Tanya Chapter 32 - Part 4

00:00 We’re back in Tanya, chapter 32, at the words “And therefore, those who make their bodies primary.” Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has explained how a person can bring himself to have genuine Ahavas Yisroel, in the sense of “Love your fellow as yourself”—for every Jew, from the greatest to the smallest. It comes from making the soul primary and the body secondary. Once the soul is primary for him, then from the perspective of the soul, all of us Jews are as one—with all the explanations of “as one” that we discussed in the previous class. So the Alter Rebbe concludes: “And therefore, those who make their bodies primary and their souls secondary.” This is a person who is not at that level. On the contrary, his body is what matters most to him, while his soul is secondary. In other words, bodily concerns, external things, appearances—those are what matter most to him, while the soul is treated as something secondary. “There cannot be true love and brotherhood among them.” Genuine Ahavas Yisroel cannot exist there, “only a love that depends on something.” What kind of Ahavas Yisroel does he have? A love that depends on something. What does that mean? We all know what Pirkei Avos says: there are two kinds of love, a love that depends on something and a love that does not depend on anything. The love of David and Yonasan is called a love that does not depend on anything. The love of Amnon and Tamar is a love that depends on something. Now, when we learn Pirkei Avos in its plain meaning, “a love that depends on something” refers to physical motives, motives rooted in ego. Right? As is readily understood. The love of Amnon and Tamar depended on something external. Right? It was a coarse love, a selfish love, a love bound up with ego. When love is tied to personal calculations, right, then it is not true love and it cannot last. The moment what—

02:24 By contrast, a love that does not depend on anything is true love. But according to what the Alter Rebbe explains here, as we’ve been discussing throughout the previous classes, even on a subtler, more spiritual level, a love that depends on something is a love tied to reason and understanding, to an explanation, to someone’s virtues. If you connect with another Jew on the basis of a calculation—whatever that calculation may be—even one based on his virtues, then the moment it is tied to a calculation, it is a love that depends on something. Your love lasts as long as that person has those virtues. The moment he no longer has them, the love will end. By contrast, an essential love is a love that cannot cease, cannot be diminished, cannot disappear. The love that comes from the fact that a Jew has “an actual part of G-d above” is something that cannot change. And therefore, when a person makes the soul primary, that is true love. It is a love with its full force, one that cannot be undone, because it does not depend on any reason or understanding. It comes from the very fact that he is a Jew. That essence is essential; it is something that cannot change or cease. By contrast, if the body is primary, then even love is tied to calculations, virtues, explanations, reasons. A love like that cannot last. The point the Alter Rebbe emphasizes here is very important, and we need to understand it. Why does the Alter Rebbe keep emphasizing both sides? Even earlier, when he spoke about how to reach true love, he emphasized that “his body is loathsome and contemptible” to him, while “as for the soul and spirit, who can know their greatness and lofty stature?” Both things are needed. The body must be contemptible and loathsome, and then the soul will be

04:25 primary for him, and then there can be Ahavas Yisroel. One could ask: For Ahavas Yisroel, the soul needs to be primary. Why must the body be contemptible and loathsome? After all, the whole basis of the Alter Rebbe’s explanation is that true Ahavas Yisroel is possible when the soul is what matters most to you. Once the soul matters most to you, and from the perspective of the soul we are all one essence, that gives rise to an essential love. So why emphasize the negative as well? Why isn’t it enough to emphasize only the positive, to speak only about the soul’s greatness? Since the soul is primary for me, I have true love. The Alter Rebbe’s wording implies that this is not enough. The body must also be contemptible and loathsome. Why does that matter? It’s true that the Alter Rebbe discussed this in chapter 31. We’re coming after the chapters, after chapters 29 and 30, where the Alter Rebbe spoke at length about why a person is contemptible and loathsome. Right? And only after chapter 31 does he reach the conclusion that, after all that, there is the joy of the soul. True, that is the progression of the chapters. But the Alter Rebbe’s wording here implies that this matters for Ahavas Yisroel. For you to have true love, it is not enough that the soul be primary for you; the body must be contemptible and loathsome. And the same is true in the other direction: when the Alter Rebbe says that a person makes his body primary and his soul secondary, he mentions both things here too. His body primary and his soul secondary. What is the significance of that emphasis? The explanation is that for there to be genuine Ahavas Yisroel, there are two things involved. There is the way one looks at a Jew. Right? I am a Jew, you are a Jew, so we are one essence, and that brings about true love. As Jews, there is no—there is no... Just as my love for myself is an essential love, because I am a Jew and you are

06:32 also part of that same essence, that brings about true love. But the thing is, Ahavas Yisroel has to affect not only matters of the soul. Ahavas Yisroel has to affect matters of the body. In fact, not merely those as well—primarily those. Where do most of the problems arise? In bodily matters. Right? Usually it’s a matter of jealousy, hatred, competition. Why does my friend have nicer clothes than I do? Why does my friend have more money than I do? Why does my friend have more material things? In practice, among people involved in business and all kinds of other things, a person starts asking: Why should the other person have it and not me? As the Rebbe once said regarding a din Torah. The Rebbe once spoke about this: Why is it that when there is a halachic question about whether something is treif, you go to just one rabbi? That’s what a Jew does, right? A person has a question about an animal or a bird, about the laws of kashrus, family purity—halachos involving very, very serious matters. You go to a rabbi and ask, and he says kosher or treif. But when it comes to monetary law, where the prohibition is less severe, it’s different. For questions of what is permitted and forbidden there can be lashes, kares, and much more severe punishments; those matters are far more serious. Yet in practice, one rabbi’s answer is enough. With monetary law, we say no: there have to be three; there has to be a beis din. What’s going on? The Rebbe once said that it’s very simple. When I come with a bird or a piece of meat, the question for me personally is: may I eat it or not? The rabbi says no, and that’s that. But with monetary law, there are two people involved. So it isn’t just a personal question for me. It’s about who is going to win and who is going to lose. That is something

08:54 a person isn’t prepared to accept: that the other person should win. If it were only a question about myself, I’d be prepared to take the loss. People are prepared to take a loss. Look, you go to a rabbi, and the rabbi says this meat has to go in the garbage. I take it and put it in the garbage. That’s that. It isn’t pleasant or easy, but for the other person to get it—oh, that’s already hard. Here you need a whole beis din. That’s how it is; it’s a kind of... a kind of ego. So the whole issue of Ahavas Yisroel is not just about Ahavas Yisroel in matters of the soul. We want Ahavas Yisroel to extend to matters of the body. Ahavas Yisroel must extend to matters of the body. That’s why a person must also regard his body as contemptible and loathsome. The mere fact that you have a soul that is a part of G-d is not enough. That’s all well and good as far as our spiritual connection is concerned, but if the body holds a significant place for you, that’s where the problem will be. You won’t be able to connect with him. That’s why the Alter Rebbe requires both things. When his body is contemptible and loathsome in his eyes, bodily matters don’t carry such weight for him, and so he can readily yield. He has no problem with it. He can genuinely be happy that the other person has those things, instead of getting caught up in jealousy, hatred, competition, and so on. And then there is the soul, which is primary. So the love is an essential love. That’s why both things are needed. Otherwise there are problems. And what does Hillel the Elder say about this mitzvah? “This is the whole Torah; the rest is its explanation,” and so on. Now the Alter Rebbe comes to something remarkable, one of the most fundamental ideas in the teachings of Chassidus. The Alter Rebbe now says that, based on this, we can understand something very, very important: a teaching of our Sages. But according to the Alter Rebbe’s explanation

10:54 This teaching of our Sages takes on a wonderful meaning. We all know the story of Hillel the Elder. A prospective convert came to him wanting to convert while standing on one foot, right? Shammai sent him away—threw him out of the house. And what did Hillel do? Hillel told him what is written here: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary.” All the commentators ask: Why is Ahavas Yisroel the entire Torah? The Torah has commandments between a person and Hashem, and commandments concerning forbidden relationships, as well as commandments like “Do not take revenge.” So Ahavas Yisroel isn’t the entire Torah; it’s half the Torah. Many commandments are connected with Ahavas Yisroel, and they relate to “Love your fellow as yourself.” But putting on tefillin doesn’t. Neither do tzitzis or kashrus. There are many commandments with no apparent connection to Ahavas Yisroel. Why, then, is it the entire Torah? Rashi also asks this question in Tractate Shabbos. Rashi says it relates to “your friend and your father’s friend”—interestingly, “your friend” can also refer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But of course, that is an indirect explanation. What is being said here? Here the Alter Rebbe offers a wonderful explanation. It is a fundamental principle of Chassidus, showing us why Ahavas Yisroel is so deep and so essential—why, as we discussed, it is the heart of Tanya. The Alter Rebbe gives two explanations here, which complement each other. I’ll read what he writes: “For the foundation and root of the entire Torah is to raise and elevate the soul above the body, higher and higher, to the Source and Root of all worlds.” That is one explanation. Why is Ahavas Yisroel the

13:09 entire Torah? Because what is the entire Torah about? It is about elevating the soul above the body. All 613 commandments—both those between one person and another and those between a person and Hashem—have this as their inner essence: a Jew must give the spiritual ascendancy over the physical. In the familiar expression, it is “the ascendancy of form over matter.” That phrase appears several times in Hayom Yom: the ascendancy of form over matter. A Jew has a body, and the body is material and physical. What does it mean that it is material and physical? The giving of the Torah was about giving form ascendancy over matter. In other words, a Jew must elevate the spiritual: you take a physical thing, lift it out of its materiality, and make a mitzvah out of it. You elevate it. You take the physical, lift it out of its physical materiality, and turn it into something G-dly. In the Alter Rebbe’s words, this means raising and elevating the soul above the body—elevating the spiritual above the physical. This is one of the things Chassidus always mentions about the giving of the Torah. What happened at the giving of the Torah? Mount Sinai was entirely covered in smoke. That was a revelation of G-dliness in the physical, bringing about refinement—the process of taking matter and burning away its coarseness. That, in essence, is the whole purpose of serving Hashem: to refine the physical. This service means that the soul governs the body and makes the physical spiritual. As the Rebbe says in Hayom Yom, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world from nothing into something, and a Jew makes something into nothing—makes the physical spiritual. That is the entire purpose of our service. What does it mean, within a person, for the soul to be elevated above the body? “To raise and elevate the soul above the body, to the Source and Root of all worlds.” Regarding

15:22 the wording, the Alter Rebbe means all the way to the Source and Root of all worlds. There can be many levels of elevation: one can elevate the soul above the body a little or a great deal. So the Alter Rebbe says, “to the Source and Root of all worlds.” In other words, we must reveal the spiritual, elevating the soul above the body to the highest levels, all the way to the Source and Root of all worlds. The ascent takes place throughout the entire seder hishtalshelus, not only in the physical realm. When a Jew fulfills the 613 commandments, he brings about an ascent throughout the entire seder hishtalshelus, up to the Source and Root of all worlds. That is one way of understanding it. We’ll soon see that there is another way too, but this is the first. So what is the central point here? How does this explain Hillel’s statement that “this is the entire Torah”? The answer is that Ahavas Yisroel is the touchstone of whether you have grasped the essence of Torah and mitzvos. That is what the Alter Rebbe is saying. Ahavas Yisroel demonstrates that the soul is primary and the body secondary. So when a Jew works on the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel, he has the entire Torah—not only commandments such as “Do not murder” and reverence. It is the entire Torah, because the entire Torah is about the spiritual taking precedence over the physical within you, and about transforming the physical into the spiritual. You make something into nothing. What is the touchstone showing that, for you, the spiritual is primary and the physical secondary? Ahavas Yisroel. That is why Ahavas Yisroel is the entire Torah. This is the first explanation. There is also a second explanation, but I’ll leave that for the next class.