Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 26 - Part 5

00:01 Speaker 1 Chapter 26, page 33, at the two dots near the bottom—or a few lines from the bottom—“sadness.” So the Alter Rebbe explained here how to dispel worries about material matters. We discussed that in the previous classes: how the Alter Rebbe explains that a Jew must free himself from all sadness and every trace of worry over worldly concerns. He does this by contemplating the idea that “this too is for the good,” and the whole explanation the Alter Rebbe gave of “For Your kindness is better than life.” When a person loves closeness to Hashem, that enables him to overcome everything. It keeps him from being shaken by any worries and helps him accept everything with love and joy. That concludes this approach to material matters. Now the Alter Rebbe will begin explaining what happens with worries about spiritual matters. He starts here and continues over three chapters. That is what we are going to study now, as well as chapters 27 and 28. The Alter Rebbe will discuss different kinds of sadness a person can experience and how to deal with them. Now, when we’re talking about material matters, what do we say? A person should be happy, not be shaken; accept it with joy. You can say that about material matters. But with spiritual matters, you can’t say, “It’s all good,” and just be happy, because there is a problem that needs to be corrected. You can’t just say it’s nothing. So here you can’t say what we said before: accept it with joy. As the Alter Rebbe said in chapter 1, if a person does not take it to heart, he can come to take things lightly. If someone doesn’t care that he commits a sin and says, “It’s fine, these things happen,” that is certainly not the intention. So the Alter Rebbe

02:11 Speaker 1 needs to address it. In the words of the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe says: “As for sadness over spiritual matters, one must devise ways within oneself” to deal with it. Yes, that is the Alter Rebbe’s wording. Here, something needs to be done. When you study the Tanya, it sounds very striking. We’re talking about material matters: a person is sad because of some material concern, and the Alter Rebbe has no difficulty with it. In fifteen lines, the Alter Rebbe has already dispelled all your worries. Everything will be all right. “For Your kindness is better than life.” But when it comes to spiritual worries, “one must devise ways within oneself.” Here we have to look for solutions. It’s not so simple anymore. We have to, we have to. It’s interesting to think about, because in our minds it’s usually the other way around, right? But here we see what the Alter Rebbe is teaching us, and it makes sense too. Why? Because here you can’t sweep it under the rug. You really have to uproot the problem. What do you actually do? This is something that does need attention. After all, sadness over spiritual matters does have a place in teshuvah. So how does that work? The Alter Rebbe will now explain: “For one must devise ways within oneself to be rid of it. Needless to say, during avodah.” Certainly, when a person is engaged in avodah—that is, during davening or learning, when he is serving Hashem—he must look for ways to be rid of sadness, because one must serve Hashem with joy and a glad heart. Since serving Hashem must be done with joy and a glad heart, obviously there can be no room then for sadness, even sadness over spiritual matters. “But even someone who is occupied with business and worldly affairs”—the Alter Rebbe adds something even more striking. Even a person who runs a business and is

04:07 Speaker 1 involved in worldly affairs: “If sadness and worry over spiritual matters befall him while he is conducting his business,” the Alter Rebbe makes a very striking point here. This person is not engaged in serving Hashem at that moment; he is occupied specifically with his material affairs. So if, at that very moment, a thought of worry and sadness over his spiritual state, his service of Hashem, or a sin he committed comes over him, the Alter Rebbe says: “It is known to be a ploy of the yetzer hara, in order to make him fall afterward into desire, G-d forbid.” Apparently, if a person is overcome by such worries in the middle of the day, he should know for certain—a hundred percent. The Alter Rebbe says, “It is known”; he has no doubt about it. It doesn’t come from teshuvah or from serving Hashem. It doesn’t come from an awakening of holiness. It definitely comes from a ploy of the yetzer hara to make him fall afterward into desire, G-d forbid. “For otherwise, where would genuine sadness arising from love or fear of Hashem come from in the middle of his business?” So the Alter Rebbe offers a proof. There are two points here. First, it is known to be a ploy of the yetzer hara to make him fall into desire. That’s one. Second, the Alter Rebbe also explains logically why it cannot be otherwise. Who says? Maybe it does come from holiness? Maybe it’s an awakening to teshuvah? How do we know it isn’t? The Alter Rebbe gives a reason for that too. He says, “For otherwise, where would genuine sadness arising from love or fear of Hashem come from in the middle of his business?” How could genuine sadness rooted in love and fear of Hashem arise in the middle of his business? What does that mean? For a person to experience genuine sadness—as the Rebbe said briefly earlier, and as we will study at length in the coming chapters—genuine sadness, meaning sadness that comes from holiness, sadness connected with an awakening,

06:09 Speaker 1 sadness connected with the avodah of teshuvah and so on—that kind of sadness can come only when it is connected with love and fear. In other words, it is sadness that comes from holiness, from G-dliness, from bittul. We’ll see the whole subject in the coming chapters. After all, what is the difference between sadness and bitterness? Sadness is a sense of self: I’m concerned about myself. That is what defines sadness. Bitterness is bittul. Bitterness means that a person is thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and because he is thinking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he feels bitter about his distance from Him and seeks to come closer to Him. So the Alter Rebbe says: When a person is occupied with his business and worldly affairs, what is active in him at that moment is plainly his animal soul. He is busy with his business and worldly affairs. What he is experiencing at that moment is his material soul, his vital soul, his natural soul. That is what occupies him in his business, while he eats, and in whatever he is doing then. What he feels at that point is not his G-dly soul. So if thoughts of sadness suddenly come to him, they are not coming from his G-dly soul. Where do they come from? It is certainly a ploy of the yetzer hara. Now, what else? That is one point, but the Alter Rebbe makes another: “It is known to be a ploy of the yetzer hara to make him fall afterward into desire.” This is well known and discussed in many sefarim, and everyone knows it from his own life. We see it with our own eyes. Sadness over one’s shortcomings, sadness about one’s service of Hashem—what does it actually do to a person? It puts him in a bad mood until he falls into despair. And what eventually happens as a result is that he falls

08:07 Speaker 1 into desire. He feels that something is wrong with him; he feels dirty. He has all kinds of negative feelings about himself, and at that moment he becomes… That is what it means when we say it is a ploy of the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara looks for this. It is well known, and it is one of the foundations of Chassidus revealed by the Baal Shem Tov and his students. There are a number of sayings about it. Some students of the Baal Shem Tov quote words of the Karliner and other chassidic sayings passed down from the great students of the Baal Shem Tov: “Sadness is not a sin, but what sadness can lead a person to, no sin can lead him to.” That is one saying they quote. “Mikveh is not a mitzvah, but what mikveh can lift a person to, no mitzvah can lift him to.” They bring this saying about mikveh alongside the one about sadness. Mikveh elevates the soul more than any mitzvah; sadness lowers the soul more than any sin. What is the deeper meaning? How is this explained? One explanation chassidim give has to do with the yetzer hara. That’s it. There is also this: in the morning blessings we say, “Do not bring me into the hands of sin or into the hands of transgression.” What does “into the hands of sin” and “into the hands of transgression” mean? There is sin and there is transgression. What does it mean to come “into the hands of sin” or “into the hands of transgression”?

09:37 Speaker 2 What does what mean?

09:37 Speaker 1 “Do not bring us into the hands of sin or into the hands of transgression”—in the morning blessings. What are the “hands of sin”? The hands of the sin. They say there is the sin itself, and then there is the hand of the sin. A “hand,” as in halachah, is an extension. So there is the sin, and there are the “hands of sin”: the sadness that results from the sin. Those are called the hands of the sin. They say the yetzer hara doesn’t really care about getting you to commit a transgression. What the yetzer hara wants is the “hands of transgression.” The transgression itself is one particular thing. You committed a transgression; you need to rectify it. But the “hands of transgression”—the sadness a person falls into afterward—that is what the yetzer hara is after. Because sadness isn’t one particular thing; it takes hold of the whole person. The yetzer hara doesn’t want to catch you with a transgression. It wants to catch the person. So when someone commits a transgression and then falls into sadness, that is where the whole person is in the hands of the yetzer hara. Sadness takes hold of the entire soul. The person falls. And that is what it means when we say it is the yetzer hara’s ploy to make a person fall into desires afterward. By reminding us of our transgressions, the yetzer hara brings a person to sadness, and from sadness he falls into desires. As the Gemara puts it—“If I have no World to Come, at least let me enjoy this world.” Acher said that. So when a person feels as though things aren’t going well for him in matters of holiness, he thinks, “If so, I might as well enjoy life”—worldly desires. I once heard Rabbi Sholom Ber Kazanov give an example of this. I’m saying it in Reb Sholom Ber’s own name. He offered an explanation of Tanya. I don’t remember now exactly what he said the chassidim used to say. In any case, he said

11:40 Speaker 1 that the meaning of “it is known that this is a ploy of the yetzer hara to make him fall into desires,” as the chassidim would explain this passage in Tanya, is this: What does it mean? These words are about the soul. The soul is naturally joyful. In its essence, the soul is vitality. Vitality is by nature a matter of joy and pleasure. That is what defines vitality. Joy, pleasure, expansiveness—that is the soul’s essence. So when the soul finds joy in holiness, that is where it finds its happiness. But if it is sad when it comes to holiness, and the soul by nature needs room to expand, it will naturally look for that in kelipah. It doesn’t have it in holiness; it is sad, unhappy, dissatisfied. So it naturally goes looking for it elsewhere. That is another way of understanding it. Look at what the Alter Rebbe says: “It is known that this is a ploy of the yetzer hara to make him fall into desires.” What does “it is known” mean? Since the soul seeks expansiveness and pleasure, when it is in a state of sadness in matters of holiness, it will naturally seek pleasure. That desire will find an outlet. If it cannot find an outlet in holiness, it will find one in kelipah. That is what “it is known” means. That is how he would explain this passage in the name of Sinai[?]. Yes. Who wanted to ask something? The Alter Rebbe continues: “Now, whether sadness befalls him while he is engaged in the service of Torah study and prayer, or whether it befalls him when he is not engaged in that service.” By the way, I forgot to add something here. It’s very interesting that the Rebbe, in a letter, adds another point that isn’t written here explicitly. You see, the Rebbe emphasizes this many times in Igros Kodesh. Here, the Alter Rebbe makes a distinction: during the service of Torah study and prayer, one must serve Hashem “with joy and gladness of heart.” Then there is the time when one is occupied with his affairs and worldly matters, when sadness is the yetzer hara’s ploy to make him fall into desires.

13:54 Speaker 1 So the Alter Rebbe divides it into two. But in many letters, the Rebbe writes that being occupied with worldly matters is itself also service of Hashem. The Rebbe always points to the Rambam’s Hilchos De’os. After all, serving Hashem is not only Torah and prayer. Serving Hashem means “Know Him in all your ways” and doing “all your deeds for the sake of Heaven.” So, in fact, everything throughout the day is service of Hashem. When the Torah says that one must serve Hashem with joy and gladness of heart, that applies to one’s worldly affairs too. So that is another reason a person should not be sad while engaged in worldly matters: not only because sadness there is known to be the yetzer hara’s ploy, but because those activities are also service of Hashem. Even while you eat and sleep, you are serving Hashem. And the requirement to serve Hashem with joy applies to all service of Hashem, not just prayer. Notice this point from the Rebbe. Tanya doesn’t say it here, but the Rebbe repeatedly emphasizes it in his letters. The Alter Rebbe continues: “Now, whether sadness befalls him while he is engaged in the service of Torah study and prayer, or whether it befalls him when he is not engaged in that service, he should take this to heart: now is not the time for genuine sadness, even for worry over serious sins, G-d forbid.” So this is the advice for a person. You see, it’s not that the problem isn’t real. What advice does the Alter Rebbe give? He doesn’t say, “You’re wrong.” He doesn’t say, “There’s no problem,” as we said regarding material concerns. The Alter Rebbe says: There is a problem, but now is not the time. That is his advice. When thoughts about his past come to a person—something that needs

15:36 Speaker 1 rectification—what he needs to tell himself is: “Now is not the time.” Right now is not the time. That is the point: put it off until later. Now is not the time. “I’m busy right now. I don’t have time for this. This is not the time.” Rather, one must set aside fixed times and an appropriate occasion. Look: there must be fixed times, an appropriate occasion, and a settled mind. There are three conditions for when the time is right for this genuine sadness, for the work of teshuvah. First, one must set aside fixed times. If it just happens on its own, it comes from the yetzer hara. It cannot be left to happen by itself; one has to designate a particular time for it. And he adds another condition: an appropriate occasion. It has to be the right time. Not every time is suitable. You might say, “Fine, it’s the middle of the afternoon; I’ll designate this as the time.” No. It must also be an appropriate occasion. There are particular times suited to this work, as the Alter Rebbe says in Igeres Hateshuvah: the time of Tikkun Chatzos or of reciting Shema before bed. Certain times are appropriate occasions, or, as he says further on, times when the heart is [unclear] and weeps. We still need to understand what that means. But in any case, there must be fixed times; you shouldn’t let it happen by itself. You must give it a designated time, and it must be an appropriate occasion. And the Alter Rebbe adds another point: with a settled mind. Even when there is a fixed time and it is an appropriate occasion, it must still be done with a settled mind. Don’t let it come rushing in. There are

17:19 Speaker 1 people who reach the time for reciting Shema before bed, which according to Chassidus and Torah is a time for teshuvah, and in an instant they fall into sadness. They remember transgressions they committed and become depressed, without really having thought it through. But the Alter Rebbe says: No, that isn’t right. Even at a fixed time, on an appropriate occasion, it must be done with a settled mind. What does that mean? The Alter Rebbe explains: one must contemplate the greatness of Hashem. First, there has to be contemplation of the greatness of Hashem, against Whom he sinned, so that he understands what is at stake. He contemplates the greatness of Hashem, against Whom he sinned, “so that through this his heart will truly be broken, with genuine bitterness, as explained elsewhere concerning this time.” What is explained elsewhere—plainly, he means in Igeres Hateshuvah—is when the appropriate times are to awaken a broken heart. There, too, in Igeres Hateshuvah, he explains how to contemplate it. In chapter 7, the Alter Rebbe explains that a person contemplates Hashem’s greatness: He “fills all worlds,” and “all worlds are considered as nothing before Him.” Then he comes to understand how, through his sins and transgressions, he separated himself from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and so on—everything he caused himself and his soul, and so on, in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That produces genuine bitterness. That kind of bitterness, that kind of teshuvah, will bring him to true teshuvah, to return to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, rather than merely to despair. “And there it is also explained”—Igeres Hateshuvah explains this too—“that immediately after his heart has been broken at those fixed times, he should remove the sadness from his heart.”

19:07 Speaker 1 And as for Igeres Hateshuvah, it had been written earlier. Although the Alter Rebbe printed it after Tanya, it already existed in an earlier version; it had been written before Tanya was printed. That earlier version of Igeres Hateshuvah already existed and had circulated among the chassidim, and it seems that this is what the Alter Rebbe means. It says there, too: “For immediately after his heart has been broken at those set times, he should remove sadness from his heart entirely.” There is another point here: even at those times, when this is indeed necessary, the Alter Rebbe wants to limit sadness to a minimum. “He should remove sadness from his heart entirely, and believe with complete faith that Hashem has removed his sin and is abundant in forgiveness.” That is in chapter 11 of Igeres Hateshuvah. The Alter Rebbe explains the joy that should accompany teshuvah: it comes from complete faith that the moment a Jew asks forgiveness, Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives him. And more than that, He is “abundant in forgiveness,” even if a person has fallen again and again and again. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is gracious and forgives abundantly, as the Alter Rebbe explains there regarding the wording of Shemoneh Esrei, “gracious and abundant in forgiveness.” Hashem’s capacity for forgiveness has no end or limit. “And this is the true joy in Hashem that comes after sadness,” as mentioned above. This is what we said earlier: “In all sadness there is gain.” After sadness comes joy—and, on the contrary, true joy, because light has an advantage when it comes out of darkness. So here the Alter Rebbe explains the proper way for a Jew to rid himself of worry and sadness, even over matters of yiras Shamayim and holiness. The point the Alter Rebbe makes is that one must know: now is not the time. The moment a thought comes to me and I feel that this thought, or that one,

20:48 Speaker 1 is making me depressed, putting me in a bad mood, bringing me down—even if these are real matters and I am remembering things I should not have done—the advice is this: this is not the time for it. Now is not the time. Right now, it is certainly coming from the yetzer hara, so I must flee from it as I would flee from death, and give it its proper time. Yes, and then follow all the guidance the Alter Rebbe gives on how to do the work of teshuvah.