Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 46 - Part 15

00:01 The Rebbe explains here in chapter 46, as everyone already knows, that the Alter Rebbe is discussing the love that is “like water reflects a face back to a face.” This love, the Alter Rebbe says, is a straight path for a person whose heart is upright and whose soul is properly disposed, and it is very, very close at hand. Everyone can reach it in the easiest way. You only need to pay attention to this reflection of love: Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves every Jew. Because of the great, immense love Hakadosh Boruch Hu has for us, He shows us that love. He took us out of the nakedness of the land, out of Egypt, and brought us to the Sinai Desert, where He joined with us in union, embrace, and kisses. Yes, all of that. This is the meaning of Torah and mitzvos. He explains this through the words we say, whether in a prayer or a blessing: “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us.” When a Jew fulfills a mitzvah, through “Who has sanctified us with His commandments,” he becomes one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—together and connected with Him. Truly one, just as the Patriarchs were a chariot for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We say, “the G-d of Avraham, the G-d of Yitzchak, and the G-d of Yaakov.” In the same way, every Jew truly becomes a chariot for Hakadosh Boruch Hu when fulfilling a mitzvah. That is why one must stand up. When you see a Jew fulfilling a mitzvah, you must stand before him. Why? Because at that moment he truly becomes one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. At the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe raises a question about this: a person does not feel it. The Patriarchs felt it; they saw their world in their lifetimes. The Patriarchs saw their world in their lifetimes—they saw the revelation of G-dliness brought about through mitzvos. But we do not feel it. The Alter Rebbe explains that physical matter does not prevent the soul from uniting with His will. Our bodies are physical, and because of the physical body, we do not feel it.

02:12 But that does not prevent it from being true. The truth is that a Jew is one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Even darkness will not obscure anything from You.” This is the meaning of the verse: “I was foolish and did not know; I was like an animal with You.” Even though I am like an animal, nevertheless, “I was with You.” “I am always with You”—a Jew is one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So when the Alter Rebbe says here that physical matter does not prevent the soul from uniting with His will, he means that even though I do not feel the soul or the union, that does not prevent the soul from being united with Him. Why? Because “darkness will not obscure anything from You”—from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Now a question is asked here: seemingly, what is this teaching us? What is the Alter Rebbe adding? Even if a Jew does not feel himself becoming one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu because his body is coarse and physical, that does not prevent the soul from uniting with His will. Darkness will not obscure anything from You, because darkness does not obscure the truth. Seemingly, what is the Alter Rebbe’s point here? You would not need anything special about Hakadosh Boruch Hu to explain that. That is how everything in the world works. If you are here in this room and there is light, you see a cup. How do you see the cup? Because there is light in the room. The moment you turn off the light, it becomes dark, and I cannot see the cup. Does the cup cease to exist because I cannot see it? Does the reality change because it is dark? The cup is there even when it is dark. So even with a physical thing, darkness does not change the reality. There is a cup here in the room whether there is light or whether there is no light and it is dark.

04:02 The cup is here. So seemingly, the same applies to a mitzvah. If we say that a mitzvah means togetherness and connection—that when a person fulfills a mitzvah, he thereby unites with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—what difference does it make whether it is dark or not? Whether the body obscures it or does not obscure it, the reality remains the same. Here the Alter Rebbe is teaching us something special about G-dliness. When it comes to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is something special: even if a person is in darkness and does not feel himself becoming one with G-dliness, he must know the truth—that the darkness does not obscure it, that physical matter does not obscure it. What is the explanation? First, I will give it briefly. I am not going into all of it now, because this is discussed at length in Chassidus. I will just give the point briefly, especially since many of the bochurim have probably already heard it in connection with another topic in Chassidus that they study in the morning. It is also discussed in the maamarim, in what Chassidus cites from the Pardes about water in a red vessel, a green vessel, and a white vessel. The Pardes says that the water is clear, yet when it is in a red vessel, a green vessel, or a white vessel, what do you see when you look at it? You see red water, white water, green water. Chassidus explains that the water itself is clear, and it remains clear even now. Nevertheless, as far as what it conveys is concerned, it conveys red, green, or white. And when a person looks, what does he see? Red water, green water, white water. Yes, so there is an effect. Chassidus also brings this as an analogy. The Pardes brings the analogy to explain how, although the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is simple and undifferentiated, nevertheless, because it is enclothed

05:50 in the vessels—the vessel of chesed, the vessel of gevurah, the vessel of tiferes—it conveys chesed, gevurah, and tiferes. So in terms of its effects, it conveys chesed and tiferes, while in its essence it remains simple and undifferentiated. This point comes up many times in Chassidus, and there too they ask a question—seemingly the same question. They ask: What does that mean? Isn’t it just an illusion, something false, imaginary? It is not a real state of affairs. When the water is in a red vessel, no red water comes into being. The water is plain water, the same water. Before you put it into the red vessel and after you put it into the red vessel, the water does not convey redness. It is only an impression I get when I look at the water. I imagine that I see red, so it is only imaginary. Is that what you want to say about Hakadosh Boruch Hu as well—that it is an illusion? The ten sefiros, Hakadosh Boruch Hu conveying chesed and gevurah—is that imaginary? How can you say such a thing? The explanation in Chassidus is remarkable. The Rebbe brings it in Lessons in Tanya; it appears in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. The Rebbe brings a remarkable explanation there: no, it is not imaginary; it is a genuine reality. Why? Because when I look at the water in the cup with my eyes, I see red water. It is not merely that I see red. It is not just something happening in my eyes; the water also has a red radiance. That is, something emanates from the water itself; the water has a radiance. And that is how seeing works. How does a person see? This is a question in philosophy and science: How do I see? There is a cup here on the table. I look over here—how does my eye see something that is some distance from me?

07:45 One part of the answer is that everything in the world has a radiance, a glimmer, waves—there are different names for it in Spanish and in English. It sends out various rays, a ray or a radiance, which enters the eye of the observer and reaches the person. That is how sight works. In other words, when the water looks red because it is in a red vessel, the water itself really sends a red radiance to the person’s eyes. So it truly is something real. There is the water itself, which is plain water, and there is the radiance the water sends out, the glimmer that comes from it, which enters the eye of the observer. So to the eyes it is red, and it is therefore not imaginary; it is real. This is explained in Chassidus in connection with the Pardes’s teaching about the sefiros. The light remains simple and undifferentiated, yet it is not false: it truly brings about effects of chesed, gevurah, and tiferes. The same applies to our subject. When it is dark, you cannot see the vessel, the cup. When there is light, you see the cup. That is not just a matter of the person’s eyes; it also has to do with the object. It is the same as what we said about red, white, and green. The difference between the colors is connected with the water too. It is not just my imagination; the water really does this. When the water is in a red vessel, it sends out a red radiance. When it is in a white vessel, it sends out a white radiance. The same applies to light and darkness. When there is light in the room, the vessels and objects in the room affect a person’s eyes so that he can see them. When the room is dark, the darkness causes the vessel in the room not to have that effect. So consequently

09:43 That is a change on the part of the object. It is not just a change on the part of the person; it is not merely an illusion. There really is a change in the object too: in a dark place, the object does not give off light, does not radiate. That is why I cannot see it. So I could have thought the same thing about the body and its connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The fact that ordinary people like us cannot feel that wondrous unity with Hakadosh Boruch Hu might mean that something is lacking in what comes to us from the Infinite—that there is some change here. Yes, I could have thought of it the way we think about physical light and darkness. When it is dark, the object in the room acts differently. In a lit room, the object reflects light. In a dark room, it does not. The same, I might think, applies to a tzaddik and a wicked person. When a tzaddik performs a mitzvah, his body is refined and full of light, so Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is revealed through the mitzvah, shines His countenance upon him, grants him lofty influences and gives him revelation. But when people like us perform a mitzvah, we are in a place of darkness, so no Divine influence reaches us. It would not be only on the person’s part; it would also be on the part of G-dliness. This is what the Alter Rebbe teaches here: “Even darkness does not obscure anything from You.” With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it does not work that way. In this respect, there is a difference between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and a human being. In the physical world down here, when it is dark, the object does not radiate light. The object changes, in that respect, between a place of light and a place of darkness. But with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is no difference whether it is dark or light.

11:42 “Even darkness does not obscure anything from You.” Whether a perfect tzaddik like Avraham Avinu performs a mitzvah, or a wicked person—or even the lowliest person—performs a mitzvah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present in that mitzvah in the fullest measure. That is so even though, outwardly, the body is a place of darkness. This is the Alter Rebbe’s point here in saying, “Even darkness does not obscure anything from You.” Since, in truth, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed—He radiates light, for He is revealed and clothed in splendor—even when the body does not feel it, we say: “I was like a beast before You, yet I am always with You.” Although I am like a beast and have no feeling of it at all, I am nevertheless always with You. When a Jew fulfills a mitzvah, the Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are bound together in the fullest measure, like the Avos, who were a chariot for G-dliness. And the same applies to punishment. As the Alter Rebbe goes on to say, we see that in matters of punishment there is no difference between the lowliest person and a perfect tzaddik. Both are subject to the same prohibitions against desecrating Shabbos and eating chametz on Pesach, and even to rabbinic prohibitions. As we explained in the previous class, this applies even to prohibitions on the person, not only prohibitions concerning the object—even where the Sages imposed a prohibition only on the person, they made no distinction between one person and another. It is the same command and obligation for the lowliest person and for the greatest person. That is the point we have reached so far. Why? Because there is one Torah for all of us; it is the same Torah. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the same Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the same Infinite One, so too with the Torah: one Torah for all of us. There is no difference between the greatest tzaddik and the simplest person. That is where we are now.

13:34 In the final parentheses, down at the bottom. But before we go into the parentheses, just one word—one story. There was a Jew in Eretz Yisroel who was actually from America. He was a well-known man and lived in Eretz Yisroel toward the end of his life. He passed away a few months ago, or perhaps it has already been a year; I don’t know. Professor Wolf Green. You’ve heard of Professor Wolf Green. He was one of the Rebbe’s people there in Minnesota. A distinguished professor in the field of bacteria and microbes. He was a very well-known professor in America and later moved to Eretz Yisroel, to Be’er Sheva. He passed away a few months ago, or perhaps a year ago; I don’t know. He passed away recently. He had a great deal of contact with the Rebbe—letters and other matters. He had a great many stories involving the Rebbe, very interesting things. The Rebbe was involved with him in all sorts of matters. Once there was a debate on the radio. He was there, along with another rabbi—I don’t remember who, one of the Chabad rabbis, I think Rabbi Zalman Posner. They were asked questions. It was a kind of debate, with questions about religion. One of the questions was about punishment in the Torah. How can the Torah prescribe such a severe punishment as stoning, the death penalty? In the past it was considered normal in every country, but today, in the modern world, it sounds very severe. Yes, putting someone to death for transgressions—that is only with ISIS, with the Arabs. Where do they still do such things, putting people to death like that? In short, they also raised the various forms of punishment: stoning, burning, execution by the sword, strangulation. For what? For desecrating Shabbos, chametz on Pesach, and things like that. So they discussed it. How could such transgressions carry such severe punishments? In short, what happened was

15:41 It is hard to explain questions like that in modern America. It is a difficult question, and they found it hard to explain. Then they were in yechidus with the Rebbe himself, and the Rebbe spoke about it. It was clear that the Rebbe had heard the whole... the Rebbe had heard the entire exchange on the radio. The Rebbe had listened to it somehow... he knew all the details. In any case, the Rebbe was very... the Rebbe was quite distressed that they had not explained the matter well and had not managed to explain it. The Rebbe told them they should have been a little firmer, more to the point. It had sounded as though they needed to make excuses for the Torah. So the Rebbe gave them an explanation, a very fundamental explanation of the matter, and afterward, at the Shabbos farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about it at length. The following Shabbos the Rebbe spoke about it at great length. The Rebbe gave an explanation. I will say it only briefly; it is a lengthy matter. I want to say it briefly because it is relevant. We are learning here in Tanya about the punishments of stoning and kareis and all these things the Alter Rebbe writes about here, showing that the same standard applies to all of us. So this point helps us understand the Tanya too. The Rebbe explained it to them, and afterward, at the farbrengen, explained it at greater length with the analogy of the spacecraft. This was in 5729, the well-known year when the American spacecraft first went up into space—the whole story with Armstrong. In short, the Rebbe explained at length the situation of the man inside the spacecraft, going up to the moon. All of America and the countries around it were watching this man, who was about to do something historic that the whole world had been waiting for, and into which millions upon millions of dollars had been invested.

17:47 He was the one who would have to carry it out. He had been trained for years and had to study to prepare for it. He was the finest person selected from all of America for this mission. Then he goes up, and everyone is watching. They tell him that every detail, every movement he makes, every button—he must listen to the instructions at every step. If he fails to do even one thing exactly as required, it could wreck the whole mission, endanger the spacecraft, and so on. The Rebbe explained the point. What is the point here? If this man says about one detail, “I am not going to do exactly what they tell me; I want to do it differently,” or decides to go to sleep or something like that, he ruins the entire mission. He causes ruin for the whole country and for the whole world, and so on. One can imagine what punishment would be warranted. The Rebbe explained that this is, in fact, the Jew’s place in the world. The Jew in this world—“Bereishis: for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of Yisroel”—is far more than that, beyond measure. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent a Jew into the world with a mission. That mission is Torah and mitzvos. That is the spacecraft—our spacecraft: Torah and mitzvos. Through Torah and mitzvos, we connect ourselves and the world with G-dliness. And if you fail to do even one detail exactly, even if you do not understand precisely why you need to move this button here and that button there, there is NASA. NASA is where all the instructions come from. There are very intelligent people there who have spent a tremendous amount of time studying countless details. They tell you, “Move this here, move that there; do this at this point and that at that point.” And if you do even one thing that is not... you could

19:40 To destroy the whole thing. So this is the point about Shulchan Aruch: we need to understand what every detail of Shulchan Aruch means for every Jew. Every Jew is, after all, the one whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose. “You have chosen us from among all the nations.” And he needs to know that if he fails to do even one detail as it ought to be done, he has not merely done something wrong in one particular matter; he is destroying all of reality, the entire world. So now we can understand why the punishment is so severe. On the contrary, the wonder is why there are mitzvos for which the punishment is less severe. After all, when you do something improperly, it touches the very core of life, the very core of the soul. You are not doing the main thing for which you were created. The Rebbe explained this at length at that farbrengen. In short, it is about how we should look at a mitzvah. When a person knows what defines a mitzvah, what its essential point is, he can also understand the damage done when a mitzvah is not performed as it should be—how deeply it damages the soul and all the worlds, and therefore why there is a punishment. That is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. A Jew, even the simplest person, can go about his life calmly and not feel a thing. But through... In truth, we say that when he performs a mitzvah, then, as we say in the blessing, “with His mitzvos and commanded us.” You become one with the Essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. So when you desecrate Shabbos, or eat chametz, or do something of that sort, the damage it does to the soul is of the most severe kind. That is why it warrants punishment. Period. Go home. Now we’ll continue to the end of the chapter. All this is in the Rebbe’s words. Now the Alter Rebbe

21:21 asks here: What does the verse actually say? It says, “I was like beasts.” Why does it say “beasts”? In the Rebbe’s words: Seemingly, we are speaking about one person. Yes, one person is saying this, speaking about himself: “And I was brutish and did not know.” He says “I,” referring to himself. So it should have said, “And I was brutish and did not know; I was like a beast.” Why does it say “beasts”? This is the Rebbe’s wording. The Alter Rebbe explains: to hint. So this phrase, this word, is not the Rebbe’s; it comes to hint, to teach us that before Him, even the level of supernal daas, which encompasses chesed and gevurah, is considered like beasts and physical action in relation to His will. Even in G-dliness, even the loftiest level of daas—supernal daas. What is supernal daas? Daas as it exists in the world of Atzilus. Yes, that is daas at its loftiest. Daas as it exists in Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, encompassing chesed and gevurah. As we said earlier, daas is a matter of feeling in the soul, and it encompasses chesed and gevurah. Yes, that is daas in the soul. Here he says not only daas in the soul, but even supernal daas—daas as it exists in G-dliness, in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We say that even supernal daas is considered like a beast, like physical action. It, too, is like a beast in relation to Ein Sof. As in the verse, “You made them all with wisdom.” What does “You made them all with wisdom” mean? That even wisdom, supernal chochmah, which is the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, is “made.” It is on the level of action. It is like a beast—and action as well. Why does the Alter Rebbe add the idea of action? To emphasize the point still further. After all, a beast still has something in common with a human being. Yes, a beast: “I was like beasts.” Action is even further removed than a beast.

23:31 After all, a beast has life. It has emotions, it has feelings, it has limbs. It has no daas, but it has other things. Physical action, though, is only matter—inanimate. It exists, but there is no quality here, no attributes. So this goes even further: even supernal chochmah is considered, so to speak, like action—like a beast, and even less than a beast. Like actual action in relation to Ein Sof. And it is called the “great beast.” This level, says the Alter Rebbe—the level at which we say that even supernal daas is like a beast in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—is called, in the language of the Zohar... it is called the “great beast,” as the verse says. There is a level called the “great beast.” That phrase, “great beast,” comes from a verse. The verse there is talking about something else, but the Zohar draws from it the idea of the great beast. It says there is such a level, a reality of a great beast, a beast that lives on a thousand mountains and eats a thousand mountains every day. “Great beast” is a phrase from a verse. On the physical level, it sounds as though we are speaking about something straightforward, a beast that lives on a thousand mountains and eats all sorts of things. But this is a spiritual matter. Chassidus explains that the great beast is the level of the beast above Atzilus—the great beast. So he explains what the great beast is. There is another kind of beast: the one described as being above Atzilus. Supernal daas, in relation to Ein Sof, in relation to... is considered like a beast. That is the great beast, and it is Shem Ban. Its numerical value is the same as “behemah,” beast, referring to the level before Atzilus. This level corresponds to Shem Ban, and Shem Ban has the same numerical value as “behemah” before Atzilus. Just as there is a beast below. That is what we described here in the chapter: the beast below, meaning one that has no feeling, no daas.

25:40 Atzilus, after all, is called Adam, whose numerical value is Mah. Atzilus is Adam, with the numerical value of Mah, while the beast is the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. That is the beast below Atzilus. But there is also a beast above Atzilus. What is the beast above Atzilus? It means that in relation to Ein Sof, the level of daas is considered like a beast. In other words, daas itself—what does this mean? He began by speaking about daas, and then he says it is before Atzilus. But daas is in Atzilus. Suddenly he says it is before Atzilus. So the explanation is simple: daas itself, and the feeling of daas as daas exists in Atzilus. Daas is the level of sod. That, after all, is the whole difference between a human being and a beast. A beast has no daas, whereas a human being does. That is the idea of Mah; that is daas. So the beast of Atzilus, where there is daas, supernal daas, is the very opposite. It is the very opposite. Sorry, the other way around: it is the opposite of a beast. It has daas. Daas is Mah; it is the opposite of a beast. So why do you call it a beast? The intention is not daas itself. It is how daas stands before Atzilus, how supernal daas senses itself in relation to Ein Sof. Then the idea of the great beast before Atzilus shines within it. What is above reason and daas shines within it, from the level of Ein Sof that shines within it, and then it senses that it, too, is truly like a beast in relation to Ein Sof. What else is he trying to say here at the end of the chapter? Why does this suddenly come in here? It seems completely unrelated to everything we learned earlier. Hmm? How does this whole passage about the great beast before Atzilus fit in here? What does it have to do with our subject? Well, I see it’s getting late. We really need to keep this short. I just want to leave that for the next class.