Igeres Hateshuvah Chapter 5 Summary

00:02 Speaker 1 Okay, today we’ll talk about chapter 5 of Igeres Hateshuvah. In the previous class we spoke mainly about chapter 4; now we’ll focus on chapter 5. There’s something interesting here. In these chapters, chapters 4 through 6, the Alter Rebbe, the author of the Tanya, comes to explain the root of teshuvah—what teshuvah means at its root. So he explains what a neshamah is. He explains that teshuvah means returning the hei: the hei of the name Havayah, the lower hei and the upper hei. Clearly, what a person does is not only about that person. Something happens in G-dliness, in holiness, and in the world. Through teshuvah tata’ah, lower-level teshuvah, you bring about a rectification, something on the side of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Teshuvah tata’ah concerns the lower hei; teshuvah ila’ah concerns the upper hei. To understand this, the Alter Rebbe explains the root of the neshamah. The neshamah is connected to the four letters of the name Havayah: “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” Then he explains what sin is. Once we understand what a neshamah is, we can understand what happens when a person sins. [unclear] A separation is created in the neshamah, and consequently a separation is created in the G-dliness of the neshamah. And G-dliness is one. Teshuvah, then, is about restoring, returning. It addresses the separation you brought about in G-dliness, the separation in the four letters of the name Havayah. Not only was a separation created; the Shechinah also went into exile. Because through your transgression you entered the three impure kelipos and received life from the kelipos, you caused a flow of vitality from the name Havayah into this world, allowing the external forces to draw sustenance from it. That is called the exile of the Shechinah. And that is why teshuvah is necessary: to return the hei.

03:09 Speaker 1 Through that, the Shechinah is brought back from exile. That is the whole subject of chapters 4 through 6. The Alter Rebbe explains the inner essence of teshuvah. It’s about understanding what happens: what a Jew is in essence, what a transgression is in essence, and consequently what teshuvah is in essence. Now, we see something very interesting here. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe comes primarily to explain what a Jew is in essence. When he begins explaining it on page 186, toward the bottom, he brings two verses. One is “For Hashem’s portion is His people,” from which we learn that the neshamah is a part of the name Havayah. Then he brings a second verse, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” from which we learn what “breathed” means—that the neshamah does not come from speech, which comes from the outer aspect. The neshamah comes from breath, from deep within. That’s chapter 4: two verses explaining the essence of the neshamah. One is “For Hashem’s portion is His people”; the second is “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Just as an aside, it’s interesting that in chapter 2 of Likkutei Amarim, the Alter Rebbe discusses the same subject. There, too, he speaks about the neshamah, the divine soul. And there the Alter Rebbe does not bring the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” He does bring “And He breathed into his nostrils,” but not “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” There is a sicha of the Rebbe about this as well. The Rebbe explains the difference between Likkutei Amarim and Igeres Hateshuvah. In Likkutei Amarim, the Alter Rebbe mainly wants to explain the essence of the neshamah: the neshamah is like a child who comes from the father’s brain.

05:10 Speaker 1 But in Likkutei Amarim, the Alter Rebbe does not want to discuss the Divine Name. He isn’t speaking there about the Name, but about the essence of the neshamah. He speaks generally about how the neshamah is a part of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is why he does not bring the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” He brings a different phrase, “literally a part of G-d above,” which does not emphasize the Divine Name. There, the emphasis is more on the essence of the neshamah and where it comes from. But here in Igeres Hateshuvah, his aim is to clarify the matter of the four letters, because here the letter hei—the lower hei—is central. So, since the four letters are relevant here, the Alter Rebbe brings the verse “For Hashem’s portion is His people.” In any case, we have these two verses: “For Hashem’s portion is His people” and “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The Alter Rebbe spends all of chapter 4 explaining this—the four letters, all the details, and so on. Then we come to chapter 5 and see something interesting. In chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe brings those same two verses again. You can look in chapter 5: he cites them again, but this time he brings the complete verses. They are the same verses, but now he includes all their details. You see that at the beginning of chapter 5 he says, “As it is written: ‘And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’” He brought this verse before, but then he brought only half of it. Here in chapter 5, he brings the verse again, this time in full—not just the first half, but the continuation too. Why? If he needed to bring

06:50 Speaker 1 that continuation, why didn’t he bring it at the beginning? When he cited the verse the first time, he could have quoted it in full. Only now did he remember to bring the whole verse? That’s the first question. The second question concerns the other verse as well. The verse “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”—the same thing. The Alter Rebbe brings the verse later on here: [unclear]. Where is it? Oh, no, sorry. “For Hashem’s portion”—where is the second verse? “For Hashem’s portion is His people.”

07:27 Speaker 2 “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” We can get started today already.

07:32 Speaker 1 Huh? Where’s the verse?

07:34 Speaker 2 It’s here, near the verse.

07:35 Speaker 1 Oh, yes, yes. Yes, in the fifth line—sixth. “And this is what is written: ‘For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance.’” Yes. So here, too, it’s the same story. It’s the same verse he brought before: earlier he quoted only half, and here he quotes the whole verse. It’s the other way around from what you’d expect. The first time he brings only half the verse; the second time, he brings all of it. Besides, he already quoted these verses. Why repeat them? What’s going on here? We need to understand that in chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe adds a very significant new point to the overall discussion, beyond what he said in chapter 4. In chapter 5, he introduces something new that he did not say in chapter 4. You can see it immediately at the beginning of chapter 5. The Alter Rebbe begins: “Now, the drawing down and descent of the divine soul into this world, to become clothed in a human body, derives from the inner aspect and source of speech, which is the supernal breath, as it is written: ‘And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.’” The Alter Rebbe begins chapter 5 by saying that the divine soul descends into the body. Where does it come from? From the inner aspect of the source of speech, which is the lower hei. What’s happening here, everyone? It’s hard to understand. The Alter Rebbe just finished saying in chapter 4 that the name Havayah has four letters and that the neshamah is “Hashem’s portion,” so the neshamah comes from all four letters. Then the Alter Rebbe explained that there is a yud, a hei, a vav, and a hei, and that all these letters are found in the neshamah—in insight, understanding, contemplation, mitzvos, everything he said at the end of chapter 4. So the neshamah has all four letters, not just the lower hei. Suddenly, in chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe speaks only about the lower hei. Why the lower hei? There are all four letters! So what’s going on here? What...

09:52 Speaker 1 What, what, what? There’s a distinction here between chapter 5 and chapter 4. So what’s the explanation? What’s the reasoning? In chapters 4 and 5, the Alter Rebbe is talking about two entirely different things. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe is talking about the essence of the soul at its source. Chapter 4 is about the essence of the soul at its source. The soul’s source is the name Havayah. That is the soul’s inherent distinction: it is not like all other created beings. All created beings come from the name Elokim. The soul comes from the name Havayah. The name Elokim is the external aspect; Havayah is the inner aspect. There’s another point: “He breathed.” The difference between all created beings and the soul is that all created beings come from speech, while the soul comes from breathing. The difference between speech and breathing is a difference in their very nature. Speech is external; breathing comes from within. “One who breathes, breathes from within”—the inner aspect. So in chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe explained the inherent distinction of a Jew, of his soul. What is the soul? It is a part of Havayah, a soul into which He breathed. That is why it is explained that the soul contains all four letters of the name Havayah. That is the explanation in chapter 4. But that is the soul above. What happens when the soul descends below? The soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body. So the Alter Rebbe said earlier that when the soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body, it must become enclothed in speech. Right? In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe says that the soul, too, must become enclothed in speech—in the hei, which is Malchus—so that it can become enclothed in the body. So the hei of Malchus becomes the final hei, the hei of speech. The soul, too, has an aspect of speech, which enables it to become enclothed in a physical body below. It emerges, then, that the soul has two aspects. There is the soul in its essence, at its source, as it exists above. There, the soul is the name Havayah and “He breathed”—the four letters, with all their distinctions. That is the soul in its very essence.

12:12 Speaker 1 But when the soul descends below to become enclothed in a body, it becomes something entirely different: speech. And then, seemingly, in that respect the soul is like all created beings. All created beings come from speech, and this, too, comes from speech. The soul, too, becomes the final hei and comes from speech. Then, in chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe adds a remarkable insight that matters to us in our service of Hashem—to us, to every one of us. This is really the entire foundation of Igeres Hateshuvah: even when the soul has descended below and becomes enclothed in a body, and must become enclothed in speech, in the hei of Malchus, even there the soul remains on the level of the inner aspect. It does not mean, as you might mistakenly understand, that the soul is connected at its source with “He breathed,” with Havayah, but that through becoming enclothed in a body and descending into speech, it becomes external. No. Even when the soul descends below and becomes enclothed in a body, and has to pass through the realm of speech, the final letter hei, even there it is the inner aspect of things. The inner aspect of speech. The inner aspect of the source of light within the realm of speech. It is not external speech, like that of the angels and other created beings. The speech, too, is on an inner level. That means that even when the soul is enclothed in a body and in the final hei of the name Havayah, all that is only its external aspect in relation to the body. At that very level, in that very place, the soul itself remains a part of Havayah. There, it remains connected with “He breathed,” with the essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even on the level of speech. Where do we learn this? For this, the Alter Rebbe brings those two verses again, at length. Now we understand why the Alter Rebbe brings the two verses here, and quotes not only the first half but the second half as well. What does the verse say? “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” From “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” the first part of the verse—from “He breathed”

14:22 Speaker 1 alone, without the continuation—we learn that the soul comes from the inner aspect of the essence, from the very lowest level. Just as breathing comes from within, so too the soul comes from within. That is what you learn from the words “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” So far, we only know the soul’s source: that it comes from a higher source than all created beings, from “He breathed,” from the inner aspect. But what happens down here? What does the second half of the verse say? “And man became a living soul.” What is the second half of the verse talking about? The soul down here. “And man became a living soul”—in the plain meaning. What is it talking about? The soul as it descended here below and became enclothed in a body. Here he became “a living soul,” and that appears in the same verse. So from this verse we learn that even when “He breathed” leads to “man became a living soul”—even when the soul descended below and became enclothed in a body—it still remains a part of Havayah. So that is the whole foundation of chapter 5 as compared with chapter 4. That is why in chapter 4 he quotes only the first half of the verse, while in chapter 5 he quotes the second half as well. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain the soul’s source. What is the soul? Compared with the angels, the soul’s source is higher. So he quotes only the first half of the verse, “He breathed.” In chapter 5, he wants to explain that it remains connected even down here. Even when it becomes enclothed in a body, it remains, in essence, a part of G-dliness. And we learn that from the second half: “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” This also helps us understand the Alter Rebbe’s wording. The Alter Rebbe says, “For behold, the plain meaning of the verse, where it says ‘He breathed,’” is not the main point for us. There’s a very interesting expression here. The wording—the lengthy wording beginning “For”—seems entirely unnecessary. When you read the wording in Tanya,

16:22 Speaker 1 you ask, what happened here? He already explained “He breathed” earlier, in chapter 4. Yes, and here the Alter Rebbe returns to it and adds an explanation: “For behold, the plain meaning of the verse, where it says ‘He breathed,’ is to teach us that just as when a person breathes out... if there is something intervening.” What is he trying—what is he trying to say here? Why the expression “to teach us”? Why “the plain meaning of the verse”? Why this lengthy wording here? It seems entirely unnecessary. The Alter Rebbe keeps adding more, and we’ll get to “He breathed,” right? Earlier, in chapter 4, he discussed “He breathed,” explaining that it means the inner aspect. Now he wants to add another point: “He breathed” also means there can be no interruption. Right? When a person breathes out, if you breathe here and there’s a barrier, then the breath won’t reach your mouth. Speech can be heard from behind a partition; breathing cannot, because breathing requires a connection. So he wants to say that the soul is connected in the same way. But why does he need the words “For behold, the plain meaning of the verse, where it says ‘He breathed,’ is to teach us”? What does all that wording add? But that is the whole point here. If you look at the plain meaning of the verse, its simple, literal meaning, what is the verse talking about? The simple meaning. “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”—what is the verse talking about? Does it want to explain the soul’s source, or does it want to describe how the soul became enclothed in the body? What is the verse about? A five-year-old learning Scripture: take the verse. A small child learns, “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” What does he learn from it? The essence of the soul at its source? The verse is not talking about that at all. The verse is talking about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a human being, a soul in a body. The plain meaning of the verse is: “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The verse comes to

18:06 Speaker 1 To explain what happens down here—how the soul came down here. And here we learn something new: although, for the soul to descend into a body, it had to pass through action—“And G-d said, ‘Let us make man’”—through speech, so that it could be clothed in a body, the verse nevertheless calls it “And He breathed.” This emphasizes that even when the soul is clothed in a body, it remains connected. “And He breathed”: the soul’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is a connection of breathing. And what does that mean? If there is a partition, if something intervenes, the breath does not reach its destination. If there is a sin, if something else stands in the way, it creates a break between the soul and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So that is the foundation of chapter 5. That is what the Alter Rebbe adds in chapter 5 beyond chapter 4. Again, in chapter 4 the Alter Rebbe comes to explain the soul’s greatness at its source. That is the entire point of chapter 4. So chapter 4 does not need the plain meaning of the verse. It needs the Zohar’s interpretation of the verse: the Zohar says that “And He breathed” means “One who breathes, breathes from within himself.” This expresses the soul’s greatness; the whole point is that it is connected with the innermost dimension of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But when we move to chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain the plain meaning of the verse—what effect this has down here: even as the soul descends, its connection remains one of “And He breathed.” So he brings the entire verse and adds those words. That is regarding this verse. The same applies to the second verse. What does the second verse say? “For Hashem’s portion is His people; Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance.” What does “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance” add to “Hashem’s portion is His people”? The same thing. “Hashem’s portion is His people” speaks of how the soul is connected with the Name Havayah. It speaks of the soul’s greatness at its source, as “Hashem’s portion.” Yaakov

20:05 Speaker 1 “is the cord of His inheritance” speaks of the soul’s descent into the body. That is where the cord comes in. That is the whole analogy of the cord: the soul descends and is clothed in a body. So here we have both ends. There is the upper end of the cord, connected with the Name Havayah, and the lower end of the cord, which is clothed in the body. The analogy of the cord describes the connection between the soul in the body and its source in G-dliness through the cord of the 613 mitzvos. When the 613 mitzvos are observed, there is a connection between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and a Jew. By contrast, when one commits a sin, one causes a blemish, and so on. That is the foundation. So the Alter Rebbe adds the second half of the verse here. It was not relevant in chapter 4. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe wanted to explain the soul and its source, so only the first half of the verse, “Hashem’s portion,” was relevant. Here the Alter Rebbe comes to explain the second half of the verse, because here it is important to clarify that even when “Yaakov is the cord of His inheritance”—even after the soul descends into a body, when it comes down by means of a cord with an upper end and a lower end—it still remains Hashem’s portion. That is why he brings the rest of the verse here. This is simply to understand the plain meaning of the Tanya here. Yes, so based on this, we can understand the entire progression of ideas in chapter 5. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe explained the soul’s essential greatness: it is Hashem’s portion, and it is connected with G-dliness. That is the soul’s wondrous quality. In chapter 5, the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain how the soul descends down here. Even as it descends, it remains what it is; it remains connected with Havayah, connected in its essence with Hashem’s portion. And this explains the concept of sin. Why can all other created beings

22:02 Speaker 1 do what they want, while when a Jew commits a sin, it causes a blemish? What is unique about the Jewish people that we say this when a Jew sins? So the Alter Rebbe goes on to discuss how no physical or spiritual thing can stand as a barrier before the Creator. Nothing can be separate from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The world cannot be separate from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Why? Because everything depends on Hakadosh Boruch Hu. All the verses he brings—four verses: “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” “Whatever Hashem desired, He did,” and “His sovereignty rules over all.” All the expressions he brings here speak about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present throughout the world. Nothing stands as a barrier. What happens when someone sins? “Rather, your iniquities have separated between you and your G-d.” There is such a thing. The only thing that can cause separation, a disconnection between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and something else, is sin. What is the connection? That is the continuation of the discussion here. The Alter Rebbe says: yes, the reason is that a sin is contrary to His will. What else? What is the explanation? So what if it is? The explanation is as follows. Based on the progression of ideas we are learning here, it is very simple. All created beings come from the external dimension of speech. Speech creates no barrier. Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke and brought the world into being. Whatever a created thing’s state may be, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present everywhere. “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present everywhere. What is the nature, the reality, of a created being? Whether or not it recognizes its own nullity is not relevant, because the truth remains the same: everything is nullified to Him. Ah, the physical created being shouts, “I, and nothing else!” The physical created being says, “I am an independent existence!” It makes no difference. Why? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present everywhere. Everything is nullified to Him. That is the truth. But

24:12 Speaker 1 a Jew is connected with the inner dimension of the Divine will. Even when a Jew is down here, the soul is “still a living soul.” Even though the Jew is a created being and has descended down here, the reality of a Jew is that he is connected with Hashem’s portion, with the inner dimension of the Divine will. And in the inner dimension of the Divine will, Torah and mitzvos matter. What matters to the inner dimension of the will, the supernal will, is that the Jew act specifically as Hashem wants. If you do not do what Hashem wants, you oppose the inner dimension of His will. That is where separation is possible. So the whole world is not separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because the world is connected only with the external dimension of His will, and in that external dimension there is no separation. From the standpoint of the external dimension of His will, everything is nullified to Him. That is it. But in the inner dimension of His will, Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose that His will be expressed through Torah and mitzvos—the 248 positive mitzvos and the 365 prohibitions. The moment a Jew commits a sin, it goes against the supernal will. In other words, it goes against the inner dimension of the will. And you, as a Jew, are connected with that inner dimension. So when you commit a sin, you disconnect yourself; you become separated. That is why only with a Jew is there such a thing as sin, such a thing as separation, Heaven forbid, from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the root of the whole concept of sin: a Jew becoming separated from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that brings us to the analogy of the cord. The cord is the Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But the moment a Jew sins, he damages the cord. He damages the Divine will; he damages the cord of connection, and that causes a blemish in the cord as a whole. There is a difference between an ordinary transgression and one punishable by kareis, and between other kinds of transgressions. There are different degrees of separation and disconnection, Heaven forbid, between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch

26:05 Speaker 1 Hu. And this gives rise to the whole concept of the exile of the Shechinah: when a person sins and separates himself from the supernal will, he takes the hei of the Name Havayah, which gives him life, and brings it down into the kelipos. The Shechinah then goes into exile, Heaven forbid, among the kelipos. That is why teshuvah is necessary afterward. When he does teshuvah, he brings the hei back out of the kelipos and returns it to its place. That is the meaning of teshuvah: tashuv hei, the hei returns to its place. Ah, do you understand the meaning a little better? I hope so... There are the Rebbe’s explanations of Igeres Hateshuvah here. We are learning only some of them. There is volume 39 here, and several books. It is simply the Rebbe’s genius. How does the Rebbe explain the Tanya? How does the Rebbe read its plain meaning? Every word is precise. I simply do not know how people understood Igeres Hateshuvah before the Rebbe. No, I cannot understand it. They simply did not understand it. They thought they did. The Rebbe took every single word, every detail, and illuminated it all so wonderfully. Every nuance is addressed. You can understand the straightforward progression of ideas, what is happening here, what the Rebbe said about the verses, all sorts of things. Every last detail is precise. It all fits naturally into the progression of ideas, down to every detail. There are ideas here, explanations here... There is a great deal. We spoke about only one point among many. Why, for example, does he bring four verses? What is the point of four verses? Why does the Rebbe need precisely four verses? “Heaven...” “I fill...” and so on. Why does he need four verses? He could have been so... up to “I am Hashem.” We spoke about it earlier. Everything else speaks about the oneness of Hashem. What does that mean?

28:24 Speaker 1 Why do we need four verses here? Bring one verse. Why do we need two analogies—one of blowing breath and one of a rope? Why isn’t one analogy enough? What does each add to the other? On the face of it, the two analogies contradict each other. Think about them: they aren’t alike at all. The analogy of blowing breath says there must be a constant connection between the source and the recipient. The moment something comes between them, it’s as though the flow stops altogether. So, as we said, once you put up a barrier, it simply doesn’t work. The analogy of a rope isn’t like that. There’s a rope, it’s tied, and you cut it. That’s a completely different analogy. What are these two analogies about? I’m saying all this just to make you want to look it up and search for the answer. The Rebbe explains everything in his explanations and corrections. But the point here, in the explanation of chapters 5 and 6, is that the Alter Rebbe comes to explain how the soul’s connection with inner G-dliness exists down here too. Therefore, when there is a sin or transgression, that connection is damaged. Then teshuvah is needed to return the Shechinah to its place, to return the hei to its place.