Likkutei Amarim Chapter 29 - Part 10

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re up to the end of chapter 29 of Tanya, page 31b. The Alter Rebbe has been discussing two ways to break the coarseness of the body and the animal soul, which cause dullness of the mind and, in particular, the dullness of the heart that he’s speaking about here. His first suggestion was to bring about a broken heart by remembering one’s own standing and condition. That breaks the heart, which in turn breaks the coarseness, the sitra achra. Then the Alter Rebbe gives a second suggestion, based on “A person should always stir up...” Through shouting at the body and the animal soul—shouting, not by way of... “A person should always stir up...” This, too, has an effect, because the sitra achra has no substance of its own. The only reason it has any power is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it power. In essence, the sitra achra is a bluff, an illusion. In Toras Shalom, the Rebbe Maharash uses an example of bubbles. What do you call them? Air bubbles, sort of? He describes something like... He calls them “fizlech” in Yiddish. I don’t know what that means in Yiddish; people don’t use that word today. But it’s the kind of thing you get with soap: bubbles form and it looks as though there’s something there, but really it’s air, it’s wind—there’s nothing there. That is what defines the sitra achra. It’s like bubbles, like balloons. It swells up and up, but the moment you touch it with a needle, it all collapses. Suddenly there’s nothing there. It’s one big bluff. The entire existence of the sitra achra has no existence of its own. So what is it? Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives it power. And He gives it that power for just one reason: to test a person. In the words of

02:08 Speaker 1 the verse in the weekly parsha: “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know...” “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know...” The whole existence of kelipah and the sitra achra is only a test with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests a person. Yes, it’s not... The point is: Folks, don’t be overawed. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests a person to see what is really there. Will he be drawn after the world’s bluff, its falsehood? The world looks big and strong; it makes itself out to be something and shouts, as though there were something important there. The moment a person knows the truth—that it’s all falsehood, all a bluff—and he brings that out by shouting, “How long will you be evil, loathsome and repulsive? How long will you conceal Hashem from me?” That shout comes from the soul, declaring the truth: there’s nothing there. The moment a person says it, shouts it, Hakadosh Boruch Hu ends the game. Suddenly the truth is revealed, and it bursts the whole seeming reality of this world, because its purpose has already been fulfilled. That was the purpose of their appearing so strong, of the kelipah seeming so substantial: to awaken this point, this shout, within a person. As soon as he recognized the truth and cried out, “How long?” all that heat and concealment immediately fell away. It became clear that it had been a test, that there had been nothing there at all. That is the principle the Alter Rebbe has explained until now, and that is the meaning. Yes, [unclear]. Once the truth is revealed, their seeming reality disappears. It is nullified as darkness is nullified by light—automatically. Here the Alter Rebbe concludes the chapter with a very interesting proof from the Chumash. Why does the Alter Rebbe bring a proof? He goes into this at considerable

04:05 Speaker 1 length, relatively speaking. That’s not so typical of Tanya; Tanya isn’t a book of commentary on the Chumash. Why, then, does the Alter Rebbe bring this entire proof from Parshas Shelach, from the story of the spies? Simply because what he has said here is a remarkable idea: a person shouts, and suddenly the whole kelipah and sitra achra fall away. It’s not as though he discovered something new or arrived at a new understanding. There was no explanation involved. Usually we speak about a person contemplating and understanding, arriving at some deep insight, a more inward faith, and then his outlook changes. That is generally inner work. Here we’re saying: No, just shout, “You are evil and loathsome,” without explanations. Suddenly it all dissipates. Suddenly there’s a new light, and he sees G-dliness and everything. How? How does that work? It’s astonishing. So the Alter Rebbe brings an example, a proof from the Chumash, showing that this is indeed what happens. This is the truth, and this is the Alter Rebbe’s proof. He continues: “As we find this explicitly stated in the Torah.” That is where we’re up to, page 37b, after the period near the bottom, on the line beginning, “As we find this explicitly stated in the Torah also regarding the spies.” The story of the spies. They began by saying, “For he is stronger than us.” With the spies we see an astonishing swing from one extreme to the other. When the spies returned, they cried, “For he is stronger than us.” That was the lowest possible extreme, the very opposite of faith. It was outright heresy. It’s utterly incomprehensible: the spies were upright people, good people, leaders of the Jewish people. Yes, they were important people, and they came back from Eretz Yisroel in fear and alarm and went to the very lowest point a person can reach, saying

05:55 Speaker 1 that he was stronger than Him. As explained in the Gemara in Sotah, and as Rashi cites: “Stronger than Him”—they were saying, as it were, that the giants in Eretz Yisroel were stronger than Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You’d have to be a fool to say such a thing, but that is what they said. In short, it was the lowest point, the opposite of faith. At first they said, “He is stronger than us”—do not read “than us,” and so on. That’s the Gemara in Sotah. They meant “than Him,” not “than us.” They said it, as it were, about Hakadosh Boruch Hu: they did not believe in Hashem’s ability. It was simply a lack of faith. They did not believe Hashem could defeat the giants in Eretz Yisroel. Then, later in the parsha, we suddenly see the opposite extreme. They changed course and said, “Here we are, and we will go up,” and so on. Suddenly they wanted to go up to Eretz Yisroel. Moshe Rabbeinu had to tell them, “Folks, don’t go up; the time has not come.” What suddenly happened? How did they go from one extreme to the other? Where did their faith in Hashem’s ability suddenly come from? How did they come to believe again that Hashem could do it? After all, Moshe Rabbeinu had not shown them any sign or wonder in the meantime. We don’t see that Moshe Rabbeinu explained to them that He could do it. We don’t see Moshe Rabbeinu performing a wonder to show them that Hakadosh Boruch Hu could indeed do it. There was no proof here—not an intellectual proof, not anything to restore their faith. Moshe Rabbeinu had not explained that they were mistaken and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu could do it. There was no sign or wonder in the meantime. Where do we see something like that, for example? With Korach there was a sign and wonder: they saw the earth open up, and everyone believed. There had been a momentary lack of faith, but then there was a miracle. Likewise, in other stories in Tanach, a miracle occurred and everyone saw it. But in the story of the spies, we don’t see any miracle taking place. In the transition from their disbelief that they

07:47 Speaker 1 could do it to the other extreme, “Here we are, and we will go up,” no miracle happened in between. After all, Moshe Rabbeinu had not shown them any sign or wonder in the meantime. He merely told them—he cried out to them, he rebuked them. He didn’t tell them that Hashem could do it; he only told them that Hashem was angry with them and had sworn not to bring them into the Land. That was what he told them. And suddenly they all wept. What good would that have done if they did not believe in Hashem’s ability? How would it help to hear that Hashem is angry with us? If I think Hashem cannot do it, if I have it in my mind that Hashem cannot do it, what difference does it make if you tell me He’s angry with me? I don’t rely on Him in the first place. What does it matter to me that He’s angry with me? All right, I don’t think He can help me. Think of it in very down-to-earth terms. Say there’s someone who tells you he wants to help. You say, “I don’t believe you can help me.” Then he says, “I’m angry with you.” Fine, be angry with me, but that doesn’t change anything. I don’t believe you can help me. You can be angry from now until tomorrow if I think you can’t help me. So what did Moshe Rabbeinu accomplish? He told them Hashem was angry and had sworn not to bring them in. What did that achieve? They did not believe in Hashem’s ability, G-d forbid, to conquer the thirty-one kings, and that was why they had not wanted to enter the Land at all. After all, why did they say they didn’t want to enter the Land? Because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to conquer it. Rather, it must be clear. Here we have to identify the sign. This is the foundation of the whole of chapter 29: the Jewish people themselves are believers, the children of believers. A Jew always has, deep down

09:19 Speaker 1 Faith—not just faith, but believers, the children of believers. An innate faith we have inherited, everything we discussed in the previous chapters. On the part of the soul, the part of G-d within us, that is, in practice, the essential truth. It is only that the sitra achra, clothed in their bodies, raised itself above the holy light of their G-dly souls. There is an element of a covering here. There is this balloon of klipah, which raises itself above holiness for no reason at all, out of arrogance, pride, and sheer audacity, without any reason or understanding. Klipah does not come from a place of intellect. The claim “For they are stronger than us” was not an intellectual argument. Klipah does not need intellect. Klipah is arrogance. Ego. Klipah does not come from an inner place, a place of intellect. Klipah, the reality of klipah, as we said, is Everest. It comes to interfere. It does not come from intellect. Klipah comes along and says, “Who says? Maybe not.” It cannot... It throws out some kind of... The Rebbe once said—yes, the Rebbe said—that when the Rebbe would speak forcefully about the situation in Russia and various other things, because there are difficult matters, some people heard the Rebbe say this several times: When you want to convince people of something that has absolutely no basis in reason, you tell the biggest lie possible. If you tell a small lie, they will not believe you. If you tell a big lie, they will believe you. That is human nature. If you come along and say something that is not such a big lie, people will not believe you. Maybe it is nonsense. But precisely when you come with a lie from the absolute opposite extreme, people—perhaps precisely because it is so extreme—have a certain vulnerability to it. Maybe there is something to it. Maybe it really is so. Maybe I am wrong. It draws you into this confusion, and then a person no longer knows what is true, what

11:15 Speaker 1 is not right. The Rebbe says this many times in connection with all sorts of claims that have no basis at all. There was the issue of giving back territories. People came and said that giving back territories would bring peace. So the Rebbe said: Giving back territories will bring peace? That is the biggest lie imaginable. It has no basis in reality. You know it is not true. You know that he has no interest in peace at all. It is the biggest lie imaginable. But what happens? People shout it, and then everyone thinks, “If they are saying such a thing, surely there must be something to it.” Somehow the biggest lie is precisely what makes people... It is a kind of psychology of the soul. The yetzer hara uses that psychology: “For they are stronger than us.” What did they say? The spies said the most foolish thing imaginable. Here were people who had seen all the miracles of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They had left Egypt; they had seen a revelation of G-dliness with their own eyes—... the Exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the sea, everything. Suddenly the spies arrive. What do they say? “For they are stronger than us.” There is no logic to it at all. There was no reasoning here. They were not making an argument; it was just arrogance and audacity. That was the whole thing. And audacity catches on. Suddenly it takes hold, and everyone starts crying. So Moshe Rabbeinu saw that this was not a situation for debate. The claim was not based on debate, so debate was not what was needed. It was the flame of klipah, raising itself like an eagle. What must you do? Break it. Burst the balloon. “And therefore, as soon as Hashem became angry with them,” Moshe Rabbeinu did not reason with them. He cried out at them, “and thundered in a voice of tumult and anger: ‘How long shall this wicked congregation...’” He told them the harsh words that Hakadosh Boruch

12:54 Speaker 1 Hu said, and so on. “In this wilderness your bodies shall fall,” and so on. Punishment. “I, Hashem, have spoken: Surely I will do this to all this wicked congregation,” and so on. You see the verses there? “And when they heard these harsh words, their hearts were humbled and broken within them.” That is what breaking the heart means. It also means breaking the klipah. “As it is written, ‘And the people mourned greatly.’” Immediately there was a complete reversal. “And consequently, the sitra achra lost its dominion, its haughtiness, and its arrogance.” It all dissipated and vanished. Nothing remained. The Jewish people themselves are believers. Their essence was revealed. A Jew’s essence is believing. So no process was needed. It did not take time. Moshe did not then have to explain things to them, or provide proofs and arguments and miracles. No proofs, no arguments, no miracles were needed. You just have to bring down that balloon that conceals everything—that, that bluff. Once the bluff was broken, nothing else had to be done. Immediately, a Jew cries out. So the Rebbe gave a very simple answer. If you look at the Midrashim on these verses, you can see clearly that it did not happen that way. The spies did not die immediately. The spies died a month later. This incident took place on Tisha B’Av. Ah, the death of the spies. All the Midrashim say that the spies died either on 7 Elul or on 17 Elul. There are two opinions about when they died. It was several weeks afterward. Why is it written here in the verse? Not because it happened then. It is a parenthetical remark. The Torah tells us what happened, but in reality it did not—it did not happen then. In reality, that whole episode happened later. The death of the spies did not happen then; it is mentioned only parenthetically, as the Torah finishes the account by telling us that what Hakadosh Boruch Hu had said came to pass. But in practice,

16:52 Speaker 1 it did not happen then. By contrast, “and they mourned” happened immediately. And the proof is from the verse itself—not only from a Midrash. The verse itself says so explicitly. Verse 39. After the whole account, it says, “And Moshe spoke these words to all the Children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.” So the verse itself tells us what caused them to mourn: not the death of the spies. The moment Moshe spoke, “they mourned.” So it is just as the Alter Rebbe says: Their mourning—the change in the Jewish people’s thinking—came the moment Moshe spoke. The whole matter of the spies is a separate episode mentioned parenthetically. It happened afterward; it did not happen then. Let us continue with the explanation and see that there is no contradiction between what the Alter Rebbe says and what is written in Chumash. Yes?

17:42 Speaker 2 Why not the death of the spies?

17:45 Speaker 1 What?

17:45 Speaker 2 Why did they not die immediately?

17:45 Speaker 1 Why did it not happen immediately? Ah, I do not remember right now if it is in the notes. Ah. Maybe the Rebbe explains it; I do not remember. In Likkutei Sichos, there is a sicha in volume 13 where the Rebbe discusses this at length. A wonderful sicha, a well-known sicha, in which the Rebbe discusses why Moshe Rabbeinu succeeded in annulling the decree against the entire Jewish people but not against the spies. You know the sicha, right? There are stories about that sicha, right? The Rebbe deleted half the sicha. Two drafts remained: Moshe Rabbeinu succeeded—ah, Moshe Rabbeinu was able to annul the decree against the Jewish people, but not against the spies, because the spies had opposed Moshe. As long as they had not opposed Moshe, he could pray for them. Moshe was the leader of the generation, the shepherd of the Jewish people. He thinks about Jews and cares for them, even Jews who have sinned. But those who opposed Moshe and spoke back to him—Moshe could not help them. Moshe can help someone who believes in Moshe; someone who does not believe in Moshe... But in the end, at the conclusion of the sicha, the Rebbe writes only the positive side: that Moshe cares for the entire Jewish people, even sinners. There is a whole story about it. When the sicha was prepared for the Rebbe to edit, that whole point was written there—that Moshe could not... The Rebbe deleted that entire section, and the Rebbe wrote, “How can a chossid write such a thing?” The Rebbe rejected it completely. As though it should be burned. The Rebbe was very... It is a well-known story about that sicha. We would have to check the notes there. The Rebbe addresses this whole question—what exactly happened with the spies, why they did not die immediately, when it happened, on the 7th or the 17th, and so on. In any case, we see something remarkable here in the story of the spies, and the Alter Rebbe wants to use it as proof that explanations really are not needed.

19:37 Speaker 1 Here you can see it plainly, right? You don’t need explanations. Sometimes the whole reality of the kelipah is just something from a completely different side, hidden and obscure. And the moment you shout at it, its whole reality collapses. Its entire purpose was to interfere with faith. The moment a Jew cries out and reveals his faith, that reality breaks down, and his true essence is revealed. The true essence of a Jew is that he believes in Hakadosh Boruch Hu with simple faith. That awakens immediately, without any reasoning, without any explanations. By the way, we saw this with the Rebbe quite a few times. In various stories, you can see this point with the Rebbe: sometimes—there’s no need to tell all the details, but there’s a famous video of someone who comes to the Rebbe with questions. Questions about the Alter Rebbe, about the sukkah, about Chabad—[unclear]. And instead of giving him intellectual explanations, the Rebbe gives him a sharp rebuke. Yes. In the end he asks the Rebbe for blessings and so on. In short, you can see the process there: he was an opponent who wanted—who had been sent—to interfere, and the Rebbe broke down all the ego of the kelipah, the sitra achra. Then simple faith and wholehearted self-nullification were revealed. It’s a well-known story. Moving on. From this, the Alter Rebbe now says something wonderful. Here the Alter Rebbe lays out a tremendous principle in serving Hashem. The Alter Rebbe says, “From this, every person can learn.” From the point we’re learning today in this chapter, chapter 29, there is a tremendous principle in serving Hashem: “From this, every person who has doubts about faith arise in his mind can learn.” This is a general principle

21:36 Speaker 1 in serving Hashem, when doubts about faith arise: “For they are merely words of the spirit of the sitra achra.” The whole phenomenon of doubts about faith isn’t intellectual. Who is it that raises doubts about faith? We all know: the sitra achra, the kelipah. It doesn’t need explanations. It comes to confuse you. So what does it do? It puffs things up; it makes a balloon, makes a lot of hot air. It comes along and says, “Who says?” As we said, it doesn’t take more than that. You don’t have to be clever. The Rebbe said many times that to raise objections, to stir up doubts, you don’t need to say anything profound. To give an explanation, you need explanations; you need an explanation, you need intellect. But to raise an objection, you don’t have to be anyone special. You can just do it with your nose. The Rebbe said many times—yes, with your nose. “The fool says in his heart”—there’s such a verse. “The fool says in his heart.” With your nose, you can destroy an argument. Look: your friend prepared a class, gave an intricate explanation, offered a line of reasoning, thought deeply and worked hard at it. He presents a serious argument, and you look at him and make a little noise with your nose. That’s it. The whole argument has gone into the garbage. Why? What happened? Because you made that noise with your nose. So what? Does that mean his reasoning isn’t sound? You presented an intellectual argument, I spoke intellectually, and all you did was make a noise with your nose. But that’s the nature of doubts. Doubts don’t have to be—by its nature, a doubt is this sort of balloon that inflates and becomes something... Look, and then things are no longer clear. “Oh, wait.” Suddenly people latch on to it, and it becomes an approach, and then it becomes a whole big thing, as though it has substance. There’s no basis to it. You haven’t said anything reasoned. It’s just the thing itself, produced by the sitra achra. And so the way to break down doubts doesn’t require philosophy either. Use the same approach. How does the verse go? “Answer a fool

23:47 Speaker 1 according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” Since it’s a bluff, the answer doesn’t have to be intellectual; it has to be a shout. Right? Break down its whole reality. The moment you give that shout, the true reality suddenly awakens. He’s a Jew, and he believes in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He has no problem at all. I remember once, when I was a bochur, we went out on mivtzoim. A man came along who was one of the missionaries, one of those heretics. In short, he came up to me with their book, the New Testament. He started asking me questions, all sorts of challenges about faith and Judaism. Well, I was a young bochur. I tried to answer this point and that one, to explain that he hadn’t understood the verse correctly. Then he brought me a Tanach, and we started arguing over the verses. I tried to explain it to him nicely. Suddenly an Ashkenazi woman passed by. I don’t know where she appeared from—maybe it was Linoy—a woman passing through the market. She saw me talking to this man and started shouting at him. She went after him, cursed him, and made him into, how do you say it, absolutely nothing. “You’re this, you’re that.” She utterly demolished him. The man was stunned; the look in his eyes changed completely. He apologized, left, and that was the end of it. No explanations. In any case, that’s just a story. But the lesson here is that, regarding doubts about faith, the reality is that they are the spirit of the sitra achra raising itself up over a person’s soul. But the Jewish people themselves are believers, and so on. A Jew believes, and the moment you break down that kelipah, his true essence awakens. Then the Jew believes in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And the sitra achra itself has no doubts about faith at all. Now look: he says something even more novel. It’s not

25:53 Speaker 1 only that a Jew has no doubts because he has a soul; the kelipah has no doubts either. In other words, this doubt is a bluff. It isn’t just a bluff as far as the soul is concerned. The kelipah itself knows it’s a bluff. It doesn’t believe for a moment what it’s saying. The sitra achra, the yetzer hara within me, doesn’t itself believe the spin it’s putting out. It doesn’t genuinely believe in its own question; it just knows it needs to confuse you. So the easiest way to confuse someone is to say, “Who says?” That’s it. It isn’t so hard to tear something down. So the sitra achra also has no doubts. It has merely been given permission to confuse a person with falsehood and deceit, in order to increase his reward—like the harlot who, with the king’s permission, uses falsehood and deceit to tempt the prince, as it says in the holy Zohar. Here we come to the principle that the Alter Rebbe already wrote about earlier in Tanya, in chapter 9. This principle, stated in the Zohar, is that the sitra achra doesn’t really want a person to sin either. The sitra achra also knows the truth. And what is the truth? The truth is that there is nothing besides Him. And the truth is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the truth is that we want more. The truth known to the G-dly soul is known to the animal soul as well. This is the parable of the harlot brought by the Zohar: the king summons her and offers to pay her to persuade the prince to commit a sin. Not because he wants the prince to do so—on the contrary, he wants to reveal the prince’s strengths. She will receive her payment when he does not do what she says. So the harlot also knows that the real intention is for him not to fall into sin, but she is given permission so that there will be a test, to reveal the prince’s innermost strength. In the same way, the whole reality of the animal soul is only

27:34 Speaker 1 The concealment that comes to reveal the inner powers. This is the plain meaning of “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know”: the whole point of a test is that something has been set up as a covering, a concealment, in order to reveal the daas, the essential power, the power of faith within a Jew. And when there is concealment, a Jew grasps what is happening and cries out with self-sacrifice, and reveals the—then that entire reality immediately breaks apart, and the truth is revealed. And the truth is that a Jew wants to be connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the point of chapter 29 here, the point of chapter 29 in Tanya. So the Rebbe gives us a foundation here for our avodah in matters that are truly fundamental, as the Rebbe said. Sometimes there is a dullness of the heart. You want to serve Hashem, you want to daven, but it does not work. Dullness of the heart. Sometimes there is also a dullness of the mind. A person wants to practice iskafya and so on, but the Rebbe spoke about dullness of the heart. We need to know that this dullness of the heart is the kelipah and sitra achra raising itself like an eagle, and we need to break it. There are two ways. One works from below upward, through taking stock of oneself and reflecting in a way that brings about a breaking. That is one way. And there is a way from above downward, through a revelation of light: breaking through with a cry, “rousing” oneself. As is sometimes written in Chassidus, each has its own advantage. There is an advantage to what comes through reflection and taking stock of oneself, through that breaking. It is more inward. But sometimes, when there is a very great coarseness, a person needs to break through in an open way—by crying out, by striking a blow. “A person should rouse his good inclination against his evil inclination,” through these two inclinations. So the Rebbe gives us this approach. In this way, we do away with the entire covering of concealment created by the kelipah and sitra achra. Then a Jew’s soul is revealed, the part

29:23 Speaker 1 of G-d above, literally. And with this power, it is revea—the spark is kindled, as in the analogy. Through this, the light of the soul shines, and then he can daven and serve Hashem with joy and gladness of heart.