Chapter 3 - Second Lesson

00:00 We’re continuing with chapter 3. We’re back on page 7, at the bottom, the last line, after the colon. The Rebbe begins to explain the soul’s faculties in this chapter. He says that the soul has ten faculties, which derive from the ten sefiros Above. They are divided into two parts: the intellectual faculties and the emotions. He explained that the intellectual faculties are the parents, and the emotions are the children. In other words, this is how a person’s faculties work: the intellect—chochmah, binah, and daas—is the parent, the source, and from it something is born, just as children are born from their parents. So too, the intellect, the father and mother, gives rise to the fruits of contemplation. As we discussed in the previous class, the Rebbe wants to explain how a Jew comes to feel love of Hashem and awe of Hashem. This is a central point in Tanya: the Rebbe comes to explain the verse, “For this thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” It is not enough for it to be “in your mouth”; it must also be “in your heart, to do it.” The action must have heart; it must have feeling, love of Hashem and awe of Hashem. So the Rebbe teaches us here how the process works. For a person to have love of Hashem and awe of Hashem, it comes through contemplation, through the intellectual faculties of chochmah, binah, and daas. Now the Rebbe will explain this in detail. What exactly is chochmah? What is the role of binah, and what is the role of daas? What are these three things? “The explanation is as follows: The intellect of the intellectual soul, which conceives any idea, is called chochmah, koach mah. When it brings its potential into actuality, contemplating an idea with the intellect to understand it accurately and in depth, drawing on a point of chochmah conceived in the mind, it is called binah.” So here the Rebbe gives us the foundation. What is the difference between

02:39 chochmah and binah? He says that the intellect of the intellectual soul, which conceives any idea, is called chochmah, koach mah. What does that mean? The explanations are well known. In any case, to put it briefly, what is the difference between the faculty of chochmah and the faculty of binah? The first thing the Rebbe teaches us here, in simple terms, is that chochmah is the faculty that conceives an idea. In other words, it is the power of discovery. A person has an idea occur to him; he comes up with something, discovers something—an intellectual insight that enters his mind. Usually this comes after effort. A person studies a subject and works hard, trying to understand a sugya or a halachah, whether in Nigleh or Chassidus. He works at it, trying to understand its depth, its central point, what it means, and at some point an idea occurs to him. That idea is called chochmah. That is the first point. The idea is what the Rebbe means by “conceives any idea,” or, in the language of Chassidus, “maskil.” The word “maskil” is precise: it means a kind of source, the very first point, the first flash, the first revelation. As is explained elsewhere in Chassidus, the analogy for this is a flash of lightning. Suddenly there is light, and everything is illuminated and clear, but then it goes; within a second it disappears. You have to catch it. If you don’t, it disappears and the darkness returns. It is the same with a person. When someone discovers an idea, a flash of insight enters his mind. If he doesn’t develop it, build on it, take hold of it, internalize it and work with it, then it comes and goes. It slips away. It doesn’t remain, and no, no

04:54 benefit comes of it. This is one reason—and the Rebbe also brings it in the explanations—that chochmah is compared to a father. Yes? We say that chochmah and binah are father and mother, because with a father, as we learned in chapter 2, if the drop from the father is not absorbed in the mother’s womb, nothing remains of it; no child comes of it. If you want a child to result, the drop has to be absorbed, and then come nine months. The same is true of chochmah and binah. Chochmah is a flash of insight, but if you don’t hold on to it, take it and build on it, it slips away. The Rebbe adds another interesting point here. He says that chochmah is called koach mah, the “power of what.” What does the Rebbe mean by that name? The letters of chochmah can be read as koach mah. But what is the Rebbe telling us by saying that chochmah is koach mah? It adds another very important point, and brings us to the difference between chochmah and binah. The difference is not only that chochmah is the first stage—the discovery, the flash, the initial point—and binah then develops it. There is something more: chochmah is koach mah. The expression koach mah points to the power of bittul, self-nullification. “What?” As it says of Moshe Rabbeinu, “And what are we?” Yes? The meaning of “And what are we?” is bittul. Who are we? What are we? That is bittul, everyone. Koach mah. Koach mah is the power of bittul, yes, the power to give oneself over. Because if we look at the inner point, what is chochmah? It is not only understanding, not only a point of intellectual insight,

06:56 yes, some particular understanding. In essence, chochmah is a faculty of the soul: the power of bittul. It is a power a person has to give himself over—to give himself over completely. Bittul. To allow something higher to shine within me. In other words, this itself raises a question: why does a person come up with a new insight? How does an insight arise in a person’s mind? An idea occurs to him—how does that happen? You were studying the subject and didn’t understand it. Why did you suddenly begin to understand it? What happened there? What is the source of that insight, that point? The reason, the root of it, is that a person has the power of bittul. Think about why there are things we don’t understand. You study Tosafos or a maamar, and even though you know the words and know what they mean, you say, “But I don’t understand it.” Why don’t we understand things? What keeps a person from understanding? My own sense of self is so coarse, or simply on an entirely different level from the subject—the sugya, its depth, its reasoning. It is a very profound kind of intellect. Especially when we speak about Torah intellect: that is Divine intellect, while my intellect is animal intellect. So I am very far from grasping, understanding, or comprehending true ideas. The soul’s faculty of chochmah is the power of bittul. That is, it is a power a person has, and that is what the Rebbe is saying here. Koach mah? It is the power to give himself over, to devote himself to something higher. Through that surrender, that giving of oneself, that bittul, a person puts himself entirely aside and says: “I don’t want to think about how I’m trying, how I think, or how my mind works. I’m willing to become nothing, to have bittul, and to receive the truth.”

09:06 This is called being, like, transparent. Right? To become nothing. To nullify my own sense of self, so that the truth of what you are trying to grasp can shine through. That is why chochmah, koach mah, is the place from which all understanding comes. That is the reason. The deeper point is that because chochmah is koach mah, the power of self-nullification, when a person nullifies himself enough, understanding comes to him. This is what it means to toil. Chassidus speaks about the need to toil, to study and toil. What does “toil” mean? Just to rack your brain? Toil means self-nullification. When a person nullifies himself before the subject, that allows the depth, the intellect, the chochmah written here, to shine and become revealed in his soul. So that is what the Alter Rebbe says about chochmah. But what is binah? After a person has succeeded, through toil, in nullifying himself—koach mah—and through that some truth has shone for him, some small glimmer, some clarity, then comes the second stage, the stage of binah. The stage of binah is the work of comprehending. That means taking this point. It is an abstract point, a deep point, a point... But here the person has nullified himself. He has stepped out of his own sense of self; he has become nothing. Comprehension, though, is the opposite: understanding it so that it becomes part of his own reality, so that he can understand it. For that, he has to make the opposite move, bringing it back into his reality, into my world, so that I can understand it. That is what the Alter Rebbe means by “from potential to actual.” What does “potential” mean? The Rebbe explains in his letters what “potential” means. That is, it does not mean power; it means something concealed. Everything is present in the point of chochmah, but it is there in potential, in a concealed way, because he does not yet have it with all its details,

11:10 its full grasp and all its definitions. So “from potential to actual” means, as it were, from concealment to revelation. That is the faculty of binah. And within binah itself there are length, depth and breadth. By Divine Providence, we are studying Ranat here. As is known, in the first maamar of Ranat, the Rebbe Rashab explains that intellect has length, depth and breadth. That is also what the Alter Rebbe writes here, in his own wording: “He contemplates with his intellect to understand a matter correctly and in depth, out of a point of chochmah conceived in his intellect.” With this extended wording, the Alter Rebbe means length, depth and breadth. I do not know exactly right now which word refers to length and which to breadth, but there are explanations from our Rebbeim that examine the wording closely. There is “correctly,” there is “in depth,” and there is “out of.” Each expression here conveys another aspect of the faculty of binah. Binah takes the point of chochmah and gives it depth, breadth and length. What is the difference? Depth means delving more deeply into the very same subject, understanding it with greater subtlety and depth. Length is the ability to bring it down to a lower world, a lower level, a recipient on a lower level. And breadth means laying it out in detail. So that is the relationship between chochmah and binah: first there is the point of chochmah; afterward comes the comprehension of binah. This is the idea of father and mother—chochmah and binah—as parents. The Alter Rebbe continues: “And they are the father and mother that give birth to love of Hashem and awe and fear of Him.” The Alter Rebbe says that chochmah and binah are what are called father and mother. That is, just as we say regarding a father and mother in the physical sense, there are chochmah and binah. The father represents the point. The mother represents

13:12 pregnancy in the physical sense. We learned in the previous chapter that the father provides the drop, while the mother brings about the entire formation of the child. That is why it says that “man” and “woman” contain the letters yud and hei: yud is a point, and hei has length and breadth. The same applies in our avodah. First there must be the point of chochmah, and then that point of chochmah must be developed through the breadth of binah. That is the idea of father and mother. From them are born love of Hashem, awe and fear. That is where the birth of the middos comes from. The middos he mentions are love of Hashem, awe and fear. Because the intellect that— Before that, though, there is an interesting detail in the wording. Earlier, the Alter Rebbe said “fear and awe.” Now he says “awe and fear.” At the beginning of the chapter he put fear before awe, and now he puts awe before fear. In general, the difference between fear and awe is that awe is in the mind, while fear is in the heart. This is stated throughout Chassidus. There is also a sicha of the Rebbe on the plain meaning of the verses, about dread and fear, where the Rebbe discusses this. There is awe and there is fear. Awe is when the matter is still intellectual. Awe is a more ideal faculty, more in the mind, more in the intellect. It is a feeling in the mind: a person senses that there is something here, something lofty, something exalted. That is where the word “awe” fits. Fear, by contrast, is when a person is already moved in the feelings of his heart. So the order is first awe, then fear. It moves from the mind to the heart. Earlier, the Alter Rebbe put fear before awe. One explanation given for this is that earlier the Alter Rebbe was discussing intellect and middos as subjects in their own right. The Alter Rebbe was explaining what intellect is and what middos are. He was not discussing the order in which a person gives rise to them. He was discussing

15:10 the matter in general, saying that there is intellect—chochmah, binah and daas—and there are middos. The middos are love of Hashem, fear and awe. He was discussing the middos as a subject in their own right. That is why he put fear first: it is the primary middah, because it is in the heart. He says that it also includes awe, something still loftier, much higher, because he was discussing the middos in themselves. Here the Alter Rebbe is discussing the order in which they are born, how they move from the mind to the heart. When they move from the mind to the heart, awe first arises in the mind, and only afterward does fear reach the heart. “For the intellect of the intellectual soul, when it contemplates and delves very deeply into the greatness of Hashem—how He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and all is considered as nothing before Him—the middah of reverential awe is born and aroused in his mind and thought.” So now the Alter Rebbe explains the order of things, bringing it down to what we can put into practice. He tells us the order of avodah when a person begins to contemplate. He uses three expressions here. Every word in Tanya is precise. The Alter Rebbe says, when a person studies a subject intellectually: “The intellect of the intellectual soul, when it contemplates and delves very deeply.” Those are three expressions: “contemplates,” “delves,” and “very.” This is from Reb Levik, the Rebbe’s father, who points out that these three expressions correspond to the three things the Alter Rebbe tells us to contemplate here. First there is contemplation. Then there is delving—not just contemplation, but going more deeply into the subject. And then there is “very,” which goes beyond even that. Yes, that is infinity. What are these three things? They are what the Alter Rebbe says: “fills all worlds,” “encompasses all worlds,” and “all is considered as nothing before Him.” In other words, when a person begins to contemplate the greatness of Hashem, there are three aspects

17:10 to this contemplation. First, a person starts from below and works upward. He looks at the world and contemplates the Divine power within it that brings it into being. Nothing makes itself. Broadly speaking, this is contemplation of “fills all worlds.” It is called contemplation because it is something you can perceive through the world. You look at the world. The world itself shows us that there must be a Divine power, a power that brings it into being and gives it life, because nothing makes itself. That is the contemplation mentioned above. Afterward, a person has to toil more. This is called understanding one thing from another. The intellect itself leads you there. After you contemplate “fills all worlds,” that very idea tells you: Wait, is that the whole of G-dliness—that He only gives life to the worlds? G-dliness is not merely giving life to worlds. Surely He is far more than that. This is what it means to understand one thing from another, starting from “fills all worlds.” When you delve deeply into that idea, “fills all worlds” itself brings you, leads you, to understand that it cannot stand alone. This is discussed at length in the Siddur; now is not the time for it. It explains how “fills all worlds” itself teaches us that there must be something higher—the aspect of “encompasses all worlds,” which is essentially unlimited. Indeed, the primary aspect of G-dliness is “encompasses all worlds,” as explained at length in the maamarim: specifically “encompasses” can bring something into being from nothing, while “fills” requires “encompasses,” and so on. So this is called “contemplates and delves.” After that, a person reaches a deeper level. That is “very.” Even “encompasses all worlds” is still a relationship. It is a negative relationship—encompassing, transcending, unlimited—but even that is already some kind of relationship. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is beyond any relationship. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu is beyond a positive relationship,

19:12 Memalei—so He is beyond even a relationship of negation. In essence, He is beyond any kind of relationship, and that is why I say, “Kula kamei k’lo chashiv”—everything before Him is considered as nothing. This means that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not only undefined by memalei; He is also undefined by sovev. This is the essence of Ein Sof, which is above both memalei and sovev. All of this is part of the contemplation, the way it unfolds. One begins with memalei and sovev, and then goes deeper. One reaches a deeper contemplation of sovev, and then an even deeper level: kula kamei k’lo chashiv. There is no grasp of what is above, however deep, and so Hakadosh Boruch Hu is above memalei and above sovev. That is the essence of Ein Sof. All of this is the contemplation a person engages in within himself. The Alter Rebbe says that through this contemplation—the father or mother, as it were—a person gives birth to love and fear of Hashem. And that is what he goes on to say: “The quality of awe of His exaltedness is born and awakened in his mind and thought.” There is a great deal to discuss here. With Hashem’s help, we’ll speak about it in detail in the next class. What is the sequence here? First, fear is awakened in him; then the Alter Rebbe goes on to say that love is awakened in him. Why does fear arise first and love afterward, even though in the order of the sefiros, love comes before fear? There is much to explain about this, and we’ll leave it for the next class.