Likkutei Amarim Chapter 31 - Part 7

00:01 We’re on page 40b, continuing the text after the period. The Alter Rebbe explains here how, after all the bitterness over the animal soul and everything we discussed in the previous chapters, a person must move from a state of bitterness to a state of joy—the joy of the G-dly soul leaving the prison of the body and the animal soul, its exile and captivity. That joy is very great, like the joy of a king’s son returning to his father, the king. That’s what we’ve discussed so far. Although the body has not been refined, the soul can nevertheless free itself from the body’s restraints and concealments and connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the greatest joy: the soul’s own joy as it leaves the body. But the Alter Rebbe now continues: “Now, this state is the state of the Exodus from Egypt.” The level we’re discussing in our avodah is what is called the Exodus from Egypt in avodah, of which it says, “For the people fled.” The wording used for the Exodus is “for the people fled”—an act of fleeing. In the account in the verse—let’s look at the verse now—when they had passed, sorry, when P-P-Pharaoh... Moshe Rabbeinu told him, “We will go a three-day journey.” He didn’t tell him they were leaving forever. He told him, “We want to go for three days to offer sacrifices.” And then he persuaded him—or didn’t persuade him. In other words, the whole plan was presented as a three-day trip. That’s how he deceived Pharaoh, and in the end they fled and didn’t return. Afterward, the plain meaning of the text says, “The king of Egypt was told that the people had fled.” Suddenly he realized that they had pulled some sort of trick on him. They—they—they had fled; they weren’t coming back. The Alter Rebbe asks: “At first glance, this is puzzling.” There’s a question here. Why was there

02:28 such a thing? Why did they have to deceive Pharaoh and speak to him that way? “For if they had told Pharaoh to set them free forever, would he not have been forced to set them free?” If they had told Pharaoh they were going not for three days but forever, Pharaoh would have been forced to let them go. It wasn’t as though Pharaoh had a choice, whether he wanted to or not. It wasn’t a case of: if they told him they were leaving forever, Pharaoh wouldn’t agree or let them go, but they said three days, so he let them go. That wasn’t the story. In fact, Pharaoh drove them out and was forced to let them go. That was how the story ended, and Moshe Rabbeinu knew that was how it would end. So why, from the outset, did it have to be done through this deception—“for the people fled”? Why couldn’t it have been done openly from the start? They could have said, “We’re leaving forever. Goodbye, and we won’t be seeing you again.” After all, he would have been forced to let them go. So the Alter Rebbe introduces a wonderful insight: all this deception, this trick, this clever plan surrounding “for the people fled,” wasn’t for Pharaoh at all. It was also for the Jewish people. That is the Alter Rebbe’s insight. This whole arrangement—their saying they were going for only three days, then seemingly leaving as fugitives, with their disappearance discovered only afterward—was actually not for Pharaoh. It was for the Jewish people. And the Alter Rebbe explains: “Rather, because the evil in the souls of the Jewish people was still in full force in the left chamber of the heart.” At the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people had not truly been refined. As the familiar expression says, they were in the forty-nine gates of impurity: “These were idol worshippers, and those were idol worshippers.” The Jewish people, on their own,

04:27 were deeply immersed in the impurity of Egypt, and so they themselves had not yet been refined. “The evil in the souls of the Jewish people was still in full force in the left chamber of the heart, for their impurity did not cease until the Giving of the Torah.” When did their impurity cease? Fifty days later, at the Giving of the Torah. Then their impurity ceased, but here it had not yet ceased. “Their aim and desire was only for their G-dly soul to leave the exile of the sitra achra.” The whole purpose here was like what we said earlier about a person’s avodah: when he flees from evil, the body remains repulsive and loathsome. The body has not yet been refined, but the soul is already showing signs of wanting to flee the material and connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That was the level of the Jewish people at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. In the language of Chassidus, this was the avodah of iskafya. On their own, they were still immersed in the forty-nine gates of impurity. But the awakening at the Exodus from Egypt, the revelation of G-dliness then, brought about a flight: as it’s called in Chassidus, the G-dly soul is drawn to G-dliness. It wanted to flee the materiality of the body and the animal soul, while the body itself had still not been refined. “Their aim and desire was only for their G-dly soul to leave the exile of the sitra achra, the impurity of Egypt, and cleave to Him, blessed be He”—to be attached to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “As it is written: ‘Hashem is my strength and my stronghold and my refuge on a day of trouble,’ etc.” That verse describes serving Hashem by fleeing, because at the beginning of one’s avodah the body has still not been refined. A person should not wait until the body is refined. Rather, the beginning of serving Hashem must specifically take the form of flight, fleeing from evil—because he is fleeing. That’s it. When does this apply? At the beginning of one’s avodah. We find a number of verses in Tanach describing the order of avodah. One verse

06:29 says, “Hashem is my strength and my stronghold and my refuge on a day of trouble,” etc. So the word used is “my refuge.” “My refuge” means that I flee. “Trouble” is the yetzer hara, the animal soul. “My refuge on a day of trouble” means that when a person finds himself in trouble—the trouble of the body and the animal soul—he flees from evil, by way of flight, not by distraction or by being swept along, in the language of Chassidus. Then he brings another verse: “My stronghold and my refuge,” etc. That’s another verse. And then a third: “And He is a refuge for me,” etc. The Rebbe says this isn’t precise. The wording “And He is a refuge for me” isn’t a verse; it’s from the siddur. That’s really what it says. These first two are verses. The third, “And He is a refuge for me,” is what we say in the morning in “Adon Olam”: “And He is my banner and my refuge.” Apparently that’s what the Alter Rebbe means by “And He is a refuge for me.” So here too, refuge means fleeing, etc. Why does the Alter Rebbe bring three verses here? There’s an explanation from the Rebbe’s father, Reb Levi Yitzchak, who gives two explanations for why the Alter Rebbe brings three verses. The Alter Rebbe doesn’t bring verses for no reason. He says the three verses are there because there are two interpretations. One interpretation is that the avodah of the beinoni is primarily in the garments of the soul—thought, speech, and action—because his soul has not yet been refined. His main avodah is with these garments, as the Alter Rebbe also explained earlier in Tanya. So the three verses refer to fleeing through the three garments of thought, speech, and action, in ascending order. That’s what Reb Levi Yitzchak says. Evil is strongest in action, so the first verse has three words: “my strength,” “my stronghold,” and “my refuge,” because evil is in full force in action. Then he comes to the evil in speech and brings two expressions, “my stronghold” and “my refuge,” and apparently

08:26 For thought, which is more subtle, he writes only one word: “I will flee.” That is the difference: three words, two words, and one word. After that, Reb Levi Yitzchok offers another explanation. As is well known, since the Alter Rebbe is speaking about the Exodus from Egypt, Chassidus explains what the kelipah of Egypt is. It is connected with the constriction of the throat. Mitzrayim means a constriction. Which constriction? The constriction of the throat, which separates the mind from the heart. That is the idea of Egypt: the kelipah that prevents the study of Chassidus and contemplation of G-dliness from reaching the emotions of the heart. That is the constriction of the throat, the barrier. And this constriction of the throat consists of three ministers, Pharaoh’s three ministers: the chief baker, the chief butcher, and the chief cupbearer. The chief baker represents the desire for food, particularly the heat of that desire. The chief butcher represents anger, murder, veins, blood. And then there is—sometimes—and then there is the chief cupbearer, who represents drinking. At any rate, Chassidus says that the chief cupbearer represents the air, because the lungs draw in water; the water is the drink. So it says that this represents the air—the atmosphere one is in, an unhealthy environment. That is called the chief cupbearer. In other words, the lungs. Yes, the lungs need fluids for the breath of life to function. This is the idea of one’s environment. That is what the Rebbe writes in a maamar. The Rebbe writes that the chief cupbearer is connected with water, plants, and all sorts of arguments. At any rate, these are Pharaoh’s three ministers. So these three ministers of Pharaoh are also why he brings three verses. Reb Levi Yitzchok says that the chief baker is the most difficult, so there are three words. The chief butcher is the second level, so there are two words. And the chief cupbearer is more subtle, so

10:34 there is one word. That is what Reb Levi Yitzchok writes. We need to check in Chassidus how this fits with other maamarim. On the subject of Pharaoh’s three ministers, there is the Rebbe’s maamar [unclear], and there are other maamarim by the Frierdiker Rebbe from 5704, as well as several other places that discuss Pharaoh’s three ministers. At any rate, those are the three verses. The Alter Rebbe continues and says: Therefore, based on what we have explained here, the whole idea of fleeing—of flight and escape—is only because evil is still powerful, and so we need to flee from it. That is the reason. Accordingly, the Alter Rebbe says, we can also understand why, in the future, when “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth,” it will not be as it was at the Exodus from Egypt. In the future, the process of refinement will be complete. Evil will be utterly transformed, so that there will no longer be any evil in the world: “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth.” Therefore, in the future, “You will not go out in haste, nor will you depart in flight, for Hashem goes before you,” and so on. This means that in the future there will be no need to flee, “for Hashem goes before you.” What does “for Hashem goes before you” mean? According to the explanation here in Tanya, in the continuation of this discussion, after the process of refinement is complete and all evil has been transformed into good, there will consequently be a revelation of the name Havayah, a revelation of [unclear]. That is why it says that the Exodus from Egypt was in haste. There, it was “Hashem will pass through to strike Egypt.” In other words, there was an aspect of Malchus; there was still an aspect of... It had not yet reached absolute perfection, because the refinement was not complete. By contrast, in the future the refinement will be complete. Then “He goes before you”—Havayah Himself; there is nothing besides Him. And when there is no evil, there is no fear of evil either, so there is no need to flee. We can walk:

12:30 “Nor will you depart in flight, for Hashem goes before you.” So what is the Alter Rebbe explaining to us here? He is explaining why the order of our avodah is this way. The Alter Rebbe is not simply coming to explain what happened at the Exodus from Egypt. Tanya is not a book of commentary on Chumash. Tanya is a book about serving Hashem. When the Alter Rebbe brings up the Exodus from Egypt here in relation to the revelation of the future, he wants to explain the order of a person’s avodah. After all, the Alter Rebbe is discussing how a person emerges from dullness of mind and heart. A person was experiencing dullness of mind and heart. He wanted to daven, but it was not working for him. He wanted to do a business deal, but that was not working for him either. Why? Because he felt heaviness and dullness, and so on. So the Alter Rebbe gave us all the advice on how to break through that coarseness—the guidance in the preceding chapters. Then the Alter Rebbe explains how we move from a state of bitterness to a state of joy. That movement is the movement of the Exodus from Egypt. And so the Alter Rebbe explains here that, in the Exodus from Egypt, a person does not need to wait until his body has first been refined. This is the process the Alter Rebbe has been discussing here. When the body still has heaviness and desires, how can I be happy? How can I, again, do good deeds all my days with joy? How can you be happy when you know you are not yet refined? First refine yourself, become... And here the Alter Rebbe explains: That is the whole avodah. The work that the mind does is an Exodus from Egypt, just as it was at the first Exodus from Egypt. The Jewish people did not wait until they were perfectly refined. Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not wait for the Jewish people to become refined; He took hold of them as they were.

14:16 And it was like someone fleeing—specifically by way of flight. In the same way, the order of our avodah is that it must all begin like someone fleeing, by way of flight: leaving behind constraints and limitations. Even while evil remains powerful, one arouses a desire and thirst for G-dliness and, through that, connects with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The joy comes from the very fact that one can connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “and his soul will cleave to Him,” as the Alter Rebbe said earlier. That is the whole idea of joy. But that is not the ultimate goal; it is only the beginning of the avodah. Afterward there must be inner work. That is the continuation of the avodah: Sefiras HaOmer, refinement and purification, as the Rebbe explains in the maamarim. And similarly, when the Jewish people entered the desert, their avodah involved the entire process of refinement—inner work—until they reached a land flowing with milk and honey. That is avodah in the manner of transformation, the state he describes here as reaching... absolute perfection, in such a way that the body, too, becomes a vessel for avodah. Then there is no need to rush or flee. It is a particular path, an inner path. More broadly, this is a very fundamental point in the Rebbe’s teachings. It is a very fundamental point in serving Hashem, and in Chassidus generally. What should the order of serving Hashem be? At the beginning there must be an Exodus from Egypt, like someone fleeing. This whole idea is a major foundation of avodah. There is much about it in the Rebbe’s teachings. In the Rebbe’s sichos on Parshas Shemos, Va’eira, Bo, and Beshalach, the Rebbe explains a number of matters wonderfully from this perspective: what it means to serve Hashem in the mode of the Exodus from Egypt, and what it means to serve Him in the mode of the revelation of the future. The Rebbe speaks about the fact that in our time, since we are in the era of Moshiach, we are already being asked to undertake the avodah also in the mode of, of...

16:09 Of transforming it. An avodah that comes from within, an avodah that comes from... There’s a well-known sicha in Parshas Bo—I think it’s in volume 21, or 21; I think 21 is more likely. I get a little mixed up with the volumes. But there’s a well-known sicha of the Rebbe about rich matzah. Why did they eat matzah when they left Egypt? Matzah represents bittul, without taste. Because, when it comes down to it, the avodah has to be without geshmak, without a taste for it. The avodah has to be specifically in a mode of flight, like someone fleeing danger. That’s why there’s matzah: matzah is associated with strife and contention, with battle. Only afterward do we reach the state of the future, when there will be rich matzah. Then the avodah will also be done with pleasure. This is also the idea of chametz and matzah: on Pesach there was only matzah, while on Shavuos there were chametz and matzah, and so on. There are many teachings of the Rebbe about this, many sichos. One subject the Rebbe discusses often is the statement that the Exodus from Egypt will be mentioned even in the future, in the days of Moshiach. Even when Moshiach comes, they’ll mention the Exodus from Egypt. The question is: why? Will the coming of Moshiach be like the Exodus from Egypt? The wonders then will be... compared with the wonders of the Exodus from Egypt. So why does the Torah say that even in the days of Moshiach, in the future, they’ll mention the Exodus from Egypt? Here too, the Rebbe explains the special quality of iskafya. There’s a special quality to avodah done by fleeing, by breaking through, with haste—that movement of haste, of alacrity. That quality was present specifically in the Exodus from Egypt. And in the future, even though there will already be the higher quality of ishapcha, and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem,” and the avodah will be entirely different, without haste, nevertheless...

18:01 Yes, even then they’ll still mention the Exodus from Egypt because of that movement of haste, which has its own special quality. So the special quality of the Exodus from Egypt will be there too. It’s the quality of iskafya: in the future, people will remember the strength Jews had during the time of exile—their mesirus nefesh and iskafya—and how precious it is. Only then will they fully recognize it. That’s why the Exodus from Egypt will be mentioned even in the future. That’s the Rebbe’s explanation. There are several explanations of this. They relate that Shlomo Chaim Kesselman used to say a vort about what’s written here in Tanya. He gave a very fitting analogy: A soldier is in battle, on the front line. The enemy comes and throws bombs at him, and he has to run away. He would put it this way: When you’re running away, you run. You don’t think about anything else. If you get hit along the way, and you stop to examine where you were hit, why you were hit, and how to treat the wound, you’ll be hit even harder. Eventually, G-d forbid, a bomb could fall on your head, and nothing will be left. You have to run. The first thing the soldier must do is run. Afterward, when he’s reached a safe place, he can begin to examine what he needs to fix, what he needs to improve, and what needs treatment. Rabbi Shlomo Chaim would say that this is also the meaning of “for he is fleeing.” The whole avodah has to be a flight. Speaking about the bochurim, he would say that sometimes a bochur begins to daven, to learn Chassidus, to work on himself—but even after he begins, he may sometimes stumble. The yetzer hara pursues us and deals us blows. So perhaps you’ve fallen into some sin along the way, or right at the beginning.

20:16 Some people stop right there. “Since I stumbled, that means my whole avodah is wrong. First I’ll fix the sin and figure out how to do teshuvah for it, and only then will I move on.” But that’s a very big mistake. The whole avodah has to be “for he is fleeing.” You have to flee the place of danger. Like the flight from Egypt, you have to get out of there. You have to serve Hashem and keep going, onward, forward. Don’t stop because you fell here or there. Right now, the avodah has to be flight. Later, when you reach a safe place, you can start looking at what needs to be fixed and what needs to be improved. But “for he is fleeing” is a fundamental part of the order of avodah. It’s interesting, though, that the Alter Rebbe brings the future into this. How many times does this wording appear in Tanya? At least three times, the Alter Rebbe discusses something about our avodah now and then says that in the future, “For Hashem goes before you.” Here the Alter Rebbe is hinting that while we must serve Hashem in the way required now, we must also have a vision. We have to recognize that this is only the beginning of the avodah. The goal is to reach the kind of avodah there will be in the future. In fact, the vision of the Tanya is “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” in preparation for the days of Moshiach. So here too, although the Alter Rebbe is speaking about the beginning of avodah, the avodah of the Exodus from Egypt, he nevertheless tells us that in the future the avodah will not be done in flight: “For Hashem goes before you.”