Chapter 4 - Third Lesson

00:02 There was a chossid known as Radatz—Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Chen. He was one of the great chassidim of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, and the Rebbe Rashab. He was also related to the Rebbe; he was part of the Rebbe’s family. The Rebbe’s uncle, a brother of Rabbi Levik, was his son-in-law. One of the stories told about Radatz is that when he was twelve, his father, Rabbi Peretz Chen, brought him to the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek told him that at twelve, it was already time for him to stop being a child. It was time to grow up, to be mature—maduro. No longer a child. The Tzemach Tzedek told him what to do: before saying “Boruch,” he should think about Whom he was blessing. Whenever he needed to say a blessing over food or anything else, he should reflect on Whom he was blessing. That would bring him to yiras Shamayim. That was the guidance the Rebbe gave him on how to grow up. In any case, sometimes seventeen- and eighteen-year-old bochurim also need to be told that it’s time to grow up. They need to stop being children, stop being caught up in childish things, and start thinking a little about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We say we learn Chassidus; we say we learn Tanya. So it should take you out of childhood, out of small-mindedness, and make you a little more mature. Now we’re learning about yirah in Tanya, and the Alter Rebbe begins discussing it. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe talks about the garments of the soul. We spoke about the attribute of love, which is clothed in “do good”—the 248 positive mitzvos. Now we’ll learn about yirah as it is clothed in the 365 prohibitions. So let’s read it inside. The Alter Rebbe continues: “Yirah is the root of the 365 prohibitions.” The attribute of yirah is the root of the 365

03:10 prohibitions, “for one fears rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” Yirah gives rise to the soul’s garment; it is clothed in observing the prohibitions. When a person has yirah, he is afraid of rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is one kind of yirah. We’ll explain it shortly. The Alter Rebbe continues: “Or a more inward yirah than this: one is ashamed before His greatness.” A person is ashamed before the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “to defy the eyes of His glory and do what is evil in His eyes.” He has an inner sense of shame before Hakadosh Boruch Hu about doing something that is not good in His eyes—“doing what is evil in His eyes, any abomination of Hashem that He hates.” What things are evil in the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? All the things that Hakadosh Boruch Hu calls “an abomination of Hashem that He hates”—in general, everything covered by the prohibitions. All the prohibited acts are called “an abomination of Hashem that He hates.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu hates them. “They are the kelipos and sitra achra, which draw their sustenance from the person below.” What does “an abomination of Hashem that He hates” refer to? To the kelipos and sitra achra. And where do the kelipos get their strength, their life? They receive life and strength from the violation of prohibitions. When a Jew violates a prohibition, he adds life to the kelipos. “They draw their sustenance from the person below and gain a hold on him when he violates the prohibitions.” In other words, the kelipos and sitra achra receive their sustenance, their life, from a Jew’s sins and transgressions when he violates the prohibitions. So a Jew with yiras Shamayim feels ashamed before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He does not want to do something that would be “an abomination of Hashem

05:17 that He hates,” or to defy the eyes of His glory. So what are the two ideas the Alter Rebbe is explaining here? He is speaking about two kinds of yirah. In Chassidus we know that the Alter Rebbe explains this at greater length in later chapters of Tanya—chapters 43, 42, and even 41. Those are the chapters where the Alter Rebbe discusses yirah in avodas Hashem, and we’ll get to them. In any case, the Alter Rebbe teaches us here that there are two kinds of yirah. In the language of Chassidus, they’re called yirah tata’ah and yirah ila’ah—yirah has various names, but broadly speaking, that’s what they are. The Alter Rebbe explains the difference between them. We are not talking here about fear of punishment. The Alter Rebbe does not discuss fear of punishment here at all. Most of the bochurim learned the maamar Yoshev Yisroel 5659 over the past few days. There the Rebbe Rashab explains that fear of punishment is, essentially, a matter of kelipah. It is not G-dly yirah; it is fear connected with ego. True, the Rebbe Rashab introduces the idea in Yoshev Yisroel that sometimes one also needs to think about fear of punishment. If a person sees that he cannot overcome the evil within himself and flee from the three completely impure kelipos, and there is no other choice, then there is a place for fear of punishment too—at least to flee from outright evil. That is called the good within nogah. But here, of course, the Alter Rebbe wants to speak about the G-dly soul. In chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe is in the middle of explaining the G-dly soul, and fear of punishment is not what speaks to it. The G-dly soul seeks avodas Hashem. It isn’t looking for [unclear]. It isn’t looking for where I feel good or don’t feel good. It seeks the truth; it wants G-dliness.

07:07 So when we speak about yirah, we are speaking about G-dly yirah, yiras Hashem. And within yiras Hashem there are also two kinds: yirah tata’ah and yirah ila’ah. What is the difference between them? The Alter Rebbe states it here in a few words. Later, in chapters 41, 42, and 43, he will explain it at length, but here he briefly states this very important point. What is the essential difference between yirah tata’ah and yirah ila’ah? Or, in the language of Tanya here, between external yirah and inward yirah? External yirah, the simple kind, is the fear of rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That means the fear does not come from the greatness of the King, from the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but from the very fact that He is King. A Jew reflects that our world is not ownerless. This world has a Master; it has a King. He is the King of kings, and He commands me to observe mitzvos. He tells me what He wants and what He does not want—the 248 positive mitzvos and the 365 prohibitions. So since He is the King and I am the servant, I do not want to rebel against the King. This has nothing to do with punishment. It is about the fact that a Jew does not want to rebel against the King. If He is the King and I am His servant, then a Jew has a natural, simple, pure yirah. A Jew is afraid of rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He does not want to be separated from G-dliness or rebel against the King. But this is external yirah. Why is it called external? Because it relates to the fact that He

08:57 relates to me, that He commands me. It is external because it concerns the King as He relates to me. We are not speaking about the King as He is in Himself—His loftiness and greatness—but about His relationship with us. He is my King and I am His servant. He commands me to do things and tells me what He wants and what He does not want, so I do not want to rebel against Him. That is why it is called external yirah. Inward yirah, by contrast, the Alter Rebbe says, comes from contemplating His greatness. It is no longer just about the fact that He is King; it is about His greatness. You contemplate the loftiness of the King. You contemplate His greatness. You realize that this is not just any king, but a great King, with profound greatness. So now it is not merely a fear of rebelling against His will; it is a sense of shame. When you stand before someone so great, you feel ashamed—yiras boshes, a reverential sense of shame. It is not a fear of rebellion. You simply feel that doing wrong would be out of place. In other words, what is the difference between external yirah and inward yirah? There is a maamar of the Alter Rebbe in the introduction to Tikkun Chatzos in the siddur. Unfortunately, in recent years they have removed Tikkun Chatzos from the siddur. Apparently they decided no one says Tikkun Chatzos anymore. So the new siddurim have no Tikkun Chatzos, and consequently they also lack the explanation of Tikkun Chatzos. I don’t know who decided that. But in the regular Tehillas Hashem siddurim and in Siddur Torah Or, there is Tikkun Chatzos and there is the explanation of Tikkun Chatzos. The Alter Rebbe wrote that explanation in the siddur, and it’s geshmak—it’s worth learning. Even

10:49 Those who don’t say Tikkun Chatzos may nevertheless study its explanation. It’s a very, very geshmak subject in Chassidus. It simply explains what the destruction of Jerusalem means in our avodah. There, the Alter Rebbe speaks about Yerushalayim as yirah shleimah, complete awe, bringing the two kinds of awe together. He explains that there is lower awe and higher awe, and there the Alter Rebbe says something very geshmak in the name of the Maggid of Mezritch. “I heard from my teacher”—that is how he puts it—that the Maggid of Mezritch explained the difference between lower awe and higher awe. He says the difference is whether you stand in awe of a king or of a great and righteous person. That is the example the Alter Rebbe brings there. There is awe of a king. Generally, you stand in awe of a king because he rules the country; he is in charge. And of course, the greater the king, the greater the awe. But with a king, the main aspect of kingship is external. It concerns the people, the country, his actions—whom does he rule, and what does he do? It has more to do with his actions. Similarly Above, this is the aspect associated with lower awe: how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is, as the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 41, “King of all worlds,” “encompassing all worlds.” The Alter Rebbe does not say there, “Everything is considered as nothing before Him.” Did you notice? In chapter 41, the Alter Rebbe does not write, “Everything is considered as nothing before Him.” That is precise. Because there the Alter Rebbe is speaking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s relationship to the world. So He is King over all the heavens and the earth. Heaven and earth exist, and He is the King of the world. And more than that, He singles out His kingship over the Jewish people as a whole and over this person in particular. So the person accepts His kingship upon himself, and he has a King over him. That is accepting the kingship of Heaven because He is the King. So

12:34 a Jew has awe: he does not want to rebel against the kingdom, to rebel against the King of kings. That is external awe. This is unlike the awe you feel when standing before a great and righteous person. That is the analogy he brings. In Chassidus, the example was always a rav and a chossid: you stand face to face with a tzaddik, with a rav, with a great and wise person—someone whose greatness is not about what he accomplishes, but is an inner greatness, a genuine greatness. The person is truly great in his very qualities. There it is not just awe of rebelling; there is shame. How does this find expression in practice? After all, the main point here in Tanya chapter 4 is that the Alter Rebbe wants to explain this in practical terms. How does it keep a person from committing transgressions? There are two reasons a person might not commit transgressions. For example, here in the zal, there could be two reasons why a person would not make a mess. He won’t fool around, he won’t throw things, he won’t do... He’ll keep the place clean, maintain order, and not do things that are inappropriate. In the zal there could be two reasons. One reason is that he is concerned about the mashgiach, about the rules. Not fear of punishment. Again, we are not talking here about fear of punishment. But he does not want to do things that would cut him off from the life of the yeshivah. He wants to be part of the yeshivah, and he knows that if he does inappropriate things, that could sever him from the whole life of the yeshivah, from his connection to it. So he will follow its rules, keep to the schedule, behave properly, do what he should, and be part of the yeshivah. This is called awe of

14:30 rebelling. He does not want to be a rebel or to rebel against the way yeshivah students conduct themselves, and so on. Then there is something higher: it simply isn’t fitting. It would be shameful. A yeshivah is a place of purity, an elevated place, a lofty place. This is a place where people sit and learn, daven, and serve Hashem. There is an atmosphere here; these are the Rebbe’s four cubits. So it simply is no longer a matter of not wanting to rebel. It would be shameful to behave in such an inappropriate way. It isn’t fitting; no, it would be shameful. In general, then, these are two kinds of awe. One kind is not wanting to rebel. The second is simply that it isn’t fitting. It’s not—it’s not something you would do. Given how things are here, it just doesn’t belong. That is the difference between the two kinds. If you stand before a king, the feeling is that you do not want to rebel against the kingdom. That is why the Alter Rebbe calls it external awe: the king is your king, and you are his servant. So you do not want to rebel against the kingdom. But when you stand before a great king whose greatness is a matter of his own qualities, it is no longer about not rebelling. Here, you simply don’t behave that way. You don’t behave that way because, fundamentally, it isn’t how one behaves. It isn’t because you don’t want to rebel; you simply don’t act that way. It isn’t fitting; it would be shameful, and so on. Similarly, the Alter Rebbe says, this applies here with regard to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. One aspect is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King, and so a person does not want to rebel against the kingdom. That is external awe; that is lower awe. But when a person begins to contemplate that we are speaking of a great King—the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—it moves him not only to avoid rebelling,

16:20 but to feel ashamed before His greatness, ashamed before His greatness. Why? First, this point—and we will get to the Alter Rebbe’s wording—he says, “not to do what is evil in His eyes.” There is a saying among chassidim. I heard it from Reb Gringlas; he would always say it when we learned this part of Tanya. He said he had heard it from one of the mashpi’im, something the Frierdiker Rebbe would say to the mashpi’im: What does “not to do what is evil in His eyes” mean? On the simple level, as we explained, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is here before my eyes, and when you do something bad, it is evil in His eyes. It is like when, as we said, you stand before a very elevated person and behave inappropriately. All right, but the mashpia gave a deeper explanation of “not to do what is evil in His eyes,” because there is the concept of hashgachah pratis, Divine providence. The Alter Rebbe explains in Torah Or, Parshas Vayeira, that Divine providence is referred to as “eyes”: “The eyes of Hashem range throughout the entire earth”; “The eye of Hashem is upon those who fear Him”; “The eyes of Hashem are upon the righteous.” There are various verses in Tanach that speak about Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s providence and call it “eyes.” So to speak, the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu are right here. When a person commits a transgression, as he would put it, it is as though he is striking Him in the eye. There is an expression in Yiddish: You’re poking Him in the eye when you do... As though you are doing something that causes Him pain. You say, “He’s poking Him in the eye”—as though he is doing something right before His eyes. Here, the eyes mean His providence. The Eibershter is here and watches over us. His eyes are everywhere—the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And when you do something undesirable, it is as though you are doing what is evil “in His eyes.” “In His eyes” does not just mean that He sees it from a distance. It is as though it is happening right inside His eyes, because the eyes of Hakadosh Boruch Hu are in every,

18:22 every single place. That, at least, is the reality of the world. So that is the whole point the Alter Rebbe is making here, what he adds. The Alter Rebbe adds that all matters of “turning away from evil,” the 365 prohibitions, concern “the abominations of Hashem, which He hates”—the kelipah and sitra achra, which draw their sustenance from man below. What does it mean that they draw their sustenance from man below? It means that everything a person does... It is written about man below, as King Shlomo says, “He has placed the world in their hearts.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed the world in our hearts. That means a person’s conduct down here affects the entire reality of creation. The moment a person performs a mitzvah, he brings light into the world, brings vitality into the world, and adds holiness to the world. When a person, G-d forbid, commits a transgression, he thereby adds strength to the kelipah and sitra achra. The kelipah and sitra achra draw their sustenance from man below. The moment a person commits a transgression, he adds vitality. As is always explained in Chassidus, there is the domination of “man over man.” The G-dly soul is clothed within the animal soul, and when the animal soul overcomes the G-dly soul and the person commits a sin or transgression, it draws strength from the G-dly soul—what is called “killing a soul.” As Chassidus explains regarding unintentional or deliberate murder, you take the lifeblood, the vitality, of the G-dly soul, and that vitality enters this world and adds vitality and strength to the kelipah. And because the person stands face to face with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he does not want to rebel against the kingdom, and he also does not want to commit “the abominations of Hashem, which He hates.” This is how awe is invested in the matter of turning away from evil. And as we discussed earlier, on one level the Alter Rebbe is distinguishing here between the 248 positive mitzvos and the 365 prohibitions. Love is invested in the 248 positive mitzvos, and awe is invested

20:27 In the 365 prohibitions. But as we discussed, sometimes Chassidus explains it more broadly: it is not just the 248 positive mitzvos and the 365 prohibitions, but all 613 mitzvos. You can look at this in two ways. All 613 mitzvos can be observed from a stance of love or from a stance of awe. A person does the mitzvos because he does not want to rebel against the King. Even positive mitzvos can be observed because he does not want to rebel against the King. And conversely, prohibitions can also be observed because he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He therefore wants to do everything Hashem wants, and he will not do what Hashem does not want, for that same reason. Still, these are two ways of approaching the mitzvah. The meaning of “turn away from evil” is that he does not want to do evil, and therefore he observes all 613 mitzvos. Or “do good”: he wants to bring G-dliness into the world, and so he too observes all 613 mitzvos, from the approach of doing good. Up to this point, the Alter Rebbe has explained how the soul’s faculties—the intellect and emotions—are clothed in the garments of thought, speech, and action, which is why they are called garments. So it would seem from this that thought, speech, and action are something lower. They are only garments. Everyone understands that clothing is external. What matters is the person himself, not the clothing. Clothing is something external. The soul is clothed in thought, speech, and action. So what matters is the soul; thought, speech, and action are merely garments. Now the Alter Rebbe comes along here in Tanya and turns the whole idea around. In Sefer Shel Beinonim, although I call thought, speech, and action “merely garments,” nevertheless, on the contrary, their stature and greatness are without end,

22:23 because it is specifically the garments of the soul that are higher than the intellect and emotions themselves. Since the will and wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu are found in these garments of the soul—the 613 mitzvos are found in them—it is specifically in the garments of the soul that Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is found. And the faculties of a person’s soul, his intellect, his emotions? Where is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself found? Specifically in the garments. And so the garments have a special advantage. This is an introduction to Tanya as a whole: the Alter Rebbe is coming to explain the importance of actually doing the work—of doing. Ultimately, the point is action in particular.