Likkutei Amarim Tanya - Chapter 26 - Part 2

00:00 We’re up to chapter 26. The Alter Rebbe begins the chapter with a great principle. What is that great principle? Serving Hashem must be done with alacrity, which comes from joy. By contrast, when one serves with laziness and heaviness, which come from sadness and a dull heart, then even if he is strong against his yetzer, he will fall. That is the foundation here, the great principle. Serving Hashem must be done specifically with alacrity, and that alacrity comes from joy, from an open heart. Only that way can one overcome the yetzer. In the previous class, I told you something else about the words “great principle.” But then I looked inside and saw that the Rebbe refers to chapter 16, and there the precise meaning of “great principle” comes out a little differently. In his notes to Tanya, on chapter 16, the Rebbe says that the word “great” adds that this is a great undertaking. That is how the Rebbe reads the words “great principle” there in chapter 16: it is a great undertaking to gain control, for the mind to rule over the heart. This requires great effort, and the reward is also great. That is what the Rebbe writes in his notes. And here, in chapter 26, the Rebbe refers to chapter 16, which implies that the Rebbe understands this, too—serving Hashem with joy, which brings alacrity—as a “great principle” because it is a great undertaking. In fact, joy is explicitly called a “great undertaking.” There is the well-known Rambam in the Laws of Lulav: “The joy with which a person rejoices in performing the mitzvos is a great undertaking.” So this, too, is a great undertaking, and the reward is great as well. As we see later in Tanya itself, in the following chapters, when he explains the tremendous virtue of serving Hashem with joy. In any case, let’s continue inside. We’re up to the point after the period: “And as for what is written.” The Alter Rebbe says: “And as for

02:27 what is written, ‘In all sadness there will be some gain.’” At first glance, there is a question here. You’re saying that serving Hashem must be done specifically with alacrity that comes from joy, and that for there to be joy, you must not have even a trace of worry, sadness or sighing. But there is an explicit verse that says the opposite: “In all sadness there will be some gain.” The verse says, “In all sadness there will be some gain.” That implies that sadness has a virtue. So there is a virtue in sadness. Now, in the plain meaning of the verse, “In all sadness there will be some gain,” the commentators explain “sadness” to mean toil. They are not talking about sadness. Most commentators understand the word as they do in what was said to Adam, where Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “In pain you shall bear children.” The word means toil. But the Alter Rebbe also takes the word “sadness” in its straightforward sense: sadness as an emotional state. And here it says, “In all sadness there will be some gain.” That implies that sadness has a virtue—that some advantage or benefit will come from it, that something good emerges from sadness. How does that fit with what we said, that the heart must be clear, with no worry, sadness or sighing? The Alter Rebbe answers: On the contrary, this wording implies that sadness in itself has no virtue. Not only is this not a question; it is actually a proof. The wording “In all sadness there will be some gain” tells us that the sadness itself is not the gain. Sadness itself is not good. It has no virtue. Rather, some benefit will come from it. The verse is saying that sometimes sadness is needed for the benefit that will follow—not that sadness itself has a virtue. Sadness itself has no virtue at all. It is only that sometimes a benefit in some other respect can emerge from it. “Rather, some benefit will come from it—namely, the true joy in Hashem his G-d that comes after genuine sadness.” On the contrary,

04:45 this verse, as he explains so beautifully, proves precisely that the point is not sadness; the point is joy. “In all sadness there will be some gain” means that sadness itself is not good, but something good can come out of it. Something positive can emerge. What can emerge from this sadness? The gain is the joy that comes afterward: “namely, the true joy in Hashem his G-d that comes after genuine sadness.” What does “genuine sadness” mean? He does not, G-d forbid, mean genuine sadness in the literal sense. Rather, as the Rebbe adds in the lesson on Tanya, it means sadness when it is genuine. “Genuine sadness” means that the sadness comes from a genuine place—from taking stock of oneself over undesirable matters, as we will learn in the following chapters. What is that self-examination that causes this sadness? So when the sadness comes from a genuine place, then yes, even then there is no virtue in the sadness itself. But what follows from it—the joy that comes afterward—that is something. At certain times, one reflects on his sins with a bitter soul and a broken heart, and through this the spirit of impurity and the sitra achra are broken, along with the iron barrier separating him from his Father in Heaven. This sadness breaks down the barrier between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Sins created an iron barrier. To break that iron barrier, sadness over one’s sins is needed; that is what breaks it down. So this is not the goal. It is only a means. Sadness here is not the goal. Sadness itself is not good; it is only a means. The iron barrier needs to be broken, and to break it, sadness is needed. But the moment

06:46 the iron barrier is broken, the opposite happens: joy is awakened. And then, as the verse says, “The sacrifices of G-d are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.” Then the beginning of the verse will be fulfilled in him: “Let me hear gladness and joy.” On the contrary, the goal is joy. “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a generous spirit.” What is the Alter Rebbe saying here? What is the explanation? There are many possibilities. If sadness has no virtue at all, as the Alter Rebbe said earlier—there is never any virtue in sadness—then what does it mean that here sadness suddenly becomes a virtue? But it is not sadness that has the virtue; the virtue is the joy that comes afterward. Yet in practice, that joy can be reached only through sadness. So in that case, sadness is something positive. What exactly is the Alter Rebbe’s explanation here? How do we understand it? On the one hand, the Alter Rebbe completely rejects the idea that sadness is a virtue. On the other hand, the Alter Rebbe says that nevertheless, there is the result that comes from it. How do we explain that? The explanation is that what the Alter Rebbe wants to say here is very, very simple. The Alter Rebbe wants to establish a foundation: serving Hashem with joy is a Jew’s natural state. That is how a Jew’s relationship with Hakadosh Boruch Hu should be. It should be joyful, specifically joyful. That is the way a Jew connects to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A Jew’s service of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with joy. And as we will see in the following chapters, with the full explanation that serving Hashem can only be done with joy, this is a Jew’s true nature. But what happens? Sometimes something covers it up. Something covers the connection between the Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and then that covering must be removed. And to remove that covering, as the Alter Rebbe says, there is a barrier of

08:43 Iron. The iron barrier keeps you from connecting to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There’s some kind of—so to remove the covering, sometimes certain things are needed. There are ways to remove the— The sadness we need, reflecting on the state of our soul, the bitterness, as we’ll see later—all that is meant to remove what covers it. And the moment the covering is removed, the truth is revealed, the natural state is revealed, the Jew is revealed. A Jew’s service of Hashem is, in essence, only with joy. To give a simple, everyday example: sometimes a person needs to vomit so that he can eat. Sometimes something harmful has built up in a person’s body and is causing all kinds of problems. So they tell him to take some medicine, something to clean out his system, to clear away what’s interfering. No one would say that this is the way to eat. It isn’t food. But in practice, something is interfering, so you have to clear it out. You have to do something to get rid of it, and then you can eat. The same applies here. That is what the Alter Rebbe is saying. Sadness is not serving Hashem. Sadness is not—that’s the point. Sadness has no virtue in itself. Serving Hashem is only with joy. A Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is joy. “Strength and joy are in His place.” That is the way to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is no other way. Sadness is not a way. This is the Alter Rebbe’s innovation. In the past, before the Tanya, people thought you could serve Hashem through joy or through sadness. They were two paths in serving Hashem, and that was the approach in mussar. And this

10:38 was before the revelation of the Alter Rebbe, before the revelation of Chassidus. There was a way to serve Hashem with joy and a way to serve Hashem with sadness; that, too, was considered a path. So here in this chapter the Alter Rebbe comes to explain—and to rule out a major misconception—that serving Hashem is only with joy. A Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is only through joy. You cannot serve Hashem through sadness. There is no such thing. That is why a person must rid himself of every kind of worry and sadness in the world. Sometimes there is a problem, some kind of barrier. There is concealment, there is an illness, there is—now you need medicine. That is something entirely different. One of the remedies is bitterness. There is such a remedy, too, and that is what is meant by “In all sorrow there is profit.” Sorrow itself is not a virtue; there is no virtue whatsoever in bitterness itself. But the benefit is that through this sadness you remove the iron barrier. That brings about, yes, “Let me hear gladness and joy”; “The sacrifices of G-d are a broken spirit, a broken and crushed heart.” The broken heart breaks the unclean spirit of the sitra achra. Once the sitra achra is broken, the soul can be revealed, and then serving Hashem can be as it should be: service with joy. That is the meaning here in the Tanya. And it’s interesting: the Alter Rebbe cites the verse. The verse the Alter Rebbe cites—and every word in the Tanya is precise—comes from Psalm 51, and the Alter Rebbe says, “The beginning of the verse will be fulfilled in him.” There is a wonderful precision here: “The beginning of the verse will be fulfilled in him.” Psalm 51 is the psalm of teshuvah. This is the psalm in which King David wrote about teshuvah. As the Gemara says, anyone who says David sinned is simply mistaken.

12:21 What happened with King David was only to show the path of teshuvah. David was not fit to commit that act. The entire episode of King David and Batsheva was so that we could learn the path of teshuvah from him, and that is what we learn in Psalm 51, where that path is set out. That is why we say it, as the Rabbi is about to explain. We need to say this psalm every night, because it is the psalm of teshuvah. What do we see in Psalm 51? We see both bitterness and joy. On the one hand, he speaks about a broken and crushed heart, which is the service of bitterness and teshuvah, teshuvah tata’ah. On the other hand, he writes there about teshuvah with joy: “Let me hear gladness and joy.” As the Alter Rebbe will say in Igeres Hateshuvah, these are the two levels of teshuvah: first teshuvah tata’ah, then teshuvah ila’ah. The Alter Rebbe is not discussing that here. Here he is speaking about the general principle that the service itself must be with joy. Now, what is the order in the verse? There is a particular order: first, in Psalm 51, it says, “Let me hear gladness and joy,” and afterward it says, “A broken and crushed heart.” But surely the order should be the reverse. First comes a broken and crushed heart, and afterward, “Let me hear gladness and joy.” First bitterness, then joy. The fact that it specifically says “Let me hear gladness and joy” is proof of what the Alter Rebbe wants to say. The Alter Rebbe wants to demonstrate here that bitterness has no virtue in itself; the virtue lies in joy. That is why, even here in Psalm 51, where King David speaks about teshuvah, he begins with “Let me hear gladness and joy.” What is a Jew looking for? A Jew should seek joy. Even when you are saying Krias Shema before bed, at Tikkun Chatzos, at a time of teshuvah,

14:05 even then, what are you seeking? What is the goal? The goal is joy. But to reach joy, you have to break the iron barrier. So there must be a broken heart. And that is precisely the point: “Let me hear gladness and joy”; “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.” This is the simple reason for the Ari z”l’s practice of saying this psalm after Tikkun Chatzos, before learning: so that one can learn with true joy in Hashem, which comes after sadness. That is what the Arizal instituted for Tikkun Chatzos: saying the psalm beginning “For the conductor, when he came,” Psalm 51 in Tehillim. That is the psalm said at Tikkun Chatzos by those who say Tikkun Chatzos. We also say it in Krias Shema before bed. That, too, follows the practice instituted by the Ari z”l: it is part of the Arizal’s text of Krias Shema before bed that we use. When the Rebbe Rashab founded Tomchei Temimim, he said that there would be no set time for Tikkun Chatzos in the yeshivah. From then on, there wasn’t one. That is why it is not our custom to say Tikkun Chatzos, but we do say Krias Shema before bed. He said that the service of Tikkun Chatzos is found in Krias Shema before bed, and we see that this psalm is said there too. This psalm is central to both Tikkun Chatzos and Krias Shema before bed. What do these two have in common? At those times, the service is connected with teshuvah and bitterness. Krias Shema before bed is a time for taking stock of oneself. It is a time for teshuvah and confession, when a person does teshuvah before going to sleep. Similarly, Tikkun Chatzos is a time of bitterness over the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, over the exile, the exile of the Shechinah and the exile of the soul, as explained in the commentary on Tikkun Chatzos. In the siddur—in the older siddurim—the maamar explaining the Arizal’s teaching is printed there. What is the meaning of the destruction of Jerusalem, which is the destruction

15:53 of the city, which is the whole subject of teshuvah. So in both of these places we speak about making amends. What do we say? We say that chapter of Tehillim, “For the conductor, when he came...” What does that chapter say? It says there needs to be joy. To reach joy, there first needs to be bitterness. And that is what the Alter Rebbe says: bitterness itself is not the goal. Bitterness is only there to remove the iron barrier, the iron barrier, so that what the soul truly is can be revealed—and that is joy. So that one can study with true joy in Hashem, a joy that comes after sadness, for this joy has an advantage like the advantage of light that comes specifically from darkness. The Alter Rebbe says that this joy has a special quality. When joy comes after bitterness, the joy is greater too. There are two points here. Besides the fact that through bitterness I remove the iron barrier, remove the concealment over the soul, there is another point the Alter Rebbe adds here: because the joy comes after bitterness, it is greater. “Like the advantage of light specifically from darkness,” as it says in the Zohar about the verse, “And I saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.” See there; this is sufficient for one who understands. What does the Alter Rebbe mean to say here? The verse says, “And I saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, like the advantage of light over darkness.” King Shlomo says he saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, that wisdom is loftier than foolishness just as light is loftier than darkness. The Zohar asks: King Shlomo? Do we need King Shlomo for that? Doesn’t everyone know it? Every, every, every person—even a fool. You don’t have to be as wise as King Shlomo to know that.

17:45 That there is an advantage. So the Zohar explains the underlying point. What does the Zohar say? What is King Shlomo trying to explain here? Shlomo is not saying that wisdom is better than foolishness just as light is better than darkness. That is obvious. King Shlomo is saying that it is from darkness that we can see the quality of light. When can a person truly appreciate the quality of light? After darkness. If you are in a place that is naturally full of light, you don’t appreciate the quality of light. Once there is darkness, the quality of light becomes apparent through the darkness. Similarly, the quality of wisdom becomes apparent through folly. To recognize the quality of wisdom, you see it against folly. But even that—what is so remarkable about wisdom in that? That, too, is a question, right? What is the point here? Look, according to Chassidus we know there are several explanations of this. We won’t go into the whole explanation now. The Alter Rebbe writes here by way of a hint, “This is sufficient for one who understands.” The Alter Rebbe is hinting at what is brought in later maamarim. The whole explanation—and this is one of the insights of Chassidus—is that the advantage of light from darkness is not merely that darkness lets you see the quality of light, and folly lets you see the quality of wisdom. Rather, the advantage comes from the darkness: the darkness itself is transformed into light. That is the advantage of light from darkness. When light comes out of darkness, it is a higher, loftier light. The same applies to wisdom when it comes out of folly. Chassidus explains that this relates to secular wisdom and so on, and then the wisdom of folly becomes a loftier wisdom. It is explained in the hemshech Yisron and in a Purim maamar; the subject is explained in several places. This is not the place to discuss it at length. What matters for us here, in the context of this chapter, is what the Alter Rebbe wants to say:

19:39 specifically out of the bitterness after reciting Krias Shema before bed, or similarly after Tikkun Chatzos, when there is this bitterness—after you break your heart through the work of teshuvah, through the work of bitterness—the joy that comes afterward has the advantage of light from darkness. It is a much greater joy than joy that has not gone through that whole process of bitterness beforehand. And that is why one should study with joy immediately after Tikkun Chatzos. That is the whole point here. “And an explicit verse states: ‘Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart,’ and the Arizal’s interpretation of this verse is known to all.” The Alter Rebbe concludes this section by saying that there is an explicit verse in the Torah about the importance of joy. The Torah says, “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart.” So, G-d forbid, what is the punishment stated afterward? “You will serve your enemies,” and so on. The Alter Rebbe says that this verse shows us explicitly how important it is to serve Hashem with joy. And the Alter Rebbe adds, “The Arizal’s interpretation of this verse is known to all.” What does the Alter Rebbe mean here? As is brought down, when we study the verse “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart,” Rashi explains it differently from the way it is explained here. Rashi explains the verse another way. Rashi says that “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy” means that you did not serve Hashem at times when you had joy and gladness of heart. The verse appears in the middle of the curses, right? So Rashi says that the plain meaning of the verse is not about serving Hashem joyfully. The verse says that because you did not serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu during the good times before the curses, when you had joy and gladness of heart and an abundance of everything, and at that time you did not

21:27 serve Hashem, therefore “you will serve your enemies”—you will have to serve your enemies. That is the plain meaning, the continuation of the verse. Is that clear? That is why Rashi reads the plain meaning this way. But the Arizal explains the verse differently: “Because you did not serve Him with joy.” The punishment that comes to you, which the verse is speaking about here, is because joy was lacking. You served Hashem, but because you did not serve Him with joy, G-d forbid, there is a punishment for that. So when the Alter Rebbe says this, we see how important it is to serve Hashem with joy—so much so that if a person serves Hashem and observes all the Torah and mitzvos, but lacks joy, the verse says of him, “You will serve your enemies.” There is a whole discussion here. With Hashem’s help, next week we will speak about this verse in more detail. But just one more short point to conclude this subject. The Rebbe points out what seems to be a difficulty here: this is not the plain meaning. The Alter Rebbe says, “An explicit verse states.” An explicit verse states. But according to this, the Arizal’s interpretation is not the plain meaning. So what does “an explicit verse states” mean? The Rebbe once said—and he explains this in another sicha of the Rebbe’s, too, right? It is very interesting. The Rebbe said that if you take a five-year-old child learning Scripture and tell him, “Translate the words of the verse for me: ‘Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart, out of an abundance of everything.’ Translate the words simply”—how will the child translate it? Not like Rashi. He will translate it like the Arizal. The simple translation of the words “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart” is that you did not serve Hashem with joy. So the Arizal’s interpretation is actually the simple meaning. Rashi departs from the simple meaning. Rashi’s

23:25 explanation is not quite so straightforward. “Because you did not serve Him when you had...” You have to add a few words here. Words are missing. Ah, but Rashi explains the plain meaning of the verse. So we understand that Rashi is looking at the whole context, the whole continuation. What is going on here? Right, the continuation. It is talking about the curses, so you have to... Rashi reads the entire continuation of the verse and says that this must be its plain meaning. But when you translate the verse itself—“an explicit verse states”—when you translate the words, their straightforward meaning is “Because you did not serve with joy and gladness of heart”: you were lacking service of Hashem with joy. And so the Rebbe said that this is what the Alter Rebbe means by “the Arizal’s interpretation is known to all.” What does “known to all” mean? Who studies the Arizal’s interpretation? Does everyone know it? Does every person study the Arizal? Does everyone know “the Arizal’s interpretation is known to all”? What does “known to all” mean? Not everyone studies the writings of the Arizal. So the Rebbe says that this is the meaning of “known to all.” Even if you have not studied the writings of the Arizal, that is how you understand the verse. It is known to all: anyone who studies the verse straightforwardly understands it as the Arizal does. Besides, there is also the Rambam. In the laws of lulav, the Rambam also cites the verse “Because you did not...” and interprets it like the Arizal. We really need to understand why the Rambam does not... why the Alter Rebbe cites the Arizal and not the Rambam. We will discuss that another time. But in any case, that relates to this chapter.