Intent in Blessings - Rabbi Asher Lemil Cohen shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to Lema’an Yishme’u, a podcast of the Chabad Halacha Institute.

00:09 Speaker 2 As we know, we begin with a blessing. And that doesn’t just mean opening by blessing the Jewish people—though especially in my role as a kohen, that is what a kohen does. When we bless the people, when we go up to duchan, we say a special blessing: “Who has sanctified us with the holiness of Aharon and commanded us to bless His people Israel with love.” Because without love, it isn’t a blessing. If someone just says, “Say this, say that,” it has none of the substance, the action, or the inner meaning of it. So we kohanim were commanded to bless the Jewish people, and that brings about love, because “Be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace.” One person cannot love another if he does not love Hashem. Once we love Hashem, we know that He creates love among the Jewish people: “You chose us from every people and tongue, and brought us close, our King, to Your great name in love, to thank You, to proclaim Your oneness, and to love Your name.” So the first thing is that from the moment a person opens his eyes in the morning until he closes them at night, our Sages instituted special blessings for us. The morning blessings begin as soon as he wakes up. Before anything else, what must he do? Say the blessings, as everyone knows and as we teach a child from an early age. The first thing in the siddur is the morning blessings. Then, at night, before going to sleep, there is the blessing of Hamapil. With that, we return the soul above so it can draw strength for the next day and go on saying the blessings again. And as our Sages say about the verse, “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?” Do not read it as “what,” but as “one hundred.” Every Jew must say at least one hundred blessings each day. Ayin is seventy and lamed is thirty—that makes one hundred. This applies to everyone. Every Jew needs to bless Hashem one hundred times each day. I was thinking

03:21 Speaker 2 that we need to explain something particular here: what blessings are about, the plain meaning of the words we say. So first we’ll quote from the texts; we don’t need to come up with this ourselves. We’ll begin with the Alter Rebbe, the first of the Chabad Rebbeim. Chabad means chochmah, binah, and daas—wisdom, understanding, and knowledge—because the aim of Chabad is to draw down these faculties, not to rely only on simple faith, or faith alone, but to know Hashem. So let’s begin with the words of the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch. He writes in Likkutei Torah, Parshas Acharei, as follows: “Each morning they instituted the words, ‘Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe.’” This is a special enactment for every morning. And he makes another point here: baruch, “blessed,” is not only an expression of thanks. Baruch has a deeper meaning, and that is the main point: “For we ask that the aspect of Havayah be drawn down.” After all, when we say Hashem’s name, we say the name Adnai. We are not permitted to pronounce the four letters, yud-kei-vav-kei, as written. That is only when the Divine Name is pronounced in the Beis Hamikdash by a kohen [unclear]. Where Havayah is written, we read Adnai. So he asks: What is the significance of the name Havayah? “For we ask that the aspect of Havayah be drawn down into the worlds, so that their life and existence will not cease.” This is an entirely different way of thinking. It isn’t that the world has an independent existence. There is Someone who not only created the world but brings it into being at every moment. We ask that this aspect be drawn down. Where does the world come into being from? From the name Havayah, which brings the worlds into being, so that their life and existence will not cease. These are two things: there is existence, the physical thing itself, and there is its life. So when there is life,

06:34 Speaker 2 the body becomes united with it and can carry out in this world what it needs to, as the mind understands. So he asks: What does it mean that its life should not cease? We can see that the world is here. Rather, it should not “withdraw upward like the nature of fire, G-d forbid.” Water naturally flows downward; fire rises upward. The moment you light something—whether a match, a flame, a blaze—it rises, because fire naturally tends upward. So we ask that the word of Hashem not go out or cease, but continue to be drawn down rather than withdraw. The life that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives the world should not withdraw to its source above. And why do we need that? “So that He will be our G-d, and we will be nullified to Him like a chariot to Him, blessed be He.” Here he uses the word “chariot.” Why specifically a chariot? We hardly see them today, though perhaps there are still places where people travel with animals and a carriage. There is the carriage itself, the animal—the ox—that pulls it, and the person sitting in it. So what needs to happen? A person down here must become a chariot, so that G-dliness rests upon him. Only the body of a Jew is capable of being nullified like a chariot. Not like the horse, which has a will of its own. A chariot has no mind; it is inanimate. But without the chariot you cannot go anywhere—you would stay at home. So we need to be nullified, our entire body, our entire being, and become a chariot to whom? To Him, blessed be He. We’ll see later what “blessed be He” means. “Until His name is called upon us.” That means we should not be two separate things; we should become one

09:36 Speaker 2 thing. Not merely that we are His horse or His carriage, but that He should derive pleasure from us and unite us with Him. That is what it means for His name to be called upon us. “And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of Hashem is called upon you”—a person becomes connected to G-dliness, and He becomes our G-d. What does “our G-d” mean? That we become nullified to Him like a supernal chariot, [unclear], “until His name is called upon us,” so that He is our G-d. As it says, “the G-d of Avraham.” Now the question is: We say “the G-d of Avraham” every day in Shemoneh Esrei. Isn’t He the G-d of all of us? What does “the G-d of Avraham” mean? Is Avraham the one in charge? It is only because Avraham was like a chariot, rather than a separate, independent entity. “His name is called King because He is a king.” How can we reach a level where we are completely nullified to Hashem? We cannot do it on our own. It is only because He wants to be king over a people, and “there is no king without a people.” What does “people” mean? It is related to the word for “dimmed”—things that are distant and separate. There are glowing coals and dimmed coals. What is a dimmed coal? It brings no benefit. It is closed in on itself; it is warm, it is comfortable, everything is fine. What needs to happen? It needs to be nullified to Hashem, so that we become people. Even many children do not make someone a king over them, as explained elsewhere. A father with a thousand children cannot be called a king. A father is something altogether different. And who are we talking about here? Jews. How are Jews described? “Israel are called children of Hashem.” “A son is a limb of his father.” What does “a son is a limb of his father” mean? It isn’t like my servant, who is nullified to me, but like my own leg. When is my leg a leg? A leg cannot be separated from the person. The moment it is separated from a person

12:36 Speaker 2 It dries up, it rots, it, it, it stops existing altogether. It cannot. The foot. So what must happen? “A son is his father’s foot.” The foot is subordinate to the head, as explained elsewhere. And the entire vitality and continued existence of the worlds, and their constant coming into being from nothing, depend on our drawing down His G-dliness upon ourselves by being nullified to Him. Here he says that we need to think about this, contemplate it, and delve into it. That is why he says we need to draw down His G-dliness. Not just think about it and contemplate it. What does that accomplish? That we become nullified to Him. In other words, a Jew has the ability to have no will of his own. What does he want? What Hashem wants. He is nullified. That does not mean he negates himself and ceases to exist; he is nullified to Him. He has no independent way of thinking. His whole existence is to be attached to Him. Why is that? Because souls are the inner dimension of the worlds. As the Zohar says, just as the world cannot exist without winds, so the world cannot exist without the Jewish people. The Jewish people sustain all the worlds and enable them to stand. [unclear] How can we understand this? Through the example of the life of the body, which depends on the inner vitality of the living soul. We cannot see the soul. But what do we know? The moment we see a person walking, seeing, speaking, and hearing, we know there is something within him that gives him life. Today we have the simplest example we use: electric light. Electric light has no existence of its own. It shines. If I do not supply it with power, it is not there. What does it do? What activities does it perform? Today, you cannot do anything without it. Every factory, everything people do today, depends on the electric power

15:40 Speaker 2 that is there. The same is true of the life of the body, which is a world in miniature. How does it live? What must its life come from? Not from the external aspect of the soul, from wanting material and physical things. From what, then? From its inner aspect, the vital soul. If something happens to that vital soul, the entire body becomes ill. This is the clearest explanation: if the soul cannot... if there is no coordination between the brain, the heart, and the limbs, a person cannot function. What happens to him? He becomes paralyzed and decays. If something happens to his vital soul, his entire body becomes ill. That is why we say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe.” What does “blessing” mean? That the name Havayah should be drawn down—not the name Elokim, whose numerical value is the same as that of “nature,” but the name Havayah. Havayah means not only, as the Sages understood it, “was, is, and will be”; the word Havayah also means “brings into being.” We are talking about all these things. Electricity did not create all the... electrical power did not create all these devices. We prepare the devices and connect them to the electricity, but it does far more than that. Here he says the same thing about the soul in a person’s body. As long as the soul is there, the person is called alive. What does “alive” mean? He sees, hears, and speaks; every limb functions. And if the soul separates from the body, then the chevra kadisha must be called immediately. Why? What happened? The body, the body, the body without a soul has no existence. It cannot endure; it decays and returns to what it was before. It cannot remain as it is. So from our physical bodies we can contemplate the entire world. Therefore, the whole body needs to be healthy. That is why we say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe.” This means that the name Havayah should be blessed and drawn down, not the name Elokim,

18:39 Speaker 2 because the name Elokim has the same numerical value as “nature.” [unclear] What do we need? To come to the realization that we have no independent, true existence. He brings us into being at every moment, and that is why this is a name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: Havayah, because He brings us into being anew at every moment, bringing all that exists into being. What is he adding here? He is not speaking only about human beings. He is speaking about all of creation—everything inanimate, everything that grows, every animal and every human being—everything that exists in the world. So what about us? This happens through His being “our G-d,” and that is what is unique here. Not simply the G-d of everyone, but our G-d. “Our G-d” means that He has associated His name with us. He chose us, and He is our G-d. Then, when we conduct ourselves properly and make ourselves fit, He will be “King of the universe.” In other words, the entire conduct of this world depends on the Jew and on how he accepts Hashem as King. Now, that is the general idea. Then he says: “And they ordained that we say this every morning before Shema.” Why every day? Because “in His goodness, He constantly renews the work of creation every day.” We say that every day in davening. “In His goodness, He constantly renews the work of creation every day.” But here he opens our eyes to hear what we are saying. When it says “He renews in His goodness,” it does not mean that He gives us fuel. Things cannot exist on their own; they need Him. And here he uses two expressions: “every day,” first of all, and then not merely “every day,” but “constantly.” We feel this when we wake from sleep. While a person is asleep, he does not see, hear, or understand—nothing. The moment he wakes up, he understands. So in the morning we say that it is not just that the body has awakened to life; the soul has returned to it. In the same way, Hakadosh

21:37 Speaker 2 Boruch Hu constantly brings us into being and gives us life. And he adds something more: He brings us into being from absolute nothingness, because none of the created beings has an independent existence. It is just like electric light. You do not have to switch it off. If there is no power, there is no light. When there is a power outage, what does that mean? It is no longer connected to its source of power. In the same way, Hashem “in His goodness, constantly renews the work of creation every day.” It is not something separate from Him. He is the One who gives life; Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the One who constantly gives life. But there is no comparable example down here that can demonstrate this to our senses. We have only the fact that every day, light illuminates the darkness of night, just as it did when the world was created: first there was darkness, and then light. We do not pay attention to it, but what is happening here? Why does Hashem do this? To show that there is no light without a source of light. Otherwise, we would grope in the darkness like a blind person. It is like something from nothing. Creation from nothing, in the full sense, was at the initial creation, when there was nothing at all. Here it is like something from nothing. Why? Because the thing has no true independent existence. It is exactly like electricity. No one would say an electric light shines on its own. If there is a power outage, I do not have to press a switch to turn it off. I only disconnect the power from the bulb. Once the power stops reaching it, the light goes out. You do not have to kill it, because it has no existence of its own. The moment the power no longer flows, it goes out on its own. So that is why on Rosh Hashanah we say, “This day is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day,” because the world was created on Rosh Hashanah, and every year the process returns to its beginning. And in a maamar of the Alter Rebbe it says: This is the meaning of the blessing over mitzvos, “Blessed are You, Hashem.” It means a drawing down from above to below: “Blessed” means that the level of Havayah, which encompasses all worlds, should be drawn down from above to below. What does “encompasses all worlds” mean?

24:40 Speaker 2 All worlds? Not within their inner dimension, because He is beyond that. He brings them into being through a revelation in Elokim. What is Elokim? Elokim has the same numerical value as hateva, “nature.” What does “nature” mean? We already know from the expression “drowned in the Sea of Reeds.” It is submerged. Why? Because its true reality cannot be seen. It is like an object submerged in the sea. It is not that the object is not there; it is there, but the sea covers it. In the same way, the Divine light is concealed and hidden within it. Elokim has the same numerical value as hateva. What needs to happen? We need to draw the light of Havayah into Elokim, so that we sense the Divinity within nature. And afterward, once we have contemplated this and said, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments,” holiness should dwell within me, a movement of the soul rising from below to above. Once this enters a person and he contemplates it, his body changes. It is not only that, in practice, he does what he should—whether it is a positive commandment he must fulfill or a prohibition he must avoid. There is an inner feeling. He feels that, in truth, he is nothing at all, and that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is not just a matter of numerical value: Elokeinu has the same numerical value as hateva. He brings us into being, because we have no independent existence. If He were not to continue bringing us into being, we would become nothing at all, because we have no existence of our own. So this is the Alter Rebbe’s wording. How does he explain it? The Alter Rebbe writes in chapter 49 of Tanya: “This will give us a good understanding of the reason and rationale for the Sages’ enactment of the blessings of Shema, two before it, etc.” That is, they have no connection to Shema itself, as the Rashba and the Raavad wrote. We know that we recite a hundred blessings every day, and we have to make blessings. So what is the content of a blessing? If we want bread, we mention it in the blessing and thank Hashem: “Who brings forth bread from the earth.” The same applies

27:32 Speaker 2 to every single blessing. When a Jew hears the blessing, he hears its content—what he is making a blessing over, what he is thanking Hashem for. There is something Hashem created, and he says that this thing has no independent existence. It has a father, but not in the ordinary sense of having a father. A father can later be gone while his child remains alive. It is not like that. It is like a living person: as long as the soul is within him, he is alive. If not, the chevra kadisha must be called immediately, and if not, Hashem have mercy on what happens. Not only is he no longer alive; you cannot stand the smell throughout the street, from what happens to that body, may we all be spared. So that is what he is saying here. The blessing expresses what we mean. If so, what connection is there between the blessings we say in our prayers every day—“Who forms light and creates darkness,” Ahavas Yisroel, and then Shema Yisroel—and why are they called the blessings of Shema? We should have made a blessing over the mitzvah of reciting Shema, like with other mitzvos. What is this? So he says—this is what he is telling us—they have no connection to Shema itself. As the Rambam and the other halachic authorities write, why are they called the blessings of Shema? And [unclear]? There is no connection. You could say them at another time. You could say them afterward. Why must these two blessings be said before Shema? Rather, it is because the main point of Shema is to fulfill “with all your heart,” as it says in Shema: to love Him with both of your inclinations. That is “your heart”—both sides of the heart. There is a yetzer tov on the right and a yetzer hara on the left. How does this find expression in both? By standing against everything that obstructs the love of Hashem. There are two things. First, there is the love itself. Love is something positive.

30:03 Speaker 2 But why doesn’t a person naturally love what is good for him? We see that even a small child is always drawn toward fire and toward things that light up. Why? The body is drawn by the sense of touch. What it sees looks good to it. The mind in his head says: You think you will enjoy its warmth? That you can play with it? You will get burned; you will not be able to go on living. So what is needed? He has this bodily attraction, and he needs to make the mind rule over the heart. That is “with both of your inclinations.” There is a yetzer hara, and it is needed; otherwise, there would be no need to come down here. Angels have no yetzer hara. What did Hashem create? The yetzer hara. As soon as a person is born, it enters first. What comes afterward? The Divine soul. The Divine soul brings rational thought. What is the benefit of that? How do we do it? Now, what stands in the way of loving Hashem “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might”? The Torah spells out three things. “With all your heart” means one’s wife and children. It is in human nature that when people marry—although before that, as it were, they were separate—it says, “And they shall become one flesh.” He was on his own, and she was on her own. Neither knew the other. Once they marry, it says, “And they shall become one flesh.” They become like one body, because without her he is half a body. If he is not married, he is half a body. So Hashem created for man a helper, a helpmate opposite him. And precisely because she is opposite him, she can be a helper; otherwise they would be two men. So there needs to be one—the one in charge and the other the helper, a helpmate opposite him. Then there are his children. One who has no children is considered as if dead. A person is naturally attached to his children and is ready to give his life for them.

32:46 Speaker 2 Why? Because they are part of him. That is why he is prepared to do everything to give his children what they need. Where does that come from? It comes from the attribute of kindness, from the fact that a person’s heart is naturally bound to them. What does “naturally” mean? He does not even know why. He is drawn to it, as our Sages said about the verse, “[unclear].” In other words, from a rational perspective, we see that some people really fight with their wives and their children and do not give them what they need. Where does that come from? We call it wickedness. But where does it come from? It comes from the fact that their thinking is not healthy. Something is missing. What rules such a person? Not the mind. His heart, his own inclination, rules him. So when the other person does something he does not want, he pursues him and hates him. What needs to happen here? “With all your heart”—with both of your inclinations. We need to take the Divine part, which is actually clothed within the physical body, and have that physical body understand and be drawn toward what the mind wants. Then what will happen? It will be with all—we use the expression today, “with all your heart.” What does “with all your heart” mean? Does it mean becoming completely nullified? No. It means taking the heart and making the mind rule over it. Then what will there be? A whole heart. Because it has two sides, a right side and a left side. The mind must rule over the heart, the yetzer tov over the yetzer—why? We need the body’s help. Without the body, the soul cannot fulfill a single mitzvah. So when the Divine soul is alert, what does it do? It does everything it can to keep the body healthy and whole, as it says: caring for the body is among the ways of knowing Hashem, because otherwise a person cannot serve Hashem. To enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah, a soul without a body cannot

35:25 Speaker 2 serve Hashem. But serving Hashem—what does that mean? Fulfilling the mitzvos. That can only be done by a soul in a body. That is one thing. Then there is “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might”—literally, life and sustenance, giving everything up for the love of Hashem. Here he says that, as we know, there are children, life, and sustenance. The point of Shema is “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” That is essentially what we need to have in mind every day when we say Shema. “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart”—that is one’s wife and children; “with all your soul” is life; and “with all your might” is one’s possessions, one’s livelihood. That is what is required. After that it says, “So that your days may be increased”—that is life; “and the days of your children”—that is children; “upon the land”—that is livelihood. So how do we receive these things? Through “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” And how can a material person reach this level? After all, a person is… Why is he called “material”? Like a donkey. They once told a story about people traveling to Lubavitch by wagon. Three traveled to Lubavitch: the horse, the coachman, and the chossid. The chossid traveled to Lubavitch to hear Chassidus. Why did the coachman travel? To earn money, his kopecks. Why did the horse travel? To eat, so they would give it food. They put it in front of him—and how does he travel? They hang a feedbag on him, and he thinks that as he goes along, he will catch up with it and get the bag. So that is… those are three things. The coachman. And there is something even lower: the wagon. The wagon has no thoughts at all. It goes wherever the horse takes it, wherever the coachman takes it, wherever the person takes it. So he is saying that a person is a material being. To bring him to this level, they first instituted the blessing of Yotzer Or.

37:58 Speaker 2 And there it is stated and repeated at length, in the account of the angels who stand in the heights of the universe. We are not talking about creatures of this world. We describe the greatness and the conduct of the angels, the seraphim, the chayos and the holy ofanim: how they say, “Holy, holy, holy”; how, with their intellect—their lofty intellect—they accept the yoke of Heaven. All this is to make known the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu: how they are all nullified before His light, bow to Him, fear Him, and proclaim His holiness with awe. What do they say? “Holy.” What does that mean? What is the content of it? He explains: it means that He is set apart from them and is not invested in them in a revealed way. No. “The whole earth is full of His glory”—and there is Knesses Yisroel above and the Jewish people below. In other words, upon whom does He cause His Shechinah to rest? Who comprehends Him? There are the angels above, each singing according to its understanding, as we describe in the blessings before Shema: “Holy, holy, holy.” But we are saying that it is not only above. Hakadosh Boruch Hu chose us and gave us the power, the intellect, and the means to praise Hashem and to know that He is the One who brings all creatures—including the person himself—into being at every moment. And so too the ofanim and the holy chayos. Of all this they say, “Blessed is the glory of Hashem from His place.” Why “from His place”? Because they do not know or comprehend His place. You cannot comprehend Him, as it is written, for He alone is exalted and holy. What does that mean? What is a “place”? A place is where something is found. When something cannot be understood or grasped, that cannot be called its place, because it is not revealed there. That is why they say, “Where is the place of His glory?” He is there; He brings it into being and gives it life. But where is He? Where is He revealed?

40:39 Speaker 2 So that is how the angels express it. Then comes the second blessing: But how fortunate we are, how good our portion is, that He left all the holy hosts on high and caused His Shechinah to rest upon us. This is what is called the Shechinah. When He is invested in the angels, it is not called the Shechinah; He does not “dwell” there. What does it mean that He does not dwell? You can see the distinction with a person. When he is walking down the street or standing at his business, that is one thing. When he is at home, he leaves behind the outside world and all its concealments; he reveals himself. That is called dwelling. You see the person. Similarly, G-dliness can be hidden and concealed. The angels have no ability to know Him as in “Know the G-d of your father.” They have no daas. They can believe; they have heard of Him. A Jew, though, has been given the power to have a real understanding of G-dliness. His Shechinah rests with us, and that is why He is called “our G-d.” What does “our G-d” mean? Like “the G-d of Avraham,” and so on. How can this be? Because love makes room where there seems to be none. We see it when a person wants to save his life. We have seen many people squeeze through bars. How did they suddenly get through? Because the person felt that if he did not do it, he would not stay alive. So he compressed himself until he could do it. That is what is meant by love making room. Accordingly, it is called ahavas olam: for the infinite, boundless One to invest Himself within limits, within what is called a world. A world has four boundaries. So we say, “With an everlasting love You have loved Your people Israel.” Why? In order to bring them into His unity and His oneness, blessed be He. And about this it says, [unclear]—meaning [unclear], the G-dliness within every...

43:33 Speaker 2 ...host of angels, every day. What is that—is it superfluous? Why is it needed? The other angels do not have this ability. He gives us what no angel can attain: the ability to draw close to Him. A Jew can draw close to Hashem: “You chose us from every nation and tongue.” And this is despite the physical body and its involvement in material things. [unclear] There are many, many habits the body has acquired. [unclear] There are two things: there is faith, and there is “I acknowledge.” I raise my hands. In other words, it is beyond the intellect. The intellect has reached its limit: this is beyond it; I cannot understand it. Where do we actually see this? We see it with a simple person. He has no difficulties; he thinks he understands everything. But then he reaches a point where it all falls apart. An intelligent person, by contrast, considers something before trying to fix it: “This I can fix; this I cannot fix.” Not because he is foolish, but because he is wise. He knows how far his intellect reaches, what he can accomplish, and how to make use of it. When he does not know, he stops. We see this especially with electricity. A capable person does not touch it; he goes to an electrician. The electrician checks everything: which wire he can touch and which he cannot. Electricity in the home cooks, bakes, and serves all our needs. Today you cannot manage without it. But if someone does not know what he is doing, he can cause a short circuit or get burned; in an instant, it can be over for him. So that is the point: we acknowledge Hashem for [unclear] in His unity...

45:49 Speaker 2 ...blessed be He, as explained above. Now, when a thoughtful person takes these things to heart, then, as water reflects a face back to a face, his soul will blaze. Here he uses the expression “will blaze.” What does that mean? He goes beyond his bounds. He sees it; the body cannot contain it. “And it will be clothed in a generous spirit.” What is burning within him? What does he want? To give himself freely, even though he is not obligated. That is generosity. He cannot remain as he is, because he wants to be included in his source, to set aside and abandon everything he has that stands in the way. What does he want? One thing alone: to cleave to Him, blessed be He, and be included in His light. We see this in the physical world with fire. Take a candle: when it is far from a flame, its flame rises and burns nicely. Bring it close to a larger flame, and you can see the fire leap up and become absorbed in the blaze, while the candle goes out. Where does that come from? It senses its source. The moment it senses its source, it becomes nullified within it and is no longer visible. So this is a Jew’s nature: he wants to burn in His light, with attachment, longing, and desire—in the manner of kisses and the joining of spirit with spirit, as explained above. Today, when people kiss, the kiss is often nothing at all—an external gesture, a ceremony, nothing more. But we see what a kiss is when a person has been in distress and no one has seen him, and no one thought he would make it; or when someone was gravely ill. The moment he comes out of surgery and begins to recover, his children, parents, brothers, and sons naturally kiss him. What is a kiss? It is beyond speech. It comes from deep in the heart. That is a kiss. They connect through their breath; they connect with one another. This is what is meant by the secret of kisses, spirit with spirit. Not just the physical body, but the person’s spirit...

48:28 Speaker 2 ...his intellect, his inner power, cleaves to the other. But what is this joining of spirit with spirit? How can one cleave to Hashem? For this, it says, “And these words shall be upon your heart, and you shall speak of them.” As it says in Eitz Chaim, the union of kisses is the union of Chabad with Chabad. What are chochmah, binah, and daas? What is intellect? It is in the head. Studying Torah takes place in the mind, while the mouth brings the spirit out into expression, into revelation. We see this when two friends who have not seen each other for a long time meet. One does not say “Shalom aleichem” or anything else; he rushes over, embraces his friend, and kisses him. Only afterward does he step back and begin to speak with him. At first he could not speak—he felt so closely attached to him. That was the aspect of kisses. What are kisses? The inner spirit that comes from the heart through the mouth. The two spirits meet. Today people use the expression “heart to heart”; that is what a kiss truly is. People have made something silly of it today, but that is a real kiss. That is why, when we take the Sefer Torah out of the Aron Kodesh and bring it to the bimah, everyone kisses it. Some people do it like this. What is the point? To connect with it. It is the Torah of life; the Torah is a living thing, and so we kiss it. We do not kiss bread. As for holy objects, even objects used for a mitzvah, some people kiss those too. That is not our custom. We do not kiss the esrog or the lulav. But sacred objects—the tefillin and the Sefer Torah, above all, with its great holiness—we embrace and kiss. And when do we see this especially? On Simchas Torah: how people jump, especially during the Rebbe’s singing. Even those who were his age—then a fifteen-year-old boy could not...

51:03 Speaker 2 To contend with it. He wanted to reach almost beyond himself, almost to the point of fainting before the Rebbe. [unclear] But the main thing is deveikus: how a person is attached not only with his mind but with his heart, because this is his life. And that is a level of revelation. And we are on the level of speaking words of Torah, because a person must bring them out with his mouth. His thoughts and his speech—even so, he does not fulfill his obligation through thought alone, until he brings the words out with his lips. Why? What is the need to say it aloud? In order to draw the light of the Infinite, blessed be He, down to the vital soul within the body. And also the light of the mitzvah, through the inanimate, the growing, and the living, to elevate them all to Hashem. A person has all four of these: inanimate, growing, living, and speaking—to come with the entire world. What is the bottom line? To become absorbed in His oneness, in His oneness and His light, blessed be He. What do we want? That He should illuminate the earth. Not just that we should believe in Him, but that we should see Him. That is what it means for Him to illuminate the earth: it becomes clear. When people grope in the dark, they cannot see anything. They can even get the wrong idea about things. The moment there is light, you see every object—not only its physical substance; you see the Divine oneness within it. That He should illuminate the earth and those who dwell upon it in a revealed way, and it should be revealed, as it says, “And all flesh shall see.” That is the ultimate purpose of the unfolding of all the worlds: that “the whole earth is filled with His glory,” specifically in a revealed way. To transform darkness into light and bitterness into sweetness, as stated at length. Now he concludes: This is the ultimate intent at the root of the world's creation—to draw it down, not merely for it to exist. Here he emphasizes that we need to know the intent. Not just to pray. To pray means to draw down the light of the Infinite. When we say, “Who forms light and creates darkness,” “Who forms the luminaries,” we are not meant just to say it, or just to believe it, but to reveal

53:43 Speaker 2 it, to draw it down here, so that it is felt in the mind and felt in the heart. But first there must be an arousal from below: a person must give over his soul and all that he has to Him. As long as he is drawn to his body and loves his money, he cannot nullify himself to Hashem, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Once he reaches the full realization of the hoped-for goal—what a person is meant to be, and the pleasure, the— not just the pleasure, the greater pleasure—the true purpose, what ought to be, is to love Hashem. That is the passage of Shema: “With all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” Those are the three things around which all of a person's life revolves. As we said earlier, what should we do? Not eliminate our love for those things, but learn from it. Just as you love your wife, just as you love your children. You love your life; you love your possessions. All of it is nothing in comparison. What is the ultimate purpose of all creation? The ultimate purpose of all creation is the One who created it. That is what we need. Let me quote a letter the Rebbe sent my father when I became bar mitzvah. The letter has already been published in Igros Kodesh, but I will read it. [unclear], Brooklyn. Rabbi Yisroel Likin [?], Bnei Brak, [unclear] Avraham Tzvi, may he live, [unclear], greetings and blessings. [unclear] I was pleased to receive [unclear] concerning the tefillin of his son, [unclear], may he live. [unclear] He should be successful in Torah, and may there be fulfilled [unclear] the meaning of tefillin, as explained in Shulchan Aruch and at the beginning of chapter 41 of Tanya. And this is the ultimate purpose of Chabad Chassidus. [unclear] So that is what the Rebbe wrote for my bar mitzvah. He wrote the letter; it is printed in [unclear], and in several

56:17 Speaker 2 other places. The Rebbe—the Rebbe wanted it publicized. What is the ultimate purpose of Chabad Chassidus? It is that the above should become a person's inner reality. And that is what we have just learned: the meaning of the Exodus from Egypt, the recitation of Shema, as it were—Shema and Vehaya Im Shamoa. Similarly, there are the mezuzos, and that is why the Rebbe launched the mezuzah campaign. They contain the passages of Shema and Vehaya Im Shamoa. And may it be Hashem's will that we become what... that we do what the Rebbe wanted of us, that we think and contemplate, and that we merit this soon—the final promise, when there will be “You shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” And this will be with the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, very soon indeed.