Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 5 Part 1

00:02 We’re going to begin chapter 5 of Igeres Hateshuvah now. What is the Alter Rebbe going to say in chapter 5, following what he discussed in chapter 4? In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe began explaining what the soul is. He brought the verse, “For His people are a part of Hashem,” from which we learn that the soul is part of the name Havayah. This verse teaches us about the soul’s unique quality and how it differs from all other created beings. The Alter Rebbe discussed two general points. The first is that the soul is a part of Havayah. All created beings come from the name Elokim; only a Jew’s soul comes from the name Havayah—“For His people are a part of Hashem.” The difference between the name Havayah and the name Elokim is the difference between inwardness and externality. They are worlds apart. The name Elokim represents the external aspect of life, the vessels. The name Havayah, by contrast, represents the inner life, the light. Even angels come only from the name Elokim, and so angels are created beings, with an existence of their own. The soul, by contrast, comes from the name Havayah, which represents inwardness. That is why the word “breathed” is used: of the soul it says, “And He breathed into his nostrils.” The difference between breathing and speech is that speech is external, whereas the soul comes through breathing. Breathing comes from one’s innermost being, and this connects to the innermost being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is the Jew’s unique quality: he is connected to the innermost being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The soul also has to pass through speech. It says, “Let us make man,” so that the soul can have a connection to the body. Since the soul must enter a body, it needs this dimension of “Let us make man” in order to do so. But that is only for the purpose of entering the body. In its essential nature, even when it is down here, it is a part of G-d above.

02:45 That is one point in chapter 4. The second point the Alter Rebbe discussed was the details. “A part of Havayah”: the name Havayah has four letters. In G-dliness, the four letters correspond to the ten sefiros. “You are He Who brought forth ten faculties”—the ten sefiros as You, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, are enclothed in them. The yud is chochmah, the first hei is binah, the vav is the middos, and the final hei is malchus. What distinguishes the four letters of the name Havayah? How does each represent one of these four aspects? In the same way, the human soul also has the four letters of the name Havayah. That is the G-dly soul: it has the tip of the yud, chochmah; the first hei represents binah, and it also includes the middos, love and awe, as we discussed in the classes when we learned chapter 4. Then there are the letters vav and hei, representing voice and speech—when a Jew studies Torah and fulfills mitzvos, thereby connecting with the four letters of the name Havayah. So in chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe was essentially describing how things ought to be. He spoke about the Jew’s unique quality, the soul’s unique quality, and how a Jew is inherently connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe is going to explain that all these qualities of the soul do not exist only above; they extend down here as well. All these extraordinary qualities of the soul, which is part of the name Havayah, become vested here below in this physical world. They are present in their fullest measure even when the soul is enclothed in a body. That is where the whole matter of transgressions and mitzvos comes in. This is the continuation of the verse. It begins, “For His people are a part of Hashem,” and then says, “Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance, bound by a cord.” “His people are a part of Hashem” refers to the name

05:00 Havayah, which is the soul. And of this it says, “Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance, bound by a cord.” There is a cord connecting the soul below to the soul above, and that cord is the 613 mitzvos—just as a cord is made of 613 strands, 613 threads. That is what makes it a cord. In the same way, through the 613 mitzvos, a connection is formed between the soul below and the soul above. This also helps us understand the severity of sin and wrongdoing. That is what the Alter Rebbe wants to get to here in chapter 5: to understand what happens when a person commits a transgression. Once we understand the soul’s distinctive quality, and how that quality is present in the soul down here too, we understand that Torah and mitzvos bring about the connection that enables the soul to remain connected to G-dliness even while it is down here. Torah and mitzvos are needed for that. We can therefore understand the severity of sin and wrongdoing: when a person commits a transgression, he causes damage, he creates a disconnection, he cuts the cord. Heaven forfend, this weakens the Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There are different kinds of transgressions: ordinary transgressions, transgressions punishable by kareis, those punishable by a court-imposed death penalty, and so on—all the various categories. That is essentially the point we are going to learn now in chapter 5. So the Alter Rebbe begins by saying: “Now, the extension and descent of the G-dly soul into this world, to be enclothed in the human body, is drawn from the inward aspect and source of the supernal speech and breath, alluded to by the final hei, as explained above.” From where, from what level, is the soul drawn down here into a person? From the hei of the name Havayah. It is drawn from the inward aspect and source of the supernal speech and breath, alluded to by the

07:15 final hei, as explained above. What does the Alter Rebbe mean here? We said earlier that the soul comes from the name Havayah: “His people are a part of Hashem.” This is the soul’s unique quality—it comes from the name Havayah, which represents inwardness. But the name Havayah itself has four letters: yud, hei, vav, hei. Which letter descends below? The last letter. Of the four letters of the name Havayah, the one that descends and becomes enclothed in this world is the final hei. As the Alter Rebbe explained, the final hei corresponds to the sefirah of malchus. It is the word of Havayah, the aspect that becomes enclothed in the worlds. That is the final hei: the letters that become enclothed in creation. Within this final hei—the word of Havayah as it becomes enclothed in creation—there is an external aspect and an inner aspect. The external aspect of the final hei is the name Elokim. After all, the final hei, malchus, becomes enclothed in the name Elokim. That is the name through which creation comes into being, and through it all created beings come into existence: inanimate, plant, animal and human life; the beings of the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah; all beings with an existence of their own, even angels. Every created being other than the soul comes from the external aspect of the final hei—from the way it becomes enclothed in speech, in the external aspect. But there is also the inner aspect of the final hei, the inwardness of speech. It is like a person: there is speech, and there is the thought within the speech. That is its inner aspect. There is the external aspect—a person speaks—but there is also what lies within. The inner aspect of speech is thought, which is always connected to the soul. The difference between thought and speech is that thought is connected to the soul. Thought is for oneself, while speech is for someone else. So the Alter Rebbe says the same is true here: the final hei has two aspects. What reaches all created beings is the external aspect of the hei. That is what we said earlier: malchus becomes enclothed in the letters of

09:40 The word of Hashem. This is in order to bring into being created beings that are not nullified, that are not completely united with G-dliness—and that includes all created beings. Then there is the inner dimension of the lower hei: the inner dimension and source of speech, which is the upper hei alluded to within the lower hei. This inner dimension relates to the soul. So for the soul to descend here below, into this physical world, it is through the final letter of the name Havayah. In other words, once again, the soul as a whole is connected with all four letters of the name Havayah. As we said earlier, “For Hashem’s portion is His people”: the soul above is connected with all four letters. And the soul itself has all four letters within it. It has the yud, the hei, the vav—all four letters. But that is the soul as it exists above. For the soul to descend below and become enclothed in a body, that is primarily through the last part, the letter hei of the name Havayah. But that concerns the body, while the soul is the inner dimension. As it says, “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” and “One who blows, blows from within himself,” and so on. Here, once again, the Alter Rebbe cites the same verse he brought in the previous chapter: “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.” What the Alter Rebbe wants to say there is that even when the soul has descended below, it is still “He blew.” That is the soul’s special quality. Even when we are speaking of the soul’s descent below, when the soul has to become enclothed in a body and must therefore pass through the process of speech—“Let us make man”—in essence, the soul is “He blew.” By its very nature, the soul is not on the level of speech. The soul is on the level of blowing. The difference between blowing and speech, as we said, is that “one who blows, blows from within himself.” The soul always remains in the manner of “He blew.” The essence of the soul, even when the soul descends below, always remains connected with what is above, with the level of

11:50 the soul above. From this we see that, as we said, in chapter 5 the Alter Rebbe adds to what he said in chapter 4. He already said “He blew into his nostrils.” He already brought all these points, but the difference is that in chapter 4 he spoke about the essence of the soul. In chapter 5 he wants to speak about the soul’s descent, as the soul becomes enclothed in a body. We see a very interesting difference here: in chapter 4, when the Alter Rebbe cited the verse “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life,” he cited only the first part of the verse. In chapter 4 the Alter Rebbe brings the verse, “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life,” and “One who blows, blows from within himself.” Here the Alter Rebbe adds the continuation of the verse: “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Why does the Alter Rebbe add the second part of the verse here? Because it belongs to this chapter. “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life”—the first part of the verse speaks about the soul’s source: the soul comes from blowing, from the inner dimension. That was the previous chapter. Here the Alter Rebbe wants to introduce the idea that even when it descends below, it remains on the level of “He blew.” The soul’s special quality, that it is always connected with the inner dimension, applies below as well. That is why he brings the second half of the verse: “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” In other words, even when the soul has descended below and man has become a living soul, its essence is still described as “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life.” Because it comes from the inner dimension, even when it descends below it remains connected with the level of “He blew.” The Alter Rebbe continues: “And this is the meaning of the verse, ‘For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.’” Here the Alter Rebbe returns to the earlier verse. The same applies to the verse about being a portion of G-dliness.

13:45 As we said, there are two verses here. Both in the previous chapter and in this chapter, the Alter Rebbe keeps discussing two verses. One verse speaks about the soul’s essence and nature, and how the soul descends into the world. That is the verse in Parshas Bereishis: “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” This verse has two parts. The first is “He blew into his nostrils the breath of life”: the essence of the soul is on the level of blowing. That explains the soul’s special quality over all other created beings. Then it adds, “And man became a living soul,” to tell us that even when the soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body, it still remains “He blew.” This relates to the very essence of... Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then he brings the second verse, which says, “For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.” This verse also has two parts. “For Hashem’s portion is His people” speaks about the soul’s inherent distinction: it is a portion of the name Havayah. The second part, “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance,” speaks about the soul as it descends below. Even after the soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body, it remains connected with the name Havayah through a cord. That is “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.” The question is: why do we need both verses? Seemingly, they say the same thing. So it turns out that both verses address these two aspects. “He blew into his nostrils” has two parts—how the soul exists above and how it descends below into a body—and this verse says the same thing: “For Hashem’s portion is His people,” followed by “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.” What is the difference between the two verses? With Hashem’s help, we will explain that later. First, let’s read what it says here. The Alter Rebbe says, “And this is the meaning of the verse, ‘For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.’ That is, like a cord,

15:49 by way of analogy, whose one end is tied above and whose other end is below.” The analogy is a cord: one end of a cord is tied above and the other end is tied below. So the verse means that the soul as it exists above—the soul as it relates to the four letters of the name Havayah, down to the lower hei—is all the soul above. Then there is the soul as it descends below and becomes enclothed in a body. Even after the soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body, there is a cord connecting the two ends. There is a cord connecting the soul below with the soul above. The Alter Rebbe will later say that this cord is Torah and mitzvos. So why, really, do we need two verses? Seemingly, they say the same thing. Why do we need two verses? What does one verse add to the other? There is a sicha of the Rebbe on this subject, a wonderful sicha. I’ll just briefly give one point from it. It is a broad and profound sicha in volume 9 of Likkutei Sichos, on Parshas Haazinu, discussing the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” In any event, the central point the Rebbe explains is that the two verses speak about two levels. There are two different levels in the soul, and so this whole idea—that there is a soul above and the soul’s descent below, and a connection between the soul above and the soul below—has, broadly speaking, two levels. One is the inner dimension, and the other is the outer dimension. One is illustrated by “He blew,” and the other by a cord. What is the difference between “He blew” and a cord? When we speak of “He blew” in physical terms, blowing requires an unbroken connection between the person blowing and the place the breath reaches. The moment even something small comes between them, the blowing no longer reaches its destination. A person blows with—with his mouth. Yes, a person makes a current of air with his mouth

18:15 His. He wants the air to reach a certain place. Anything that gets in the way, even the thinnest thing, and... and... the air won’t reach it. A rope is different. If one thing is connected to another by a rope, then even if there’s a flaw somewhere in the rope, it still doesn’t break. This is also explained in the maamar Basi Legani of the Frierdiker Rebbe, in chapter 4, which we study. There, the Frierdiker Rebbe explains this whole idea of the rope. There can be small flaws, but the rope remains. More serious transgressions cause bigger flaws, but it doesn’t mean that every little thing severs it. So it turns out that there are two different things here. There is a level of the soul where we say that the connection between the soul above and the soul below is a connection of “and He blew.” It’s such a sensitive connection, how should I put it, that the “and He blew” has to be there constantly. The moment something is lacking, the moment something intervenes and creates a barrier, it affects that element of “and He blew.” It has to be renewed constantly. But there’s another level where we say no: there are 613 strands; there’s a rope. A rope isn’t something that has to be renewed all the time. It’s there. It can be weakened, and that’s where the whole matter of sins and transgressions that cause weakness comes in. So we’ll understand that. Later in the chapter we’ll understand why we need both of these ideas. What’s the difference between the two things being discussed here? With Hashem’s help, we’ll understand that. Later in the chapter we’ll explain in greater detail what the Alter Rebbe means, but in any case, the main point—the new insight in this chapter compared with the previous one, as we said—is that the Alter Rebbe wants to emphasize just how great a Jew’s spiritual stature is. Not only does his soul, at its source, come from a higher place, rooted

20:30 in higher levels, but even after the soul descends below and becomes clothed in a body, a Jew always remains a part of Hashem. He always remains connected; he always has that “and He blew,” that connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu.