Likkutei Amarim Tanya, Chapter 28 - Part 4

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re back in Tanya, chapter 28, on page 35b. In the previous class, we got just past the period. So the Alter Rebbe says not to think that distracting thoughts are a test proving that your davening isn’t as it should be—that if you were davening properly, you wouldn’t have distracting thoughts. The Alter Rebbe explains that this would be true only if there were one soul. But the truth is that there are two souls, and each fights the other for control of the body. Each wants to rule, to have the mind at its sole disposal. So there are two souls, and there’s a battle between them. That’s why all thoughts of Torah and fear of Heaven come from the G-dly soul, while all worldly matters come from the animal soul. So distracting thoughts are no proof that your davening isn’t as it should be. Since there are two souls, when one wants to take control of the body, the mind, and the person’s entire world, the other wants to as well. That’s where the distracting thoughts come from. As we said earlier, on the contrary: it’s precisely because the G-dly soul is aroused that the animal soul is aroused too. But the Alter Rebbe concludes, “except that the G-dly soul is clothed within it.” What is the Alter Rebbe adding with those words? In other words, he wants to explain what’s happening here. If they’re two souls, and if they were completely separate, why would the animal soul suddenly stir up at exactly this moment? Right? On the one hand, I understand that this doesn’t mean your davening is worthless. Having distracting thoughts isn’t the test; it doesn’t show that something is wrong with you. It shows that you have two souls. There’s one soul

02:03 Speaker 1 and there’s also a second soul. But why does the animal soul stir up specifically during davening to disturb a person? His explanation is: “except that the G-dly soul is clothed within it.” A Jew’s avodah in life works through the G-dly soul being clothed within the animal soul. That’s how serving Hashem works. There are two souls clothed within one another; the G-dly soul is clothed within the animal soul too. They don’t operate entirely separately. There really are two souls, a G-dly soul and an animal soul, as we explained at length in the previous class. There are two aspects of life: a life of holiness and a life of this world. They’re two kinds of life, two souls. But how do they operate? By being clothed one within the other. In other words, for the G-dly soul to work with the body and make it a vessel for G-dliness, for a person’s mind to be filled entirely with thoughts of Torah and fear of Heaven and his heart with love and fear of Hashem, the G-dly soul needs the animal soul too. It clothes itself within the animal soul and works together with it. So—the G-dly soul is clothed within it. It’s precisely through the two souls together that the avodah is accomplished. That’s the meaning of “with all your heart—with both your inclinations.” The avodah involves taking the animal soul along with us in serving Hashem. And that itself is why the animal soul stirs up in the middle of davening to confuse and disturb a person. The G-dly soul is clothed within the animal soul for the sake of the avodah, so the animal soul has a foothold there too. When it sees the G-dly soul stirring, it stirs up as well and begins to interfere with distracting thoughts. That’s why

04:00 Speaker 1 distracting thoughts arise specifically during davening. But as the Alter Rebbe says, that itself proves that their presence doesn’t mean your davening is no good. It means you’re in a battle. And in a battle, as in any battle, there are two sides. When the G-dly soul stirs up, the animal soul stirs up too, especially since one is clothed within the other. That’s why the animal soul’s yetzer hara tries to introduce distracting thoughts. The Alter Rebbe goes on to explain more deeply why distracting thoughts actually show the opposite: that you’re in the right place, engaged in serving Hashem. So how should you respond to them? As the Alter Rebbe said in this chapter, specifically by turning your attention away from them. Don’t make them the focus of your whole life; don’t be distressed that you have distracting thoughts. On the contrary, the avodah should be to turn your attention away from them and daven with greater joy and concentration, as the Alter Rebbe said. So the Alter Rebbe brings this parable, based on the Baal Shem Tov’s parable, which is also brought in Igeres Hakodesh 18: “It is like a person davening with concentration while a wicked uncircumcised man stands before him.” Yes, I think that’s exactly how it should be read. “Uncircumcised man.” How is it written in Tanya, please?

05:40 Speaker 2 Uncircumcised man.

05:41 Speaker 1 Uncircumcised man. “It is like a person davening with concentration while a wicked uncircumcised man stands before him and speaks to him in order to confuse him. Surely, the advice is not to answer him, for good or for bad.” A person is davening with concentration, and then a gentile comes and tries to disturb him while he davens. What’s the advice? What would we tell him to do? “Surely, the advice is not to answer him, for good or for bad”: pay him no attention at all, act like a deaf person who cannot hear, and fulfill the verse, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you too become like him.” That’s what a person needs to do. The advice is what’s written in Tanach, what King Shlomo says: don’t listen at all to what he’s saying. “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you too become like him.” Don’t start arguing with him, because if you do, you’ll end up getting dirty along with him. “So, too, he should make no reply and offer no argument or answer against the distracting thoughts.” Don’t get drawn into any arguments or responses, any explanations or elaborate reasoning with distracting thoughts. “For one who wrestles with a filthy person becomes filthy too.” That’s the principle: when a person begins to wrestle—to argue—with a filthy person, he becomes filthy too. When you come into contact with something dirty, the dirt sticks to you as well. It’s the same here. When a person gets into a back-and-forth, arguing with the yetzer hara and with distracting thoughts, he ends up soiled by those thoughts too. “Rather, he should act as though he does not know of or hear the thoughts that have occurred to him, remove them from his mind, and increase the strength of his concentration.” So what, the Alter Rebbe says, is the advice? A person should act as if he doesn’t hear or pay any attention at all

07:52 Speaker 1 to all the disturbances. On the contrary, he should strengthen his concentration in davening even more. That’s the fundamental lesson the Alter Rebbe is teaching us here in Tanya, a general principle in serving Hashem. When the yetzer hara comes and starts putting all kinds of confusing thoughts into our minds, especially while we’re learning Torah or davening, what approach should we take? Don’t get into arguments or back-and-forth discussions with it. Don’t even start thinking up explanations about where it comes from, why it comes, and so on. Instead, overcome it and continue davening with even greater concentration, without giving it any opening at all. That’s the approach to serving Hashem that the Alter Rebbe calls for here. Now, we know there’s an entire chapter in Igeres Hakodesh about something we just mentioned in the name of the Baal Shem Tov—chapter 25 of Igeres Hakodesh. This was connected to one of the reasons for the Alter Rebbe’s imprisonment: a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov recorded in Tzavaas Harivash. The Baal Shem Tov says that if a person is davening and a gentile comes and disturbs him in the middle, what should he do? The Baal Shem Tov says he should reflect on the reason: how could a gentile be disturbing me in the middle of davening? He brings the story of King David. When Shimi ben Geira cursed him, King David said not to do anything to him, because “Hashem told him to curse.” David’s servants wanted to kill Shimi ben Geira, but King David said not to kill him, because “Hashem told him to curse.” What does that mean? Where did Hashem tell him to curse? Did Hakadosh Boruch Hu tell Shimi ben Geira, G-d forbid, to curse the

10:01 Speaker 1 David? But here’s the thing: the moment a person does something wrong, there is a spark clothed in the life-force in that person’s mouth, giving him the power to do it. It’s like everything in the world: the word of Hashem brings it into being, gives it life, and sustains it at every moment. In the same way, there is a G-dly spark that brings the person into being at every moment and gives him life. The same applies when a non-Jew comes and distracts a Jew in the middle of davening. The Baal Shem Tov says that one should contemplate the fact that a spark of the Shechinah is clothed in that non-Jew. Without it, he could not speak. There is a G-dly spark giving him the strength and life-force with which he can distract me. How can a G-dly spark distract a Jew during davening? The Alter Rebbe explains that this is the exile of the Shechinah. That is what the Baal Shem Tov calls it: the exile of the Shechinah. A spark of the Shechinah is clothed in the non-Jew so that he can disturb a person. But what is the purpose? The purpose is that “one man rules over another to his own detriment.” The spark is in exile so that a Jew can refine it. By strengthening his davening—with greater concentration, vitality, and enthusiasm—he not only overcomes the distraction, but actually elevates the spark. Because the non-Jew disturbed him, he intensified his concentration in davening, and through that he elevates the non-Jew’s spark as well. That is the whole idea of elevating sparks, and the whole purpose of the exile of the Shechinah: so that a Jew will elevate them. This is a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, a general principle in his teachings about how we should serve Hashem. The same approach should apply, should apply

11:48 Speaker 1 when a foreign thought comes as well. But then the analogy here doesn’t fit. The Alter Rebbe says something different. Not only does it not fit—it’s a contradiction. Here the Alter Rebbe says that when a person comes and disturbs you while you are davening, when a non-Jew disturbs you, how should you respond? You should not answer or listen, and you should not engage in any argument or discussion. On the contrary, “one who wrestles with a scoundrel becomes sullied himself.” The approach must be to continue davening without getting into any explanations. But there, there is an entire explanation. So we might simply say that what the Baal Shem Tov said applies to tzaddikim, while here the Alter Rebbe is speaking about beinonim. At the beginning of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe said that elevating a foreign thought is something that applies to tzaddikim. It is to them that the Baal Shem Tov directed this teaching about contemplating the spark and so on. But when we speak about the avodah of beinonim, a beinoni must be careful: while trying to raise the thought up, he himself might fall down. So for a beinoni, the approach is not to go into all these explanations, but to put the thought out of his mind. That is what we would say at first glance. But there is an entire maamar of the Rebbe, one of the Rebbe’s maamarim, Basi Legani 5739, a wonderful maamar. There the Rebbe explains this at length, based on Basi Legani. In the maamar Basi Legani, the Frierdiker Rebbe explains the whole subject of the quality of victory throughout its final ten chapters, from section 11 through section 20. He speaks about expending the treasures, about the quality of victory, and about how, during the exile, a servant must be ready to prevail. At the end of the maamar, in section 20, its final section, the Frierdiker Rebbe speaks about these distractions during davening and says that one must respond with determination and overcome them. One should not enter into any debate

13:48 Speaker 1 or back-and-forth discussion, and this is the central avodah at the end of the exile: serving Hashem with the quality of victory, along the lines of what we are learning here in chapter 28. So the Rebbe speaks about this in 5730. He addresses the contradiction between Tanya, chapter 28, and the letter in section 8. It’s very interesting how the Rebbe explains it there: the distinction is different. It isn’t between tzaddikim and beinonim, but between when you are in the middle of avodah and when you are not. The Rebbe says that if you are in the middle of davening, that is not the time to make calculations. What is the source of the foreign thought? What is the source of the distractions, and why is a non-Jew distracting me? Your avodah then is to strengthen yourself, first and foremost with determination. That is the whole point there: specifically to put the matter completely out of your mind, without any—now is not the time. At another time, not during davening—beforeward or afterward—you should contemplate the root of the matter and then elevate it. There the Rebbe discusses these two approaches. One is avodah through iskafya, and the other is avodah through ishapcha. Putting the thought out of your mind, which we are learning about here, is iskafya. It isn’t ishapcha; it’s iskafya. You don’t engage with the yetzer hara; you continue davening. That is an expression of the quality of victory, an expression of iskafya and bittul. What we call contemplating the root of the non-Jew, the root of the foreign thought, is the avodah of ishapcha. Iskafya has an advantage, and ishapcha has an advantage. Iskafya has more bittul, the quality of victory. Ishapcha has more of ... drawing ... into the world; there is something more novel about it. What is the wording in the maamar? How does the Rebbe put it? And that is why we need both. During—so the Rebbe emphasizes there that this is the distinction: here in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe is speaking about the time of davening. During davening. And here, too, the Alter Rebbe is not really speaking about

15:54 Speaker 1 the non-Jew. That is only an analogy. Here the Alter Rebbe is mainly speaking about a person’s avodah ... with himself. The foreign thoughts, the non-Jew—that non-Jew is me. The non-Jew is my own yetzer hara. The non-Jew is sitting within you. The non-Jew is the foreign thoughts that come to me during davening. That is what we are talking about. And with this non-Jew, especially during davening, there should be no back-and-forth discussion at all. About this, the Alter Rebbe says not to enter into any arguments or responses, any, any ... And that is also the point he is making here. Let’s continue. The Rebbe—the Alter Rebbe—goes on. Okay, so until now the Alter Rebbe has given us a fundamental point, a very central idea in serving Hashem according to Chassidus. You see it a great deal in the Rebbe’s letters. In the Igros, there are dozens or hundreds or thousands of the Rebbe’s letters in which you can see this approach, founded on the teachings of Tanya: putting the matter out of your mind, not continuing to delve into it, digging further into the darkness. The Alter Rebbe continues and says: Here is another wonderful piece of advice that the Alter Rebbe gives, one that for some reason is not so well known. The Alter Rebbe says: “And if he finds it difficult to remove them from his mind.” What happens? I try, but it doesn’t work. I try to get into the davening, I try to strengthen myself, I do strengthen myself, but it doesn’t help. I get into all—yet the foreign thoughts distract me and drive me out of my mind. They won’t let up; they won’t leave me alone. What do I do? The Alter Rebbe gives a very interesting piece of advice here. “And if he finds it difficult to remove them from his mind because they trouble his mind very forcefully.” These are foreign thoughts that are there in full force. It says somewhere in Chassidus, there is a teaching, that since foreign thoughts, as is known, come in their source from the world of Tohu—“many waters”—as is explained in the maamarim on Noach.

17:53 Speaker 1 “Many waters cannot extinguish”—the “many waters,” the foreign thoughts, have their source in the world of Tohu, and that is why they have so much power. Sometimes they come with such force that a person feels he simply cannot overcome them. They “disturb his mind very forcefully.” So the Alter Rebbe gives wonderful advice here. The Alter Rebbe says: “He should humble himself before Hashem and plead with Him in his thoughts.” It is very interesting; every word here is precise. A person needs to humble himself before Hashem and simply plead with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But where does he say to do it? In his thoughts. There is a distinction here. Yes, there are other approaches in Chassidus, outside Chabad, including Breslov, where this is done in speech. So the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that it is “in his thoughts,” right? “He should humble himself before Hashem and plead with Him in his thoughts to have mercy on him in His abundant mercy.” He simply asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu for mercy: Hakadosh Boruch Hu, help me. I cannot do this. Give me a hand. “To have mercy on him in His abundant mercy, as a father has mercy on children who come from his mind.” This is based on everything we have learned in Tanya. After all, we are talking here about a G-dly soul that wants to daven. The G-dly soul is a child who comes from the father’s mind, so “as a father has mercy on children” refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu having mercy on the Jewish people. We ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to arouse abundant mercy for the soul, to give us the strength to overcome foreign thoughts. “And so Hashem will have mercy on his soul, which comes from Him, blessed be He.” It is like the idea of a father having mercy on his children. Why does a father have mercy on his children? Because the children come from the essence of the father’s mind. A father therefore has mercy on his children because they come from his very essence. And the same is true of

20:09 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Because we come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Hakadosh Boruch Hu has mercy on us. So we arouse the mercy that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has for the soul, as a father has mercy on his children. “And so Hashem will have mercy on the soul that comes from Him, blessed be He, to save it from the raging waters.” In the Zohar they are called, as we said, “many waters,” “raging waters.” They seek to—how do you say it?—break the spirit of the G-dly soul. So, “to save it from the raging waters, and He will do it for His own sake.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu will do it for His own sake. Our request is that it not be for our sake; rather, we ask Him to do it for His own sake. There are two ways to explain “He will do it for His own sake.” Does “for His own sake” mean for the soul, which is a part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Is that what it means? Or does it mean Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, the source of the soul? Either way, we are asking Hakadosh Boruch Hu to have mercy on us because our soul is a part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so the mercy is really for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Yes, because “His people are truly a part of Hashem”... Yes, so it turns out that a Jew, by virtue of his soul, is truly one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What is the deeper point here? There is tremendous depth here. First of all, it is simply practical advice. I know people do not, do not do this, and do not make a fuss about it, but the Rebbe gives very practical advice here, wonderful advice for serving Hashem. Today, in the world—I do not know—it has become very common. One of the treatments in the modern world has become very common. It did not actually come from a holy source, yet here we see that this very idea is written explicitly in Tanya. Today people talk a lot about what they call addictions, obsessions, all kinds of things that people fall into—desires—and they cannot free themselves of them. So today there is one

22:24 Speaker 1 of the most well-known ways in the world to recover from addiction. It is called the Twelve Steps. I do not know if you have heard of it. Twelve, twelve steps for getting out of all kinds of addictions. The foundation, the basis, the central point—it is something worldwide—is that a person has to acknowledge that he is struggling. Yes, to know how to lower his head and say, “This is hard for me. I cannot do it alone,” and to ask, “Master of the Universe, give me a hand.” To ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “Help me. I want to get out of this.” As long as a person is not willing to lower his head and say, “This is hard for me. I cannot do it. Give me a hand,” there is no way to heal him of... This is one of the foundations of mental-health treatment in the modern world. They use it in all the institutions known as rehabilitation centers. People who fall into all kinds of things—drugs, alcohol, all those repulsive kelipos, may Hashem protect us. The basis of the treatment rests on this, and here we see that it is all already written in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe says it explicitly here. That is the point. Sometimes you want to get rid of the yetzer hara, but you cannot; it keeps pursuing you. The usual advice is to turn your mind away from it. We know all the Rebbe’s sichos and letters on this, but here the Alter Rebbe adds another point: sometimes you cannot manage even to turn your mind away. So here is the advice the Alter Rebbe gives: to humble oneself. You have to be willing to lower your head and admit that you have a problem, and then ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And you must have faith in life: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu, I believe in You, and I know You are here with me.” This is the Alter Rebbe’s advice here, an insight of Chassidus. There is

24:31 Speaker 1 of course, something here that you can know only through Chassidus: this idea of “as a father has mercy on his children,” that we are all a spark of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So, “He will do it for His own sake”—ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “Please, help me,” and then He will do it for His own sake. More generally, there are two ways to read this passage in Tanya. Is all of it part of the plea for mercy, or—how do we read the Tanya here? It can be read in two ways. One way is that everything, right to the end, is part of the person’s request: “He should plead with Him in his thoughts to have mercy on him in His abundant mercy, as a father has mercy on children who come from his mind, and so He will have mercy...” I am asking for all of it; it is all part of the request. It is a plea for mercy. “To save it,” “He will do it for His own sake”—all of it is part of the request. That is one very straightforward way to read it. The second way is different: there is a request and also an answer. Up to the words “from his mind,” it is the plea: “He should plead with Him in his thoughts to have mercy on him in His abundant mercy, as a father has mercy on children who come from his mind.” Then comes the answer from Above: through this, “and so He will have mercy”—that is what will actually happen. It is as though the Alter Rebbe promises that when a person arouses mercy, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will indeed have mercy on him and bring him out of the undesirable things, out of the raging waters, because “His people are truly a part of Hashem.”