Likkutei Amarim Chapter 30 - Part 2

00:00 Speaker 1 We’re at the beginning of chapter 30 of Tanya. So the Alter Rebbe began—let me read from the beginning again, because we’ve already discussed a few details here, but we’ve only read two lines. So let’s start again. The Alter Rebbe says in chapter 30: “He should also take to heart the teaching of our Sages, ‘Be humble before every person.’” This is another piece of advice the Alter Rebbe gives for how a person can break the coarseness in his heart, so that his heart can be stirred—to break through the dullness of the mind and heart, the heaviness. How? By fulfilling what our Sages say: “Be humble before every person.” He should reflect on his own lowliness in relation to everyone else. The Alter Rebbe explains: “And be so in absolute truth before literally every person”—even before the lowest of the low, he must be humble. There are two points here. It has to be in absolute truth, as we discussed in the previous class: not merely acting as though he feels that way, but genuinely feeling his own lowliness. And “before every person” means literally every person, even the very lowest. How can it truly be that a beinoni, whose thought, speech, and action are all as they should be, feels humble before everyone, even before the lowest of the low? Surely that is the opposite of reality. The Alter Rebbe explains: “This is in accordance with the teaching of our Sages, ‘Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.’” A person can do this through the further explanation in our Sages’ saying, “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.” A person cannot judge his fellow unless he is in that same place, that same situation his fellow is in. And these two teachings of our Sages, according to Rabbi Oved[?],

01:56 Speaker 1 complement each other. How can a person truly be humble before everyone? By genuinely putting into practice “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.” Let me state the main point, and then we’ll look at it in the text. The Alter Rebbe’s point here is that when I think about myself in relation to another person, I can’t look only at the actual results. Right? How many pages did I study, and how many did he study? How many mitzvos do I do, and how many does he do? That isn’t the calculation. You can’t measure it by quantity—what you do or how much you do. Comparing what you do with what someone else does isn’t a true measure. The real question is how much effort, how much investment, went into it. Sometimes a person does one small thing, and it is worth a great deal. Another person might do many things, yet they are not comparable to that one small act of the other person. That is the meaning of “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.” When you want to look at another person and judge him, you can’t judge him just by what he does. You need to consider the situation he is in. Given that situation, all your work, all the mitzvos and good deeds you do, might not compare to the effort that person puts into one single act. So even though his conduct throughout the day is nowhere near yours, that one act might take more effort than everything you do in your own conduct, because you don’t have to exert yourself nearly as much. So that is the foundation of chapter 30, the perspective the Alter Rebbe is presenting. Look, there are

03:52 Speaker 1 many more details here, but this is a fundamental point. This is how, based on our Sages’ teaching, “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place,” a person can truly feel humble before everyone, even before the lowest of the low. Because given that person’s tests, concealments, difficulties, yetzer hara, and so on—given the place he is in and the difficulties he faces—he might be much better than you, who don’t face all those tests and all those things. So that is the basis. Incidentally, there is something similar to what we’re learning here in Tanya in the Rambam. There is that well-known passage in the Rambam’s Laws of Repentance. The Rambam speaks about the three books mentioned in connection with the Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah: the book of the righteous, the book of the wicked, and the book of the intermediate. Someone with a majority of merits is immediately inscribed and sealed in the book of the righteous. That’s the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah. A wicked person is immediately inscribed and sealed in the book of the wicked, while for an intermediate person, judgment waits until the Ten Days of Repentance. So the Rambam asks: What does this mean? Is it determined by quantity? Does the person with more mitzvos go into the book of the righteous, and the person with more transgressions into the book of the wicked? The Rambam says no. In the Laws of Repentance, he says that only Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows how to make that calculation. One mitzvah, one merit of a particular person, might outweigh many transgressions. And likewise, a great many mitzvos might not carry so much weight. In other words, weighing the good against the bad, weighing

05:54 Speaker 1 a particular mitzvah against a person’s failings—only Hakadosh Boruch Hu can do that. The explanation is like what we’re learning here: so much depends on the effort, the strength, the struggle, and how much of the person’s soul goes into what he does. This is one of the things [unclear]. The Rebbe spoke about going to help a Jew put on tefillin. You might say afterward: It was one mitzvah, one act. Of course, there are many aspects to this, as is explained. Among them is the point that when a Jew puts on tefillin once, that act can tip the scales both for that Jew himself and for the whole world. Although, seemingly, that person might do all sorts of things throughout the day—a thousand and one transgressions—and here he has done just one act of putting on tefillin, the mesirus nefesh, the effort he put into that act, might be worth far more than all the other things. In any case, that is what the Rebbe says, and it is similar to what we are learning here in Tanya. Here the Alter Rebbe begins to explain the calculation a person should make in order to feel humble before everyone. The Alter Rebbe says: “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place.” What does “his place” mean? There are two interpretations here, and the Alter Rebbe includes both. Does it mean his place in the physical sense, or his place in the spiritual sense? The Alter Rebbe addresses both. First, he speaks of the physical sense: “For his place causes him to sin.” Sometimes a person’s physical place, the circumstances he finds himself in, are what bring him to his situation and cause him to sin: “His livelihood requires him to go about the marketplace all day.” That is this person’s place, where he finds himself.

07:47 Speaker 1 He is in a place where he constantly has to go around the marketplace, an unruly, unrestrained place. “And to be among those who sit at the street corners.” The Rebbe explains here, in his explanations of Tanya, that this means something further: for his livelihood, this person has to go around the marketplace all day, and when he isn’t in the marketplace, when he isn’t working, where does he spend his time? Among those who sit at the street corners. In other words, he sits in places that are not holy, places where people hang around. “Those who sit at the street corners” is an expression for someone who sits on the street corner and stays there. Huh?

08:32 Speaker 2 Is that because of his livelihood?

08:34 Speaker 1 No. First of all, he earns his living there all day; he is one of those who sit on street corners when he isn’t working. That’s how the Rebbe explains the plain meaning: that is where he spends his time. Why he spends his time there, I don’t know. “And his eyes see all the desires.” Because he is in that place, he is exposed to them there. The situation is that his eyes see them. As is explained, the eyes are among the parts of a person that are hard to control. It says of Avraham Avinu that there were five parts of his body, and the eyes too are among the parts that are open, so they see. “And his eyes see all the desires.” He sees all these things. And the eye sees and the heart desires. The moment the eye sees, the heart desires. That’s the well-known expression: “The eye and the heart are the two agents of sin.” The eyes and the heart serve sin. The eye sees and the heart desires, and from there everything else follows until it leads to an actual sin. “And the eye sees and the heart desires, and his inclination burns like an oven heated by a baker.” His yetzer hara burns like a baking oven. As it says in Hoshea, “It burns like a flaming fire,” and so on. His yetzer hara burns within him like a flaming fire. These are actually two verses in Hoshea. What it says before and what it says afterward are both verses in Hoshea. The Alter Rebbe wrote something in the middle, which raises a question: Why did the Alter Rebbe phrase it this way? He brings the wording, “And his inclination burns like an oven heated by a baker.” Then he says, “As it says in Hoshea, it burns like a flaming fire,” and so on. Now, the Rebbe asks: the words “and so on” are unnecessary, because that is the end of the verse. So, seemingly, “and so on” shouldn’t be here. Yes, but the overall point is that he is joining two verses in Hoshea. And the Alter Rebbe writes “as it says in Hoshea” in the middle, as though “as it says in Hoshea” refers to both what comes before and what comes after. This is

10:40 Speaker 1 common in Tanya: the Alter Rebbe sometimes writes something in the middle and means it to apply to both sides. But what exactly is the difference between these two parts, “his inclination burns like an oven heated by a baker” and “it burns like a flaming fire”? From the text of Tanach there, it is clear that the verse “his inclination burns like an oven heated by a baker” speaks about the inclination connected with forbidden sights—the yetzer hara connected with sexual immorality, with looking at forbidden things. So that continues what he said earlier: “His eyes see all the desires, and the eye sees and the heart desires, and his inclination burns like an oven heated by a baker.” In other words, it continues the previous point. It speaks about the yetzer hara connected with lust. By contrast, the second verse he brings, “It burns like a flaming fire,” and so on, speaks about the urge toward murder—anger and murder. It is the fire connected with the evil in the soul, with the urge toward murder and with anger, with those aspects of the soul. These are two kinds of fire. There is the fire of desire, the yetzer hara of forbidden sexual relations, and there is the fire of bloodshed, the yetzer hara connected with anger, jealousy and murder. Two kinds, both a form of fire. So perhaps this also explains why the Alter Rebbe inserted “as it says in Hoshea” in the middle: it is as though he is addressing two matters. There is what we discussed at the beginning, a person who earns his living in the marketplace. There, the issue is desire connected with seeing, desire connected with forbidden sexual relations. Then he adds the matter of “burning like fire”—the bad middos connected with bloodshed and [unclear]. In any case, the point is that these are spiritual places. We said there are two meanings to “your fellow’s place.”

12:51 Speaker 1 So when we speak of places, there is a physical place and there is a spiritual place. That is what he means when he says that the person earns his living in the marketplace: a spiritual place. It is a matter of his inclination, his level, the state of mind he is in, where his yetzer hara burns like a flaming fire. That is a spiritual place. By contrast, there is someone who goes to the marketplace only a little, a person who doesn’t go there much and sits at home most of the day. So his physical place is more sheltered. That is how it worked out through Divine providence: he isn’t a person who needs to work out on the street. He sits at home, sits in the beis midrash, sits in yeshivah, sits in kollel, sits somewhere without so many things that lead to forbidden conduct. So his physical place is more sheltered. And even if he goes to the marketplace all day, he may not be so heated by nature. Let’s even say that he does go to the marketplace. A person can be a beinoni without necessarily being a yeshivah student. He can be a businessman who is also a beinoni. In Tanya, chapter 13, we saw that there are several kinds of beinonim. There is a beinoni who sits in the study hall, and there is a beinoni who is a businessman. So he may indeed go there, but still, as far as his spiritual place is concerned, he has his own place, his own level in the soul. He may not be so heated by nature. So the most wayward person has both disadvantages: physically, he is in a dangerous place, and spiritually, he has a powerful yetzer hara; he has a fire. By contrast, the beinoni is in a sheltered place. And even if we say he isn’t in a sheltered place, still, he may not have that fire by nature; he may be a cooler person. It may be that they are not

14:48 Speaker 1 so heated by nature, as we learned in chapter 16. There are people of a melancholy temperament who are cool by nature, people who are naturally more cool-headed. When it comes to desires, they are cool by nature, because the inclination is not the same in every soul. Each person has a different kind of yetzer hara. “There are those whose inclination is…” and so on, “as is written elsewhere.” Look, he doesn’t explain it. He just says that, as is known, each person has a different kind of yetzer hara. “There are those whose inclination is…” and so on, “as is written elsewhere.” What exactly does “there are those whose inclination is…” mean? And he doesn’t tell us what he means by “as is written elsewhere” either. We don’t know. We once discussed that when the Alter Rebbe says “as is written elsewhere,” he could mean all sorts of other places, not necessarily one specific place. But from what I see in Chassidus, yes, there is a source. I don’t know whether I saw it in the explanations of Rabbi Saadia Gaon or in explanations by chassidim, but there is a Chassidus teaching. Sometimes the notes here point to a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov on the Mishnah, “Who is mighty? One who conquers his inclination.” The Baal Shem Tov asks about the precise wording: why “conquers his inclination”? Why not “Who is mighty? One who conquers the inclination”? What does “his inclination” mean exactly? The Baal Shem Tov says that every person has his own inclination. A mighty person isn’t merely someone who conquers an inclination. He is someone who conquers his inclination—his own particular inclination. Everyone has his own bad trait, his own personal yetzer hara. These are the weaknesses, the things each person knows about himself, the things he struggles with in particular—what today we call “challenges.” Everyone has his own personal issues. So that is what the Baal Shem Tov means: “Who is mighty? One who conquers his inclination”—your own particular inclination.

16:45 Speaker 1 Sometimes the notes here also point to what is explained in maamarim. In Kuntres Hatefillah, and in a number of other places, they discuss the ox, the sheep and the goat—three kinds of animal soul. One person has the animal soul of an ox, a goring ox: his animal soul has the force of one that gores. Another has the animal soul of a sheep, which is more subtle, a subtler form of evil, more refined desires. There are desires for clothing, subtle desires; that is the sheep. That doesn’t mean it is better, only that it is a different kind. Then there is the goat. The goat represents a yetzer hara of stubbornness, brazenness, stubbornness, a kind of indifference: he isn’t moved. These are different kinds of animal soul, and each person—some have an ox, some have a sheep, some have a goat. So there are different kinds of yetzer hara. More directly connected to the point we are learning here in Tanya, “see how it will be,” where he says that some people are warmer and some are cooler, is the well-known sicha in which the Rebbe explains the idea of the scorpion and the snake. It is in volume two, a sicha on Eikev. There the Rebbe says there are two kinds of animal soul. Some have the animal soul of a snake—warm people, with a harmful heat. Others have the yetzer hara of a scorpion. A scorpion is cold; it kills. The scorpion’s venom is cold. It kills, cools a person down—as opposed to heating a person up. That is the difference between a snake and a scorpion. And the Rebbe explains that these are two kinds of yetzer hara. Some people have a flaming fire; others are the opposite, very cold people. The Rebbe says there that, in a certain respect,

18:47 Speaker 1 A cold person is even worse. A warm person—even if right now his warmth is directed toward desires—can turn his heart around, and then that warmth will go into something very good. He can reach great heights. But a cold person—coldness is a tough kelipah. Yes, because [unclear]. If a person has a yetzer hara like a scorpion, that is hard work. You have to get rid of the coldness, because in holiness there needs to be warmth. That is what the Rebbe explains in the sicha. So it connects here too. For example, the Rebbe quotes the Tanya here: “There is one whose yetzer...” and so on. Meaning, the reason you can be out on the street without all the excitement, warmth, and fire that the other fellow has may be that your nature is cold. It is not that you have no yetzer hara; you have a different kind of yetzer hara.

19:38 Speaker 3 Is that connected to...

19:43 Speaker 1 It could be. Yes. Anyway, it’s connected. I don’t know. I’m not so familiar with the subject, but it would seem to be connected with... yes. [unclear]. So that is the point the Rebbe makes here, and that gives us the foundation. The Rebbe has a wonderful point—and this brings us to the overall subject we are learning here: a person needs to feel lowly before every person, even before the lowest of the low. At first glance, when you learn chapter 30, its central point is that the Alter Rebbe wants to humble the beinoni. Right? The Alter Rebbe wants to explain to the beinoni that the reason he cannot daven, and the reason he has a dullness of heart, is the coarseness of the animal soul. That coarseness has to be broken, and this is one of the ways of thinking that can break it. But the Rebbe also offers another explanation. Here the Alter Rebbe is also trying to teach us to judge every person favorably. There is a general principle in avodas Hashem here. This is not the immediate aim or the continuation of the chapter, but we do gain a principle from chapter 30. The Alter Rebbe teaches us something connected to the Tanya as a whole: how should we look at a Jew? After all, the Tanya as a whole teaches us how to look at a Jew. We know that the heart of the Tanya is Ahavas Yisroel. It is well known that the Alter Rebbe inserted chapter 32 after he had finished the Tanya. That is, he wrote an initial version without chapter 32, without the discussion of Ahavas Yisroel. You can see that chapter 32 is absent from the initial version of the Tanya. Later, the Alter Rebbe took the Tanya and inserted this subject. And it is not—

21:35 Speaker 1 —connected to what comes before and after it, as is well known. When you learn chapter 32, you see that it comes in the middle of another subject. But it teaches us—as the Rebbe explains, also in a maamar [unclear]—the principle that the heart of the Tanya is Ahavas Yisroel. In other words, besides teaching us a path in avodas Hashem from the outset, the Alter Rebbe also teaches us how to look at a Jew. So here in chapter 30, when the Alter Rebbe teaches us about the strength possessed by even the lowest of the low, his point is this: you may say that this person is at the very lowest level. Nevertheless, you must know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed him where he faces great tests—both his physical circumstances and his spiritual place within his soul. That means he has special strengths. This is the well-known point the Rebbe always makes, and we will see it later in the chapter too: even the lowest of the low has no excuses. He really can overcome his challenges; he has all the strength he needs. So here the Alter Rebbe also wants to teach us, “Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place,” as well as the idea of judging every person favorably. When you see someone in such a state, you have to understand that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has placed him in a very particular test. Both in terms of his mind and in terms of his soul, he faces a great test. Why? Surely because he has tremendous strength with which to overcome it. And thinking about this itself—the Rebbe explains this in a wonderful sicha in Likkutei Sichos, volume 27,

23:16 Speaker 1 Parshas Emor. There the Rebbe explains that when a person speaks well of someone else and thinks well of him, when you judge him favorably, it is not only a worthy thing in its own right. It is not only that Ahavas Yisroel calls on us to judge favorably. It also reveals the good hidden within that Jew. When you judge even the lowest of the low favorably, you bring out the good within him. Thought itself has tremendous power: you awaken his virtues and the strengths he has to overcome his test. There is a parallel on the negative side. As explained in Chassidus, when a person speaks negatively, when you emphasize another person’s shortcomings, you bring them out. That is why we are told to be careful not to say negative things. When you say negative things, you reveal the hidden evil in the soul. By speaking about it, you stir it up. That is what the Rebbe cites in Hayom Yom about a person who said something negative: it was lashon hara. Why does lashon hara harm the person spoken about as well? Because it stirs up the evil and brings it outward. Similarly, Hayom Yom tells the story of the Baal Shem Tov, who showed his students what happened when someone told another person that he would tear him apart like a fish. The Baal Shem Tov showed them that this had taken effect. In other words, speech has the power to bring about an effect on a spiritual level. How much more so on the side of holiness, where the power of good is greater: by speaking in favor of Jews, by judging another Jew favorably and speaking in his defense,

25:11 Speaker 1 you awaken the good hidden within him. You give him the strength to overcome his tests. That is the deeper meaning the Rebbe gives in that sicha, where he also cites chapter 27 of Tanya: to reveal the hidden strengths within every person, so that he can overcome his tests. Over the years, during Elul, the Rebbe regularly spoke about judging others favorably; you can see this explicitly in the sichos from many different years. The Rebbe spoke about it especially in Elul. He spoke very sharply about the moralists and preachers who, when Elul arrives, deliver negative sermons. They talk about transgressions, about evil, about sins. The Rebbe was fired up about this. There are sichos—wow. The Rebbe cried out: Elul is a time—indeed, all year, but especially Elul—when the King is in the field. It is a time to prepare for Rosh Hashanah, when we want to inspire people. We must speak only in praise of the Jewish people and emphasize how much strength every Jew has, and so on. There are a number of sichos along these lines: especially at this time, we need to take extra care not to judge people unfavorably, but to speak in defense of the Jewish people and praise them. That is also why our Rebbeim, and chassidim generally, had the custom of telling many stories about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev during this period. As is well known, he was the great advocate of the Jewish people: in everything, he found a reason to praise them, to see a virtue, to see the good in a Jew. This is something especially connected with this time. As the Rebbe Maharash or the Tzemach Tzedek said, on the night of Rosh Hashanah, tens of thousands of angels stand in heaven waiting

27:12 Speaker 1 for one Jew to say to another, “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.” They wait for one person to bless another. The angels wait for words of praise about the Jewish people even more than for the prayers of tzaddikim. That is a saying found in the sichos in connection with Rosh Hashanah. So that is the point the Rebbe teaches us here in Tanya. Ah, all right, we’ll continue another time.