Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 4 Part 13

00:00 Speaker 1 We’ll continue a little further in Tanya, from where we left off: Igeres Hateshuvah, chapter 4, at the bottom of page 94b. We’re learning here about the four letters of the name Havayah. The Alter Rebbe explains that every soul is “a part of Havayah, His people.” A Jewish soul is part of the name Havayah, and just as Hashem’s name Havayah encompasses His ten sefiros, the same is true of the human soul. So far, in our classes, we’ve learned about the letter yud and the point of the yud, the letter hei, and the letter vav. Today we’ll learn about the final hei of the name Havayah. The Alter Rebbe says: “For the attribute of His kingship is called the word of Havayah, as it is written, ‘Where the word of a king is, there is authority.’” The sefirah of malchus, the attribute of kingship, is called the word of Havayah. This is no longer a matter of an attribute in the same sense. The Alter Rebbe wants to explain the difference between the vav and the hei. The vav refers to the six emotional attributes. Those six attributes form one unit, one group, as we explained in the previous class: all six attributes, from chesed through yesod, are one kind of thing. But the seventh attribute, malchus, is a matter of its own. It has a letter of its own. Why? Because it relates entirely to someone else. It is a matter of speech. Speech is a matter of its own, so it has its own distinct place, its own letter. This is what is called “the word of Havayah,” as it says, “Where the word of a king is, there is authority.” A king—kingship is the matter of ruling. How does a king express that? A king gives orders. A king governs the country through speech. It’s all a matter of speech; that is the defining quality of kingship: “kingship is of the mouth.” The king’s power is in—this is a matter of speech.

02:10 Speaker 1 That’s why we see in Rashi, when Rashi speaks about a leader in Parshas Chukas and says, “Speak to your people,” he says, “There cannot be two leaders for one generation.” A rav, a leader, is called a “speaker”—it’s a matter of speech, because that is what kingship is: speaking. “Where the word of a king is, there is authority.” So, as I’m saying, this is included in the final hei of the name Havayah. That is why the letter that alludes to the sefirah of malchus is the final hei of the name Havayah. Now the Alter Rebbe comes to explain the connection between the letter hei and malchus. Earlier, when we discussed binah, the Alter Rebbe explained how the letter hei symbolizes and alludes to binah—its length and width, and everything he explained about binah. So now the question arises regarding malchus: malchus is also a hei? What is the connection between kingship and speech and the letter hei? The Alter Rebbe explains several details here. Why the letter hei? First, he says: “For the inner aspect and source of speech is the breath that rises from the heart and is divided among the five organs of speech: alef, ches, hei, ayin from the throat, and so on.” First of all, says the Alter Rebbe, why is speech alluded to by the letter hei? What is speech? There is breath from the heart; there is a voice. You see, the tone, the voice that comes from the heart—from there the breath of the heart emerges, the voice emerges—and that voice is expressed through the mouth. When the voice reaches the mouth, it encounters five places. There are five places in the mouth from which five types of letters emerge. As is known, there are five types of letters: letters formed with the tongue, letters formed with the teeth, other letters associated with the lips, letters associated with the throat, and letters formed with the palate. The palate—how do you say it? The palate. These are five parts of the mouth, and several letters come from each one. Alef, hei, ches, ayin—those are

04:27 Speaker 1 from the throat. Similarly, gimel, yud, kaf, kuf are from the palate. The grammar books explain how the groups of letters are divided. In general, there are five groups of letters, and that is the meaning of hei. Hei has the numerical value of five, just as vav has the numerical value of six. So why, the Alter Rebbe asked, is it a vav? Because there are six emotional attributes. And why does hei have the numerical value of five? Because there are five groups, five types of letters, through which speech is expressed. That is one explanation. The Alter Rebbe continues and says that, apart from the number five, there is another connection between the letter hei and malchus. The hei itself has a sound. A sound means the tone, or how do you say...?

05:17 Speaker 2 The breath.

05:19 Speaker 1 The sound—no, the sound is the sonido. The hei has this quality: its sound is the lightest of all the letters. All the letters have a sound. When you pronounce the sounds of the letters, they involve some movement. A person has to make movements. You have to move your mouth, your teeth, your tongue, your lips. You have to make some additional movement. The only letter for which a person doesn’t have to make any movement is just a sound—a light sound, with nothing else added. That is the hei. It is just a sound. That’s what the Alter Rebbe says: the hei itself consists of breath alone. Here, yes, “breath” means aliento. Breath alone, as it says, “a light letter that has no substance.” That is what it says in the Zohar: the letter hei is a light letter with no substance to it. There is nothing tangible there. With any other letter—even when you say alef, that already has more weight to it. You have to make a more substantial movement. All the more so when you say beis: you have to move part of your mouth. So that is no longer a light letter. The hei is a letter that has nothing to it besides breath. That is why it is the lightest letter, and because it is the lightest, all the other letters come from it. In other words, all the other letters are that breath with something else added to it. The breath itself, with nothing added, is the hei, and therefore it is the root of all the letters. So the Alter Rebbe is explaining to us why we call the sefirah of malchus—which is Hashem’s speech in letters—by the letter hei. But the Alter Rebbe continues and says:

07:27 Speaker 1 “And although He has no bodily form, G-d forbid...” After all, we’re speaking here about what is above. We’re explaining the name Havayah as it applies to Hashem. How does any of this apply to Hashem? With Hashem, what does it mean to speak of light letters and heavy letters? Such a thing exists with a human being, but how can we say it about Hashem? So the Alter Rebbe says: “The Torah speaks in human language.” We know that the Torah speaks of all these matters in human language. In other words, the Torah uses human terms—things familiar to human beings—so that we can better understand matters above. The Torah speaks in human language. That means the Torah is written in a way that uses the same style and concepts as they are clothed in human experience. So it is here too: since, for human beings, the letter hei is breath without any substance, the same language is used above. That is why we say the sefirah of malchus is called hei: there too, hei is the root of all the letters. But the Alter Rebbe does not leave it at that. Saying that it is human language is only part of the answer; seemingly, there is also a real connection. We know from Chassidus that the analogies drawn from a human being are not merely a way of speaking; they are also true. That is, there really is a relationship between the matter as it exists below and as it exists above. So the Alter Rebbe continues: “Moreover.” “Moreover” means that he is adding another point, another reason why we call it hei. Even though, seemingly, Hashem has no

09:24 Speaker 1 “The likeness of a body.” The Alter Rebbe says that, in truth, there is also a connection between the letter hei and the sefirah of Malchus, the matter of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech. Why? Because the word of Hashem, too, consists of twenty-two letters divided into five groups according to where they are pronounced, and through them all created beings were brought into existence. All these things truly exist Above as well. Above, the speech of Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the way He created the worlds—all of creation. We learned in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah that all creation comes about through Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s speech. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke the letters with which the world was created, the world was created through twenty-two letters, and those twenty-two letters are also divided into five groups. In other words, all these things truly exist Above in a spiritual sense, in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: there are twenty-two letters, and they are divided into five groups. What the Alter Rebbe is telling us is that this is not merely a case of “the Torah speaks in human language”—as though none of these things really exist Above, but we use these terms because that is how things are for us. No, this is real. The reason a person down here has twenty-two letters divided into five groups is that this is how it is Above. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, too, there are twenty-two kinds of emanations, twenty-two forms of letters—different emanations through which all the other created beings came into existence. And the twenty-two letters Above are also divided into five groups. These numbers are therefore real Above. So we can also understand why the letter hei, whose numerical value is five, is the letter associated with the sefirah of Malchus, as he already explained in Likkutei

11:24 Speaker 1 Amarim, Part Two, chapter 11, in his explanation of these letters. He is referring to Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. The Alter Rebbe wrote this after Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. As is known, Igeres Hateshuvah was printed several years after the Tanya had already been printed, so he refers to Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, where the subject is explained at length in chapter 11. In brief, though, what does this mean Above? Chassidus explains the number five—the fact that there are five types of letters. The root of the matter is that letters are essentially a matter of gevurah. Letters are a contraction; they impose limits. Every letter is a limitation. Every letter is a particular form in which an emanation is confined—one way in an alef, another in a beis. The combinations of letters give each created being its particular limits. Every created being—the distinctions among animals, plants, inanimate things, every detail and everything in the world—has the word of Hashem expressed in its particular letters, and those letters determine what that being is. As we are also learning now in the evening class about matter and form: there is the matter and there is the form. The letters are invested in the created being, and the particular form of those letters accounts for the distinctions between each being and all its details. Now, since the root of the letters is gevurah, and it is known that there are five gevuros—five levels, five types of gevurah; in general, gevurah is divided into five. That is why we have fingers. There are five fingers on the right hand, called in Kabbalah the five chassadim, and five fingers on the left hand, corresponding to the five gevuros. So, too, Chassidus discusses—and the Alter Rebbe also brings this in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah—the five letters called final letters, such as final mem and final pei. There are five of them as well. The general point is that the gevuros are divided into three—into five, sorry. This is also the reason

13:30 Speaker 1 why in Tishrei there are the five [unclear]; these are five gevuros. We say this in the wording of [unclear]. And the number five is a significant number. Tehillim, for example, is also divided into five books. That, too, is connected with this matter of the gevuros of Malchus, which is why there are five. The number five comes up in a number of contexts. So that is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. Since the word of Hashem consists of the twenty-two letters through which the entire world was created, and those letters are divided into five groups, that is why we call Malchus by the name... Okay, what have we learned so far? What is the summary? The Alter Rebbe has explained the four letters of Hashem’s name as they are Above, and how those four letters represent all ten sefiros. The yud is Chochmah; the hei is Binah, and also the hidden worlds; the vav is the six middos; and the final hei is Malchus. Then there is the tip of the yud, which represents Keser, the supernal will, far above Chochmah. There is one sefirah the Alter Rebbe did not bring up here: Daas. The Alter Rebbe does not mention Daas. Where is Daas? As is known, Chassidus explains that Daas is not really a sefirah in its own right. Daas is a connection. Its whole function is to draw down and to bind together. That is why, in many places—especially in works of Kabbalah, and often in Chassidus as well—the sefiros are discussed without mentioning Daas. They say Keser, Chochmah, Binah, and then go straight to Chessed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchus. There is a saying that is quoted: “When Keser is counted, Daas is not counted; when Daas is counted, Keser is not counted.” In general, because the whole function of the sefirah of Daas is to draw down and bind together, it is often not counted as a sefirah in its own right.

15:44 Speaker 1 Especially when Keser is included. Since the Alter Rebbe spoke here about the tip of the yud and explained that it represents Keser, he does not bring up Daas here. But the four letters of Hashem’s name referred only to the sefiros themselves, without Daas. When he speaks about the yud, the tip of the yud and the hei, Daas is certainly present, because the connections between the sefiros—the connection between the yud and the hei, or between the yud, vav and hei—are made through the sefirah of Daas. But it does not have a letter of its own, because Daas is not something in its own right; it is the inner faculty that brings about the connection between all the sefiros. In any case, all this concerns Hashem’s name as it is Above. Now the Alter Rebbe goes on to say, “And exactly so, by way of analogy, are the four letters of Hashem’s name in the human soul.” Now the Alter Rebbe is going to explain how this works in a person. A person is, after all, “a part of Hashem.” So how are the four letters present in a person? The Alter Rebbe says that they are also present in a Jew’s divine soul. Since the divine soul comes from Hashem’s name, it too contains all these aspects. The Alter Rebbe says, “Every aspect of latent intellect is alluded to by the yud. It has the potential to emerge into revelation, to understand and grasp His truth and greatness, and so on—each person according to his capacity, according to the breadth of his intellect and understanding.” That is the yud of Hashem’s name. “And to the extent that he broadens his intellect and understanding to contemplate His greatness”: a person uses his intellect and contemplates the greatness of Hashem at length and in depth. That is alluded to

17:31 Speaker 1 by the letter hei—the breadth of his contemplation. Binah, contemplation, has breadth. And it also has length. What is length in the soul? The Alter Rebbe says that it “extends from Above downward, to give rise, from his understanding and contemplation of the greatness of Hashem, to love and fear and their offshoots, in his mind and in the recesses of his heart, or openly in his heart.” Contemplation gives rise to love and fear. There is love and fear concealed in the heart, and there is love and fear openly felt in the heart. All this is included in the letters yud and hei of Hashem’s name. Now the Alter Rebbe continues. I’ll just read it; with Hashem’s help, we’ll discuss it at length in the next class. The Alter Rebbe goes on to say, “And from this comes the actual avodah of engaging in Torah and mitzvos through voice, speech and action—these are the letters vav and hei,” and so on. Contemplation leads to actual avodah. Actual avodah is vav and hei: the vav is the voice a person uses when learning, while speech and action are the hei—Torah and mitzvos in practice. “And even the contemplation that enables one to understand and grasp His truth and greatness is drawn from the Torah, for ‘the Torah comes forth from Chochmah,’ the yud of Hashem’s name,” and so on. The contemplation itself also comes from the Torah. Well, this whole section needs a great deal of explanation. There are many questions here, and, with Hashem’s help, there is a sicha of the Rebbe that offers a wonderful explanation. With Hashem’s help, we’ll go into the details in the next class.