For the portion of Hashem is His people | Chapter 4, Part 4

00:00 So we’re holding here in Igeres Hateshuvah, chapter 4, near the bottom of page 93b: “But the whole matter will be understood in light of what is written.” Here begins a very interesting discussion explaining the root of souls. What does the Alter Rebbe want to explain here? How does this follow from what came before? At the beginning of Igeres Hateshuvah, the Alter Rebbe gave us a fundamental principle: there are two aspects to teshuvah. There is teshuvah itself, and there is the atonement that comes with teshuvah. We spoke about this recently. There is teshuvah itself, and there is the atonement that comes with teshuvah. Teshuvah itself is just what its name says: teshuvah means returning. What does it mean to return? “To return to Hashem in truth and with a whole heart.” Teshuvah itself means abandoning the sin. A person needs to know that at the heart of every sin is one thing: throwing off the yoke in rebellion against the King. That is what separates the soul from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And the moment I do teshuvah—what is teshuvah? To reconnect, to return and accept the yoke of Heaven, “to return to Hashem in truth and with a whole heart,” and not to rebel, as the Alter Rebbe says at the beginning of Igeres Hateshuvah. Not—not to return to one’s folly, not to rebel against His kingship, and not to transgress the King’s commandments, whether positive commandments or prohibitions. In short, that is one point. The essential point of teshuvah is accepting the yoke of Heaven. By the way, we see in the maamarim on “Ani Ledodi”—the Rebbe brings this up several times in the maamarim of Elul. Why? Why are we told, as the Alter Rebbe says, that in Elul we need to go out to greet the King? “The people of the city go out to greet the King in the field.” That is the idea of teshuvah. The very act of greeting the King means, in effect, accepting the yoke of Heaven. That is the essence, the substance, the central point of teshuvah. After that comes the atonement that accompanies teshuvah. The atonement that accompanies teshuvah includes confession, asking forgiveness, and fasting.

02:19 Today, one should not fast; instead, there is tzedakah, as the Alter Rebbe explained in the first three chapters. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe says that, after all this explanation, all of that concerns atonement, so that no trace remains. But the primary mitzvah of teshuvah—once again, he repeats what he said at the beginning of chapter 1—is to return to Hashem in truth and with a whole heart. “But we must explain thoroughly and at length what is written in the Zohar”: teshuvah is tashuv hei, “the hei shall return.” The lower hei is teshuvah tata’ah, lower teshuvah; the upper hei is teshuvah ila’ah, higher teshuvah. So the Alter Rebbe wants to explain to us what the Zohar says: there are two levels of teshuvah. There is teshuvah tata’ah and there is teshuvah ila’ah. Teshuvah tata’ah means restoring the lower hei; teshuvah ila’ah means restoring the upper hei. What does that mean? Beautiful words, Kabbalah—but what does it mean in avodah? What does it mean within the soul? What does it mean in the avodah of teshuvah? He also quoted the Zohar and Reishis Chochmah, which say that there are transgressions for which teshuvah tata’ah does not suffice. They specifically require teshuvah ila’ah. Wasting seed, the sins of one’s youth—these are severe transgressions. Regarding these, he quotes the Zohar as saying that teshuvah does not help. Reishis Chochmah says that this does not mean, G-d forbid, that teshuvah does not help, because nothing stands in the way of teshuvah. Teshuvah helps for everything. It means that there are things that specifically require teshuvah ila’ah. What is that? What is the explanation? Why is it so? We will learn that in the coming chapters. Yes. So here, to understand the depth of the matter, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain exactly what happens in teshuvah, and what it means that there is teshuvah tata’ah and teshuvah ila’ah. What does that have to do with the letter hei? We understand that there is Yud-Kei—

04:16 Vav-Kei, Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei; there is a lower hei and an upper hei. But it all sounds like Kabbalistic terminology. What does it mean when a person sins, within the soul? That is what the Alter Rebbe now comes to explain in a wonderful way. We need to understand what happens every time a Jew commits a sin. To understand what teshuvah accomplishes, we need to understand what sin does. A person sins, commits a transgression, and something happens. There is some kind of disconnection, some kind of separation, something that happens when he commits a transgression: he becomes separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Since Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s Name is Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, when a Jew commits a transgression, he causes some kind of separation or disconnection, something involving the Name Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. And this relates to our life-force, because our life-force comes from the Name Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. Through this we can also understand what the Alter Rebbe brings here about kareis and death imposed by a court, and death at the hands of Heaven. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, people subject to these punishments would, G-d forbid, pass away before the age of fifty or before the age of sixty. Physically, a person would die. Today that does not happen; people live. What is going on? What changed? Let’s continue. If there really is a punishment of kareis, why don’t we see that punishment happening today? What happened between those days and today? What changed? What was different in the time of the Beis Hamikdash and in the time of exile? The Alter Rebbe will answer all of this in the coming chapters. But to reach that explanation, we need an introduction, and the Alter Rebbe gives it here in chapter 4. It is a fundamental and wonderful introduction: How exactly does the connection between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu work? What is a soul, and what is the connection between a Jew’s soul and Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Now, one short introduction before we read

06:07 the text. The Alter Rebbe already discussed the soul earlier, in Part One, Likkutei Amarim. We’ve already learned what a soul is. Come on, everyone, we’ve already learned what a soul is! The Alter Rebbe already explained it in Part One. We learned chapters 2, 18, and 19. But there are matters he did not explain there, and those are what the Alter Rebbe now comes to clarify. So, with Hashem’s help, we’ll learn what it says here in Tanya, and we’ll also want to understand what this adds: What is new in Igeres Hateshuvah regarding the soul, compared with what the Alter Rebbe explained in Likkutei Amarim? And why are there things he explains specifically here and did not explain there? Conversely, why are there things he explained there but does not explain here? So let’s read the text. The Alter Rebbe says here: “But the matter will be understood in light of what is written: ‘For Hashem’s portion is His people,’ and so on.” To understand all of this—the matter of teshuvah, teshuvah tata’ah, teshuvah ila’ah, and all the details we asked about—there is a verse that forms the basis of this whole chapter. In Parshas Haazinu, in the Song of Haazinu, it says: “For Hashem’s portion is His people,” and so on. A portion of the Name Havayah, blessed be He. The verse is speaking about the Jewish people. Moshe Rabbeinu is speaking to the Jewish people and says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people”—the Jewish people are a portion of Havayah. The Alter Rebbe explains: What does “a portion of Havayah” mean? A portion of the Name Havayah, blessed be He. The soul is a portion of the Name Havayah. That is the straightforward meaning, the translation of the words. But the Rebbe makes a very, very interesting observation here. We’ve spoken several times about how the Rebbe studied Igeres Hateshuvah exhaustively, and, baruch Hashem, we are privileged to have explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah on almost every line—simply wonderful explanations. Without them, I don’t know how people understood Igeres

08:14 Teshuvah back then, and how they used to learn back then. Just an explanation... In any case, the Rebbe points out a precise wording here: “a part of the name Havayah.” What does the Alter Rebbe mean to add with those words? The verse says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” What does the Alter Rebbe add by saying “a part of the name Havayah”? The point is that the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize the name Havayah. As explained in Chassidus, there are two aspects to Havayah. There is Havayah as a name, the letters yud-kei-vav-kei, and there is Havayah as something above a name: the truth of His existence, the truth of His Essence. There, Havayah is just a word, not a name. We aren’t referring to the letters but to the idea. What is the translation of the word yud-kei-vav-kei? What does it mean? It’s a little hard to understand how to translate that word. The Rambam writes that its meaning is faran—existence, being. Yud-kei-vav-kei, without any [unclear], is as though you’re saying “is.” When you say “is,” you mean “exists.” But “is” means existing in actuality, existing in reality. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, chas veshalom, does not merely exist in actuality. He exists essentially; His existence is absolute and necessary. We have no other word for that, so we say yud-kei-vav-kei. The word yud-kei-vav-kei conveys that Hakadosh Boruch Hu exists essentially, eternally, constantly. As the Alter Rebbe says, it means not merely that He exists now, but that He exists eternally, always. He always exists, and His existence is essential, without any limits or conditions; He depends on nothing. Accordingly, yud-kei-vav-kei is not really a name; it is a description. It’s as though we have no other word for what we want to say: that He exists. But in Chassidus we know that there is also the name Havayah, consisting of the letters yud-kei-vav-kei. And here we specifically want to discuss the letters, because later in this chapter the Alter Rebbe will explain how there is

10:23 a difference between the four letters, how all four letters are present in a Jew’s soul, how a Jew damages the four letters when he commits a transgression, and how he repairs them when he does teshuvah. That is the idea of the lower hei and the upper hei. So the name Havayah is relevant here, and that is what the Alter Rebbe adds: “a part of the name Havayah, blessed be He.” That is the point here. We want to explain how this is expressed in the name, in the letters of the name Havayah. And the Rebbe adds another very, very important point: when we speak about a Jew, the soul’s root is not only in the name Havayah. The soul’s root is also in the essence of Havayah. We know that the soul’s root in the Essence is above the name. The soul is rooted in “Anochi”—“See, I, Anochi, place before you...” Chassidus explains that Anochi refers to the essence of the soul, its yechidah, and from the perspective of the yechidah it is above the name. But that is not relevant here, because there can be no damage there. That is a completely different matter. From the perspective of the yechidah in a Jew’s soul, he is never separated, as we say that “even at the time of sin, it remained faithful to Him.” The essence of the soul is always bound to the Essence. Here, though, we want to discuss the level at which damage can occur and must be repaired. That is specifically the level of the name Havayah, where Hakadosh Boruch Hu reveals Himself through the letters yud-kei-vav-kei. This is also revealed in a Jew’s soul, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later in the chapter when he discusses what yud-kei-vav-kei means within a Jew’s soul. That is where mitzvos, transgressions, damage, and teshuvah come into play—specifically in the name Havayah. That is the precise meaning of “a part of the name Havayah, blessed be He.” As it is written, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and “One who breathes, breathes from within himself,” and so on. The soul is a part of the name Havayah—with the emphasis on the name Havayah, which is higher than other names. In other words, it comes from a higher place. This is

12:23 also alluded to in the verse, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and “One who breathes, breathes from within himself,” and so on. We say that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the soul, the word used for the soul is “He breathed.” For all the other created beings, it says, “And He said.” For the soul, it says, “And He breathed.” As the Alter Rebbe will explain shortly, speech is external, while breathing comes from within. “He breathed” comes from an inner place, and that is what is said of the soul. This is the difference between the name Havayah and the name Elokim. So when we say that the soul is “Hashem’s portion,” it is because the soul comes from the level of “He breathed,” from within, and that inner level is the level of the name Havayah. Now, here is something very interesting. This point also appears in Likkutei Amarim, as we said. In Tanya, in Likkutei Amarim, the Alter Rebbe says the same thing. Chapter 2 begins: “The second soul in a Jew is truly a part of G-d above,” as it is written, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and “One who breathes, breathes from within himself.” It says that there too. But what is interesting is the verse that immediately stands out: which verse does the Alter Rebbe cite in Likkutei Amarim? “A part of G-d above.” “A part of G-d above” is a verse in Iyov. He adds the word “truly,” but the verse says “a part of G-d above.” Here the Alter Rebbe cites a different verse: “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” Why is that? Why does he cite one verse there and another verse here? The question is even stronger: this verse is in the Chumash, whereas “a part of G-d above” is in Iyov. So why, at the beginning of Tanya, does he not cite the verse that explicitly says in the Torah, in the Chumash, “For Hashem’s portion is His people”? And if “a part of G-d above” is better, why doesn’t he cite it here? What exactly is the difference? The starting point of the explanation is something very simple. Here,

14:32 the Alter Rebbe wants to explain the letters, as we will see later in the chapter, and that is why the name Havayah comes into the discussion here. In other words, what is the difference between Likkutei Amarim and Igeres Hateshuvah? In Likkutei Amarim, the Alter Rebbe sets out to explain the soul’s root. He wants to explain the special quality of the part of G-d within the soul. That is the point. Every Jew has two souls. The Alter Rebbe wants to explain the distance, the difference, between the animal soul and the G-dly soul. The animal soul is animalistic, and so on. Everything he says there is about the G-dly soul and its great quality. So there the emphasis is on the extraordinary source of the G-dly soul. That is why the verse is “a part of G-d above.” That verse does not specifically emphasize the name Havayah. What it does emphasize, though, is “above”—the lofty source of this part. In other words, “a part of G-d above” emphasizes how extraordinary the soul’s root is: it comes from a very, very lofty place. To this the Alter Rebbe adds “truly.” The Alter Rebbe’s point in adding “truly” is that this is not a metaphor or a figure of speech; the soul is truly a part of G-d above. And as the Rebbe says, “truly” also conveys something tangible: even when the soul is down here, it is still a part of G-d above. This comes up in Likkutei Amarim to explain what is extraordinary about a Jew, the wonderful powers a Jew has. What exactly is a Jew’s essence? Here in Igeres Hateshuvah, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain something else. He wants to explain what happens through a mitzvah and through a transgression: through a mitzvah, we connect with the letters. Every mitzvah has a connection to a particular letter. By doing a mitzvah, you connect yourself to one of the letters of the name Havayah, and through every transgression you damage the letters. Through teshuvah

16:34 We need to restore them again, to repair the damage we caused to the letters. That is why the point that the soul is a part of the Name Havayah matters specifically here. The Rebbe adds another point: the words “For His people are a part of Havayah” speak about the souls of the Jewish people as they are down here. Where does it say, “For His people are a part of Havayah”? It says this in Parshas Haazinu, where it speaks about the Jewish people when they left Egypt. It says, “He found him in a desert land, in a desolate, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He gave him understanding.” All those verses in Haazinu speak about the Jewish people as they came out of Egypt. Hakadosh Boruch Hu... they had been mixed in among the nations. Hakadosh Boruch Hu “set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.” So it is speaking about souls as they are in bodies, down here. And that is the whole point here in Igeres Hateshuvah. The Alter Rebbe wants to explain that a Jew, even down here, has a part of the Name Havayah. That is the central point of the avodah here: when you commit a sin, you damage, G-d forbid, the Name Havayah in your soul. So the Alter Rebbe prefers to bring this verse here, both because the word Havayah, the Name Havayah, is emphasized here—and that is what we will discuss later in the chapter—and because this verse speaks primarily about the soul in the body, whereas in Likkutei Amarim he speaks primarily about the soul’s source. That is why he brings this particular verse. So here we can see how precise every detail in Tanya is: the fact that the Alter Rebbe brings this verse in one place and that verse in another. All the details are very, very precise. “And although He has no bodily form, and so on, G-d forbid, nevertheless, the Torah speaks in human language,” says the Alter Rebbe. Above, this whole concept of speech does not apply; none of these concepts can be said of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the Torah speaks in human language. There is...

18:41 And that is why, when speaking of human beings, the Torah uses the language of speech, but when speaking of the soul, it uses the language of breathing forth: “And He breathed.” Because through this analogy we can understand the essential difference between the soul and all created beings. For just as, in this world below, there is a great difference, for example, between the breath that leaves my mouth in speech and the breath that comes out when I blow: what comes out in speech contains only a very small measure of energy and vitality, from the external aspect of the living soul within a person. But what comes out when a person blows forcefully from within contains energy and vitality from the inner aspect of the living soul, and so on. Of course, this is only an analogy; the distinction between it and what it represents is immeasurable. So the Alter Rebbe is saying that when the Torah speaks in human language, it uses the expression “speech.” Certainly, Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not have physical speech. He has no body or bodily form. So none of these physical concepts we use when speaking about speech apply Above. Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not speak like... yes, yes, yes, “And He breathed” does not apply literally to Hakadosh Boruch Hu either. But what is the point? There is the well-known teaching of the Baal Shem Tov: when learning about G-dliness, we have to strip away the physical terms. We always have to remove the physical aspect and understand the content, the inner meaning. So what is the inner difference between speech and breathing forth? From that, we will understand the difference between the soul and all created beings. As he says, when a person speaks, speech contains “a very small measure of energy and vitality.” The Rebbe points out that “small” and “very slight” refer to quantity and quality. “Small” refers to quantity, and “very slight” to quality. In other words, speech contains far less vitality, both in quantity and in quality. The words “energy”

20:56 “and vitality” are also significant. In Chassidus, this is a whole subject; every word in Tanya is precise. There is energy and there is vitality, two distinct things. There is the concept of energy and the concept of vitality. In any case, we will not go into all the details now. What matters is the general point: speech contains only a very small measure of energy and vitality, both in quantity and in quality. That is what reaches the speech. Breathing forth, by contrast, contains the inner essence. That is what the Rebbe says: the difference is between inwardness and outwardness. Speech, in other words, is directed toward someone else. When a person speaks, the purpose of speaking is for someone else to hear, so it is an external expression. I give the other person what that person needs. It is not about me; on the contrary, it is about the other person. But with “And He breathed,” with breathing forth, a person blows. In doing so, he wants, on the contrary, to bring out what is inside him. It comes from his inner vitality. That is the idea of “And He breathed.” An example brought in Chassidus is the blowing of the shofar, which is connected with “And He breathed.” After all, the blowing of the shofar takes place on the same day as “And He breathed.” Rosh Hashanah, the day man was created, his birthday—that is when “And He breathed” took place. So what does it say one must do with the shofar? Breathe forth. The person, the one blowing the shofar, has to blow into it. The expression is “until the face of the one blowing turns red.” Why does his face turn red? Because he is putting something inward into it, something from deep within himself. In other words, the difference between breathing forth and speech is not just a difference of quantity; it is an essential difference. Here there is the external aspect of vitality, and here there is the inner aspect of vitality. The same applies Above: there is an immense difference in the source of the soul compared with the source of all created beings, even angels. All created beings come from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech—that is, from the external aspect of His vitality, from a level of G-dliness characterized by distance, contraction,

23:14 and descent. That is why they are created beings that are not so closely united with G-dliness. The soul, by contrast, has its source in the Name Havayah, the inner dimension of G-dliness. That makes all the difference between a soul and angels. On this basis, the Alter Rebbe will go on to explain how to understand the whole matter of the avodah of teshuvah.