let’s continue. The Rebbe says: “And this is what is written: ‘You shall be holy to Me, for I, Hashem, am holy, and I have separated you from the nations to be Mine.’ And it says: ‘You shall do all My mitzvos and be holy to your G-d. I am Hashem your G-d,’ etc.” In these verses we see this point: through fulfilling a mitzvah, a person becomes holy to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is set apart from all the nations, and becomes one with G-dliness. Now, the Rebbe says here, we need to understand the straightforward meaning: he cites both of these verses. Why bring two verses? “For I, Hashem, am holy” is already one verse. He also quotes the verse at length. He could have shortened it and said just “You shall be holy to Me,” rather than quoting the whole verse. Then he brings another verse. What is the difference between the two verses, and why does he quote both at length? The Rebbe explains that they correspond to the two meanings we mentioned earlier regarding kiddushin and mitzvos. What is emphasized in the first verse? The idea of separation: “You shall be holy to Me, for I, Hashem, am holy.”

12:19 But the verse itself explains how “You shall be holy to Me” is expressed: “And I have separated you from the nations to be Mine.” How is the central idea of separation, of holiness, expressed? In “I have separated you”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu separated us and bound us to Him. So this is more closely connected with the first meaning of kiddushin, of “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos.” Sorry, “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos” in the sense of kiddushin, as when a man betroths a woman and thereby sets her apart. But what is emphasized in the second verse? It says: “You shall do all My mitzvos and be holy to your G-d. I am Hashem your G-d.” Here the verse emphasizes that by doing the mitzvos, you become holy to your G-d. Yes, a person becomes holy with the holiness of “your G-d,” as the Alter Rebbe will explain shortly. It becomes your own portion, so that you truly become one. “I am Hashem your G-d”: the Jew rises to the level of “I am Hashem your G-d.” He and Hakadosh Boruch Hu become one. That is the second point in “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos”: the Jew rises to the level of supreme holiness. So the Alter Rebbe brings these two verses to correspond to the two points in “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos.” There is also a sicha of the Rebbe in which he explains how the Alter Rebbe connects the two explanations here, the two meanings of “Who sanctified us with His mitzvos” in Tanya. The Rebbe says these can also be connected with two aspects of kiddushin. We study Kiddushin, and it is well known that the halachic authorities explain that kiddushin has two aspects. The Gemara speaks of kiddushin in the sense of acquisition: a woman is acquired by her husband. That is an affirmative aspect of kiddushin. And there is another aspect, kiddushin in the sense of prohibition, “for he has made her forbidden to everyone else, like consecrated property.” But interestingly, the Rebbe explains it the opposite way from what it would seem at first glance. The Rebbe takes these two discussions, these two aspects of kiddushin,

14:47 and explains them in relation to the way we read the Tanya. What would it seem to say? From what we learn here, it would seem that the first explanation is “he has made her forbidden to everyone else, like consecrated property”—kiddushin in the sense of separation. The second explanation, that He raised us to the level of supreme holiness, seems more affirmative. It would seem connected to kiddushin in the sense of acquisition. But what does the Rebbe say? The opposite. The Rebbe understands the first aspect as connected with kiddushin in the sense of acquisition: betrothing a woman so that she is joined with him in complete union. That is the aspect of acquisition, the affirmative aspect of kiddushin. And it is specifically the second point the Alter Rebbe makes—that He raised us to the level of supreme holiness—that is connected with kiddushin in the sense of prohibition. Why does the Rebbe explain it this way? Because of how he understands the distinction between positive mitzvos and prohibitions. The difference is that through a positive mitzvah, a person becomes one with G-dliness, but with a lower level of G-dliness. Positive mitzvos come from Malchus; that is why they involve doing something. Prohibitions, by contrast, are connected with the shattering of all the vessels, and therefore a prohibition involves refraining from action. You cannot make a vessel for it through action; the vessel is the absence of action. So since, in the second explanation, the Alter Rebbe speaks about sovev kol almin, the encompassing level, to what level does a person rise? To a level above all the worlds. And sovev kol almin is connected with refraining from action, with negation, specifically with prohibitions. So the Rebbe says that, accordingly, the first aspect of mitzvos that the Alter Rebbe mentions is connected with the affirmative aspect of kiddushin, which is connected with positive mitzvos. By contrast, “he has made her forbidden to everyone else, like consecrated property” is the aspect of prohibition. And therefore the second point

16:43 is specifically connected with the second aspect of kiddushin, kiddushin in the sense of prohibition. That is how the Rebbe explains it here: it corresponds to the two levels of the two points that the Alter Rebbe mentions here.