Likkutei Amarim Chapter 31 - Part 8

00:00 So here in chapter 31, the Alter Rebbe speaks about the joy that needs to be present in serving Hashem. In the middle of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe said that after a person has made a full reckoning of himself and come to sadness, and then to bitterness, with everything that follows, he must immediately come to joy. That is the whole point of “in every sadness there is some gain”: the ultimate goal in serving Hashem is specifically to serve Him with joy. How do we make the transition from bitterness to joy after a person has made a reckoning of himself, with everything we learned in chapters 29 and 30? How do we go on with joy in chapter 31? How do we reach joy? The point the Alter Rebbe explained is that there are two explanations here in chapter 31. We learned one, and now, at the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe gives a second. In the first explanation, the Alter Rebbe says that a person must tell himself: “It is indeed true”—all these things, that he is repulsive and loathsome, and everything he contemplated in chapters 29 and 30, are all true. He is “lowly in spirit before every person, in absolute truth.” All those reckonings are correct; he is not dismissing them. But he must know that there is a G-dly soul within him. A person needs to know there is another part to him. I am not only that; that is not my entire being. Within me there is also a G-dly soul, a G-dly spark. Even the lowest of the low has a G-dly spark. And since that is the truth, what should I be occupied with? Freeing the G-dly soul from exile. The G-dly soul is in exile, captive, imprisoned by the body and the animal soul. That is what a person must devote himself to: taking the king’s son and freeing him from captivity. How do we free the king’s son—the soul—from captivity? Through Torah and mitzvos, particularly through the service of davening. This is the idea of the Exodus from Egypt, as the Alter

02:15 Rebbe explains at length. And so he will serve Hashem with great joy. When a person knows that by learning Torah and fulfilling mitzvos, and through davening, the soul—the G-dly soul—leaves the prison of the body and the animal soul, it is like a king’s son who was held captive and leaves prison to return to his father, the king. The joy is immense. But the question the Alter Rebbe asks next is: “Seemingly...” That is all well and good for the G-dly soul, but what happens to the animal soul and the body? They have not been refined. A person is not lying to himself; he knows the truth. So how can I rejoice that the soul is leaving exile when the body and animal soul are still in exile? The point the Alter Rebbe explained is that a person elevates the soul above the body. “It is indeed true that I have a lowly, degraded body. But what am I focused on now? Right now I am focused on the G-dly soul.” Instead of being caught up in things that are still not right, focus on—flee the reality of the kelipos and the sitra achra. Connect with your G-dly soul, and let that be what matters most to you. The soul is primary and the body secondary, so the suffering that comes from the body does not occupy him now, because what matters most to him is the soul’s joy. We discussed this at length when we learned it earlier. And this is the idea of the Exodus from Egypt: “For the people fled.” The evil had still not been refined. When they left Egypt, they were still—the body and animal soul were in the forty-nine gates of impurity. Their yetzer hara was still at full strength. Nevertheless, the G-dly soul says, “Draw me after You; we will run.” The G-dly soul feels Hakadosh Boruch Hu, runs toward Him, and that joy is

04:11 stronger than everything else. That was, in essence, the first point the Alter Rebbe explained. So that is one point: joy comes when you make your soul primary and your body secondary. Then, at that moment, your joy is that you can draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and a person is filled with tremendous joy. That has been the point until now. But ultimately, I do have an animal soul and I do have a body. And the body and animal soul are utterly lowly, as we learned at length in chapters 29 and 30. So what do I—what do I do? All right, I rise above them. But some part of me remains unfree: the body and the animal soul. So here, at the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe adds another point to the explanation, which will bring about joy in a much deeper way—joy that will also help a person bring his body and animal soul along with him. This is what the Alter Rebbe continues to say here, on page 40b, in the line beginning, after that point, “And therefore.” The Alter Rebbe says: “And therefore, for this form of teshuvah to be with greater intensity and strength.” After all, the Alter Rebbe called this matter, this service we are discussing now, this joy, “teshuvah.” As it says, “One hour of teshuvah and good deeds is better”—the good deeds are part of the teshuvah. A person does good deeds in order to return the soul; teshuvah means bringing the soul back, returning the G-dly soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So this teshuvah is returning the G-dly soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bringing the soul back. The Alter Rebbe said that this is the meaning of “all his days in teshuvah”: all his days in joy. “All his days in teshuvah” refers to this teshuvah, the return of

06:05 the soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through every mitzvah I do and every bit of Torah I learn. So this teshuvah, this return of the soul, is done with great joy. That is “all his days in joy” and “all his days in teshuvah.” And now the Alter Rebbe says how this teshuvah, this return of the soul, and the joy it brings can be achieved with greater intensity and strength. “And for this form of teshuvah to be with greater intensity and strength, from the depths of the heart, and likewise the joy of this teshuvah...” First of all, the teshuvah itself, the very return of the soul. As we will now see, the Alter Rebbe introduces another point to contemplate, which will help us return the soul in a much deeper way. We will soon see why. So first, the teshuvah—the return of the soul—will be deeper; and second, the soul’s joy will also have additional light and joy. In other words, we have been discussing two things: “all his days in teshuvah” and “all his days in joy.” The Alter Rebbe links the two. There is teshuvah: at every moment, every day, a person must bring the soul back, returning it to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through Torah and mitzvos. And that also brings joy, the great joy of returning to your father, the king. Both of these—the return of the soul and the soul’s joy—will be deeper when he contemplates what the Alter Rebbe says now: “When he takes to heart knowledge and understanding to comfort him from his sadness and grief.” A person needs to contemplate and delve into the ideas the Alter Rebbe is about to present, and they will also bring him comfort, comforting him from his sadness and grief. That is to say, before this there was no comfort. Before this, what the Alter Rebbe

08:06 He says: You have a body, and you have an animal soul. The body and animal soul are in a state of repulsiveness and loathsomeness, at the very lowest level, and the Alter Rebbe hasn’t helped us with that. He only said: Forget about it; put it out of your mind. Right now, focus on your soul. Think about how you are now returning to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—your soul, a prince returning to his father the king. What is happening with the body and animal soul is not relevant right now. But that was already the approach until now. That isn’t consolation; it’s rising above the situation. That’s something different. Here the Alter Rebbe comes to say that there is also a kind of consolation, “to comfort him from his sadness and grief”—that a person can actually be comforted. We know that consolation isn’t only rising above the situation. Consolation means being able to transform the situation. When is it called consolation? The Rebbe explains this in connection with the month of Menachem, the whole idea of consolation. When is consolation true consolation? When a person is, G-d forbid, in a state of pain and mourning, when is it called consolation? Merely forgetting the pain isn’t consolation. Consolation is when you can transform it: “Darkness will be transformed into light, and bitterness into sweetness.” The Rebbe points out that Menachem has a connotation of transformation. Rashi, in Bereishis, explains “Vayinachem Hashem” as meaning that His heart changed—an idea of transformation. In other words, consolation also means transforming sadness into joy. So the Alter Rebbe says that for a person to achieve a deeper restoration of the soul and greater joy, he must contemplate something that will “comfort him from his sadness and grief.” How can a person be comforted about having a body and an animal soul? And we’re talking about someone who has not yet refined himself and is not yet a tzaddik. If only we were at the point the Alter Rebbe described earlier. In other words, he still has a

09:58 body and animal soul that are at the very lowest level. How? What is the consolation? Here the Alter Rebbe says something remarkable: “To say, as above…” A person must tell himself what we said earlier: “It is indeed true…” The Alter Rebbe doesn’t repeat it; he is referring to what he said on page 41. The Alter Rebbe’s wording earlier was: “It is certainly true that I am far from Hashem and utterly repulsive and loathsome.” So regarding those words, the Alter Rebbe says, “It is indeed true.” A person must tell himself: “It is indeed true.” What I said earlier—that I am repulsive and loathsome and utterly far from Hashem—is true. There is no consolation. That is me; that is the reality. “But I did not make myself.” Here the Alter Rebbe introduces a wonderful “but,” and this is the consolation. “I did not make myself.” The Alter Rebbe is saying: Wait a moment. Is this lowliness, this distance, entirely something you caused? Does it all come from the person himself? No. Certainly, there is a part that we bring about through our sins and our desires. But the very fact that we have—after all, the entire self-examination, if you remember chapter 29, began with the Alter Rebbe explaining how to break the coarseness of the body. The Alter Rebbe began with the fact that a beinoni has a body and an animal soul, and that is the person. Who is the person? The person is the body and animal soul. And because of his body and animal soul, he has an attraction; he could become even worse than repulsive and loathsome, because he has the power of choice. All these things—that we have a body, that the body is inherently material and coarse and belongs to kelipah and sitra achra, and that we have an animal soul whose nature is rooted in kelipah and sitra achra—none of this is our fault. This is how Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the person.

11:58 Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the person with two souls, as the Alter Rebbe said right at the beginning of Tanya: Every individual Jew has two souls. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the person with two souls. He gave us a soul from the side of kelipah and sitra achra, and He gave us a body that is drawn to all of this. Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself did this. So if Hakadosh Boruch Hu did it, why did He do it? If I had done it myself—if all this materiality, physicality, and distance came only from me—I could have thought that the goal was for it not to happen, and that if it did happen, I needed to run away from it. But if Hakadosh Boruch Hu did it, then there is a very deep intention here. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created me with a body and an animal soul, with desires and with all this lowliness. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do that? So the Alter Rebbe comes to say: After all, I did not make myself. “And why did Hashem do this? To bring down a portion of His blessed light, which fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and before Whom all is considered as nothing.” Here the Alter Rebbe also adds an explanation that develops this point. What is he talking about? The G-dly soul. The G-dly soul is “literally a part of G-d above.” And here the Alter Rebbe specifies: The G-dly soul comes from memale kol almin, from sovev kol almin, and from the level where “before Him all is considered as nothing.” So the Alter Rebbe wants to say that the G-dly soul comes from all levels of G-dliness. The G-dly soul comes from all levels of G-dliness. Generally, Chassidus explains that the soul’s descent below is “a descent for the sake of an ascent,” so that the soul can rise to a higher level,

13:38 so that the soul can rise to a higher level. Yes, many maamarim in Likkutei Torah and many maamarim in Chassidus explain what “a descent for the sake of an ascent” means. The soul descends so that it can rise to a higher level. Here the Alter Rebbe wants to give a different explanation. Here, in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe isn’t discussing that. As is known, in Tanya the Alter Rebbe doesn’t explain “a descent for the sake of an ascent” the way it is generally explained in Chassidus. Chassidus always explains it as the soul rising to a higher level. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains it completely differently. We will learn in the coming chapters that the Alter Rebbe explains that the whole purpose of the soul’s descent below is not for the soul itself. The soul itself does not need rectification; the entire purpose of its descent below is to refine and elevate the body and animal soul. But it says, “a descent for the sake of an ascent.” How does that fit with what it always says about a descent for the sake of an ascent? There are other answers to this in Chassidus. The Rebbe explains it in several places in his maamarim. But what does the Alter Rebbe answer in Tanya? Look at the text; there is a completely different explanation here. The Alter Rebbe says: “And why did Hashem do this—to bring down a portion of His blessed light, which fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and before Whom all is considered as nothing?” In other words, the soul comes from all levels of G-dliness. So, seemingly, there is no room for a descent for the sake of an ascent. What ascent could there be? If the soul came only from memale and rose to sovev, that would be called an ascent. The soul comes from sovev and needs to rise to Atzmus—but the soul is part of all levels of G-dliness. The soul is rooted in memale, in sovev, and also in the level where “before Him all is considered as nothing,” which is not even the matter of Atzmus. So why did Hashem do this? “And clothed it in the skin of the serpent.” We said earlier, this is

15:25 It refers to the body, to “a putrid drop.” This is only because the descent is for the sake of an ascent. What does “a descent for the sake of an ascent” mean? The Alter Rebbe says: to elevate to Hashem the entire vital, animal soul that comes from kelipas nogah, together with all its garments—its thought, speech, and action. What does “a descent for the sake of an ascent” mean? The Alter Rebbe says the ascent is not the soul’s. The ascent is the body’s and the animal soul’s. That is an entirely new explanation. It is not the usual way this is presented in Chassidus. It is written in Tanya, but Chassidus generally presents it differently. The Alter Rebbe says: What does “a descent for the sake of an ascent” mean? The soul’s descent is for the sake of the ascent of the body and the animal soul—to elevate the body and the animal soul. That is why the soul descended. How does that fit the word “ascent”? That is the question. But that is how the Alter Rebbe explains it here. A descent for the sake of an ascent—what does it mean? The soul descends into this world in order to elevate the body and the animal soul. That is the purpose of the entire creation of the world: “to elevate to Hashem the entire vital, animal soul that comes from kelipas nogah, together with all its garments,” particularly its thought, speech, and action, by investing them in the action, speech, and thought of Torah. When you study Torah with your body’s faculty of thought, speak with your faculty of speech, and perform mitzvos through action, you refine, purify, and elevate the body and the animal soul. That is the entire purpose of the soul’s descent below. “As will be explained at length below, how this is the purpose of the creation of the world.” The Alter Rebbe tells us in advance that he will discuss this later, in chapters 35, 36, and 37. There he will explain at length the whole idea of a dwelling place in the lower realms, the whole idea that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired this: that the soul should enter the physical body in order to elevate it. But what is the Alter Rebbe saying here? What is the point here?

17:14 So the Alter Rebbe is saying something wonderful here. Consider the fact that you have a body. What was all the turmoil about? All the heartbreak, all the lowliness a person felt, came from contemplating what is happening with his body and his animal soul. All the lowliness he feels because of his physical life and body, his desires, and so on. He may even have fallen into various forbidden things. Everything the Alter Rebbe spoke about earlier begins with the fact that he has a body and an animal soul. But once a person gets to the root of the matter, he realizes: I did not make this whole reality of a body and an animal soul. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it. And why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu make it? So that the descent would be for the sake of an ascent, so that the body and the animal soul would be elevated to holiness, thereby fulfilling the purpose of a dwelling place in the lower realms. That is the purpose of the soul’s descent below. It is the purpose of the creation of this world. That is why we are here in the world. If so, says the Alter Rebbe, how can there be any place for sadness? Not only is there no place for sadness; on the contrary: “If so, this is what I shall do.” This is what I need to do. What am I complaining about? Why am I crying over the fact that I have a body and an animal soul? Why am I so broken? After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu made me this way, and He made me this way so I could fulfill the purpose of creation. This is why I live in the world. If so, this is what I need to live for. Not only should I not be saddened by it; on the contrary, I should have tremendous joy that through this I fulfill the higher purpose. “If so, this is what I shall do, and this will be my entire aim all the days of my life.” The word chaldi, “my life,” is a word from Tanach, from Tehillim. Yes, “You have made my days ... and my lifetime.” Chaldi—

18:56 means my life, the life of my body. Physical life is called cheled. So, “all the days of my life.” “To devote to this the life of my spirit and soul”—“to devote” in the sense of avekgeben, to give oneself over, as they say in Yiddish. To put my whole life into this, as it is written, “To You, Hashem, I lift up my soul.” I give myself over to this task, to making a dwelling place in the lower realms. That means connecting my thought and speech—my thought and speech—to the Creator through the halachos set before us. And likewise, action through the performance of mitzvos: bringing all the garments of thought, speech, and action into the thought, speech, and action of Torah and mitzvos. For this is the purpose of the creation of the world. That is why the Torah is called “restoring the soul,” as it is written, “The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul.” In light of what we learned here, what does “restoring the soul” mean? It returns the soul to its root and source. As we said earlier, calling to it at its root means returning the soul—and the whole person, the body and the animal soul, one’s entire being—elevating it to G-dliness and connecting it with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And of this it is said, “The precepts of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart.” That is the continuation. After “The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul,” what does the verse go on to say? “The precepts of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart.” When a person reflects that through “The Torah of Hashem is perfect, restoring the soul”—that through Torah and mitzvos he can return the soul, the animal soul, and the body, bringing them all back to their source and root, and that through this the G-dly soul, too, emerges from its confinement and captivity—all of this is included in the words “restoring the soul.” That will naturally bring a person tremendous joy. This is the meaning of “The precepts of Hashem are upright, gladdening the heart”: the joy that he can fulfill the higher purpose and become united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu again. So what has the Alter Rebbe added here? What—

20:59 are the two ideas we have learned? To sum up, what are the two points about joy that the Alter Rebbe explains here? In general terms, one joy comes from the G-dly soul, and one from the body and the animal soul. Yes? More specifically, the Alter Rebbe says these are two aspects of teshuvah, of restoring the soul. We say that teshuvah means restoring the soul, and there are two aspects to that. There is the return of the soul itself, which he discussed earlier: the G-dly soul emerges from the confinement of the body and animal soul and connects with Hakadosh Boruch Hu when a person engages in Torah and mitzvos. The G-dly soul becomes united with Him. And there is another aspect of restoring the soul: the soul is here in the world and fulfills the higher purpose by bringing the body and animal soul close to G-dliness as well. In other words, what is the Alter Rebbe telling us here? What are these two aspects of teshuvah, which are two aspects of joy? This is what chassidim always discuss: there are two broad aspects to the soul’s descent below and a person’s avodah. The question is what you are focused on, what should come first. But the two complement each other. One aspect is the G-dly soul’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Chassidim discuss this in connection with all aspects of serving Hashem, including the avodah of davening; this is a central part of a person’s avodah here below. In the avodah of davening, the G-dly soul connects with its source and root. “A ladder, with its top reaching heaven”: through the avodah of davening, the G-dly soul ascends it, level by level, and returns to its source and root. “When you raise the heads of the Children of Israel”—the maamarim on Ki Sisa discuss at length the “heads of the Children of Israel,” the head of the soul, and how a Jew elevates it again through his avodah. The soul descended below and, while doing its avodah, finds itself confined within the body and animal soul. Through serving Hashem, you elevate

22:55 The soul, and takes it out of exile and captivity. That is the work from the perspective of the G-dly soul, and there is great joy in it, like a prince returning home to his father, the king. But there is a deeper joy, which is what the Alter Rebbe is saying in this section and the next. One thing is that the prince knows he can go home. He is very happy: he can go home. That’s it—the life of imprisonment is over, the life in prison, in exile and captivity, is over. He can go home. But there is a deeper joy: when the prince knows he has fulfilled the purpose. He didn’t just sit in prison and do nothing. He was there and accomplished a particular purpose. The king didn’t send him to prison just to sit there until he could escape and it would all be over. While he was in prison, he knew there was a purpose to it. As discussed at length in the well-known parable in Simchas Rav, which the Rebbe brings in many sichos, the king sends the prince far away. Why does he send him? Not only to test the prince, to see whether he will remain strong and connected to his father, the king. That is one thing. The deeper purpose is for him to bring about a spiritual transformation: to change the people, refine them, teach them about the king, and connect them with the king. That is why he came there. And of course, this is a much higher matter, because the first is only a revelation of what is in the heart, only standing firm through tests. It brings about nothing new. The second does bring about something new. You take the body and the soul as well and make them vessels for G-dliness. Through this, the soul, too, rises to a much higher place, as explained at length in the Rebbe’s maamar, which explains the whole subject of

24:43 the soul’s return, the soul’s return to G-dliness. In any case, that is the point of chapter 31: two kinds of joy. And specifically regarding the second joy, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that it is “to comfort him.” It is a comfort, because it comforts a person to know that Hakadosh Boruch Hu made me this way and brought me into this situation. I once heard Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt tell how he was in yechidus with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe told him the corrective teaching of this chapter during that yechidus. The Rebbe said something to him about the matter of—huh? Yes, it was already published. Rabbi Tzvi asked the Rebbe—sorry. In yechidus, the Rebbe spoke to him about melancholy, about sadness. The Rebbe told him that one needs to contemplate: I did not make myself. The whole reason Hakadosh Boruch Hu created me this way is so that I can be a host for the Almighty. And one should be happy that one can bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu into one’s life, and that is where one should invest one’s efforts. That, essentially, is what it means to take one’s mind off it, something the Rebbe discusses so often in his letters. When people ask the Rebbe about teshuvah and ways to make amends, the Rebbe always says to take one’s mind off it. Some people think that means doing nothing. That is a misunderstanding of the whole idea. “Take your mind off it”—all right, move on, have a good life. But taking your mind off it is work. It is about where I invest my efforts. Daas means connection. Taking one’s mind off it means not being immersed in the darkness and in sadness. You need to know the truth. But the question is what I should be immersed in. What should I be immersed in? In the soul’s return, in both aspects that the Alter Rebbe—on the contrary, then not only does he not become sad, he becomes filled with the very greatest

26:28 joy.