Likkutei Amarim, Chapter 29 - Part 7

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re continuing in Tanya, near the top of page 37, on the fourth line. The Alter Rebbe continues here with the soul-searching and says: “He should also take to heart that most of his dreams…” Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has discussed three aspects of soul-searching. The first concerned a person’s essential nature: even a beinoni still has an animal soul as part of his essential nature. That is the person himself. The second point was the sins of his youth. The third was [unclear] thought, speech, and action. Now the Alter Rebbe turns to dreams. “He should also take to heart”—there is something else a person needs to consider and pay attention to—“that most of his dreams are vanity and vexation of spirit.” Sometimes, to know where he stands, a person needs a touchstone. Since we’re talking about a beinoni, his thought, speech, and action are as they should be. We’re talking about someone who serves Hashem and whose conduct in serving Hashem is complete—in thought, speech, and action. So sometimes it’s hard to find a touchstone that will tell him where he stands. Through dreams, we can see his true state. A dream tells us what is happening in the soul, where the person is holding. As is well known, dreams are connected to the thoughts of one’s heart. Dreams follow what a person is absorbed in, what he is drawn to. So through his dreams, a person can know the state of his soul. That is why, in soul-searching—particularly for a beinoni, who, precisely because he learns and davens and fulfills mitzvos, may find it hard to know what he is really like at his core—his dreams can make him aware that he has not yet been refined. That is what the Alter Rebbe means here: “He should also take to heart that most of his dreams are vanity and vexation of spirit.” His dreams are of that kind: empty dreams, without substance, and vexation of spirit.

02:28 Speaker 1 It’s like what the Alter Rebbe discussed in chapter 6. “Vexation of spirit” means a breaking of the spirit; it breaks it. [unclear]—these are thoughts connected with kelipah and the sitra achra, which seek to break the spirit of holiness. “Because his soul does not ascend Above.” Why do dreams actually come from that place? Why are they dreams of vanity and vexation of spirit? Because the soul cannot ascend Above. As it says, “Who may ascend the mountain of Hashem? He who has clean hands,” and so on. Who can ascend the mountain of Hashem? A person who has clean hands and a pure heart. What does that mean? This is explained in the Zohar: at night, the soul ascends Above. When a person goes to sleep at night, there is an ascent of the soul. All right, it is sometimes mentioned here; the Alter Rebbe brings it briefly. Elsewhere it is explained in a little more detail. The Zohar discusses it at length: at night, the soul ascends Above, and there is a particular account of that ascent. When the soul leaves the body at night—which is one-sixtieth of death, as the expression goes; it is not, G-d forbid, death—there is a certain kind of ascent of the soul. Then it depends on how the person conducted his avodah, how he served Hashem. If his service of Hashem was as it should be—if he learned, davened, and served Hakadosh Boruch Hu during the day—then the soul ascends Above and enters Gan Eden. There the soul receives life, life from the Life of life; it receives holy vitality, a taste of life, and, accordingly, dreams of holiness as well. There are also various instances in which a dream can bring answers to questions a person has asked or to things that trouble him. There are all kinds of things. Of course, it depends on the person’s level. But the general point is that when the soul ascends at night, it is drawn to its source, to a place

04:44 Speaker 1 of G-dliness, a place in Gan Eden. But if there were distracting thoughts, sins, and undesirable things during the day, then when the soul ascends, those thoughts cling to it. Angels are created from every thought, word, and deed—spiritual entities—and these, as it were, pull the soul in another direction. They do not let it go where it wants to go, to Gan Eden, but bring it into dreams connected with the sitra achra. That is where all kinds of dreams and confusion come from. This is what the Zohar means by “Who may ascend the mountain of Hashem?” It is referring to every night. When a person goes to sleep, the question of “Who may ascend the mountain of Hashem?” arises: the soul needs to ascend. And the answer is, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Those are the conditions for ascending the mountain of Hashem. But when that is lacking, one does not enter the mountain of Hashem. “And those evil forces come and attach themselves to him.” The evil forces arrive—that is, the sitra achra, that opposing side, angels of the other side. They come and attach themselves to a person, “and tell him worldly matters in his dream.” They tell him things about the world, and so on. That is, we’re not necessarily talking about forbidden dreams or bad dreams. “Worldly matters.” Sometimes they even tell him about things happening in the world. So here we see something remarkable: even dreams about everyday life, about worldly things, about things that might happen to him—even if they concern material matters, worldly matters—are not an aspect of holiness. They too come from the fact that he is absorbed in worldly matters, and so his dreams concern worldly matters. They do not come from a place of holiness, from a place of [unclear]. That is what is called “worldly matters”: dreams about material matters, about this world, and so on and so forth. “At times,” sometimes, “they laugh at him.”

06:58 Speaker 1 Not only do they show him dreams about matters of this world; sometimes it is even worse. The angels make a joke of him, laugh at him, “and show him false things.” He dreams things that are untrue. In other words, the first case the Alter Rebbe discusses can even involve true dreams. Sometimes a person has a dream at night about real things in the world. Perhaps he dreams he is going to win the lottery, or that something good is going to happen in his life or in his friend’s life. Good things. Those things may even come true. It’s not that they cannot. But even then, if they are not matters of holiness or G-dliness, but material matters, they too are connected with the sitra achra. They do not come from a place of holiness. They may simply be ordinary worldly things. Then the Alter Rebbe says that sometimes “they laugh at him”: they make a joke of the person and show him false things, “false things and distress in his dream,” and so on. Sometimes it is not just falsehood; sometimes it also involves distress, or what people call fear. Dreams from which a person wakes up frightened or distressed, as though terrible things were happening to him—all these are things the sitra achra brings upon a person because he was not absorbed in matters of holiness during the day. Yes, as it says in the Zohar, Vayikra, page 8a–b; see the discussion there at length. The Zohar there also speaks of more severe things. You see, the Zohar says that sometimes they show him forbidden things as well, and they may even bring him to a state of impurity, the impurity of a nocturnal emission. But the Alter Rebbe does not bring that up explicitly here, because he is speaking about a beinoni. You see, such dreams would not apply to a beinoni, and therefore the Alter Rebbe

08:51 Speaker 1 The Rebbe does not bring up that kind of dream here. But dreams connected with matters of this world, dreams connected with falsehood and distress—not forbidden sights, but things that show a person that he is in the wrong place, not a good place—those are a touchstone. That is what the Alter Rebbe wants to say: when a person reflects and comes to see where he belongs, this is the touchstone. It shows him that this is where he is. In other words, he is not connected to G-dliness as he should be, and so his soul is with that nation. That is why all these things happen at night. If he were immersed in serving Hashem as he should be, his dreams too would be about true things, holy things. It says in Hayom Yom—the Rebbe brings it there; I think it is in Teves, on 4 Teves—that dreams shown to a person concerning purity and holiness come when, during the day, he occupies himself with purity, with study, with diligent effort, and so on. When he toils in serving Hashem, then at night his dreams can also be about holiness and purity. So that is what the Alter Rebbe is saying: this is another explanation that helps a person pay attention to his standing and situation, so that he can bring about a broken heart. It is another way to bring about the breaking of the sitra achra. The Alter Rebbe continues: “And the more deeply he delves into these matters in his thoughts and also through studying books.” If a person reflects in his thoughts on everything we have discussed so far—meaning, he reflects on his own standing and situation, each person according to his circumstances—and also studies books. Yes, he studies maamarim about avodah

10:44 Speaker 1 or books, books that clarify all these matters: works of mussar or of Chassidus that discuss these subjects. “So that his heart is broken within him, and he is despised in his own eyes, utterly loathsome.” This will bring a person to feel that he is despised in his own eyes, utterly loathsome. Why? What is the purpose of this? Heaven forbid, the intention is not to bring a person to sadness, to a kind of anguish or broken spirit. The purpose of all this explanation is what it brings about: “For through this, he loathes and despises the sitra achra.” This is the breaking of the kelipah. The purpose here is to break that nation—the kelipah, the coarseness within him, the sense of self that prevents him from drawing close to G-dliness and from feeling Hakadosh Boruch Hu. By reflecting on all these matters, he breaks the kelipah and the sitra achra within him, “humbling it to the dust and bringing it down from its greatness, its arrogance and its haughtiness, with which it exalts itself over the holy light of the G-dly soul to darken its light.” What is the fundamental point here? As we discussed at the beginning, when the Alter Rebbe brought the Zohar. We have to be very careful here; it is very easy to get confused. Our goal, the goal of Chassidus in this entire explanation, is not, heaven forbid, to bring a person to dejection, to low spirits, to a collapse of spirit. In that state a person cannot serve Hashem. That would run counter to the whole point of Chassidus. The goal is not to break the person. Our goal is to break the kelipah. The fundamental premise—and this must be clear—is that I have a G-dly soul, and the G-dly soul wants to feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to live for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is my true essence. And in

12:47 Speaker 1 a little while, after all this reflection, we will see, as the Alter Rebbe will explain in chapter 31: look, there is a spark within me; the aim is to awaken the soul. That is the goal. We are not seeking brokenness for its own sake. Breaking is only a means. As the Alter Rebbe explained at the beginning of this discussion, in the passage about [unclear], all this reflection and bitterness is only a means of removing the kelipah. That is what he brings from the Zohar: “to kindle the light of the soul.” We want to bring about a state in which the soul’s light shines within a person. But what happens? Sometimes the body, the animal soul, the sitra achra, does not allow the soul’s light to shine. Yet I believe with complete faith, and I know with certainty, that at my core I have a part of G-d within me. That must be absolutely clear during this reflection. This is the danger we must be very, very careful about: sometimes, when we learn these matters without having that point clear, we can fall into sadness. And then what has happened to the intention? That does not work; that is not the direction, not the point. It must always be very, very clear that there is a “part of G-d above,” that there is a soul and a spark of the soul with a connection to G-dliness. So what is the problem? I see that I have dullness of heart, or sometimes even dullness of mind, and I cannot manage to awaken myself and connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I understand that this is because of the kelipah and the sitra achra—the materiality, as the Alter Rebbe said, that comes from the sitra achra clothing itself within a person. So when a person reflects on all these things until he reaches a state of being “despised in his own eyes, loathsome”—as the Alter Rebbe says, “to loathe his very life”—then loathing his very life is not the goal; it is not about

14:37 Speaker 1 loathing his life and sinking into dejection. It means loathing the life of the kelipah, the life of the sitra achra, and the life bound up with this state in which the sitra achra clothes itself within him. It means loathing the life of this threat. This is what the Alter Rebbe says here: it exalts itself. The sitra achra has the power to exalt itself and give a person the feeling that everything here is kelipah, sitra achra and ego. We need to break that kelipah. When we break it, the spark is revealed, the light of the soul is revealed, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later in the chapter. That is our goal in serving Hashem.

15:20 Speaker 2 Doesn’t it say in halachah that dreams—

15:27 Speaker 1 You are asking: in halachah, we find that “dreams speak falsehood.” He is asking that, on the face of it, Tanya is saying here that dreams show where a person stands, while in halachah dreams have no significance. According to halachah, if a person has a dream, it means nothing. In halachah, it is nonsense; it has no standing. As it says in the Gemara and in the Rambam, even if a person dreamed that he owed money to someone, or that money in a particular corner belonged to someone else, and then he got up and found the money, he does not have to give it to that person. According to halachah, dreams make no difference. That does not contradict what we are saying here, because there are dreams as a matter of halachah and dreams as a matter of the inner life. Those are two different questions. Within the parameters of halachah, a dream has no significance. Halachah concerns action; dreams have no connection to the world of action. In the world of action, things are governed by the rules that apply to action. A dream does not belong to that realm, so according to halachah one cannot rely on a dream. But when we are talking about matters of the soul, not matters of action—about knowing where a person stands—dreams can be precisely the touchstone that shows where the soul is. That is what the Rebbe is discussing here. These are two different matters. It is also interesting, when we speak about dreams, to consider the Rebbe’s approach to them. Generally, the Rebbe strongly dismissed dreams. When people wrote to the Rebbe about their dreams, the Rebbe would dismiss them: “Dreams speak falsehood”; do not pay attention to them; they are meaningless. Most of the Rebbe’s responses concerning dreams were in that vein: do not give them any attention. On the other hand, there were

17:40 Speaker 1 There were times in yechidus when the Rebbe did give dreams more weight, particularly if the dreams involved the Rebbe himself. Yes, whenever the Rebbe appeared in a dream, it was associated with all kinds of special matters. We saw this over the years. There is a letter the Rebbe wrote to someone in Eretz Yisroel who was very left-wing and completely distant from Yiddishkeit. The Rebbe asked him to do something to help Jews. The Rebbe asked him a favor, and wrote that the sign that what he was writing concerned him would be a dream he would have in the coming days. That is what the Rebbe wrote: he would soon have a dream, and from it he would understand. And in more recent years, there was a woman at dollars who told the Rebbe that she had seen him in a dream, and that he had told her about nuts. The Rebbe explained to her the whole matter of Hashem’s blessing. The Rebbe took it very seriously. Of course, these are entirely different kinds of cases; that is another matter. But generally, when speaking of ordinary dreams, the Rebbe’s approach was not to make an issue of them or be afraid of them, and so on. Sometimes the Rebbe would give instructions to people who suffered from fears or disturbing dreams. Among the Rebbe’s responses and instructions, sometimes he said to check the mezuzah in the room. Sometimes the Rebbe wrote to put up an additional mezuzah—not just the one on the door, but another one by the bedside, on the table beside the bed. Several times the Rebbe wrote to place a mezuzah near the bed in addition to the one on the door, as a segulah for dreams. There was once a story, told by the person involved, about a Jew, a rabbi,

20:08 Speaker 1 an important rabbi, who wrote to the Rebbe about his granddaughter—or his daughter; I think it was a granddaughter or a daughter, perhaps his daughter—who was having dreams. The Rebbe wrote that he should put a mezuzah near her bed. After a few days or weeks, he wrote to the Rebbe again that they had done so, but the dreams were still continuing. So the Rebbe wrote to him—I believe this is how the Rebbe put it: “Apparently, the one who passed on the advice to her does not believe that this advice can help.” That is what the Rebbe wrote to the girl’s father. The Rebbe had given him the advice for his daughter, but apparently, in passing it on, there was a lack of faith, and that prevented the blessing, the advice, from working. Strengthen your faith a little, and it will happen. That answer is very interesting. In other words, it is not only the recipient of the blessing who needs to believe; the messenger who passes it on also needs to believe. That is an important point. Now I’ll come to the subject of dreams. What does the Alter Rebbe say here? Up to this point...

21:30 Speaker 3 [unclear] the dreams of the [unclear] in the first chapter we mentioned, yes, that they are [unclear]. Why? Why are they called that? Yes, why are dreams called false? Because they are [unclear].

22:01 Speaker 1 That’s what he said... Thank you very much. Right. More generally, since we’re already talking about dreams and Chassidus, there is extensive discussion of them in the maamarim. Dreams are an interesting subject. Chassidus discusses them at great length. There is a teaching about dreams from the Alter Rebbe that the Rebbe revisited in 5724. There are maamarim for Vayeishev and Mikeitz that discuss dreams. There is a whole extended explanation of dreams according to Chassidus. There is also the maamar of 19 Kislev 5722, in which the Rebbe goes into great detail explaining dreams. What emerges from Chassidus is that sometimes dreams also serve to refine the soul. A person’s thoughts, including the distracting thoughts that pass through his mind during the day, go through a process in his dreams. Through those dreams, they are corrected; they undergo a kind of refinement as well. The whole subject is very interesting. In Chassidus, dreams are a whole subject in their own right. The Hebrew word for “dream” is also related to “You restored me to health.” Right? To recover means to be healed. So a dream is a kind of healing, as though the soul heals through dreams. There are a number of aspects to this. Today, in the modern world, people talk a great deal about dreams. Freud and modern psychology made a whole subject out of dreams, and that does fit with what is written here in Tanya: the soul reveals itself through dreams, and dreams show all kinds of things. But the way psychology has taken this is really exaggerated. They’ve taken it to an extreme and made too much of it. We need to put it in its proper place and not be overly occupied with it. A person shouldn’t live in his dreams; there needs to be actual avodah. Sometimes, for the sake of taking stock of oneself, we may need to understand this matter,

24:32 Speaker 1 but the main thing is nisht in dem—not to be absorbed in this. No, it is necessary, but this isn’t where our focus should be. All right. Right.