Chapter 2 - Second Lesson

00:01 Speaker 1 Yes, we’ll continue. Where are we holding in Tanya, chapter 2? After the colon. The Alter Rebbe begins here to explain the concept of the G-dly soul. He has explained that the distinction of the G-dly soul is that it is literally a part of G-d above. To explain this, he brings the words “And You breathed it into me.” Breathing comes from one’s innermost powers. That is the distinction of the soul: it comes, so to speak, from the innermost being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Here the Alter Rebbe begins to explain this in more detail. What does it mean that the soul comes from His innermost being? The Alter Rebbe says: “By way of analogy, the souls of Israel arose in thought.” The souls of the Jewish people arose in thought. What do these words mean? “The souls of Israel arose in thought.” Before he goes on, these words themselves call for explanation, as is discussed at greater length elsewhere in Chassidus. We’ve said several times that Tanya is like the Written Torah: every word can be the subject of entire maamarim, explanations, and series of maamarim that elaborate on it. “The souls of Israel arose in thought.” What does this tell us about the soul’s distinction? First, there is the very idea of thought: the soul comes from thought, whereas all created beings come from speech. The soul comes from thought. And the difference between thought and speech is very great. How does the difference between thought and speech work here below, in simple terms? Speech is separate, while thought remains attached. That is how it is in the physical world. Speech is for someone else; thought is for oneself. So it is also understood that since all creation comes from speech, it has the character of speech. Of souls, we say that they “arose in thought.” This means that a soul, by its very existence, is never a separate entity. Created beings come from speech. That means that a created being, by its very

02:18 Speaker 1 existence, is something separate. A soul, by contrast, is inherently attached to and united with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, just as thought is united with the soul. That is one point. Then there is another nuance. Chassidus notes the precise wording: “The souls of Israel arose in thought.” It doesn’t simply say “in thought”; it says “arose in thought.” Many maamarim explain that, in truth, all other created beings were also in thought. It is not just speech. Simply put, before Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke, He certainly thought. Hakadosh Boruch Hu thinks of creation. There are also teachings of our Sages and verses indicating that created beings, too, come from the thought of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As soon as it arises in thought—but souls “arose in thought.” Thought is connected with creation as well. So here the wording matters: “arose in thought,” because even within thought itself there are several levels. There is thought associated with speech: a person thinks about what to say. That is external thought. And there is inner thought. That is the point of “arose in thought”: they reached the highest level of thought. In any case, the souls of Israel come from a very lofty place in the thought of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Excuse me. As it is written, “Israel is My son, My firstborn,” and “You are children of Hashem your G-d.” Here the Alter Rebbe brings verses that show the distinction of the souls of Israel relative to all creation: the Torah calls the Jewish people children. “Israel is My son, My firstborn”; “You are children of Hashem your G-d.” Those are two verses. Why does he bring both? The Rebbe explains that one verse speaks of the soul as it is in Atzilus, and the other speaks of the soul as it is in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. “My son, My firstborn”—the term “firstborn,” according to Kabbalah and Chassidus, refers to the soul in Atzilus. That is one verse about the soul above. Then he brings the second verse, “You are children”: even when the soul has descended into Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, it is still called

04:30 Speaker 1 a child. And here the Alter Rebbe says that the reason the Jewish people are called children is not that they observe Torah and mitzvos. Most commentators explain that the Jewish people are called children because they observe Torah and mitzvos and have a connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. They relate it to serving Hashem, since the verse says, “You are children of Hashem your G-d; do not cut yourselves.” It is connected with serving Hashem and observing the mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe says no: “You are children of Hashem your G-d” is not on account of observing mitzvos. It is because of what a Jew is in essence. This is what the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain. Some commentators take “children” as a term of affection and closeness: Hakadosh Boruch Hu addresses the Jewish people and says, “You are as dear to Me as children, and therefore I command you to do various things.” The Alter Rebbe is saying no: it is intrinsic. A Jew being literally a part of G-d above does not depend on any conditions. It is a matter of his very being; that is the essence of the soul. The Alter Rebbe goes on to say that “children” here means children in the same essential sense as it does among human beings. It is not merely a figure of speech; they truly are children. A Jew is truly a child of Hakadosh Boruch Hu because he comes from the deepest place. That is what follows here: “Meaning: Just as a son is drawn from his father’s brain, so, as it were, the soul of every Jew is drawn from His thought and wisdom, blessed be He. For ‘He is wise, but not with a knowable wisdom’; rather, He and His wisdom are one.” Why are the Jewish people called children? Just as a son comes from the deepest place, from his father’s brain, so too the souls of Israel come, as it were, from the Divine wisdom, from the innermost being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That wisdom is one with His innermost being: “He is wise, but not with a knowable wisdom.”

06:28 Speaker 1 He and His wisdom are one. So to speak, when we say that the soul comes from His wisdom, we mean that it comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. Let’s explain this a little. What is the analogy of children? We say that a son is drawn from his father’s brain. A son is drawn from his father’s brain. That is the source of the whole process of having a child. A son comes from his father’s brain. What does that mean? Is it physical, or does it refer to something spiritual—to his thoughts? There is a letter from the Rebbe explaining that “the father’s brain” does not necessarily mean the physical brain in the literal sense. It can also refer to daas, to thought, to the activity of thinking, from which the process of having a child then follows. In any case, the father’s brain is the source of the son’s birth. Now, there are two aspects to the father’s brain. There is intellect in the brain, and there is the essence within it. On the one hand, the brain is the seat of intellect. But we know that the brain is not only the seat of intellect. It also contains things beyond intellect. This is what the Alter Rebbe will say in chapter 51: the soul, the essence of the soul, is present in the brain. The brain is a vessel for life. The soul’s life-force first enters the brain and then all the limbs. Similarly, there are two kinds of influence that come from the brain. There is the transmission of intellect, and there is the transmission of the seminal drop, as it is called in Chassidus. The Rebbe Rashab discusses this at length. The brain communicates and conveys intellect, but it also has its essence, where the soul is present, and it is from there that the child comes. So when we say that a son comes from his father’s brain, we do not mean only intellect; we mean his essence. The father’s essence is drawn into the son. That is why we say, “The power of the son surpasses the power of the father”: sometimes the son can reveal hidden powers, essential powers, that the father did not reveal. There is the well-known explanation in Chassidus that “the power of the son surpasses” means that it is greater,

08:41 Speaker 1 On the other hand, he comes from the father’s own essence. And that is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. When we say that a son comes from the father’s brain, we mean from his essence. The same is true of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We say that the root of the soul is Chochmah Ila’ah, that the soul’s root comes, so to speak, from the supernal brain, which is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s Chochmah Ila’ah. But here, too, I don’t mean the intellect within Chochmah Ila’ah, so to speak; I mean the essence. That is what he says: “He and His wisdom are one.” Because with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, He Himself is present within Chochmah; He and His wisdom are one. So saying that the soul comes from Chochmah is another way of saying that it comes from His Essence and Being. Why doesn’t the Alter Rebbe simply say that the soul comes from His Essence and Being? That is another, broader point about Tanya: the Alter Rebbe tries to discuss everything in terms of lower levels. This is a principle in Tanya that helps us understand many things there. Throughout Tanya, we see that the Alter Rebbe does not use levels above the order of hishtalshelus. There is something very striking: nowhere in Tanya will you find chayah or yechidah. In later maamarim, chayah and yechidah are central. Especially as the students here are learning in Kuntres Inyana Shel Toras HaChassidus, Chassidus revealed the concept of yechidah. But look for the word “yechidah” in Tanya—is it there? It isn’t. Tanya speaks neither of chayah nor of yechidah. And the same applies above: in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe does not speak about levels above Atzilus. When he discusses the principal, highest levels, he speaks of Atzilus. You won’t find the Alter Rebbe mentioning Kesser, Ein Sof, or the tzimtzum and what precedes it in Tanya. All those levels—

10:54 Speaker 1 no, he doesn’t discuss them. And there is a whole approach behind this, because in Tanya, the book for the beinoni, the Alter Rebbe is speaking to a person—to every single reader. So he presents these matters at the level of nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, the inner faculties. And the Alter Rebbe calls the inner faculties the soul’s essence and being. We can see this plainly in all the chapters that follow. That is why, here too, when he speaks about the soul at its root, the Alter Rebbe speaks about Chochmah. But what is the point? Chochmah contains everything. Since “He and His wisdom are one,” everything is present there. Of course, in later maamarim we will see them speaking of the soul as rooted much higher, all the way in His Essence, and even before the tzimtzum, through all those levels. It isn’t a contradiction; each discussion has its own context. Here we are speaking in terms of these levels. But what is the Alter Rebbe trying to tell us here? It’s very interesting. We had three analogies: blowing, thought, and a son being born from his father’s brain—however we want to put it. These are three expressions found only in reference to the soul of a Jew. Only of the Jewish soul does it say, “He blew”; only of the Jewish soul does it say, “They arose in thought”; and only of the Jewish soul does it say, “You are children of Hashem your G-d.” What these three have in common is that they describe a transmission of essence. That helps us understand what is unique about a Jew, what a Jewish soul has that no other living being, nothing else in the world, has. He has an essential connection; there is something intrinsic to him. The difference is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created all other beings, but created them in such a way that they experience themselves as independent entities. Therefore, they do not have true bittul. This also helps us better understand what we learned in the previous chapter: why, among non-Jews, good character traits cannot be entirely pure. There will always

12:58 Speaker 1 be some sense of self, pride, or selfishness mixed in, because that is his nature. He was created that way. That itself exists in relation to

16:15 Speaker 2 “He knows Himself.” In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not made up of parts. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is perfect in the ultimate sense. He lacks nothing and is not composed of parts. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is one, an absolute oneness. This is one of the Rambam’s principles. The Rambam set out the principles of faith. One of the principles a Jew needs to know is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is an absolute oneness—meaning that with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, everything is intrinsically one. It is hard for us; we cannot understand how that works. But that is His nature, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu lacks nothing. If I say He is composed of parts, that means He lacks something and is completed by other things. It would also require someone to put those parts together, and we cannot say that about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So we say that with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is all one: “He is the knowledge, He is the Knower, and He knows Himself.” What does the Alter Rebbe want to say in our context? The Alter Rebbe is speaking about the soul and its Creator. “He is the knowledge, He is the Knower”: here, “knowledge” refers to the soul, and “the Knower” refers, so to speak, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “He is the knowledge, He is the Knower”—meaning that the soul and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one. “It is beyond the capacity of man to comprehend this fully,” as it is written, “Can you fathom G-d?” and “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.” The mind is limited. This is beyond the scope of intellect, but it is a foundation of faith. Why is it important for us to know this here? To understand the unique quality of a Jewish soul: it is “truly a part of G-d above.” Now there is a note here—a note. Of course we will learn it now. I’m not going to get into the entire subject, because it is an endless ocean. This is a very fundamental subject in Chassidus, and many maamarim and series of maamarim are built on this note. It is interesting: the Alter Rebbe returns to the point in this note several times, including in Tanya.

18:19 Speaker 2 The Alter Rebbe brings up this point some three or four times. It’s remarkable, but that is what we see. In other words, it is fundamental to the avodah taught in Tanya. Here the Alter Rebbe is brief. The Tzemach Tzedek discusses it at greater length and in more detail in Derech Mitzvosecha, Shoresh Mitzvas Hatefillah. We’ll explain exactly what the issue is, but first I’ll say it briefly in my own words, and then we’ll read it inside. The Alter Rebbe cites the Rambam to demonstrate the nature of the soul: that it is truly a part of G-d above. The soul is an aspect of Chochmah. He wants to say that when we say, “He is the Knower and He is the knowledge,” we mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu and Chochmah—the soul—are one with G-dliness. This explains the depth of that oneness: the soul and G-dliness are one. But here a very fundamental question arises, a very simple question. Others did not agree with the Rambam’s position. Many of the Kabbalists disagreed with the Rambam. In fact, there were such serious objections to this statement of his that some great Jewish scholars forbade studying the Rambam because of it. There were, as is known, objections to the Rambam: How can you say such a thing about Hakadosh Boruch Hu? It seemingly confines Hakadosh Boruch Hu within the bounds of intellect. Yet Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, as His name indicates, holy. “Holy” means set apart, beyond any defined form. How can you call Him “intellect”? Those were among the objections; there were others too. In the Rambam’s time there was Rabbeinu Yonah, as is known. Later there was the Maharal of Prague, many years afterward, and the Maharal writes very strongly about this. So the question arises: the Alter Rebbe cites the Rambam in Tanya as a matter of course. That is why the Alter Rebbe writes this note—to explain and reconcile it. How is it understood according to Kabbalah? He says:

20:35 Speaker 2 The Alter Rebbe says: “And the masters of Kabbalah agreed with him.” As the Rambam writes, the masters of Kabbalah agree with the Rambam—the opposite of what the Maharal of Prague says. Although the Maharal of Prague was a kabbalist, he lived in the era of the Arizal. But he did not receive his teachings from the Arizal, because he lived elsewhere. He was also, apparently, older than the Arizal. As is known, the Maharal passed away after the Arizal, but he was born earlier. He was older than him. In any case, the Ramak—no, sorry, the Maharal—did not know the Kabbalah of the Arizal, or even that of the Ramak. He came from elsewhere and received his Kabbalah from his own sources. His grandfather was a kabbalist, and so on. Wherever his Kabbalah came from, in practice he disagrees with the Rambam. But then came the Ramak—again, by “then” I mean around the same time, but in a different place. The Ramak brought order to Kabbalah and reconciled various matters in it, and afterward came the Arizal. The Arizal was a student of the Ramak—a student. He learned from the Ramak, though he also had another tradition, and the Arizal disagreed with the Ramak on many things. In any case, the Ramak and the Arizal are considered the authorities—how do you say it, the final authorities in Kabbalah? The ones whose rulings we follow are the Ramak and the Arizal. They gathered all the approaches and brought order to Kabbalah. And since the Arizal came after the Ramak, when the Ramak and the Arizal disagree, we follow the Arizal, as is known from several sichos. So this is what the Alter Rebbe says: “And the masters of Kabbalah agreed with him,” as is written in the Ramak’s Pardes. The Ramak writes that the Rambam is right: there is a concept of “He is the Knowledge and He is the Knower” in Atzilus, of course. He will explain shortly. “And this also holds true according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal.” Not only according to the Ramak—even according to the Arizal. What does he

22:40 Speaker 2 mean by “even according to the Arizal”? That is the novelty, because the Arizal spoke of the utter transcendence of the Ein Sof far more than the Ramak did. The Ramak did not know about the tzimtzum, so he saw Hakadosh Boruch Hu as closer to the tree. Thus, he accepted the Rambam’s view. That is not such a novelty. The Arizal spoke of the first tzimtzum as a withdrawal, so the Ein Sof has no relation whatsoever to the tree. Nevertheless, even according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal, who spoke of the Ein Sof’s absolute transcendence, he too agrees with the Rambam that one can say, “He is the Knowledge and He is the Knower.” In what sense? How can we say that? So he explains: “Through the mystical process of the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, becoming enclothed, by way of numerous tzimtzumim, in the vessels of Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of Atzilus.” We are not speaking here about before the tzimtzum; we are speaking about after the tzimtzum. “But not above Atzilus, as explained elsewhere, for the Ein Sof, blessed be He, is exalted and elevated infinitely above the essence and level of Chochmah, Binah, and Daas, to the point that the essence and level of Chochmah, Binah, and Daas are considered like physical action in relation to Him, blessed be He. As it is written, ‘You made them all with wisdom.’” This is the Arizal’s approach: on the one hand, the Ein Sof is utterly beyond comparison to the sefiros, infinitely exalted—so much so that I call the wisdom of Atzilus “action” in relation to the Ein Sof. “You made them all with wisdom.” Just as action is utterly beyond comparison to wisdom, so too wisdom is utterly beyond comparison to the Ein Sof. And the Alter Rebbe explains this at length in chapters 8, 9, and 10 of Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. This whole matter of being beyond comparison, of utter transcendence, is from the perspective of the Ein Sof as He is in Himself. But at the same time, from the perspective of unity—from the perspective of unity, of enclothement, of the whole discussion of the tzimtzum and the vessels, of their union—on the contrary, within all the sefiros the Ein Sof is present in perfect

24:36 Speaker 2 unity. That is why we say, “He is the Knowledge, He is the Knower, and He is the Known Himself.” So when we say that the soul’s root is in the wisdom of Atzilus, it follows that what is there is not only Atzilus; the Ein Sof is also present there. And so we can understand what this means for us in our avodah. This is not merely a matter of Kabbalah or intellectual concepts and so on. What does it mean for us in our avodah? The Alter Rebbe wants to say: From this we can understand what we will learn later in Tanya—that this is why a Jew has more than just bittul. A Jew has the power of mesirus nefesh because of this very point: the soul is rooted not only in wisdom, but in wisdom as the Ein Sof shines within it. This explains why a Jew has simple faith, has mesirus nefesh, and has all the extraordinary qualities of a Jewish soul; how a Jew can have the deepest bond with G-dliness and the most complete bittul to G-dliness. It all stems from the fact that the soul’s root is rooted in all these levels.