Chapter 3 - Fourth (and Final) Lesson

00:00 We’re at the end of chapter 3, at daas. We learned about chochmah and binah, which are the father and mother. Now the Alter Rebbe begins to explain the third faculty, daas. Let’s read it inside and explain. The Alter Rebbe says: “And daas.” We explained that chochmah is the flash of insight before the idea is developed. Then binah is the full development of the idea—its length, breadth, and depth. So if that’s the case, you have everything. What’s missing? What is the role of daas? You have chochmah and binah; you already have the father and mother. Seemingly, that should be enough for the emotions to emerge. What exactly is daas’s role in all this? That is what the Alter Rebbe is about to explain. The Alter Rebbe says: “And daas is related to the expression, ‘And Adam knew Chavah.’” The meaning of daas here is not the simple meaning. People understand daas as knowledge—knowing, conocimiento. But the Alter Rebbe explains it through “And Adam knew Chavah.” That verse doesn’t mean merely that Adam knew Chavah in some external way. “Adam knew Chavah” refers to the marital bond, meaning the intimate connection between Adam and Chavah. So here too, when we speak of the faculty of daas, we don’t mean merely external knowledge. We mean recognition and feeling. As the maamarim say, daas is the faculty of connection. On a simple level, the Alter Rebbe cites “And Adam knew Chavah” as evidence that the word daas means something deeper: not just external knowledge, but a bond. He cites the verse because it shows that daas expresses connection. But of course, there is also a hint here that the Alter Rebbe wants to convey: daas is also

02:29 the connection between chochmah and binah. This follows what we said earlier, that the father and mother are chochmah and binah. For there to be a birth, then, the father and mother must be joined—the joining of chochmah and binah. In other words, there are two aspects to daas. Daas has two roles, two functions. Daas connects the intellect with the emotions. That is what the Alter Rebbe discusses in this chapter. The whole point of the chapter is to explain how emotions are born from the intellect. So daas’s role is to bring what is understood intellectually into the feelings of the emotions—to connect intellect and emotion. That is the main point the Alter Rebbe explains here. But he also hints at another function of daas: it connects not only intellect and emotion, but also chochmah and binah. That is not discussed here in Tanya, except, as I said, by way of a hint. Later, in Igeres Hakodesh, section 15, the Alter Rebbe explains that daas has two aspects. He calls them higher daas and lower daas. There, in section 15 of Igeres Hakodesh, the Alter Rebbe says that lower daas connects intellect and emotion, while higher daas connects chochmah and binah. Here, that appears only as a hint in the verse he quotes. The Alter Rebbe does not explicitly set out to explain that aspect in this chapter. His main purpose is to explain how the emotions are born. So here, the connection is between intellect and emotion. I’m just laying that out for now. Perhaps we’ll explain it a little more later. So the Alter Rebbe says again: Daas is related to “And Adam knew Chavah”; “it denotes attachment and union, as one binds his mind with a very firm and strong bond.” What is the work involved in daas?

04:34 The work of daas is for a person to bind himself with a very firm and strong bond, “and fix his thought firmly on the greatness of the Infinite One, blessed be He,” immersing himself, firmly fixing himself in it with all his strength, “and not divert his attention”—without breaking off for a moment. There is work here in quantity, and there is work here in quality. In other words, daas requires two things: quantity and quality. Quality means that a person must enter into it inwardly: bind his mind, bind himself to it, be immersed in it, and take it in deeply. As for quantity, the Alter Rebbe emphasizes: “and not divert his attention.” In other words, it has to be ongoing. For a person to have a connection with something, he has to put in particular work. That is the work of the faculty of daas. Let’s explain a little what daas does and what the work of daas is. Chassidus discusses the subject of daas; the Rebbe Rashab speaks about it a great deal. In discussing what defines daas, what its nature is, Chassidus speaks of recognition and feeling. As is well known, there is the verse that King David said to Shlomo before he passed away: “Know the G-d of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing soul.” That is, David tells Shlomo—this was David’s final instruction to him—“Know the G-d of your father.” Chassidus asks: What is he telling him? What is the instruction? If daas means simply what people usually take it to mean—knowledge—then what does it mean to say, “Know”? If there are things you haven’t taught him, teach him! What help is it to tell him, “Know”? You aren’t giving him the information or the details. From this,

06:49 Chassidus teaches that “know” does not mean information, factual knowledge, or concepts. He had already taught him those concepts. As we said, before he passed away, King David told Shlomo: I’ve taught you all your life. I’ve taught you Torah, I’ve taught you ideas and concepts. You don’t lack information. Now you have a task: know—connect yourself to it. That I cannot do for you. I can give you wisdom and understanding. I can give you knowledge. But the “know”—making it yours, making it something you identify with and live with, something that becomes part of you—that you have to do yourself. “Know the G-d of your father.” So Chassidus asks: What is this? It is called recognition and feeling. What do recognition and feeling mean? It says of Avraham Avinu, “At the age of three, Avraham recognized his Creator.” What does “recognized” mean? Recognition and feeling. This was not just an intellectual understanding on Avraham Avinu’s part. A person can grasp things without becoming one with them. He understands them, but they do not become one with him. The phrase “Avraham recognized his Creator” speaks of recognition. Recognition means you know something in a way you feel and identify with. I feel it the way a person feels his own self. A person doesn’t merely know, “I know I exist,” as though it were some distant piece of information. Another person, a friend of yours—you know him; you saw him there once. But when a person says of himself, “I know myself,” he means, “I recognize myself.” What does that mean? I feel myself. Recognition means there is an inner oneness. Recognition means it is as though I see it; it

08:56 is alive for me. It is present for me in a way that leaves me with no doubt; it is clear to me. That is what recognition and feeling mean. For example, the maamarim speak about a small child eating bread: when a small child eats bread, he recognizes. “A child does not know how to call ‘Father’ until he tastes grain.” There too, it says, this is not intellectual knowledge; it is recognition and feeling. He has that recognition and feeling: this is my father. And that recognition and feeling is something inward that no intellectual argument can undo. With the intellect, there can be two ways of knowing. Sometimes an idea remains on the outside. Someone explains it to you. You hear it and say, “All right, that sounds right. What you’re saying makes sense,” but you don’t identify with it. You’re only saying, “All right, based on your explanation, I understand that it has to be such-and-such.” But that is knowledge from the outside, not from within. Recognition and feeling mean it becomes something of my own, something I have no doubt about, because it is alive for me, settled within me, part of me. It cannot be otherwise. This is a faculty in a person’s soul—the faculty of daas—and the Alter Rebbe tells us how to reach it. So here the Alter Rebbe says that reaching recognition and feeling requires the work of attachment and connection. In other words, how does a person come to recognize and feel matters of G-dliness, matters of... What is it? It isn’t hard for me to have recognition and feeling when something is part of me. For me, it’s only natural to recognize and feel the significance of food and clothing, family life, and material things. It’s not very hard to arrive at recognition and feeling there—not hard at all—because that’s me. That’s our sense of self. It is part of our reality. But matters that are spiritual in their very nature, higher matters—then a person

10:59 A person can understand things that are outside his own world. But for me to recognize and feel them, that does not happen on its own. That is where, as the Alter Rebbe says, there has to be a bond and a connection. You have to be immersed in it, to bring yourself into it. It is not enough to have understood the reasoning, the mathematics, the explanation. You have to think about it again, delve into it again, enter into it with the full depth of your being, without letting your mind wander. As I said, there is quantity and there is quality here: to be immersed in it with the full depth of your soul, to bring yourself into it, and to do so with persistence and diligence, without distraction. And that is what the Alter Rebbe says: “For even someone who is wise and understanding of the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof—if he does not bind his daas to it and fix his thought on it firmly and persistently…” If a person has chochmah and binah, then he already has all the information. Through chochmah, the light of the idea shines for him, and he has also brought it into binah, so that he knows all the details thoroughly and accurately. But it is still not part of him; it has still not become one with him. For that to happen, for him to recognize and feel it, there has to be that bond and connection. That is what the Alter Rebbe means: “bind his daas to it and fix his thought on it firmly and persistently.” To be immersed in it, for it to matter to me, and for that to continue persistently. Persistence means time; persistence means diligence; persistence means day after day. Only then does it become something connected to me, something of my own, and only then can it give rise to the middos. So the Alter Rebbe is telling us that for a person truly to awaken with vitality and feeling—with love of Hashem and awe of Hashem—chochmah and binah alone are not enough.

12:50 Daas is essential, because only through daas do these ideas truly become part of my reality, and then they can give rise to feeling as well, to love and awe. “If he does not bind his daas,” as it says, “he will not give rise in his soul to true awe and love.” It will not bring a person to true awe and love, “but only to vain imaginings,” when daas is lacking, even if you have chochmah and binah. You understood the idea, you learned Chassidus, you understood the maamar, you understand the subject. But if there was no connection and contemplation, no daas, then there was no recognition or feeling. So the Alter Rebbe says that love and awe do not come from this; they are not born from it. What can there be? Vain imaginings. What are vain imaginings? Sometimes a person imagines that he has love and awe. He dreams of love and awe. He sort of thinks he does. It is like when someone puts on music and becomes very happy and dances. But the moment the music stops and the whole celebration ends, it is as though he had never felt it. Nothing happened. It was a beautiful moment; it was nice, it was geshmak. Certainly, while the music was playing and people were dancing, he danced and was genuinely happy. But the moment it all ends, he goes back to the state he was in before. What happened? It was not something internal. In other words, he did not really understand what had happened. He had not gone through an inner process to reach inner joy; rather, the surrounding atmosphere lifted him up. He was caught up in it, in the atmosphere. There was a celebratory atmosphere, so he rose along with the celebration. But to say that the joy was truly within him, in an internal way—no, no.

14:44 There was no work here, no effort, no inner work to truly feel the joy. Similarly, the Alter Rebbe says: If you have chochmah and binah, intellect is still not the person himself; it is still something outside of me. It is like someone coming and trying to convince you. Someone comes and speaks to you, and you even hear him and listen to him. You understand. But if I have not grasped it myself, if I am only hearing it from him, someone else can come and tell me I misunderstood, and then none of it remains. It never truly became part of me. It stayed external. Recognition and feeling, by contrast, become part of a person. And that is the meaning of “vain imaginings.” Without daas, even if you think you have love and awe because you feel inspired right now, because you are davening with vitality and enthusiasm, as though you have a feeling of love—it is not real. It is vain imaginings, and that is why nothing remains of it. In one of the Rebbe’s sichos, the Rebbe discusses the double expression “vain imaginings”: imaginings that are vain. The Rebbe says that this shows there are imaginings that are not vain. Something can be an imagining without being a vain imagining. Here the Alter Rebbe emphasizes that these are vain imaginings. It is not only that they are not real, that they are imaginary; even the imagining itself is vain. It is a kind of falsehood within a falsehood. There are explanations of exactly how to define “vain imaginings,” of what it means. But in any case, the Alter Rebbe is completely ruling out this kind of love and awe that comes without daas. As is known, this is one of the foundations of Chabad Chassidus. The Alter Rebbe wrote it here.

16:36 It was one of the foundations, so to speak, of the Alter Rebbe’s approach when he revealed Chabad Chassidus, particularly regarding daas. In the disagreement between the Alter Rebbe and the Maggid’s students, the Alter Rebbe maintained that daas is essential; without daas, it is not true love and awe. It is not enough just to dance and be happy outwardly. If you have not done the inner work, then it is not true love. “Therefore daas is what sustains the middos and gives them vitality, and it includes chesed and gevurah—that is, love and its branches, and awe and its branches.” The Alter Rebbe is saying that because daas brings this into a person, so that it becomes part of him, daas sustains the middos and gives them vitality. What does “sustains the middos and gives them vitality” mean? There are two points here. First, sustaining the middos means that they endure. Sometimes a person is stirred by a feeling, as we said earlier, but after a few minutes—or perhaps a few hours, sometimes even a few days—it slips away. It does not last, because he lacks daas. So the feeling comes, but it does not remain with him. If you want the feeling to endure, that comes through daas. As we said, daas makes it one with me, and then it endures: it sustains the middos. On the other hand, the Alter Rebbe also says “gives them vitality.” What does vitality in the middos mean? In Chassidus, vitality means bittul, self-nullification. As is well known and explained in Chassidus, the middos have an advantage and a drawback. Their advantage is that they are closer to the person. I feel; I love. Fine, that makes sense. But the drawback of the middos is that they involve a sense of self. There is someone who loves, someone who feels awe. The middos involve feeling. The person feels.

18:52 One’s own self and sense of self—that is a contradiction to G-dliness. And this is where the work lies: the emotions must have bittul. What should be felt in them is not, “I love this because it’s good for me,” because then you’re focused on yourself, and that can later give rise to the nurture of the external forces. Chassidus explains this at length in Hemshech Samech Vav, and many maamarim discuss the issue: if you have emotions but there is no intellectual understanding within them—if the emotions stand on their own—they can lead to the nurture of the external forces, to a sense of self. For example, sometimes Purim comes around, and a person’s joy begins as holy joy. Purim is a mitzvah. But if that joy lacks the proper bittul, it can sometimes give rise to the nurture of the external forces. We see it plainly: people drink, say l’chaim, get drunk, lose sight of the whole purpose, and do foolish things—contrary to Torah, contrary to Chassidus, contrary to everything. Instead of holy joy, it becomes wild revelry. “But it’s Purim! It’s the joy of Purim!” That’s where it all began. But because the right balance, the proper approach, the intellectual understanding and grasp of what this is about were missing, the emotions themselves can go completely off the rails. The maamarim discuss this whole subject extensively. So when the Alter Rebbe speaks of “the endurance and vitality of the emotions,” he means that when there is daas, daas gives the emotions both endurance and vitality. In other words, these will be emotions with vitality, with bittul, with G-dliness, with a feeling for G-dliness—not merely a feeling of self, of self. “And it encompasses chessed and gevurah—that is, love and its branches, and fear and its branches.” The Alter Rebbe says that daas, as is known, is called the key to the emotions. In other words, daas is the key: once there is daas, the emotions can then emerge from it. Broadly speaking, the emotions are chessed and gevurah and their branches.

20:58 That is, all the other emotions are branches of the right and left lines. All the emotions are essentially expressions of the right and left lines, chessed and gevurah—love and fear, love and its branches, fear and its branches. These encompass the emotions as a whole, as the Alter Rebbe will explain in the next chapter. It is known that the Tzemach Tzedek was born when the Alter Rebbe said this chapter of Tanya, around Rosh Hashanah 5549. The Alter Rebbe said chapters one through three, as recorded in Hayom Yom. The Tzemach Tzedek was born on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5549, and then the Alter Rebbe said the beginning of Tanya, its first three chapters. The Rebbe spoke about this several times, particularly in connection with Rosh Hashanah. I, too, merited to hear it from the Rebbe in 5749–5750, the Tzemach Tzedek’s bicentennial. The Rebbe spoke about it at length then—about the significance of the Tzemach Tzedek’s birth. It is known that among the sefiros, the Tzemach Tzedek corresponds to daas. The Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe, and the Tzemach Tzedek correspond to chochmah, binah, and daas. So on the day the Tzemach Tzedek was born, the Alter Rebbe spoke about daas, which was the Tzemach Tzedek’s central theme.