Likkutei Amarim, Chapter 29 - Part 9

00:01 Speaker 1 We’re up to chapter 29, at the top of page 37b, first line: “And through this.” Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has explained two ways a person can bring about the breaking of the material coarseness of the sitra achra within himself. Breaking it—through a broken heart. The Alter Rebbe gave two approaches. One is through explanations and soul-searching. A person reflects on several matters the Alter Rebbe set out, and that brings him to a broken heart. This breaks the kelipah and sitra achra that exalt themselves over the holiness of the G-dly soul. That’s one approach, more from below upward, through explanations and soul-searching. Then there’s an approach that moves more from above downward, by way of striking: “A person should always rouse his good inclination against his evil inclination.” That means shouting, stirring oneself up, striking out—a person shouting at his animal soul. And as the Alter Rebbe said, this shouting breaks its material coarseness. There are several details to the shouting. First of all, you have to speak to the animal soul without anesthesia, as the Alter Rebbe says—without, how do you say it, gloves. Tell it the truth to its face. Call it by its real names. Sometimes we want to be gentle in how we speak, but that doesn’t work. What are we talking about? You have to tell it things as they are. “A person should always rouse…” And the Alter Rebbe explains the technique of this arousal—the several details we discussed. It has to be in thought. This isn’t shouting out loud; the shouting is in thought. And what is the shout? It’s “You are evil and wicked, loathsome, abominable, and disgraceful,” and so on—all the names. And then: “How long will you conceal the Master of the Universe from me?” The shout is directed at the evil inclination. How can you

02:27 Speaker 1 be so disgraceful? You conceal the truth and don’t let me see the real truth, the real truth that “there is nothing else besides Him.” And that truth is the reality of the world. That is the true reality. In other words, we’re not talking here about explanations upon explanations. This comes from a place within the G-dly soul. It tells the truth to the animal soul’s face. There is a truth. The truth is that “there is nothing else besides Him,” and that truth is the true reality of creation. It is a truth that is right here, something to be seen as plainly as with the physical senses. From the standpoint of the truth of G-dliness, there is nothing standing in the way. That’s how things are; that is the true reality. That is the true way to look at the world, how we ought to see the world through a Jew’s true perspective. As the Alter Rebbe says in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, “If the eye were granted permission to see,” we would see this truth. This truth is the truth of reality. But what happens? Because of the animal soul and because of concealment, we don’t see the true reality. There is a material barrier that keeps me from seeing the truth. So from time to time, there has to be that shout, that rousing of oneself against the animal soul, telling it the truth of the matter: “How long will you conceal the Master of the Universe from me?” That is the point, and that is the second approach the Alter Rebbe gives. Through it, we can break material coarseness, and then the light of the G-dly soul will shine again within a person. Now the Alter Rebbe goes on to say what the result will be. The Alter Rebbe says: “And through this, he will help his G-dly soul, illuminating its eyes with the truth of the unity of the light of Ein Sof as plainly as something seen with the physical senses.” The Alter Rebbe says that this work will give the G-dly soul the strength to open its eyes, so that the unity will truly shine

04:19 Speaker 1 within him—the true unity. That is, the unity of the light of Ein Sof: to see the world and to see Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the world, the truth that “there is nothing else besides Him” down here. Through this work, we can come to see it as plainly as something seen with the physical senses, not just hear about it and understand it. Look, he says something remarkable here. The Alter Rebbe is speaking about a person whose heart is dulled, and even more, whose mind is dulled, right? Someone in a state of utter lowliness. Yet the Alter Rebbe says that through the work we’ve been discussing in this chapter—a broken heart, the breaking of material coarseness—a person can bring himself to perceive the unity of the light of Ein Sof as plainly as something seen with the physical senses. That is an extraordinarily high level of avodah. Seeing it like that is, after all, a very high level: seeing G-dliness with physical eyes. But that is what the Alter Rebbe says here: “Illuminating its eyes with the truth of the unity of the light of Ein Sof as plainly as something seen with the physical senses, and not merely through hearing and understanding, as explained elsewhere, for this is the foundation of all avodah.” This perception of G-dliness as something seen with the physical senses is the foundation of all avodah. Where is it explained elsewhere? I don’t know. Look, he says it’s explained elsewhere—what does that mean? I once heard that the Rebbe said at a farbrengen in the early years: Tanya says, “as explained elsewhere.” What does “as explained elsewhere” mean? It isn’t simple. If the Alter Rebbe wanted to tell you which other places he meant, he could have given the references. He doesn’t tell us where they are. So what is “as explained elsewhere”? He could just as well have written nothing. That’s how I heard that the Rebbe once said, around 5710 or 5711, that the meaning of “as explained elsewhere” is

06:22 Speaker 1 that the Alter Rebbe wants to tell you this subject is discussed elsewhere, and afterward you’ll find it somewhere else. And then you’ll find another place with still more on it, and more, and more—it’s endless. As much as you study it, there’s another place, and another place, and so on. Of course, on the straightforward level, as we see in the maamar, the reference is to yearning. Now, the Alter Rebbe was speaking during that period. In practice, these references are sometimes traced to maamarim. Very often he refers to maamarim from before Petersburg, and it may be that this was another occasion when the Alter Rebbe discussed it. So we’re trying to understand what the Alter Rebbe means here when he says this is the foundation of all avodah. What are we talking about? That seeing is the foundation of all avodah. One explanation relates to what is written about the giving of the Torah. After all, that is where the whole matter of serving Hashem began. At the giving of the Torah, the whole bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu began. And what happened there? At the giving of the Torah there was “You were shown”: “You were shown to know that Hashem is G-d; there is nothing else besides Him.” The Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 36 that “You were shown” means seeing it as plainly as something seen with the physical senses. At the giving of the Torah, all the souls of the Jewish people—all of us, from every generation—stood there and saw with physical eyes. They saw G-dliness and unity with physical eyes, as plainly as something seen with the physical senses. That was “And all the people saw.” They “saw what is heard and heard what is seen.” That was the revelation at the giving of the Torah. What was its purpose? Afterward it disappeared; it didn’t remain. What was the point of the giving of the Torah, then? So what is explained? There is the Rebbe’s well-known sicha, “They saw what is heard,”

08:22 Speaker 1 There is a well-known sicha in volume 12 of Likkutei Sichos in which the Rebbe explains that Matan Torah brought about a revolution for Jews. What did Matan Torah accomplish? Before Matan Torah, the physical world was the obvious reality. Physicality was taken for granted—what Chassidus calls “worlds as a given.” Nature, reality, the world: those were the obvious things, while G-dliness was something new. You needed faith for that; it was not natural. It was something additional. Think of the difference between seeing something and hearing about it: what you see is obvious to you. What you hear about, without seeing it, is something you have to accept. You have to—you have to be convinced. It is not simply obvious. Before Matan Torah, G-dliness was something heard about, while physicality was something seen. It was close to me. It was my reality, my nature, so I felt it and grasped it. In that sicha, the Rebbe explains what changed at Matan Torah: it became the reverse. At Matan Torah, G-dliness was revealed, and it was perceived in a way that penetrated every detail of the world. “I am Hashem your G-d”—the world itself cried out, “I am Hashem your G-d.” They saw what happened at Mount Sinai with their physical eyes. So the movement became the opposite: “They saw what is ordinarily heard and heard what is ordinarily seen.” Matters of G-dliness became something seen, something obvious. For a Jew, the basic assumption became that G-dliness is the true reality, that there is nothing besides Him, and the surprising thing is that there is a world. So much so that, as the Rebbe says in the sicha, we see that Chassidus constantly asks a question in the maamarim: Since we say, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” “There is nothing besides Him,” and “I am Hashem your G-d”—that there is nothing else, that everything is within that one reality—the question arises: What? If so, how can this be? Then there is no world, and that needs to be explained. Chassidus tries to prove

10:17 Speaker 1 —no, that we must say there is a world, because it says, “In the beginning, G-d created.” In other words, when you learn Chassidus and look at the way our Rebbeim wrote the maamarim, the wording shows that the basic assumption is that, really, there is no world. But then what? Along come verses, statements of our Sages, a Mishnah—and how is that not a difficulty? That is how we know there is a world. So, as it were, the obvious thing is that there is no world; the surprising thing is that there is a world. This came about at Matan Torah through seeing: you see it, rather than merely knowing it. Yes, and that is why it is called the root of all avodah. It can be called the root of all avodah because this assumption is the foundation of a Jew’s life. Throughout our lives, we need to serve Hashem, fight the yetzer hara, do good and turn from evil. But the root, the foundation, the innermost point at the root of all that avodah, is that G-dliness is something seen—the assumption that G-dliness is the true reality. For a Jew, it is obvious that G-dliness is the true reality and that there is nothing besides Him. That assumption is the essence, the root, of all avodah. From it flow all the particular things demanded of a Jew. He spends his days working on himself so that matters of G-dliness, spiritual matters, will be obvious to him. What is secondary to him? What is primary? Chassidus speaks about this all the time. Yes, what does a person need to work on? That physicality should be secondary for him and G-dliness primary, and so on. It all flows from this point: that G-dliness is something seen. So what is the Rebbe teaching us here in Tanya, chapter 29? The Rebbe says that through a person—In practice, we do not feel that way. In practice, I do not feel that way. I feel the physical world, materiality. I have a yetzer hara, I have

12:14 Speaker 1 desires. On the contrary, I have a dulled mind and a dulled heart. I want to daven, and it is not working for me. I want to serve Hashem, and it is not working for me. I am drawn toward desires and [unclear]; it has hidden the whole thing from me. So what is it? What is the coarseness? The coarseness is the body, the materiality—something that conceals. There is concealment, but in essence, from the perspective of your soul, your essence is G-dliness in a way that is seen. That is your true reality. So you have to break down that barrier, remove the concealment, and reveal the true reality. The Alter Rebbe says this happens when a person thunders against it. He shouts; he strikes at the animal soul; he breaks it, breaks his own materiality, using the approaches the Alter Rebbe gives. In this way, you remove that concealment. Then a Jew’s true essence is revealed. And a Jew’s true essence is that G-dliness is obvious to him. That is his true essence. This is really the foundation we spoke about at the beginning of chapter 29. The Alter Rebbe is teaching us a fundamental point. Chapter 29 is not merely a chapter of moral rebuke, in which the Alter Rebbe comes to beat us up over all the transgressions we have committed and show us how filthy we are. The goal is not humiliation, G-d forbid. The goal is the opposite: to awaken and reveal our true essence. There is the light of the soul, and every Jew has that light of the soul, in which G-dliness shines for him as something obvious, something seen. That is a Jew’s true essence, and it is the root of all avodah; everything comes from there. But the dullness of the mind and heart—that is something else. It is a covering, a kind of shell that hides the truth. By breaking that shell, the inner self of

14:03 Speaker 1 a Jew is revealed; the experience of seeing is revealed, and from that flows all of one’s avodah, turning from evil and [unclear]. And the Alter Rebbe explains why thundering against it brings a person to a vision of G-dliness. How does that work, as we asked? It is a shift from one extreme to the other. A moment ago, his mind and heart were dulled, and suddenly G-dliness is something he sees tangibly. So the Alter Rebbe explains: The reason is that, in truth, the sitra achra has no substance at all. The kelipah truly has no substance. That is why it is compared to darkness, and why a forceful challenge alone nullifies it. It is not, in essence, a true reality. “The sitra achra has no substance at all, and is therefore compared to darkness, which has no substance at all.” The sitra achra is called darkness, as in the verses the Alter Rebbe cited earlier here. It is the path of darkness. The kelipah is called darkness because darkness has no substance and therefore gives way to light. Consider darkness: we see plainly that the moment you switch on a light, you do not need to do anything else to drive away the darkness. The darkness goes away on its own, because it is not really a reality; it is only a shadow, only a concealment of the light. As soon as the light is revealed, the darkness disappears. So it is with the sitra achra. The same is true of the sitra achra: it has no reality of its own. It is a reality of absence, a reality of absence. It is not a reality; its whole nature is concealment. It has no true reality. Therefore, the moment the light of the G-dly soul is revealed, the kelipah’s apparent reality falls away on its own. There is some discussion about this. In one place, the Rebbe cites a disagreement about whether darkness is merely the absence of light or whether darkness is itself a reality. There are two approaches in Kabbalah—and even before Kabbalah, in works of philosophy

16:02 Speaker 1 and in Moreh Nevuchim. There are, then, two general approaches, and discourses discuss how darkness is defined. Is darkness only the absence of light, or is darkness a creation in its own right? The Alter Rebbe explains it according to the approach that darkness is the absence of light, so the moment light is revealed, darkness disappears on its own. There is also the concept of darkness as a creation in its own right, and Chassidus explains how to deal with that as well. Even if we say darkness exists in its own right, a person can, through avodah, transform that darkness too. There are maamarim of Chassidus that examine this issue at length. The Rebbe Rashab also discusses it in Hemshech 5672, and similarly the Frierdiker Rebbe in Hemshech 5695 and 5692. It also appears in the Rebbe’s maamarim, and in those of 5693. The Rebbe spoke about this at length: two ways of understanding darkness and, accordingly, two approaches to serving Hashem. But here, you see—no, no. Here I am speaking about the straightforward understanding: darkness is only the absence of light. So when the light of the G-dly soul shines, the darkness falls away before it. Did you want to ask something?

17:13 Speaker 2 Yes. The sitra achra—the darkness of the world’s limitations—is [unclear]. It is something that [unclear]. That also seems to be the sitra achra. What does it mean, “to give a good reward to the righteous”? It is like before, like darkness. They spoke about that. It receives from the righteous. It is like here.

17:42 Speaker 1 Where does it say “to give a good reward to the righteous”? About darkness?

17:45 Speaker 2 About that.

17:47 Speaker 1 About the sitra achra? Which Hakadosh Boruch Hu created. That’s chapter 5—is that what you mean? Okay, so the Rebbe explained here at the end of the chapter the parable of the harlot from the holy Zohar: the inner purpose of darkness is to reveal... How is that a proof of what the Rebbe wants to say here? It isn’t a contradiction. On the contrary, that is the whole proof that darkness is only concealment, and its purpose is to reveal the inner essence of the G-dly soul. [unclear]. On the contrary, even in darkness, [unclear]. In essence, the purpose of darkness is to reveal the soul of a Jew. “Even darkness will not obscure from You.” [unclear]—that is a subject in its own right, explained at length in maamarim in several places. “And so too the sitra achra: although it has abundant vitality with which to give life to all non-kosher animals, the souls of the nations of the world, and also the animal soul in a Jew, as mentioned above.” So it would seem that the sitra achra is an extremely powerful reality. All the kelipos, all the animals, all the nations of the world—all receive their life from the sitra achra. So it would seem to have strength, to be a substantial reality. “Nevertheless, all its vitality is not from itself, G-d forbid.” The vitality the sitra achra has does not come from itself. In itself, it is death, as we learned earlier in chapter 5, “but from holiness.” All the vitality the sitra achra has comes only from holiness. The spark of holiness within it—that is what gives it its power. “Therefore, it is completely nullified before holiness, like darkness before light. It is only in relation to the holiness of the G-dly soul in a person that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave it permission and the ability to raise itself up against it.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the animal soul, the kelipah, permission to gain the upper hand

19:43 Speaker 1 over the G-dly soul, to confuse and interfere—precisely so that a person would overcome it, overcome it even more, and bring it low, regarding it as lowly, despicable and repulsive. That is the whole point. In truth, the sitra achra knows that its entire existence comes from G-dliness, and therefore it is, in essence, completely nullified to G-dliness. It has no standing, no significance whatsoever; it is utterly nullified before G-dliness, because it knows that all its vitality comes from G-dliness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives the sitra achra this power, the ability to gain the upper hand. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it this power. That is the whole idea of the breaking of the vessels and the emergence of evil below: Hakadosh Boruch Hu, as it were, gives the kelipah the power to stand against holiness in order to reveal the depth of the light of holiness—so that a person will overcome and defeat it. That is the point. To bring about what is written: “An arousal from below brings about an arousal from above.” To bring about what is written, [unclear]. And what happens when a Jew overcomes his animal soul? Through this, holiness also gains the upper hand over the kelipah above. That is, Hashem removes its dominion and ability, taking away the power and permission He gave it to raise itself against the radiance of the holiness of the G-dly soul. Then, through this avodah—when a Jew strengthens his G-dly soul over the concealment and the yetzer of the animal soul—the seemingly tangible darkness is, as it were, exposed for what it is. So an arousal from below brings about an arousal from above: above, too, the light of holiness overcomes the kelipah and the sitra achra. Then the truth is revealed: the kelipah and the sitra achra have no substance at all, and their entire existence is completely broken. G-dliness is then revealed tangibly, as the Rebbe said earlier—G-dliness in a way that can be seen. The truth that “there is nothing besides Him” is revealed, and we see it tangibly down here in the world. So here, in our avodah,

21:44 Speaker 1 there is a most fundamental principle in serving Hashem. Yes, we need to know what is true, what lies beneath the surface, what our true reality is. And we need to understand that all these disturbances from the yetzer, and all the worlds and the sitra achra associated with it—all of it is [unclear]. Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself gives it this power so that a Jew can overcome it. I remember one year the Rebbe spoke about this at length. There was a farbrengen on Parshas Ki Seitzei—I remember that farbrengen. The Rebbe spoke about how Parshas Ki Seitzei says, “When you go out to war”: the war between the G-dly soul and the animal soul. There is a war, and it is an extremely difficult war. He spoke at length about the beginning and the end of the parsha. Parshas Ki Seitzei begins, “When you go out to war,” and ends with Amalek. The whole of Parshas Ki Seitzei ends with the passage about Amalek, which represents the power the kelipah has to wage war. The Rebbe explained at length at that farbrengen that the kelipah’s power to wage war is a power Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave it; consequently, it is a power from Atzmus. It is no ordinary power. The kelipah has a very strong power, a power from Atzmus—because how could anything oppose G-dliness? Be the opposite of G-dliness, when “there is nothing besides Him”? How could it oppose G-dliness? It is only through Atzmus. A Jew is rooted in Atzmus, even higher than the power of omnipotence. The Rebbe spoke in very lofty terms. It was a wonderful farbrengen. The Rebbe spoke about it in very profound terms: the kelipah has power; through omnipotence, an opposite can come into being. And in this respect, a Jew is even higher than omnipotence. A Jew is rooted in Atzmus itself. Therefore, the whole reason Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the kelipah power is so that the Jew would overcome it. On the contrary, a Jew is higher, and that gives him the strength to overcome

24:06 Speaker 1 the yetzer. The Rebbe explained this principle very powerfully at that farbrengen. I once heard Reb Yoel—at any rate, Reb Yoel told this story: There was Reb Michoel der Alter in Lubavitch, the well-known mashpia Reb Michoel der Alter. Reb Yoel said that Reb Michoel der Alter taught classes in Chassidus, in Tanya and maamarim, Torah Or, and so on. In any case, he had a distinctive way of teaching. Once he tried to explain to the students the idea written here in Tanya and discussed at length in maamarim: that the entire existence of the sitra achra is an absence, not a reality. Kelipah is an absence. That is the language of Chassidus: kelipah is an absence, an absence of reality, not a reality. So he spoke and tried to explain it with all the explanations available, but the students argued. What does it mean that kelipah is an absence? That can’t be. What does it mean that kelipah is an absence? Kelipah gives life to animals, and the nations of the world really do exist. How is that an absence? What does “absence” mean? In short, the students did not accept Reb Michoel’s explanations. At a certain point, Reb Michoel saw that the explanations weren’t working, so he told them: “You don’t understand. Go to some village, some little non-Jewish town. There are no Jews there, no shul, no mikveh, no shul, no yeshivah, no Sefer Torah—there is nothing there. That is absence. Don’t you understand? It is absence. There is nothing there.” That was what convinced me. Kelipah is an absence; that is what is meant by what Tanya says.