Chapter 2 - Third Lesson

00:01 We’re in the middle of chapter 2, after the note. Actually, near the bottom, three lines from the bottom: “And although there are.” Chapter 2 is where the Alter Rebbe explains the unique quality of a Jew: “The second soul in a Jew is literally a part of G-d above.” The Alter Rebbe helps us understand the remarkable insight he reveals in Tanya about the soul. What is a Jew? What is a Jew’s true essence? The soul is literally a part of G-d above. He explains this through analogies: the analogy of “He breathed” is one; the analogy of thought is a second; and the analogy of a son, which the Alter Rebbe is now going to discuss at length. A son originates in his father’s brain. The Alter Rebbe explains that when the Torah says, “You are children of Hashem your G-d,” it means “children” in the fullest sense. It isn’t merely a term of love or affection, or a poetic expression, like “my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one.” In Shir Hashirim too, every name and every word has explanations; they aren’t just beautiful words. But when we say “children,” which is what we’re discussing here, we mean it in the fullest sense. So what do we see? In the physical world, a son originates in his father’s brain. No matter which son or who he is, all children have this in common: they originate in their father’s brain. Similarly, above—what does that mean? So to speak, the Father’s brain above is supernal Chochmah. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes that above, this is even more profound. When we speak of supernal Chochmah in relation to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, He and His wisdom are one. A human being, who is limited and created, is made up of parts. So each part is something in its own right. Even with a human being, though, when we say a son comes from the brain, we don’t mean only the external aspect of the brain. We mean

02:23 its inner aspect, as the Ramban explains. The root of procreation comes from a deep place. But ultimately, a human being is made up of parts. With G-dliness, we say that He and His wisdom are one. He is the knowledge and He is the Knower. Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His wisdom are one. So to say that the soul comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom, that the soul is rooted in supernal Chochmah, is really to say that the soul is rooted in Him Himself, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His wisdom are one. That is why he brought the note, with the whole discussion of how the Rambam says this and how Kabbalah explains it. There is the disagreement between the Rambam and the Maharal on this matter, and Kabbalah addresses it here. It explains that the Rambam is correct from the perspective of the ten sefiros being invested in the vessels of Atzilus: from that perspective, the oneness, the unity, comes about. With the vessels, “He and His life-force and His vessels are one.” So when we speak of Chochmah, we are really saying that He and His wisdom are one. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is present within His wisdom. The soul’s root is in Chochmah, but that root is really Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. As we discussed—if I’m not mistaken; I don’t remember for certain, but I think I mentioned it—in other maamarim this is discussed on an even higher level. Many maamarim in Chassidus begin by discussing the soul’s root in G-dliness before the tzimtzum. But in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe consistently takes care not to go into higher levels. That is a principle in Tanya, and it’s very important to keep in mind because it applies in many places. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe does not discuss what is above the ten sefiros, either in G-dliness above or in the human soul. He doesn’t—everything is discussed within the order of hishtalshelus. So even when he wants to describe the greatest possible quality, he always connects it, in some way, to the sefiros. Therefore, when we speak of the soul’s root, its root in G-dliness is in Chochmah,

04:20 but what does that mean? In Chochmah, He and His wisdom are one. It is one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. There is a very fundamental point here, and we’ll come back to what I’m about to say. When we say that the soul’s root is like a son rooted in his father’s brain—we’re now going to study this at length—but there is another principle in Chassidus that is very relevant to this whole discussion. Although we use the analogy of a father and son for the relationship between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is a difference between the analogy and what it represents. Apart from what we just said, that a human being is made up of parts while Hakadosh Boruch Hu and His wisdom are one, there is another very important, fundamental point: ultimately, despite the lengthy explanation we’re about to learn in the rest of the chapter, a son is in fact separate from his father. He becomes an entity in his own right, a separate entity. He still has a connection afterward—that’s what we’re about to study at length and explain—but when we speak of Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the souls of the Jewish people, the soul is never truly separate. It is as though the soul always remains part of the father’s brain, as though it never left it. It always remains connected. In a maamar [unclear]. It is explained in Likkutei Torah, in one of the maamarim on [unclear]. This relates to mesirus nefesh. According to halachah, if a father and son are both in mortal danger, the son is not obligated to give his life for his father. There is no such obligation. “Your life takes precedence” applies to a father and son as well. In other words, if both the father and the son are in mortal danger, then a person

06:19 must first attend to his own situation; he must also protect himself. There is a [unclear] that we say regarding a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu: a Jew’s bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is such that he is ready to give up his life for Him. He acts with mesirus nefesh; he sacrifices himself for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is something we don’t find in the physical analogy. Why is that? What is the difference? It has to do with this very point. With a father and son, ultimately the son becomes a separate entity. He is rooted in his father and has a connection to him, even afterward. The Rebbe will explain this shortly. But in practice, he becomes a separate entity, and therefore his life takes precedence. There are also various matters in halachah where the son has his own status under Torah law. By contrast, when it comes to a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, a Jew is, even now, essentially a part of G-d above. He was never truly disconnected. That is why a Jew has the capacity for mesirus nefesh for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and this applies in all matters. This is very important. One more point in this whole discussion of a Jew’s unique quality as a part of G-d above—literally. The Rebbe repeated this many times; it appears in Likkutei Dibburim in the name of the Rashbatz. As is well known, the Rashbatz was the teacher of the Rebbe Rashab and the Frierdiker Rebbe, and so on. Much is said about the Rashbatz’s greatness, and the Frierdiker Rebbe often repeats sayings, stories, and teachings from him. One of his sayings, in connection with the analogy the Alter Rebbe gives here in Tanya, was often quoted at farbrengens to emphasize the point: “Supernal Chochmah inside a sack of flesh and bones and boiling blood.” He wanted to emphasize what it means, what the essence is,

08:19 What is it that the Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya? The greatness of a Jew. What is the neshamah? Wisdom? It isn’t just wisdom; it is the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Where is it? It is inside a body that is a sack of flesh and bones and hot blood. And this is a Jewish body that Hakadosh Boruch Hu joined with it, so that, quite literally, a part of G-d above is present in a Jew’s physical body. Let’s continue. At this point, the Alter Rebbe comes to a very fundamental question. Based on what we have explained—that a Jew’s neshamah is something altogether different, that it is a part of G-d above, rooted in the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that He is one with His wisdom—a very, very difficult and fundamental question arises. Let’s read it inside. The Alter Rebbe says: “Now, although there are myriads of different levels among souls, one higher than the other without end.” What is the question, and why does it come up here? After all, it is a question one could ask in general. It has nothing to do with Tanya. The Alter Rebbe’s question is: Why are there so many differences between one Jew and another? Why are there so many kinds? We see that throughout the generations of the Jewish people—and the Alter Rebbe will go into detail—there are many kinds of souls. So the Alter Rebbe asks: How can there be so many distinctions? Why does the question arise specifically here? The reason is understandable. Simply put, if you say there are many kinds of people, that is no question. Their opinions are not alike, and their faces are not alike. What is the problem? Hakadosh Boruch Hu created a whole world with inanimate things, plants, animals and human beings, with all sorts of variety. So there are also many kinds of people: more intelligent, less intelligent, more sensitive, less sensitive,

10:09 more love, more awe, more of the attribute of kindness. All sorts of people with different qualities. The Alter Rebbe’s difficulty concerns the “part of G-d above”—the core of the Jew, the G-dliness of the neshamah. Once we say what a Jew’s essence is, what a neshamah is: a neshamah is not a matter of intellect and emotions. If the neshamah were a matter of the soul’s faculties, intellect and emotions, then you could say one person is more intelligent and another less so. Of course there are many kinds among the Jewish people. Some people are more learned and study more Torah. Some are devoted to Torah, some to mitzvos; there are businesspeople, craftspeople and simple people. That relates to the soul’s qualities, to its faculties. But now that we have learned here that the essence of a neshamah is literally a part of G-d above, that a Jew is a part of the very essence of the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that this is the essence of every Jew, it follows that, at their very core, all Jews are truly one and the same point. After all, you cannot divide the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. If you say it is His wisdom, you cannot divide it into parts. That is what it is: the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You are saying that the least of the least, the simplest Jew, and Moshe Rabbeinu, the most exalted Jew, have one point in common. Their Jewish core is literally a part of G-d above. Moshe Rabbeinu is not more of a part of G-d above, and the simplest of the simple is not less of a part of G-d above. If so, how can there be differences in level when it comes to the neshamah, to G-dliness, to a Jew’s connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu? And not just differences in level, but differences from one extreme to the other. That is the Alter Rebbe’s question. This question arises specifically after we learn what the Alter Rebbe has revealed

12:07 to us. Once we know the essence of a Jew, the question becomes: How can there be such vast differences in the neshamah itself? How can there be souls whose very nature is altogether different, with no comparison between them? The Alter Rebbe will now explain how this lack of comparison is expressed. The Alter Rebbe says—ah, “and like,” “like,” excuse me: “As great as the superiority of the souls of the Patriarchs and Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, over the souls of these generations of ours, the footsteps of Moshiach, which are truly like heels in relation to the brain and head.” So the Alter Rebbe wants to give an example of two extremes. On one side you have the souls of Moshe Rabbeinu and the Patriarchs; on the other, the souls of our generations. What is the great difference? Why is there a difference? What is it? It is not merely a difference in time—Moshe Rabbeinu lived three thousand years ago—or a difference in intellectual ability. There is an essential difference, expressed by the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu and the Patriarchs are called the head, while our generation is called the heel. As is known, the Arizal wrote about the souls of the Jewish people. The Arizal revealed this whole concept. It also has a source in the Talmud—the Rebbe cites sources in both the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. There is a source for it in the revealed part of Torah too, but the Arizal explained the idea: the Jewish people are like a body. As is known, all Jewish souls were rooted in Adam Harishon. We spoke about this when we began chapter 2: the neshamah of Adam Harishon, into whose nostrils He breathed, was not just an individual neshamah. It was a collective neshamah, containing all the souls of the Jewish people from the beginning of the generations to the end of all generations. That neshamah then passed to Avraham Avinu and so on, and to Moshe Rabbeinu. This is the concept of collective souls. So we say that the Jewish people as a whole are

14:15 like the structure of a body. There are souls that are like the head and brain—the souls of the earlier generations, the Patriarchs and Moshe Rabbeinu—and there are souls that are like the heel. That is why our generation is called ikvesa d’Meshicha, the footsteps of Moshiach. The Gemara in Sotah and Sanhedrin speaks about our generation and calls it ikvesa d’Meshicha, the level of the heel. It is not simply “the footsteps of Moshiach” because Moshiach is about to arrive—footsteps, heels and feet. Rather, in the context we are discussing, it means that our souls, compared with the souls of the earlier generations, are like a heel compared with a head. What is the difference between a heel and a head? Everyone understands that, physically, the difference is from one extreme to the other. It is not just that one is above and the other below; they are altogether different in nature. The head contains the most exalted faculties, intellect and sight, the highest faculties. And the heel—as the Midrash says, the angel of death is in it. There is almost no vitality there. As is known, you can tread on your heels and hardly feel pain, because that is the place least sensitive to vitality. It is the absolute opposite extreme. In other words, the gulf between the head and the heel is greater than the gulf between a person and an animal. And all this is being said about souls. So that is the Alter Rebbe’s question: How can this be? If all souls come from a sublime level, the supernal wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, where He is one with His wisdom, how can there be such a vast gulf between Jewish souls, from the very highest to the very lowest? “And likewise, in every generation there are leaders of the thousands of Israel whose souls are at the level of head and brain in relation to the souls of the masses and the unlearned.” This applies not only across generations; the same is true within every generation. In every generation there are souls at the level of head and brain—the souls of tzaddikim,

16:24 the souls the Alter Rebbe will return to shortly—the rabbis, the leaders of the thousands of Israel. So here too, we call the Rebbe, the tzaddik, the head: head and brain, while the rest of the people are the feet. It says of Moshe Rabbeinu, “The six hundred thousand footmen of the people among whom I am.” In other words, even within a single generation there is such a gulf: souls at the level of head and brain, and souls at the level of heels. “And likewise, souls in relation to other souls.” We do not have to go as far as the souls of the great tzaddikim. Even on the lower levels found among ordinary people, there are differences between one soul and another. That is, even if we are not talking about the souls of a Rebbe or of tzaddikim, even among the ordinary souls of the masses, there are very, very substantial differences from one neshamah to another. What are these differences between souls? The Alter Rebbe says: “For every soul is composed of nefesh, ruach and neshamah.” What does the Alter Rebbe mean here? “For every soul is composed of nefesh, ruach and neshamah.” Interesting. The Alter Rebbe does not elaborate on this. It is an important, fundamental subject, yet the Alter Rebbe does not really explain what nefesh, ruach and neshamah mean. But we understand—and it is well known; it is also apparent from the first chapter, where the Alter Rebbe alluded to it at the beginning—that, broadly speaking, every soul has three levels: nefesh, ruach and neshamah. What does that mean? In general, regarding the level of nefesh, it says explicitly in the Zohar, in these words: When a person is born, if he merits it, he is given nefesh; if he merits more, he is given ruach; if he merits more, he is given neshamah. What are these levels? Chassidus explains that nefesh is the part invested in the body, connected with its actual vitality, like

18:45 The Alter Rebbe also said in chapter 1 that nefesh, ruach, and neshamah are connected with feeling. What is in the heart? Ruach is in the heart. So that is already connected with love and awe, with the middos. And neshamah is the mochin, the intellectual faculties. There are verses for each of these things. Why is it this way? But that is how it is. So nefesh, ruach, and neshamah are the three general aspects of a person: action, middos, and mochin. Now, what does the Alter Rebbe say? The Alter Rebbe says that every soul includes nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. In other words, when we say that it is “truly a part of G-d above,” that part of G-d above actually contains, as we will see later in chapter 3, ten faculties of the soul. And because of that, the soul also has an aspect of nefesh, an aspect of ruach, and an aspect of neshamah. That is, there are three levels and ways of serving Hashem: serving Hashem through actual action, serving Hashem through the middos of love and awe, and serving Hashem through mochin. Now, as the Alter Rebbe says, every soul actually has all three. Nevertheless, we see that among the Jewish people there are souls that are primarily on the level of nefesh. In other words, there are Jews in whom what chiefly shines forth, whose service of Hashem is chiefly, nefesh. People of kabbolas ol, people of action, people who do things in practice. They too have ruach and neshamah, but those are not as prominent. They are present in potential. However we want to put it, they are not as strong in them. What predominates is nefesh. But there are subdivisions: such a person also has nefesh within nefesh, ruach within nefesh, and neshamah within nefesh. Primarily, though, he is nefesh. And similarly, there are souls whose primary aspect is ruach. That is the main

21:01 focus of their service of Hashem. And similarly, there are souls whose primary aspect is neshamah. But of course, again, everyone has all of them. Nevertheless, we see in practice that there are souls whose main aspect is the level of neshamah, souls whose main aspect is the level of ruach, and souls whose main aspect is the level of nefesh. Chassidim used to say—there is a saying, I don’t remember now when I heard it, but there is such a saying among chassidim. Among the chassidim of the Mitteler Rebbe they would say: “The mochin of Reb Aizik of Homil, with the middos of Reb Hillel of Paritch, with the action of Reb Peretz Shneidauer[?].” These were three chassidim who lived around the same time—or not just around the same time; they lived at the same time. Reb Aizik was older. In any case, as is well known, Reb Aizik of Homil had tremendous intellectual powers. Reb Hillel was deeply devoted to avodah and had extraordinary middos, and Reb Peretz was someone who worked in practice. So they would say that if we could combine Reb Aizik’s mochin, Reb Hillel’s middos, and Reb Peretz’s action, we would have a complete person. There was such an expression among chassidim. Now, of course, Reb Aizik was also on a very high level in avodah, and Reb Peretz also had all these qualities, and Reb Hillel too, obviously. But in practice, one aspect stood out more in each of them: one in the first, another in the second, and another in the third. What does it mean that it “stood out”? It is not just incidental. It means that, in terms of his soul, one person’s primary aspect was nefesh, another’s was ruach, and another’s was neshamah. So the Alter Rebbe is saying: If all souls are essentially one and the same, where do all these differences come from? That is the Alter Rebbe’s question.

23:01 So, in short, what is the point? Let’s read just the beginning of the explanation. The Alter Rebbe says: “That is, the source of all nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, from the highest of all levels down to the very lowest ranks, as clothed in the bodies of the unlearned and the lowest of the low, is drawn from the supernal brain, which is supernal Chochmah, as it were.” That is where the Alter Rebbe ends the sentence. The Alter Rebbe explains that there is no contradiction. Both things are true. It is true that there are differences in level—and not just slight differences, but differences from one extreme to the other. At the same time, this does not contradict what we said: that every nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, from every level down to the very lowest, is rooted in that same level of the supernal brain, supernal Chochmah. How do we explain this? The Alter Rebbe now gives an analogy. This is where the mother comes in. Until now we have spoken about the father. There is the mother, and the process of the nine months of pregnancy, through which the Alter Rebbe will explain this. The Rebbe points out how precise the wording of the Tanya is: it says “the highest of all levels” in the Holy Tongue, and then “the very lowest ranks” in Aramaic. It begins in the Holy Tongue and moves to Aramaic because it wants to emphasize the distance from one extreme to the other. The Holy Tongue is a language of holiness, while Aramaic is an ordinary language. So it writes “the highest of all levels” in the Holy Tongue, and then “the very lowest ranks.” In other words, from one extreme to the other, all of them come from there. Even the lowest levels among the Jewish people are rooted in the supernal Chochmah of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and yet that does not contradict the existence of differences in level. Of course, through this whole discussion, the Alter Rebbe wants to arrive at explaining the idea of a Rebbe and why hiskashrus with a Rebbe is so important, as he will explain at the end of the chapter. With Hashem’s help, we will get to that later.