Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 4 - The greatness of souls over angels

00:08 I’ll give a brief introduction. We can’t begin a Tanya class without speaking about the time we’re in now, a time of “distress for Yaakov, but from it he will be saved.” We are all waiting and hoping, every moment, for the great salvation. And by the great salvation, we don’t mean only victory in the war—which there certainly must be—or that all the captives return safe and sound, healthy and whole, and that the troubles end and there is peace in the Land. We are hoping for something much greater: the great salvation of the true and complete Geulah, a Geulah after which there will be no exile. After the Six-Day War in 5727, for a short period, the Rebbe spoke very strongly about the great awakening that had taken place in Eretz Yisroel and throughout the world. At that time there was a tremendous awakening among Jews everywhere. The Rebbe began the tefillin campaign, and an awakening to teshuvah was visible throughout the Jewish people, in every sector. The Rebbe said then that this had not been made use of as it should have been, that it had not been used enough. There was [unclear], and so on. During that period, the Rebbe began speaking very strongly about teshuvah. It is a preparation: the Gemara says, “The Jewish people will be redeemed only through teshuvah.” The awakening to teshuvah is a preparation for the Geulah. The Rebbe cited the Frierdiker Rebbe, who had spoken during the war—the Second World War and the Holocaust—about the shofar: “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded.” The great shofar is the awakening to teshuvah. We see that precisely at such a time, Hakadosh Boruch Hu sounds the shofar. These events of the birth pangs of Moshiach, including wars, are a way that Hakadosh Boruch Hu sounds the shofar. “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded, and those lost in the land of Ashur and those banished to the land of Egypt will come.” In other words, Jews are in exile. Some are in the exile of Ashur. Ashur is related to the word for pleasure: an exile of comfort and wealth.

03:07 That is one kind of exile. And there is the land of Egypt—constraints and limitations—an exile of poverty. There are different kinds of exile. The great shofar comes to awaken all the Jews who are banished and lost throughout the world. The Rebbe said then that it was the same idea. The maamar beginning “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded” is a well-known maamar found in Melukat 5727. The Rebbe delivered it on Rosh Hashanah 5728. All of Tishrei 5728 was after the Six-Day War, and there were several maamarim on this subject. There were two maamarim beginning “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded”—three times, actually. Later, the Rebbe said it again at the end of Tishrei, I think on Shabbos Bereishis. It wasn’t on Shabbos. The Rebbe delivered a maamar beginning “Behold, I am bringing them from the northern land, and I will gather them from the ends of the earth.” There too, the Rebbe continued explaining this subject. The Rebbe then called for an awakening to teshuvah and bittul. Besides the straightforward effort to encourage Jews to put on tefillin and bring Jews closer to teshuvah in the literal sense, the Rebbe also told the chassidim to study Igeres Hateshuvah. There was a special instruction from the Rebbe to print Igeres Hateshuvah. It was printed on its own, apart from Tanya, and the Rebbe asked that people study it. Around that time, the Rebbe also began a series of explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah. Over a long period, several years, the Rebbe gave an explanation of Igeres Hateshuvah at every farbrengen. Thanks to that, we have an entire body of the Rebbe’s explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah. Later there were also explanations based on Reb Levik’s notes. When Tanya was printed with the notes of Reb Levik, the Rebbe’s father, the Rebbe again began explaining Igeres Hateshuvah in light of Reb Levik’s notes. In 5751 there was also a war, the Gulf War. The Rebbe then

05:23 edited the maamar beginning “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded,” and there too the Rebbe speaks in connection with this. That was also in 5751. As is well known, it was a time of war, the Gulf War, and the Rebbe said that Eretz Yisroel was the safest place in the world. The maamar was then printed. The Rebbe edited the maamar beginning “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded,” and there too he speaks about how, just as there had been an awakening to teshuvah because of those events, which are the great shofar, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is preparing the world for the Geulah. At that time, the Rebbe also edited the sichos on Igeres Hateshuvah concerning Reb Levik’s notes. Thanks to that, all those sichos are available in an edited version. They have now been printed in Likkutei Sichos, volume 39: all the sichos the Rebbe edited, the explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah together with the explanations of Reb Levik. Now, too, we are living at a time of awakening in the world. May Heaven have mercy, Moshiach’s coming is still delayed, and the great shofar is sounding with full force in what is happening in Eretz Yisroel. We are certainly Jews, believers and children of believers. We know that we are truly in the very last moments before the Geulah, and that what is happening now is a great shofar. We very much hope that this is the final great shofar, the last blast that Hakadosh Boruch Hu sounds for us, so that we will awaken to teshuvah, prepare ourselves, and help bring an awakening to teshuvah among all the Jews we can influence. Of course, when speaking about chassidim, an awakening to teshuvah has to be genuine and inward. And we can understand what that means only if we study Igeres Hateshuvah. So, by Divine Providence, we already began before Tishrei and are now in the middle. But this is also the beginning of a subject. Although it is in the middle of a chapter, it is the beginning of a subject. So we’ll continue from where we are. And so,

07:32 with Hashem’s help, in the coming period we will study Igeres Hateshuvah, chapter 4. We are up to page 94. We will, of course, study it with the Rebbe’s explanations, which shed light and show us how every word in Igeres Hateshuvah is precise. By studying Igeres Hateshuvah and paying close attention to the words, as the Rebbe taught us, we can understand the depth of what the Alter Rebbe wants to convey, and how the Alter Rebbe teaches us to do teshuvah in earnest and to understand the power of a Jew: how, through his own efforts, a Jew has the power to achieve not only that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will forgive him from now on, but also to cleanse, refine, and atone so that nothing remains from the past. On the contrary, it is transformed into merit. This entire subject is very fundamental to serving Hashem according to Chassidus, and we will understand it through Tanya. Now, in Igeres Hakodesh—we know, sorry, Igeres Hateshuvah—in the first three chapters, the Alter Rebbe discussed the subject according to the revealed dimension of Torah. The Alter Rebbe explained teshuvah according to halachah. He brought the Torah’s mitzvah of teshuvah, and explained that there is teshuvah and there is atonement. Teshuvah means that a Jew has abandoned the sin. The essence of teshuvah is the decision a Jew makes that from today onward he accepts the kingdom of Heaven upon himself and will no longer rebel against that kingdom. This is called abandoning the sin: deciding to give myself over to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and accept the kingdom of Heaven in accordance with the Torah and mitzvos. That is the main element of teshuvah. All the other things are details. After that comes confession. Confession is another matter required by the Torah, and it is in order to... The Alter Rebbe does not go into an explanation here in Igeres Hateshuvah of what confession is about. The Tzemach Tzedek has a maamar, “Vidui Teshuvah,” in which he explains why, according to

09:36 The Torah also requires confession. There is the soul of the sin, and there is the body of the sin. Through confession, we cleanse the body of the sin. We won’t go into all the details here. The Alter Rebbe then says there is also fasting—the matter of fasts and self-mortification. What is the purpose of fasting? Fasts refine the soul after teshuvah. It is like a burnt offering brought as a gift: bringing the offering creates a sense of closeness. So a person fasts, as the Arizal taught. The Kabbalists practiced various fasts as part of teshuvah, as a kind of gift to create that closeness. Besides cleansing the sin, there is also the matter of atonement: beyond the cleansing and washing away, a person should be cherished before Hakadosh Boruch Hu as he was before the sin. The Alter Rebbe explains that today we do not fast, because our generation is weak, and therefore we should give tzedakah instead of fasting. That was the revealed dimension of Igeres Hateshuvah. From chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe begins to explain teshuvah according to Chassidus. These are the chapters from chapter 4 through chapter 10. The Alter Rebbe explains the concepts of lower teshuvah and higher teshuvah. The Zohar says that there is a lower hei and an upper hei in the name Havayah: lower teshuvah means returning the lower hei, and higher teshuvah means returning the upper hei. That is Kabbalah. What does it have to do with us? We are not Kabbalists. How do we explain it in our service of Hashem? What does it mean? Here the Alter Rebbe begins to explain, in a wonderful way, exactly what this is about, how it relates to a person, and how it relates to the whole work of teshuvah. So, to explain lower teshuvah and higher teshuvah, the Alter Rebbe first introduces and explains the special stature of

11:30 a Jew. A Jew is a soul, and our soul is part of the name Havayah. To understand the tremendous significance of mitzvos in general—of a Jew serving Hakadosh Boruch Hu—what power does a Jew have when he fulfills Torah and mitzvos? And also to understand the extent of the damage, G-d forbid, when a person commits a sin: what does he bring about? What does he damage through a sin? To understand what teshuvah does, we need to understand what happens—the effect of a mitzvah and the effect of a sin. That is what the Alter Rebbe begins to explain here. Then we need to understand how teshuvah has the power to repair what a person failed to do properly. What is the power of teshuvah? It seems like a very simple question. A person committed a sin, so he rebelled against the King. One who rebels against the King is liable to death; that is what it says. So how does it work? What is teshuvah? What does it mean? What power does teshuvah have? Because the sin caused... there was a separation, there was rebellion. What does teshuvah accomplish? You might say that through teshuvah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives you. Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, says to you: All right, you really did it. I forgive you. Forgiveness can apply from now on. But the question is, how do we repair it? The question is not only how Hakadosh Boruch Hu forgives us from now on. There is dirt, there is damage, something happened here. A person brought about something through the sin. How do you repair that? We can understand all this only after we understand the power of a Jew, the connection a Jew has with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Alter Rebbe begins by explaining that of a Jew it says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” “Hashem’s portion is His people” means that the soul is part of the name Havayah. This is something unique to the souls of the Jewish people. All created beings were created by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and all of them have the word of Hashem—

13:32 a divine power that brings them into being and gives them life at every moment. Of course. But all created beings came into being through speech, through letters, through the name Elokim. The soul comes from the name Havayah. The name Havayah is not a matter of speech. The name Havayah is above letters. The name Havayah relates to “He breathed.” The difference between breathing into something and speaking is that breath comes from within, while speech is external. Speech consists of letters. “He breathed” comes from within; it is connected to a deeper place. A person expresses himself, his very essence, from a deeper place. Along these lines, that is the difference between the name Havayah and the name Elokim. Elokim is the power of Hakadosh Boruch Hu that is invested in nature, the power of Hakadosh Boruch Hu that undergoes constriction. It is the descent of life-force according to the way each created being unfolds. The name Havayah, by contrast, is the name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu connected with His Essence; it is the name connected with the level of G-dliness that transcends the world. That is why we say that the soul is a portion of Havayah. For the soul to be able to descend into a body, it also passes through letters. There is also a process of descent through the name Elokim, because for the soul to descend into the world and be invested in a body, it has to be connected with this physical world. So there is that additional process, but it relates to the descent and to the body. In its essential nature, the soul has something unique that no other created being has: even when it descends below, and even as it exists here in this world, “Hashem’s portion is His people”—it is part of the name Havayah. This is what the Rebbe points out: the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people” is not speaking about the soul above. Where does the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people” appear? It appears in Haazinu. In Haazinu, it speaks of the Jewish people when they were in Egypt: “For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in a desolate,

15:45 howling wilderness. He surrounded him, He gave him understanding”—it is speaking about the Jewish people when they left Egypt, and there it says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance.” In other words, it is speaking about Jewish souls as they have descended below and are in this physical world. Yet in his essence, a Jew has not changed; he remains a portion of Havayah. That is the wondrous thing about a Jew, something no other created being has. Even the angels—they are angels, seemingly exalted beings who are utterly devoted to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and so on. But the angels belong to the name Elokim. Angels are called by the name Elokim. The fact that they are called by the name Elokim indicates that G-dliness shines openly within them. But it is still only the name Elokim, nothing more. In other words, even though the angels have an open connection to G-dliness, which level of G-dliness is it? As with all created beings: speech, letters, the name Elokim, the external dimension. But a soul is the inner dimension. There is a story connected with what the Alter Rebbe says here—that souls, compared to angels, are the inner dimension as compared to the external dimension. There is a well-known story the Rebbe once told: the Alter Rebbe was once in Shklov. As is known, the Alter Rebbe used to travel. He would go to various places, debate with the opponents of Chassidus, and bring people to Chassidus. This is recounted in many of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s sichos. So the Rebbe once related at a farbrengen that the Alter Rebbe was in Shklov. There was a debate there about matters of Kabbalah, and the Alter Rebbe delivered a teaching. The Alter Rebbe said that the advantage of souls over angels is that souls are the inner dimension, while angels are the external dimension. This caused a great uproar among all the Torah scholars there. It seemed like such a slight to the angels. How can you say such a thing? Souls are the inner dimension and angels are the external dimension? They could not grasp it or accept it. Now he was belittling angels like that. And the Alter Rebbe

17:55 The Rebbe said that this is explicit in the revealed part of Torah. So all the great scholars began thinking: Where do we find such an idea in the revealed part of Torah? Until the Alter Rebbe told them where it appears. Where is it? The Gemara says that when Moshe Rabbeinu was... The Gemara says that Avraham Avinu invited the angels, and it says of them, “He stood over them under the tree, and they ate.” The angels did not eat. It says they “appeared to eat.” They did not eat; they only acted as though they were eating. But what does it say about Moshe Rabbeinu when he went up to heaven, to the place of the angels? “For forty days he ate no bread and drank no water.” Since there was no food there anyway, he did not eat. So the Alter Rebbe asked: Why, seemingly, didn’t Moshe Rabbeinu do what the angels did? When the angels came down here, they only acted as though they were eating, but did not actually eat; they merely appeared to eat. Seemingly, Moshe Rabbeinu could have done the same: act as though he was not eating, while actually eating. The same thing. But no. It does not say that Moshe Rabbeinu pretended. He really did not eat for forty days. Why? Because angels are external. Someone external can pretend. A neshamah is inward. Someone inward cannot pretend. With someone inward, it is real. If he is that way, then it is real. They do not eat, so they do not eat. Angels, being external, can play at being something they are not. That was the teaching with which the Alter Rebbe explained to them the difference between neshamas and angels. In any case, the point is that here in Tanya the Alter Rebbe explains the special quality of neshamas: a neshamah is something unique, a part of Havayah, or a part of the name Havayah. There is another story, since we are talking about this. It may be a story for a time when we are looking for joy, a time when we need to awaken feelings

20:08 of joy. So there is also a story the chassidim tell about something that once happened. Ah, this is how it is told. Reb Zalman Duchman relates it. Zalman Duchman came from Homil. The Duchman family, they were all—so they were chassidim of Reb Aizik of Homil and lived in Homil, as is well known. He relates a story that happened there. Once, chassidim were sitting at a farbrengen in Homil, and suddenly a man came in who looked like a beggar, someone who had come to collect donations. A simple man carrying bundles, traveling from town to town. But you could see from his face that he was a very happy person. You could see the light in his face—“a radiant face.” He was a very lively, happy, enthusiastic person. So they understood that he had some secret. What was his secret? They wanted to know his story. In short, they sat him down at the farbrengen, gave him a little l’chaim, and began asking him where he came from and what his history was. Well, it turned out that this Jew had been with the Alter Rebbe. This story took place many years later. He had been there twenty years earlier. He had merited to be with the Alter Rebbe. This was after the Alter Rebbe’s passing, but he had merited to be in Liozna, with the Alter Rebbe, many years before. When the chassidim heard that he had been with the Alter Rebbe, they immediately said, of course, “Tell us!” So this Jew said, “I am a simple Jew. I have always traveled from town to town collecting money. That has been my livelihood my whole life.” He said that he was in Liozna when the Alter Rebbe suddenly came out, during that well-known period before Petersburg. The Alter Rebbe would come out like that and say short teachings, brief words of Torah that would set the world ablaze. He said that the Alter Rebbe came out and shared this teaching. He said, “It is written that the angels complained to Hakadosh Boruch Hu

22:16 about why He gives such importance to a human being.” That was the angels’ complaint. So it says, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu extended His little finger among them and burned them up.” There is a familiar expression like this in the Midrashim: Hakadosh Boruch Hu punished the angels by showing them His little finger, and He burned them up. That is what it says. On a simple level, it is a figurative expression, as though Hakadosh Boruch Hu—In Chassidus it says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave them some revelation of His little finger, some revelation, and through that they were burned up. But the Alter Rebbe shared this teaching then. This is what the man heard from the Alter Rebbe: His little finger—what is His little finger? It is a neshamah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s little finger means a neshamah. “Hakadosh Boruch Hu extended His little finger among them”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu showed the angels what a neshamah is. When they saw what a neshamah is, they were burned up, burned up by its greatness. They understood the depth of a neshamah, because a neshamah is higher than an angel. That was the entire teaching the Alter Rebbe gave. And this Jew said, “That is what I heard. That is all I know of Chassidus. It was the only teaching I heard from the Alter Rebbe. But from then until today, I have been a happy person. Through that teaching, the Alter Rebbe filled me with tremendous joy in knowing what a Jew is, what a neshamah is.” That is the story. In any case, returning to where we are holding in Tanya, page 94, I will read a few lines from the text of Tanya. This is what the Alter Rebbe says: the angels are called by the name Elokim. This is at the bottom of page 94. Yes: “But the name Elokim is external in relation to the name Havayah, blessed be He. The human neshamah, however, which is from the inward aspect of the life-force, is part of the name Havayah, blessed be He, for the name Havayah indicates the inward aspect of the life-force, which is far, far above the level of letters.” A neshamah is the name

24:06 Havayah. The name Havayah is inwardness, which is far, far above the level of letters. There is extensive discussion of this in Chassidus. What does it mean that it is far, far above the level of letters? After all, the name Havayah is also letters. Yud-Kei-Vav are letters. So why do you say that it is far, far above letters? This is explained at length in Chassidus in several places. The meaning is that, yes, the name Havayah consists of letters, but because the letters are completely united with what they convey, like engraved letters, when letters are engraved in stone, you do not see the letters as separate. The bright light passes through, penetrates through the letters, so that you do not sense the letters as though they were letters standing on their own. It is similar with the name Havayah, and that is the nature of the neshamah. A part of Havayah—Havayah. That is why we say it is far, far above the level of letters. This is the great distinction of the neshamah.