Tanya Chapter 32 - Part 6

00:00 So we’re returning to Likkutei Amarim, chapter 32, page 41b, at 01:06 to 01:09, there at the period. Yes? What is the Alter Rebbe discussing here? In the first half of chapter 32, the Alter Rebbe explained the depth of Ahavas Yisroel according to Chassidus. He explained why Ahavas Yisroel is a mitzvah that you can fulfill completely only if you have the central point of Tanya, the point the Alter Rebbe explained in the previous chapters. On a simple level, Ahavas Yisroel is a mitzvah that is hard to understand how to fulfill. At 01:36, the Torah demands love—and not just love, but genuine love, in a way that this love is “as yourself.” The plain meaning of “as yourself” is, at 01:51, the way a person loves himself. And whom must he love? Every Jew, great or small. That seems contrary to reality. First, the Ramban: on the verse “Love your fellow as yourself” in Parshas Kedoshim, the Ramban says that this cannot be taken literally. You can’t understand this verse according to its plain meaning. In reality, how could such a thing be possible? That is the question the Ramban and a number of the early commentators ask. And so they offer various interpretations. What does “Love your fellow as yourself” mean? How does it fit? How can one fulfill this mitzvah? On the straightforward halachic level, when you look at the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch, it says that this refers to action: speaking his praises and treating him well. In other words, it’s a matter of conduct. There is a well-known sicha of the Rebbe in Likkutei Sichos, volume 17, Parshas Kedoshim, explaining that according to the plain meaning of Scripture as well, Rashi’s approach is that Ahavas Yisroel concerns action. All the mitzvos in Parshas Kedoshim explain Ahavas Yisroel. How do you do it

02:07 in practice? It is “a great principle of the Torah.” That is why Rashi cites Rabbi Akiva’s statement, “a great principle of the Torah”: to explain that this is the point. You fulfill Ahavas Yisroel by not stealing, by not taking revenge or bearing a grudge, and by not placing a stumbling block before the blind. All the verses in the parsha describe how to fulfill Ahavas Yisroel. And on that straightforward level, “as yourself” does not mean literally as yourself, as it says in Tanya. It means “like yourself”—with a kaf. Like the phrase “for you are like Pharaoh.” What did Yehudah mean when he said to Yosef, “for you are like Pharaoh”? “Like you” does not mean exactly the same; it means similar. So too here: “like yourself,” approximately, with a kaf. But the Alter Rebbe explains that according to the inner dimension, that is not the case. According to the inner dimension, the words are meant in their full depth: “Love your fellow as yourself”—love in its fullest sense, your fellow in the fullest sense, and “as yourself” in the fullest sense. How is that possible? When the soul is primary and the body secondary. That was the explanation in the first half of the chapter: when, for a person, the soul is what matters most, and the soul is what unites us all. The souls all come from one essence; all the souls are one, “actual brothers, whose source is in the one G-d.” So because of the unity of our souls, love for every Jew is an inherent love, regardless of who or what he is. That was the point of the first half of the chapter. On that basis, he explained Hillel’s statement that “this is the entire Torah,” with the two explanations the Alter Rebbe gave. We won’t go over that now. In the second half of chapter 32, the Alter Rebbe turns to the details. According to what we’ve learned here, there must be genuine Ahavas Yisroel, literally “as yourself,” for every

04:04 Jew, regardless of how he behaves. It must be an inherent love, because he is a Jew. If so, how do we account for the fact that halachah says otherwise? Halachah says that sometimes one must hate a person; it rules that it is a mitzvah to hate him. That was the question the Alter Rebbe asked. And not only to hate a Jew, but also to hate the evil in him. How can you hate him if you must have this inherent love? The Alter Rebbe began to answer that today. The mitzvah to hate him, stated with regard to one’s fellow, applies under particular conditions, for a particular reason. “Your fellow in Torah and mitzvos”—that is one condition. For it to be permissible to hate him, he must be your fellow in Torah and mitzvos. He must also be close to you, and you must already have fulfilled “you shall surely rebuke.” And after all that, the person remains in the same state. That means he is doing it deliberately. It means the evil in this person is there in a way that he doesn’t care. He knows, he is on your level, and you have already spoken with him and tried, yet he continues nonetheless. So the evil—that is a matter of hating evil. “Those who love Hashem, hate evil.” One must hate the evil; one must hate this person who behaves in a way that shows the evil in him is firmly entrenched. But those are very, very specific conditions. When those conditions are absent—if he is not your fellow in Torah and mitzvos, is not close to you, and so on—even if you rebuked him, he is not on your level. He does not have the understanding to appreciate how precious Torah and mitzvos are, so rebuke does not have the same meaning for him. So you cannot—you must judge him favorably. You must love him. In that case, the mitzvah

05:53 to hate him does not apply. That was the point for which the Alter Rebbe brought what it says in Pirkei Avos: “Be among the disciples of Aharon: love peace, pursue peace, love people, and draw them close to Torah.” Hillel—the same Hillel who made the earlier statement that “this is the entire Torah”—said to “love people.” “People” does not mean a Jew who is your fellow in Torah and mitzvos. It means someone with no other virtue. As the Rebbe points out, and as the Alter Rebbe is about to explain here: they are “people” whose only distinction is that they are created beings, with no other virtue. And Hillel nevertheless says you must love them. Let’s look inside; that’s where we’re up to. Yes. “Love people and draw them close to Torah.” “This means that even those who are distant from Hashem’s Torah and His service, and are therefore called merely ‘created beings’...” What is Hillel saying? He means a person who is completely distant from Torah and mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe is explaining what this means in practice. And Hillel nevertheless says that you must love him. So this is evidence for what the Alter Rebbe says: the mitzvah to hate someone does not refer to just any Jew who commits a transgression. It refers to a very specific type of person. But of someone who is neither your fellow in Torah and mitzvos nor close to you, Hillel says that this Jew is “distant from Hashem’s Torah and His service, and is therefore called merely a created being.” What does “merely a created being” mean? It means that his only virtue is that he was created. He has no other virtue. His only virtue is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created him. He has no virtue in his intellect, no virtue in his character traits—no virtue, nothing else. But what does he have? Hakadosh Boruch Hu created him. There is a well-known sicha in which the Rebbe cites the story of Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon. He was walking along and saw a man—the familiar story, right? He said to him, “How ugly is that man!” How did he look? He did not look good; he looked ugly. And the man answered him, “Go to the Craftsman who made me.” The familiar question is: how could Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon—the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a great Tanna—tell someone he was ugly? How could he belittle and embarrass a person like that, telling him, “You look ugly”? The Rebbe explains what Rabbi Elazar was trying to accomplish. He saw a person so coarse and lowly that the only way to awaken his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu was through severity, through gevurah. The Rebbe says that not everyone may do this. Only Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon could do it; an ordinary person is forbidden to do it. Someone on Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon’s level knew that once he broke through the man’s outer shell, the inner point would awaken. And that is exactly what happened. What did the man answer? “Go to the Craftsman who made me.” He immediately spoke of his Creator; he connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. By breaking through the outer shell, Rabbi Elazar revealed the fruit within him, revealed his soul. The man said, “the Craftsman who made me.” That was the only virtue he had: “the Craftsman who made me”—that he was created. And with that, Rabbi Elazar had already lifted him out of the mud. And this is along the same lines.

07:42 In terms of his character traits, he has no virtue—nothing, nothing at all. But what does he have? Hakadosh Boruch Hu created him. There is the well-known sicha in which the Rebbe brings the story of Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Shimon. He was walking down the street and saw a man—the familiar story, right? He said to him, “How ugly that man is!” What did he look like? He did not look good; he looked ugly. And the man answered him, “Go to the Craftsman who made me.” The question is well known: How could Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Shimon, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a great Tanna, say to a person that he was ugly? To belittle him like that, to embarrass him, to tell him, “You look ugly.” So the Rebbe explains what was happening here. He saw that this was such a coarse, lowly person that the only way to awaken his connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu was through severity, through gevurah. The Rebbe says that not everyone can do this. Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Shimon, specifically, could do it; an ordinary person must not. Someone on Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Shimon’s level knew that the moment he broke through the man’s outer shell, his inner spark would awaken. And that is exactly what happened. What did the man answer? “Go to the Craftsman who made me.” He immediately recognized his Creator. He connected with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. By breaking through his outer shell, Rabbi Elazar revealed the fruit within him, revealed his soul. And the man said, “The Craftsman who made me.” That was the one virtue he had: the Craftsman made him; he was created. And with that, Rabbi Elazar had already pulled him out of the mud. And this, this is along the same lines.

09:21 The Alter Rebbe says here, too, that when Hillel said, “Love the creatures,” the only thing you know about this person is that he is a creature. That is how you have to take him, and that is how you have to connect with him and love him. “One must draw them with thick cords of love.” Thick cords means substantial, strong ropes. In other words, not just saying hello, but showing him abundant love. These “thick cords of love” are really the foundation of all the outreach campaigns, as the Rebbe taught us: how to bring a Jew close, how to love a Jew. That is Tanya. That is the foundation. “With thick cords of love—and even with all that, perhaps one will be able to bring him close to the Torah and the service of Hashem.” The Alter Rebbe says that this is what Hillel means by “Love the creatures and bring them close to the Torah.” What does “bring them close to the Torah” mean? Hillel is saying that it happens through love. Think about telling a person that you hate him. Why do you hate him? With the person about whom it says that it is a mitzvah to hate him, what does that mean? To hate him for no reason? No. The point is that by showing him hatred, he will understand; it will shake him and sink in. He will realize that he really crossed a line, that he cannot go on like this. So if he is your fellow in Torah and mitzvos, and you have tried everything positive without success, and then it says that it is a mitzvah to hate him, that is so that through it you might succeed in stirring him to do teshuvah. But with someone to whom that does not apply, it is the opposite. By loving him—and not just loving him, but loving him with thick cords of love—then, “even with all that, perhaps”: it is uncertain, but you may succeed in bringing him close to Torah and mitzvos. That is what Hillel meant by “bring them close to the Torah.”

11:15 To the Torah and the service of Hashem. The Alter Rebbe says: “And if not”—even if you did not succeed in bringing him close to Torah and mitzvos, do not think it was not worthwhile. “He has not forfeited the reward for the mitzvah of loving one’s fellow.” He has fulfilled the mitzvah of loving his fellow, even if he did not bring him close to Torah and mitzvos. You went out on a mitzvah campaign, approached a Jew, connected with him, spoke with him and loved him. You did everything, with thick cords of love, and asked him to put on tefillin, but he did not want to, and you did not succeed. Do not think that was a waste of time. Through the connection itself, you are bringing that Jew close. You are fulfilling the mitzvah of loving your fellow. Now, the Rebbe asks a question here: Why does Torah and mitzvos matter in this context? Why is it relevant? The wording of Tanya implies that drawing him close is meant to lead to bringing him close to the Torah. If it does not, then all right—it sounds like a fallback. If you did not bring him close to Torah and mitzvos, that is also good: you fulfilled Ahavas Yisroel. It sounds as though, ideally, the goal must be to bring him close to Torah and mitzvos, and only if that does not happen have you still fulfilled Ahavas Yisroel. Why must Ahavas Yisroel have the goal of bringing him close to Torah and mitzvos? Why not speak from the outset about Ahavas Yisroel on its own? Why must Ahavas Yisroel be for the sake of bringing someone close to Torah and mitzvos? Especially since it is well known that the Baal Shem Tov revealed the importance of helping a Jew materially even without a spiritual purpose. This was one of the Baal Shem Tov’s innovations. At age fourteen, the Baal Shem Tov joined the hidden tzaddikim. When he joined their group, he introduced to them the idea of helping people materially. So how is it that here

13:10 the Alter Rebbe rules that you must know that loving him is meant to bring him close to Torah and mitzvos? The straightforward reading is that the Alter Rebbe simply wants to explain Pirkei Avos. It says there, “Love the creatures and bring them close to the Torah.” What is the connection? This is the meaning: by loving him with thick cords of love, you may succeed in bringing him close to Torah and mitzvos. But the question remains about Pirkei Avos itself: what is the reasoning here? Especially in light of what the Alter Rebbe explained earlier in the first part of the chapter: Ahavas Yisroel must come from the fact that he is a Jew, from his very Jewishness. That is why you must love him. If so, why must there also be “bring them close to the Torah”? The Rebbe explains this in a wonderful sicha in volume 17. The Rebbe explains that for a Jew down here to connect with his soul, Torah and mitzvos are needed. This is well known from Chassidus, and the Rebbe also explains it in Tanya: “The Jewish people, the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are all one.” Chapter 23 explains that for a Jew to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Torah and mitzvos are needed. The soul above has its root in G-d’s Essence; that is true. But that is the soul above. Its root is in G-d’s Essence, higher than Torah and mitzvos. Two things preceded the world, and the Jewish people preceded the Torah. But that refers to the soul’s root in G-d’s Essence. Once the soul descends below, it is in a body. So for the body to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu—for the soul to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu together with the body—Torah and mitzvos are specifically needed, in addition to the bond a Jew already has. That is why the goal must be to bring him close to Torah and mitzvos: because I love him, because I love the Jew

15:13 within him. But I do not want the Jew within him to remain hidden within himself; I want that Jewishness to be revealed down here. That is why the goal must be to bring him close to Torah and mitzvos. So the Alter Rebbe says, “And if not,” he has still not lost out. The Rebbe adds an explanation there in the sicha. The Rebbe says that the Alter Rebbe’s words “he has not forfeited” sound like a fallback. But once the Alter Rebbe has ruled that he has not lost out, he has actually gained something: he has fulfilled the Alter Rebbe’s instruction. It is as simple as that. The Rebbe offers that insight there, and more. “And even those close to him”—that was one point; now for another—“whom he has rebuked and who have not turned away from their sins, whom it is a mitzvah to hate, it is also a mitzvah to love.” Now the Alter Rebbe adds something else, an even greater insight. Until now, the Alter Rebbe made a distinction: those close to you, whom it is a mitzvah to hate—because there must be hatred of evil, under the particular conditions he describes, with all the specific requirements. Otherwise, there must specifically be love, thick cords of love, and that is how you must try to bring him close. That was the Alter Rebbe’s distinction. Here the Alter Rebbe adds an even greater, remarkable insight: even the Jew of whom it says that it is a mitzvah to hate him must, at the very same time, also be loved. “It is also a mitzvah to love them.” In other words, the Alter Rebbe is explaining that there is no contradiction between what we learned at the beginning of the chapter and what the Gemara says in Bava Metzia, that it is a mitzvah to hate him. Both go together. At the same time, you can fulfill both: there is a mitzvah to hate this person and, at the same time, to love him.

17:25 And both are true: hatred for the evil in them, and love for the hidden good in them, which is the spark of G-dliness within them that gives life to their divine soul. This is a tremendous statement. If you think about it, there is something profound and wonderful here that the Alter Rebbe is saying. An ordinary person cannot understand how you can love and hate at the same time, but based on what we have learned in Tanya, it makes perfect sense. Not only is it not a contradiction; it is founded on everything we learned in the previous chapters. Think back to what the Alter Rebbe explained there about someone who has an intrusive thought during davening. Remember? Chapter 28. What did the Alter Rebbe say? That a person who has an intrusive thought during davening should not be upset by it. Not that the thought is good, but people tend to think that if you have one, you are finished—your davening is worth nothing. The Alter Rebbe says no. If, as they suppose, a person had only one soul, then if you were davening and suddenly had an intrusive thought, perhaps it would mean you were fooling yourself. But the truth is that there are two souls: a divine soul and an animal soul. The divine soul wants to daven; the animal soul asserts itself and does not want to. So there is a struggle. Why wouldn’t you have an intrusive thought? That is the whole foundation of chapter 28 of Tanya. And in chapter 31, which we learned here, just before chapter 32, the Alter Rebbe says that there is bitterness and there is joy. There, too, he says it is not a contradiction. True, the body and the animal soul are in a state of coarseness and materiality, and all that we learned in chapters 29 and 31. But every Jew also has a divine soul. In other words, once you grasp the foundation of Tanya—that every

19:17 person is made up of two souls, that the evil comes from the animal soul and the good from the divine soul, and that there is a struggle between them—the same applies to Ahavas Yisroel. So when I hate, what am I hating? The evil in him. When the Torah says there is a mitzvah to hate a Jew, it does not mean the person himself. What is a person? You do not hate the person; you hate the evil in him, the part that comes from the body and the animal soul. But he has a divine soul, and the love is for that divine soul. As we said about a person himself, having an intrusive thought and everything we learned in chapters 29 and 31 is no contradiction. At the same time, yes, on the contrary, he should rejoice in the joy of his soul, and he does rejoice. The same is true in relation to another person. At the very moment you hate the evil in him, you love the good in him, the hidden good in him. This is a fundamental principle of Ahavas Yisroel in all kinds of situations. Even though sometimes you need to use an approach of gevurah, of sternness, that is no contradiction at all to the genuine love you have for him, because you love the good in him, the G-dly part of him. In any case, we are speaking today during the Rebbe Maharash’s time, with its particular connection to him. We are now on 2 Iyar; with Hashem’s help, tomorrow there will be a big farbrengen, with all the excitement, and there will be “lechatchila ariber”—the whole thing. But there is another matter connected with Ahavas Yisroel and the Rebbe Maharash. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates in one of his sichos that the Rebbe Maharash once told his son, the Rebbe Rashab, “Today, two chassidim came to me for yechidus. One gave me satisfaction, and the other caused me distress.” What happened? The Rebbe Maharash told him that one chossid came in,

21:23 Reb Eliyahu Abeler, and the Rebbe Maharash asked him how things were. He said, “Boruch Hashem, everything is fine. I came to ask about my friend, whose name is Yosef. The poor man is a schlimazel. Nothing he does works out. He buys something, his business doesn’t go well—in short, things keep going badly for him.” He asked the Rebbe to daven for his friend and ask that he succeed in earning a livelihood. The Rebbe Maharash was deeply moved that a Jew had come to yechidus and all he asked for was that another Jew have a livelihood. The Rebbe Maharash told him that he wanted to go into partnership with him, yes? In short, there is a whole lengthy account there. We will not get into all the details now; it is a very interesting story. The Rebbe Maharash entered into a partnership and gave him a coin. He said, “Let it be a partnership.” “Who am I, and what am I?” In short, the Rebbe Maharash got a great deal of satisfaction from him. Then another chossid came. The first one, by the way, was a relatively simple person. The other chossid was a Torah scholar, a rabbi. His name is also given there in the account of his yechidus. The Rebbe Maharash said to him, “How are things? How is everything?” Fine, in short. “What is happening in your shtetl?” He told him about a group of young married men who were studying Torah, and so on. And then the Rebbe Maharash asked him, “What are their middos like? These young men—what are their middos like? How do they treat one another?” The rabbi said, “Well, like sons-in-law of wealthy men.” That was the expression. In other words, they had a bit of grobkeit, of coarseness. So the Rebbe Maharash told him that when he returned home, he should ask each of those young men to bring half the dowry he had received for his wedding to the Rebbe Maharash for a charitable purpose. He said, “I don’t—they won’t bring it. It won’t work. They won’t give it.” So the Rebbe Maharash told him,

23:29 “Tell them that if they don’t give half, they will lose the other half as well.” He was alarmed and said, “All right, fine.” Before he left, the Rebbe Maharash told him, “I hope that next time you will be able to bring better news.” So the Rebbe Maharash said that the first chossid had given him satisfaction: a person who, from the outset, came to yechidus thinking about another Jew. He cared about another Jew. The second chossid caused him distress: here were learned men, intellectuals, but their middos were not right. So we see just how deeply Ahavas Yisroel mattered to our Rebbeim.