Tanya - General Introduction (5785)

00:01 There’s a well-known principle about the Tanya, expressed in a saying of our Rebbeim: the Tanya is like the Chumash, the Written Torah. Even a small child learns Chumash, the plain meaning of the text, and understands something. And the greatest person, the greatest scholar, no matter how much he learns, always finds more and more depth in it. Its depth is endless. We see this plainly with the Written Torah, and the same is true of the Tanya. A small child can learn Tanya; a young student can begin learning it; and everyone can find things in it that speak to his own life. And the more deeply we study the Tanya, the more depth we find, one new insight after another. It’s endless. It really is. There are many ways to learn Tanya, too. There’s a well-known story about a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek. One version, told in the sichos, is about a great chossid who had already been with the Alter Rebbe. By the time of the Tzemach Tzedek, he was one of the elder chassidim. Once, he brought his grandson to the Tzemach Tzedek and asked him to study with the boy as a chavrusa—to learn Tanya with him. Out of respect for that chossid, the Tzemach Tzedek agreed. But after a few days, or perhaps a few weeks, the lessons stopped. The elder chossid asked why: Why had the Rebbe stopped the lessons? The Tzemach Tzedek told him that the boy had stopped coming. So the grandfather asked his grandson, “Why did you stop going to the lessons?” He answered, “I came to the first lesson, and the Tzemach Tzedek read the entire chapter. He didn’t offer any explanation at all; he just read the chapter. I came the next day, and again he read another chapter.

02:29 “He didn’t explain anything. I can read Tanya on my own, so I stopped coming. There were no explanations at all.” The chossid asked the Tzemach Tzedek, “What was really happening? Why did you teach him that way?” The Tzemach Tzedek told him, “I did the same thing. That’s how I learned with my grandfather. When the Alter Rebbe began learning Tanya with me, he first went through the entire Tanya with me without any explanations. Only the second time did he begin offering explanations, and each time we learned it, we went deeper and deeper. But apparently the boy didn’t like that.” The grandson apologized and wanted to return, but the Tzemach Tzedek said, “Now it’s too late.” He was no longer willing to take upon himself to learn the Tanya without explanations. We see from this that even simply reading the words of Tanya has value. As we know, there are many ways to learn it: there are the words themselves and their plain meaning, and there is their deeper meaning. We also know what the Rebbe Rashab writes about the Tanya: one must be careful about offering interpretations, but when they relate to serving Hashem and lead to yiras Shamayim, then one may speak about them. In other words, it used to be known that chassidim were extremely careful not to add interpretations or ideas, but to say and teach only what they had received from other chassidim. I remember that in yeshiva, our mashpia was Rabbi Gringlass, a”h, one of the elder mashpi’im. He gave a Tanya class twice a week, and that class was treated with great reverence, down to every detail. Every year he would learn the Tanya with us anew. Usually, he would cover almost all of Likkutei Amarim over the course of the year. He also had his own particular approach, and he had

04:33 interpretations he had received from chassidim, which he had learned from his mashpi’im, who in turn had received them from theirs. It was a matter of tradition: this is what we received. They were very, very careful. With the Rebbe, things were different. The Rebbe wanted people to learn Tanya with understanding and intellectual grasp. We in our generation were privileged that the Rebbe gave us wonderful explanations. I don’t know how people managed—how they understood the Tanya before the Rebbe. In our generation, we were privileged to have Lessons in Tanya. Rabbi Yosef Weinberg, a”h, began giving those lessons on the radio, and the Rebbe reviewed and edited them. Thanks to that, we have a wealth of explanations, notes, and wonderful insights into understanding the Tanya. Besides that, after Gimmel Tammuz, the source references and notes the Rebbe wrote before assuming the leadership also came to light, and they contain further insights. So in our generation, an endless depth in the Tanya, particularly as it relates to serving Hashem, has been revealed. And that’s without even mentioning the farbrengens, when the Rebbe would discuss Tanya in the middle of a farbrengen—sometimes almost in passing—and offer such wonderful explanations. In particular, as we said, translating the Tanya into our service of Hashem is extremely important. We need to know that, on the one hand, Tanya is a book to study and a book about avodah. Tanya is Chabad. In the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe presented the approach of Chabad Chassidus, and Chabad Chassidus calls for avodah and understanding: one needs to understand, not merely engage in avodah; there has to be intellectual grasp and explanation. On the other hand, Tanya is a book of avodah, a book that explains how to serve Hashem, and so Tanya concerns the service of the heart. It is a book that combines, so to speak, very deep intellectual understanding with very deep avodah, chapter by chapter. There is an intellectual dimension—the explanations and their depth—and at the same time there is depth in serving Hashem. There is

07:06 something very interesting here. What we’re discussing is not some side issue; it’s very important. When we say that intellectual understanding and avodah go together in the Tanya, that is the very foundation of Chabad Chassidus. As is well known, the Alter Rebbe first considered one order and then came to a different conclusion. One of the famous stories, which the Rebbe also discussed several times, is that the Alter Rebbe initially wanted to print Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah first, followed by Likkutei Amarim. More than that: he wrote Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah first, and only afterward wrote Likkutei Amarim. That was the order in which he wrote them, and that was his plan. The Alter Rebbe’s plan was to print Likkutei Amarim as the first part—sorry, Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah as the first part, and Likkutei Amarim as the second. Later he decided to reverse the order, which is why Likkutei Amarim comes first. But although he changed the order, he didn’t change the wording. The wording still reflects an order in which Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah precedes Likkutei Amarim. You can see this in several places in Tanya where he writes “as I explained,” referring to explanations in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah as though they had appeared before Likkutei Amarim. The Rebbe once discussed this at a farbrengen: What exactly is the difference? What is Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, and what is Likkutei Amarim? What distinguishes these two parts of Tanya? Simply put, Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah is what its name says: unity and faith. It explains the oneness of Hashem; it explains faith. In other words, Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah deals with the intellect. Clearly, it calls for thought and a great deal of intellectual study and explanation. The whole subject of Hashem’s oneness, the unity of Havayah and Elokim, involves very deep intellectual concepts. That’s what we explained. Likkutei Amarim is avodah.

09:04 Likkutei Amarim explains the avodah of the beinoni. How should the struggle in serving Hashem be waged? So, on the face of it, the order is “Know this day and take it to heart,” as it says at the beginning of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. That is the verse the Rebbe begins with. The order of avodah is that first comes “Know this day,” and afterward “take it to heart.” A person has to contemplate and understand the oneness of Hashem, and only then can he bring it into practice in serving Hashem and live the life of a beinoni—in thought, speech, and action. So Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah should come first. But in the end, the Alter Rebbe decided to change the order. He placed Likkutei Amarim before Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. Before it. Why did he change the order? Because action is the main thing. The Alter Rebbe wanted to emphasize that we must not stop at intellectual understanding. On the one hand, the Alter Rebbe revealed Chabad’s distinctive approach to comprehension. But he did not want chassidim to be intellectuals. That was not the goal. The Alter Rebbe wanted chassidim to be people who work on themselves, who know that the purpose is avodah in practice. And that is what all of Likkutei Amarim is about. Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling in the lower realms: “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” The point is that there must be avodah in practice. That is why he put Likkutei Amarim before Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. Interesting. The Rebbe once spoke about this at a farbrengen. I think I was at that farbrengen too. It was a farbrengen in 5747, when the Rebbe spoke about the fact that Tanya has two beginnings. The Alter Rebbe wanted to begin with Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, but in practice he began with Likkutei Amarim. It is just like the Chumash. They say Tanya is like the Chumash, and it is the same with the Chumash. After all, this is the first Rashi: Why did the Torah need to begin by telling us about Bereishis rather than with “This month shall be for you”? So in the Torah, too, there is an initial possibility and a final conclusion. The Torah

11:10 should have begun with “This month shall be for you.” In practice, the Torah begins with Bereishis. So the Rebbe explained that there, too, it is the same idea. The Torah should have begun with “This month shall be for you.” What is the significance of “This month shall be for you”? It is the revelations of the Giving of the Torah, revelations of intellectual understanding—especially according to Chassidus, what “This month shall be for you” means at a deeper level. Bereishis is avodah. Bereishis is the account of Creation; it is the creation of the world. So a verse in Bereishis—that is to say, it is exactly the same idea. Just as the Chumash should have begun with “This month shall be for you,” but in practice began with Bereishis, so too Tanya should have begun with the subject of creation from nothing, the chain of spiritual worlds, which relates to faith. But in practice it begins with Likkutei Amarim. In any case, what I want to say is that in Tanya we see very, very strongly how it all comes together. It has that connection, the perfect connection that Chabad Chassidus reveals, between intellect and avodah: it has to lead to avodah in practice, and that is the purpose. But at the same time, the avodah has to be founded on explanation and depth. There is a very interesting story connected with this. There is a very interesting story about this point in Tanya, about the whole matter of avodah, which the Frierdiker Rebbe relates. The Frierdiker Rebbe tells the following story. In 5663, the Rebbe Rashab was in Vienna, Austria, for medical reasons. As is known, he spent about three months in Austria. While he was there, he did not want people to know who he was. So he dressed like an ordinary householder. People did not know he was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he would daven and learn all day in a shul—a Polish chassidic shul, the Premishlan shul. There

13:33 he would learn and daven all day. That was how it was. People had no idea he was the Rebbe of Lubavitch. He was there; it was not like today, when everyone knows who someone is. People did not know. And so he sat there, learned, and followed his usual schedule. He often liked to sit with the older chassidim, the older Premishlan chassidim, the Polish chassidim. He would sit with them, farbreng, and listen to stories. Many stories we have today in Chabad come from stories the Frierdiker Rebbe and the Rebbe Rashab heard from the elder chassidim who were there in the shtetl, in the shul, at that time. So there was one older chossid there. Well, one time he began talking to the Rebbe Rashab. He told him he had a grievance, a complaint about him. So the Rebbe Rashab said, “Nu, tell me—what is it?” He said, “I see that you are very cold. You lack warmth.” He was telling the Rebbe Rashab that, as he saw it, the Rebbe Rashab lacked warmth, lacked... Of course, one of the differences with Polish chassidim is that there is more visible excitement, more dancing, more of that sort of thing. Chabad Chassidus has more explanation, more depth. So he told him, “I see that you are very cold. You lack warmth.” The Rebbe Rashab said to him, “Nu, nu, perhaps you have some advice? Perhaps you can help me?” So the man went to the bookcase and took out a book. He brought it over and said, “This book will help you.” The Rebbe Rashab opened the book. What was it? Tanya. So this man brought him a Tanya and said, “Here, learn Tanya. It will give you warmth.” The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that the Rebbe Rashab played along and took the Tanya. He looked at it, took it, leafed through it, and said, “Yes, yes, this is...

15:34 Look what a good book this is. It’s a good book.” He kept playing along. But the lesson is that everyone finds in Tanya what they are looking for. That man saw warmth in Tanya. It gave him warmth. It gave him warmth in serving Hashem. When a Jew learns Tanya as Chabad Chassidus teaches us to, then of course he sees the depth in Tanya, the inner depth it contains. What am I trying to say? This opens the door to the fact that there are many ways to learn Tanya, and all of them are important. But one of the most important things we always need to know is that with every chapter of Tanya, every line of Tanya, we have to think: What does this mean for me in my life? What does this chapter, this point, mean in our lives? How does it affect our lives? Tanya is a book the Alter Rebbe wrote for our generation. There is a well-known story chassidim tell, which the Frierdiker Rebbe also relates in connection with Tanya. When the Alter Rebbe sent Tanya to be printed, he sent it to request approbations. He asked two rabbis for approbations. As is known, the introduction to Tanya contains the approbations of those two rabbis: Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli and Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaKohen. Both of these men were students of the Maggid. They were friends of the Alter Rebbe, and both lived in Anipoli. Why was that? There is a tradition among chassidim about why, of all the Maggid’s students, he chose these two in particular. Anipoli is where the Maggid’s tziyun is located. The Ohel, the tziyun, the place where the Maggid is buried, is in Anipoli. And these two tzaddikim remained living near the tziyun. Rabbi Zusha and Rabbi Yehuda Leib lived near the Maggid’s Ohel. That is precisely why the Alter Rebbe sought them out, sought

17:50 The students who were closest to the Maggid after his passing. Those were these two, because they lived near the Maggid’s resting place. There is a tradition about this among chassidim. In practice, each of them wrote an approbation. These are the approbations we have in the Tanya. Now, it is known that the difference between the two approbations is how they wrote the year. One of them, Reb Zusha of Anipoli, wrote that the year of the approbation was the year of “our redemption.” That was 5556. They wrote the approbations in Elul 5556, but one expressed the year through the numerical value of “our redemption,” while the other wrote 5556. The Frierdiker Rebbe said that when Reb Yehuda Leib HaKohen wrote 5556, he meant its Hebrew letters as an acronym for “Tanya is ketores for the nefesh and ruach”—that the Tanya is like ketores, incense, for the soul, for the nefesh and ruach. What does it mean that the Tanya is ketores? It is known, as written in the Chumash, that ketores has the power to stop a plague. Aharon HaKohen went with the ketores and stopped the plague. So Reb Yehuda Leib HaKohen was saying that the Tanya is the ketores that stops the spiritual plagues that will come before Moshiach’s arrival. In other words, he said that before Moshiach comes, the world will face a kind of spiritual plague. There will be challenges, concealments and obstacles, very great difficulties in serving Hashem, and the Tanya is the book that provides a remedy for all of these things. That is what Reb Yehuda Leib HaKohen said. Reb Zusha wrote “our redemption.” What does “our redemption” mean? That the Tanya is the book that prepares us for the Geulah. The Tanya is how we prepare for Moshiach’s arrival. Through the Tanya, we prepare to greet Moshiach Tzidkeinu. As the Rebbe explains in his sichos—the well-known sichos; the Rebbe has many sichos on this subject, in his sichos for 19 Kislev—there are two aspects to studying Chassidus. There is studying Chassidus as a remedy for the darkness

20:24 of exile. There is the well-known question: Why was Chassidus revealed only now, and not earlier? There are two answers. One is that Chassidus came to heal the darkness of exile, and the other is that Chassidus came to prepare us for the Geulah. There is a famous sicha that presumably many of the bochurim, or all of them, have studied before—the famous sicha that explains the idea of coals and pearls. On the one hand, Chassidus is like coals; on the other hand, it is like pearls. And the Rebbe explains these two aspects of Chassidus: it illuminates the darkness. Precisely because the darkness of exile is now so intense, we need a special power, and that is Chassidus. This is like the well-known analogy of the jewel in the king’s crown, used to heal the king’s sick son. On the other hand, Chassidus is also like the ornaments prepared for the chuppah, for the great wedding of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people. The Tanya has both of these qualities. The Tanya is a book that gives us a remedy for all the ailments of our generation, and the truth is that we can see this plainly. Today, throughout the world, the Tanya has become one of the most powerful books. It is known in all kinds of places and in all kinds of ways. Jews of every kind study Tanya, not only in Chabad. It has become one of the most—I’m not sure if it is the most—but it is a book that every Jew who studies it feels simply gives him the strength to overcome all the difficulties we face today. The Tanya gives us that strength. And on the other hand, the Tanya is a book that brings light, opens up the soul and prepares us for the Geulah. It reveals the unity within the world to us and prepares us for the time of Moshiach. So these two things are really why it is so very important for a bochur to devote himself to Tanya and to want to study it—to study it

22:27 in a way that the Tanya illuminates his mind and heart, and most importantly, that it also leads to practical action in thought, speech and deed, and in everyday life.