Tanya By Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz Chapter 50 - "Love of Fire"

Welcome to tonight's Tanya class. We are studying tonight chapter 50. Perek Nun. All right, we reached a nice milestone. It's like going over the curve here. Which by the way, the first section of Tanya, there's 53 chapters. So after tonight, we have 3 more weeks and we're going to have a major party. All right? Hey, come on. We worked hard. This is like was like 2-year project. Okay, right? 2-year project I think we've been working on this. Okay, um and you guys are all transformed, right? So like uh new people. Okay, so chapter 50, Perek Nun. Tonight's chapter in Tanya, as I as I say every week, because it's it's the uh mysticism of Kabbalah and it's the uh written law of Kabbalah, like the that's like the Bible. So every chapter's unique, every chapter's special, every chapter you learn something revolutionary, which hopefully you have not learned before and we can grow from it. So tonight's chapter, and actually in English, you know what it's called? My I made up the name. Just a disclaimer. I made up the name. I mean, maybe others picked the thought of the same thing, but it's called love of fire. Ladies like the name. Hearts on fire, right? This is called love of fire. Why? Because there's love of water and there's love of fire. Anyone know the difference? Good, bad. No, everything's good. Come on. We know that by now. Everything is God and everything is good, right? Everything's divine providence. It's all good. So tonight's chapter is called love of fire. Anyone? Why? Why, right? Okay, so the alter let's go let's get let's get ourselves some perspective. What we've been learning for the last many, many weeks in Tanya was that when we serve God, there's two components. There's the body and there's the wings. Just like in a bird, right? You can imagine a bird. Come on guys, close your eyes, imagine a bird. You have the head, the body and then you have the wings. So what is the essence of the bird? The head and the body. You take off the wings, it's still a bird. It can't fly, but it's still a bird. A bird that can't fly. There's birds that can't fly. But what happens if you have just the wings and no bird? That's not a bird. You have wings. Not going anywhere either. Not flying either anywhere, right? Or what's it flying? What's it carrying? So in other words, the same thing also. The body and the head spiritually refers to what? Prayer, Torah study, mitzvot, life. All the things that we do, the things that we do to connect to God, whether it's prayer, Torah study, mitzvot, that's the body. That means every day we get up, we pray, we put it on the checklist, we study Torah, checklist, we do mitzvot, checklist, right? We move around, that's checklist. That's called a body. That's called checking it off the list. But when do you become a live human being? Someone that's flying in life, someone that's you know making headway in life, someone that's making a difference, that is when you have wings. Now what are wings? So wings we know is ahava, love and yirah and or. So when there's inspiration, whether it's love, whether it's or, now you have um wings and now you're starting to have life. Now you're starting to go places, because if you have no wings, you can go you can take baby steps or big boy steps, but it's only steps. With the wings, you can start flying. So the alter explained the ultimate if you want Torah and mitzvot and prayer to move, you need to have ahava and yirah. Love and or of God. We spoke about or at length, um so going back to chapter 41, um so so like a couple months ago, we spoke different ways to ignite the love that we have for God, meditation, inner love and so on and so forth. You can go back and listen to the, you know, to the classes that are online on YouTube. Different different ways to ignite and different levels of love. Different levels of love. And there were many. So this week the alter comes along and he says something revolutionary, as he does every week and he takes blows our mind spiritually and he says, "Guess what? Everything that we spoke about till now about the love that we have for God, that we have or could have, that we inspire ourselves to do, we call out the inner love, that goes under one category. What is that category? That is called ahava, love of water. Or another term, another term, a love of kesef. Anyone know what kesef means? You guys know what kesef is? Kesef? Huh? Kesef is silver, exactly. Love of silver. Love of silver and love of water. Now what is love of silver? And again, this is what we talked about till now. But tonight he's going to introduce in chapter 50 a whole new concept and that is love of fire. Or in other word, love of Water is like silver and fire is like Come on. Gold, very good. There you go. Exactly. Fire is like gold, exactly. So up until now it was all about water and tonight it's about fire. Tonight it's about gold. In other words, what's the difference? What is the difference? And it's a major difference. A major difference. So let's first talk about the way the alter describes everything we spoke about till till now. Again, all the different levels of love go under one category of love of water, love of silver. What does silver mean? So silver in Hebrew, how do you say silver in Hebrew? Kesef. There's another word in Hebrew which is similar to uh kesef, which is nichsof, nichsafta, where you're basically yearning. You're yearning. There's a yearning. What is the idea of a yearning? What does that mean in love of a yearning? And the alter explains like this. The idea of love of water and the love of kesef, the love of yearning, the alter explains as follows. God created what? A world. God create a world and world in Hebrew is called what? Olam. What does Olam mean? What is the What is What is the word What did I say? Olam. What does Olam mean? It means world, but it also means what? Forever. A part of world, right? Forever. But what what does Olam mean? Comes from the word of helen, concealment. So in other words, this world that we call a world, really what the world by definition really means, God is concealed. Because God's concealed, that's why we're calling it a world. If we were able to see God's God's If God was revealed in this world, would we call it a world? We would call it God and Godliness. So the world that we call world really means God's concealed. So therefore you can walk around this world, keep your brain in neutral or in different channels, which I'm not going to mention here, right? Or your heart shut off and what are you going to see? If your brain is shut and your heart is dull, when you walk around this world, what's the default? What do you see and feel? You see the world and ego. Very good. You see the world and you see the ego. Ego means you see yourself and you see the selfish, materialistic world. So if your mind is shut off and your heart is dull, when you walk around, what do you see? Your ego, other people's ego. How inspiring is that? Not. Right? You're like in It's like almost like in a coma, comatose, right? Comatose life. But what happens if you want to be inspired and you want to start living? So then you switch on the brain and you open up your heart and you start feeling like Abraham. Who was the first person that thought? Who was the first person that thought? Well, Adam thought too, but he thought about drinking the grape, making a grapevine and getting drunk. So he had thoughts, yes, but those are different type of thoughts. Who was the one that thought out of the box? I'm not talking about in the box. Abraham. Who was the one that thought out of the box? So Abraham goes around and didn't just think of see the grapes and say, "Oh my gosh, let's make some wine. Let's get drunk." He didn't think that. That was that was Adam, right? Correct. Let's get it straight. Abraham says, "No, no, no, there's more to the grape. Who created the grape? Who created the vine?" Right? In other In other words, like this. Who wants to Who wants to Who wants to become young and stay young? Come on. Everybody. Can we got to raise the hands from everybody here? Not everybody, see. I got some people here. You guys want to become young and stay young? You guys are thinking about it. Okay, that's fine. You can think about it. Okay, one of the signs of one of the sign One of the signs of youth is what? Huh? Dreaming, yeah. Very good, exactly. Dreaming, curious. If you want to So in other words, young people are curious. So if you're No one here is old, all right? So let's not get into trouble into trouble. And nobody watching this is old. Everyone's young. But if you want to get younger, right? Whatever age you are, you want to become younger, so you become curious and you become younger. Think about it. If a young person is curious and that's why he's young, so if an older person, whatever old means, um becomes curious, you automatically become young. You have the expression young at heart, young at mind, right? So curiosity makes you young. Young people are curious. So Abraham switched his brain on, rather than putting it on default of sleeping, opened his heart and said, "Oh my gosh, who created this world?" And let's not get too nervous, who created me? Right? Who created the table, the chairs, the building, the trees, the grass, the earth? I mean, again, if you're curious, is there a stopping to to There's no There's no end. You can be curious about everything and anything and go deeper and deeper. And guess what? You will continue to be curious. Now, if you're curious and be more and more curious, what happens? You get younger. You're getting younger. Oh, yeah, you got it. Come on. There you go. That's it. I got people over here soon be dancing in a minute. So, you're getting younger. Okay. So, you become more curious. As you become more curious, you become younger and younger. As you become younger, you become more curious. So, Abraham says, "Who made all this?" And guess what? You start not being happy with the with the simple answers. You want something a little deeper. Don't say the carpenters made it. Okay, who made the carpenter? You got it? And come on, who gave that carpenter ideas? If he created an idea, really, where did he get the idea from? Who inspired There you go. There you go. So, you have is you keep on going deeper and deeper. And because God's infinite, you can go infinitely deeper. And Abraham came to the realization, "Oh my gosh, there must be There must be a creator that created this world. That's making it all happen." Okay. Now, wonderful. Now, is there anyone in this world that ever made anything? Huh? Except God. I Again, that was not the question. The question is anyone in this world ever made anything? The answer is no. We never make We put things together. We took different things and we shaped it. We never made anything. Nobody made a house. You took different components and you put it together and you have a house. We call it a house. Nobody creates things. People put things together, assemble things, right? We form things, we shape things, right? But we don't create things. The only one that ever created something is God. Now, so therefore, we don't know the concept of creation. We don't really experience with it. We have the experience of formation. Right? Taking things and shaping them, holding them together, whatever. Now, the reality is, when you take something, two things and put them together, it's all together. But you didn't make it. The reality when you make something, not only do you have to create it, guess what? You know what you need to do? You need to maintain it. You ever see a house that's not maintained? Or building that's not maintained? Or a car that's not maintained? Right? We don't need to We don't need to have to go too far. Correct? So, something that's not maintained, right? Starts falling apart. So, so And that's something that you didn't even create. You just put together. How much more so something that was created? So, God A, created the world. B, maintained the world. That's where Abraham came to the realization. Cuz ah, so if God is the ultimate creator and God is the ultimate main main main maintenance manager, maintenance director, right? We're managers, he's director, right? If God's the ultimate, we have to question this. You guys You guys have water in your house? You pay a bill to somebody for it? You do, right? I hope. Otherwise, you're not going to have water. You have electricity? You pay a bill to someone? And so on and so forth, right? So, you pay for things. So, you acknowledge it and you pay for it. So, how are we paying How are we sending our bills to God? Anybody? Does he have PayPal? Blessing him and What? and being grateful. You have his wiring instructions? How you paying God? By God and nature. Ah, so God says one thing. Just recognize and say thank you. The best way, and it's cheap, it's free, but for some people it's very very hard, is all you need to say is, "God, thank you so much. Thank you so much for creating me. Thank you for maintaining me today. And thanks for creating, maintaining parents, friends, children, work the books that everything. Cuz whoever made this table didn't make it, God made it and maintains it. So, God, thanks for continuing to maintain it so we can put our books and we can have the class. And for the camera and so on and so forth. You can infinitely thank God. And that's what Abraham came along and did. Now, what happens when you are And in simple English, you know what it's called when you think? What's it called? There's another word for it. It's being Thankful. So, So, what happens when you're thankful and grateful? You know what happens? You are happy. You're happier. You start to fly. You start to fly. Exactly. Because now you're not just dead weight. Now you see there's movement in the world. There's someone that created and is maintaining. And if you if you start being thankful and grateful, it's you're like trying to run and catch up with God. And then God will throw you a few extra things to thank him for. Think about it. If you God gives you everything, right? And you don't say thank you and grateful. You think he's sending you more stuff? No. But if you say, "God, thank you so much. This is great. God, thank you so much. This is great." He says, "Ooh, I like this guy. He He's awake." Sends him another fish, right? And a bigger one. And guess what? God, "Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Oh my gosh." Boom, guy sends him another big fish. And you go, "I got it. You know, right? I can't handle it. So many blessings." But guess what? Oh my gosh, he's Keep on You know, as you create a relationship. So, by you being thankful and grateful, you are continuing cuz God started the relationship. God is always first. He put you here. He created you. So, by you thanking and great being grateful, you're just continuing a relationship that God started. And guess what? You're throwing him a serve. It's like tennis. You guys play tennis, whatever sport you play. And God shoots you one back. And guess what? Now you have a beautiful game of tennis going. Now, if you stop, guess what happens? The game stops. And you don't get any new balls. You might have the old ones, but come on, after a while they get dirty and you have to run around picking up the same balls. Not exciting. So, you want some new ones. So, as you start thanking God, okay. So, what happens is as you're thankful and grateful, what happens? You're in love. You're in love with God. You're in love with God. Now, when you're thankful and grateful and you're in love with God, so what you really did is you created a You created an active loving relationship with God. Now, so the author says, "Up until this chapter, the whole level of love, any level of love we spoke about, it's love of water, love of silver, love of yearning." What does that mean, yearning? Again, when you're in this world, do you like the world? Yeah. you do. You enjoy the world. You have a house, you have a car, you have friends, you have a stores, you have physical thing, materialistic thing. Even Even the Torah books are printed on paper. So, you So, you like the materialistic world. But with all the fact that you like the world, you always remember your curious kid that stays in you that God created it all. God maintains it all. And thank you. So, now I'm in the game with God. I'm thanking him and he's saying, "No problem. Let's send you more." And you go, "God, thank you so much. It's like the best thing you could have done for me today, right?" That is called love of water. Why is it called love of water? Because you're really at peace. You're at peace. Love of water Water, if you ever you ever sit by the water, it's very calming and relaxing. In other words, love of water, it's calming and relaxing. You're not fighting with yourself. You're not fighting with anyone else, for sure not. You're just really at calm and at peace with yourself. Sitting by the water, right? Whether it's sitting by the ocean or by the gulf or sitting at your home with just a like a fountain, you know, flowing water, or sitting by the pool, it's very calming. Why? Cuz there's no There's no friction, right? In fact, they say it's the the best exercise cuz it doesn't fight your joints, right? So, in other words, water, it allows you to flow very freely. So, think about it. God's giving you Do you like the world? Sure. But you also You also recognize that there's someone that created and maintained the world. So, it creates a beautiful loving water type of love fact where there's no friction. You're You're You're basically complacent, you're calm. But on the other hand, you're not sleeping. You are alive with love for God. So, that is called love of what? Of water. Love of silver. Because again, what What's What's the difference basic silver and gold? What's more readily available? Silver. Silver. It's much cheaper. It's much more readily available. So, you can always thank God. Oh my gosh, the house, the whatever. You walk out in the street, thank you God for the nice wea- Whatever. The There's It's always readily available. Because you're You're alive. You're in this world. So, the author says, "Great. That's one level. But now he says, "We're going to learn about something totally different." And that's called the love of fire. What's the love of fire? Love of fire is you start thinking and you go even deeper. See, till now, the way the thought process worked up until now, there's a world. God created it and maintained it. So, you are at peace with the world. And you recognize that the ultimate power comes from God. And you're grateful and thankful. And you express that. God expresses it back. Love is flowing. That's That's good. It's a great place to be. And believe me, if we're holding there, then you're wonderful. You're doing great. But now but the life you got to go up in life. So, the author says, "Now, if you go step further and you start thinking about how great God is, this infinite God, and really, what's real? Real is infinite. This materialistic world is what? Finite. It's finite. Point A, it's finite. Point B, what we call this world, with no insult, no judgment, what we call this world, we call it something, right? But not a funny name. We just call it what it was. What is this world called? What do we call it? Olam, which right, which meant To conceal. Concealed. Concealed. God's concealed. I mean, think about that name for a second. I mean, isn't that like the biggest joke? God is everything. God is created this world. And you know what we're calling this world? Concealment. What are you saying? Think about the word concealment. What you're saying is that the truth is concealed. That's like calling this world, to be a little more frank, falsehood. A world of falsehood. Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors. Now, if you think about that name, it's actually kind of embarrassing. Right? Now, let's go further. So, I'm I'm living in this materialistic world and I say, "Oh my gosh, this world God's concealed. God, namely the infinite power, the infinite power, the one that creates and maintains, he's so much more powerful than this concealed this concealed world. But, guess what? I gave a name to this world. False concealed world. Oilam Hashakar, this false world." Now, if you start thinking about this, you want to start being honest with yourself, this world is ridiculous. This world is ridiculous. I mean, come on. What is this What's the value in a finite world compared to infinite? It's like the biggest joke. It's ridiculous. Do you Let me ask you a question like this. If money was not an object, money wasn't object, there was nothing limiting you, nothing limiting you. Would you want to wear a Again, money was not an object and you're not into materialism and just conceptually, would you want to wear a real authentic and again, ultimately you see the problem this is also fake. We're going to use a fake example. Uh you would you want to wear a real Rolex, which really a Rolex is really fake because it's all about God, but let's use a materialistic example because would you want to wear a real gold Rolex with diamonds? Again, there was Money was not an object. Or, no offense, to a simple Casio $9.99 watch. $9.99 cents, made out of plastic, right? You have to look at the battery, right? It looks like a piece of disgusting. Not that we're into materialism. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to get any wrong ideas. And I'm not saying that Rolex is better than a Casio watch. It's very possible Casio watch is better than a Rolex. I know a lot of wealthy people that wear Casio watches that want to bring that point. That's because they want to bring the point. Uh would you want to wear, you know, authentic Armani suit. A what? An Armani suit. I'm Okay, I don't know what Armani is, but I imagine it's a good Is that a good one or not a good one? I'm just kidding. But, you want to wear like an authentic you know, um an Italian night, you know, suit, you know, I don't know what the type of wool etc. spun then organic and whatever. Or would you want to wear like, you know, a piece of cotton on you? You know what I mean? Something in the middle. Not even spun. I would like something in the middle. You want to wear something in the middle? What? Half cotton and half wool? Okay, I got it. A little bit fancy, but I wouldn't turn it down. No, but again, you see but but the problem is the now the problem with the analogy is we're trying to be spiritual, we're trying Now, we're trying to give a physical example. In other In other words, say like this. Okay, so let me let me give you a different example, right? If you had a chance to sit I don't know how much we can handle. But, let's say you had a chance to sit for 24 hours with you and God. 24 hours a day. Right? And I say to you the same 24 hours a day, you can choose to go to Disney World. It's a competition, fine. All right. There's something wrong with the analogy here. How old am I in this scenario? Right. Okay, how old am I exactly? So, let's let's change the example. I'm trying to find something you can relate to. Okay, let's let's go back. Okay. Let's say you have an example You can either sit with Moses. Moses would come and spend 24 hours with you and Aaron, too. Good. Right? And to top it off, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Wow. And Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. Oh my gosh, I see nobody like it. Right? People are getting excited. Or or you can sit with And again, I'm not trying to make a judgment with an ignoramus, whether by fault or not by fault, irrelevant, for 24 hours in the same room and have to have a conversation with them. I mean, let's be honest. Okay, there you go. I finally found a good example. I'm not trying to be judgmental. I'm trying to find something that wouldn't offend anybody, right? Okay. Or like for example, let's let's say you let's say you love Okay, let's try something else. Let's say you say you love horseback riding and you practice for the last 20 years. And you have a choice of spending 24 hours with a real, you know, race type horse or to or to or a plastic horse. You know, they they wind up you pay 25 cents. On on the avenue, right? Not very easy. Is there Is there an analogy? You guys are getting me? You're getting my analogies? Okay, I got everyone laughing, that's good. So, we kind of count for something, right? Now, but do you see the analogy? Sure. So so so so the Alter Rebbe says, you're in this materialistic world and you came to the realization infinite God created and maintained the world and he's out here. God's here. He's out there, he's hiding. And guess what? Let's sit down with a paper cup that has some water in there and you spend six bucks in Starbucks. I mean, that's going to give me my enjoyment in life. Come on. I mean, maybe some people, no offense to Starbucks and the $6 cup of coffee, but the right? But, the question is very simple. What I mean, would you even for a moment want to go No. Is it even a comparison? No. You need some more analogies? All right. Okay, we got the point. You got it. Okay, so in other words, the Alter Rebbe says, you know you know what love of fire is? Love of fire is All right. I'm will No, not all No, no, no. I'm willing to give everything up. It means nothing to me. I'll give up my house, I'll give up my car, even a private plane or a boat, right? All that. I'm willing to give it all. Give up the silver. I I'm giving the gold away. no, I'm giving up everything. The gold, too. Silver I'm giving everything up. I don't This is all narishkeit. You yourself called it a a a world that God's disguised and just materialism stuff. And I want to connect with the infinite God. Right? Oh my gosh. Who wants this world? And you start creating a yearning to be with what and with who? With the infinite God. I want to be with the infinite God. Not only I want to be with the infinite God, I love that God. I love God. I mean, think about it. You think about you have an opportunity to connect with the infinite God versus anything materialistic in the world. Where you going? Is it even a question? God all the way. So, what happens is now your soul Here's a trick. God took your soul, which is part of the infinite God, and somehow stuck into this materialistic body, which is only, you know, an average most six six and a half feet tall, some people are shorter, right? How wide? How much you weigh? That's your whole physical mass. And it's locked into this body. I mean, you think about an infinite infinite power that's And guess what? If I'm sitting in this room, I can't be sitting somewhere else. My mind may be can be somewhere else. My heart, but I'm my I'm stuck here. Now, once I get out of this body that's holding me back, guess what? I can be anywhere and anywhere everywhere at any at any moment. So, what happens is in Hebrew it's called I have kalois hanefesh. My soul just wants to leave my body. Why would I only be stuck in this body, in this room, in this place? Why? There is no good answer. So, therefore, you can't Nobody's saying anything, right? So, obviously, I don't want to be here. So, where do I want to be? I want to be with the infinite God. I yearn to be with God. I love God. My soul just wants to become one with God. Now, is that Now, remember, if you keep on going with this, you know what's going to happen? Let's say I say God, grant you permission. Your soul is going to leave your body and cleave with God. What happens to your body? Disappears. Gone. It's a goner. It's dead. The chevra kadisha come, pick it up, boom, bury it. Done. So, you're willing to give your body And what happens to your family and your friends and all your toys, right? Whether it's your car, your house, whatever it may be, right? Your private jet, your private yacht. All the stuff, nothing. It just rots away. I'm willing to Yeah, I'm willing to give it all up. Why? Cuz God is infinite. That yearning is called what? Love of fire. I'm on fire. Think about it. I'm willing to burn it all down. No pun intended, right? I'm willing to burn it all down. For the physical stuff, but more important, my my soul is on fire to be with God. I just want to be with God. I want to leave. Now, fire, you ever watch a fire? You ever do a meditation? Light a candle. Light a candle in your house at night. Close all the lights. And I do it a lot at night before I go to sleep. And you close all the lights and you sit and you watch the candle. There's stories there that go on phenomenal. But, if you watch the candle, what happens? This is powerful. You have whether whether it's a can a physical wax candle or if it's a container that has oil in there. So, let's say you forgot my case, you have oil you have a glass container and inside you have oil. So, you have a glass container, you have a vessel. You have oil. You have a wick. And then you have fire. Now, if you look closely at what's going on in that space, so you have the glass that's containing everything. Without the glass, you're going to have a mess on the counter or on the floor, right? And it's hard to clean oil when it spills. Trust me, I know. But, you have the glass that's pulling it all together. So, you need that. You need a vessel to pull it all together. You got the vessel pulling it all together. In the vessel then you have oil, which is contained. Now, the oil sits there, then you have a wick. Usually, we use a floater to hold it so the wick doesn't fall down, but anyway, you have the wick. You only have nothing. Then you take a fire match and you light the light the wick. You light the wick, right? And now you have you look closely Um if you look really close, you'll see there's different colors of of of fire. And since the thing is closer to the wick, which is actually being burned, it's a wider fire. As it goes away, it's getting more yellow. But anyway, let's That's not my point. So, you have the fire, the wick, and the oil. Now, what is the fire trying to do? What's the fire trying to do? It wants to go up to heaven. Why? Think about it. Because fire is very spiritual. It doesn't want to be in this materialistic world. It wants to go to its source, which is very, very spiritual. So, the fire's fighting. It's a fight. The fire wants to leave. It's fighting to leave. The wick what is pulling it down. And the oil is feeding the wick that it has, you know, materialism, you know, to keep it here. It's like, you know, it's giving you the, you know, giving you the the golden nuggets, right? And keep them here. So, the point is the oil is feeding the wick. The wick is basically pulling the fire, and it's a a constant tug-of-war. So, in other words, the fire, right, the fire of our soul wants to leave our body. The body is pulling us down. And as long as you can feed it with the oil, or with the wax, which is oil, it will stay here. The minute you stop feeding it, game is over. Game is over. Now, think about the experience. Now, I want you to put Today, we can do with computers. You can have two images on one screen, right? In the old days, computers you really had one, right? But today, you can even have two or more. But let's say you have a screen, and you have two images. And in one image, you're going to have in front of you you have the sitting by the pool or by the beach, and the water is flowing nicely, right? Calmly. And then you have the the fire, right? Coming out of the coming out of the wick. Which one is the peaceful experience? The water. It's peaceful. Which one is more of a struggle? The fire. Why is that? Because the water is at peace where it's at. It's yearning to be with God, but it's it's yearning to God in this world. God, yeah, this is your world. I know you created it, and I know you're maintaining it, and I'm recognizing it. So, I'm at peace with the world. I'm at peace with the world. That's point number one. But not only am I at peace with the world, I I recognize that God is the ultimate power, and it's peaceful. And that's a beautiful, and I'm grateful, and thankful, as we said in the beginning of the class. But now, with the fire is, oh my gosh, this is nonsense. This is silly. This is stupid. This is like, I mean, what are we selling ourselves short, being busy with a materialistic world? So, the fire wants to get out of here. It wants to cleave to God. That's what it wants to do. Now, which fire is stronger? Which yearning is stronger? The fire is much stronger. Which one is more at peace? The water is more at peace. So, the Alter Rebbe says, "Love of fire is where basically you just want to leave the world. You just want to leave the world. You want to cleave with to God. Like the fire wants to leave, and that's why it's called love of fire. That's why it's called gold, right? Cuz it's it's very hard to come by. It's it's a very high level. To really accept the fact this world is materialism. It's it's silly. It's inappropriate. Don't waste your time here. Let's cleave to God." Now, the reality is, we all would like to leave to that level. Isn't that a great level to be? You just want to you want to get out of the world? So, the Alter Rebbe now deals with two issues. Number one is, how we can get to that level. But B, what do we do when we get to that level? Do we actually just leave and never come back? So, first the Alter Rebbe says, "In order to reach this level, you you have a person In order for a person to reach this level, you have to be focused and have a clear vision about the infinite part of God, and the way this materialistic world is really an illusion, and 100% false." So, the Alter Rebbe says, "In order to soar high, right? Can you imagine a plane is trying to take off, and you put on hundreds of tons of product on there? You think it's taking off that plane? No, it's too much weight. You got to unload the weight. The lighter something is, the easier to take off and to fly. Now, same exactly same with us. If we want to soar high, if we want to cleave to God, if we want to become one with God, in order to do that, we have to make sure we have zero or close to zero sin. Every sin puts on weight. With every weight, actually this world feels a little more comfortable and better. Because what's my definition of sin? A sin means I'm not listening to God. Means if I'm not listening to God, this world is a great place not to listen to God. Guess what? Cuz God's concealed. If I cleave to God, how's that going to work out if I'm not listening to him? When do when do when do students misbehave? When the teacher's in the classroom and teacher goes out? When teacher goes out. If teacher is standing there, who misbehaves? So, if you want to cleave to God, you have to have in turn In Hebrew, it's called yirah s'ched. You have to be in awe for sinning. Because if you do sin, and you do transgress, you're never cleaving. It's not going to happen. So, a person has to go into into the mode of like In the terms of Kabbalah, it's called sur me rah. You have to go away from evil. The more you go away from evil, the more you can cleave to God. Unfortunately, the more that you you you you you like like like bad and evil, it's going to be hard to cleave to God. So, the first thing is, if you want to reach this level, which is a great level to be, wanting to leave. We're talking about the yearning to wanting to leave. You have to make sure you're totally not inspired or have no attraction to anything evil. Sur me rah and yirah s'ched. Now, the reality is, but we're living in this world. So, what happens? We want to leave. So, the Alter Rebbe says something which is called I'll tell you the Kabbalistic words in Hebrew, and I'll translate. There has to be a ratzoi, and there has to be a shov. What does that mean? The ratzoi is the aspect of that wants to leave. You know, enough. I'm willing to give it all up. I don't need it at all. I don't need nothing. The only thing I need is what? To be one with God. Let me tell you, that's peaceful. That's happy. But, we know in the temple, we had the priests, the Kohanim, and the Kohanim resembled chesed. The Kohanim resembled ahava. The Leviim, the Levites, resembled yirah. They had ecstasy. They wanted to leave. How they How were they drawn back to this world? They would sing songs and draw back down that powerful energy into the materialistic world. So, in other words, you need to have both. You you need the ratzoi, and that gives you the love of fire. That you just want to leave. What means you want to leave? It's not that you want to It's not so much you want to leave here. Well, it's A B A, you want to cleave to God. And B, in order to cleave to God, you want to leave here. And the way to leave here is to make sure that you don't do anything bad, and you're you're you're you have true awesome awesomeness for God that you you're not going to sin at all. And the Alter Rebbe explains, "Not only was that the avodah of the Leviim in the temple, but ultimately, the purpose of studying Torah and doing mitzvot is for that reason. That anytime a person studies Torah, think of what you're doing when you're studying Torah. You're sitting down in the materialistic world on a chair by a table. You're taking out a book which is printed on physical paper, and you're reading text which is materialistic. You're reading the Torah of God, which refers to materialistic and physical things. So, yeah, I have the yearning I want to cleave to God. And God says, "Yeah, great. Take out the Torah. Take that powerful energy, that ratzoi that you have for me, and shov, bring it down to the world." So, for example, you take out whether it's a Chumash, and you read the mitzvot, and you read what the Torah has to tell you how to live your life, and you read some Mishnah, and you read some Talmud, or you take out the code of the Jewish law, and it tells you how you behave from when you get up in the morning all throughout the day, um all throughout the week and Shabbat, and then Yom Tov and Chagim, or in Sefirah where you count the Sefiras Omer. So, when you take that yearning that you have to be with that you want to be with God, and God says, "Yeah, no problem. I know you want to be with me. No problem. I gave you the tools to how to to cleave to me in this world." By what? Taking out the Jewish law. What am I supposed to do from when I get up in the morning, and whether it's washing negel vasser, making blessings, or praying, or studying Torah, and getting you know, making a blessing before I eat and after I eat, or after you go out to the restroom. Whatever before you go to sleep, do Shema. Come Shabbat, how you observe Shabbat, and it's kosher, and so on and so forth. By doing all that, guess what? You're cleaving to me in this world the way I wanted it. Cuz God wants us to cleave to him. But God wants us to to take that powerful love not only of of of water and silver, but love of fire, love of gold, and bring it back into this world. And we do that by how? By studying Torah, by doing mitzvot, and by praying. So, in other words, everybody has a thing they want to yearn. They want to be with God. Oh my gosh, right? But if you can't stop and do a mitzvah, guess what? You're missing the main thing. In other words, if you think about it, there's specific mitzvot, and then there's so to speak global mitzvot. What's a global mitzvah? So, take for example, the mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael. It's not a specific mitzvah. It's a global mitzvah. It's to love everybody. Right? Why is that such an important mitzvah? Very simple. Because when you love other people, what are you you're loving the God in them. And you're loving the fact that this human being is is is human and makes mistakes and has flaws, but you love them anyway. That is taking that yearning you have to be with God and bringing it down to reality with human people that makes mistakes, and people that have flaws, and we all have flaws, but you love them anyway cuz God told us to love them. That's called drawing God's light back into this world. As we know, we study now Ethics of Our Fathers. So, in Ethics of Our Fathers, it's a powerful mission. It says like this, "Against your will, you're going to live. And against your will, you die." That's like a very funny statement, right? Is it against our will I'm going to live or against our will I'm going to die? Both. Both. So, we're going in circles. Now, if it's against our will I'm going to live, what does that mean? Really, I want to die. But against our will I'm going to live. Or against our will I'm going to die. I'm going to live. Really, I want to die live. But no, we're telling you you're going to die. So, the author explains this mission of based on this concept beautifully. What does he say? Very simple. Our goal is really to have that love for God, the love of gold, the love of fire. We what? We don't want to live. We want to be with God. We don't want physical life. We want our life to be godly life. So, the mission says, "It's great. Take your hat off to you. I like it. But stop. Remember that that God that you want to be with? What did he tell you? I want you to live. Against your will. Yeah, cuz it's more exciting to cleave to the infinite God. It's more exciting to want to leave. It's like the fire wants to pull out of the wick. But guess what? No, no. You're going to stick and you're going to have that relationship with that wick for a long time. As long as the oil lasts, you're going to have right? You're going to keep You're going to keep on having that relationship. But guess what happens? So, then you say, "Okay, great. Life is wonderful. I love this world." And you become like very comfortable and complacent with this world. So, the mission says, "Wake up. You're getting too comfortable. No, no, no. You're ready like You you like the world? No, no, no, no. Guess what? My dear friend, against your will you're going to start dying. You got to start cleaving for God. You're getting too comfortable in this world. Not working." So, oh my gosh. Oh, really? So, our ecstasy? Yeah, I want to be with God. God says, "No, no, no. You're going too far." And remember there's a world out there. You got to do mitzvot in the world. You got to pray, right? From a prayer book and say the words. You got to study Torah, right? You got to get along with everybody. You got to give charity in the materialistic world. Ah, so the world is most important. That's what That's why it sounds like almost like we're crazy. But finally we get comfortable. We're cleaving. We're running out of God. God says, "No, go back to the world." Finally we love the world and everything is good. The job is good. The wife, the kids, the husband. Life is wonderful. God says, "No, no, no. You're too comfortable. Time to get back and start crawling out of the world." And guess what? We spoke about it before. It makes you young and it keeps you young. Because against our will, we're going to live. And against our will we're going to die. Which in other words means very simple. We have to remember we have to yes, primarily we have to want to cleave to God. And this world should not distract us and pull us anywhere. But once we're on that journey, bing, bing. No, no, no. Time to go back. And remember there's a world out there. You got to do mitzvot, right? You got to give And but then as as we get That's what we are. We we're We like being comfortable. We like getting to like a a comfort zone. And God's job is to always break that comfort zone. Cuz we break the comfort zone, now we're living. An alive person Think about it. If you're in a hospital, right? What if it goes flat? You're in trouble. Ask any nurse, right? Or anyone who's sat by a hospital bed. It has to go up and it has to go down. That's what life is all about. Cleaving, coming down. Rotzei vashov. Rotzei vashov. Now, you don't want a crazy one. You know, you want to create some kind of rhythm. But even that, it can't be a rhythm that you're used to. Cuz now you're going to be You know, that's not going to work either. So, you need a rhythm that you're used to and then some every once in a while a bump up, a bump down. And as long as you're bumping up and bumping down, you're doing great. Okay. So, in other words, let's just recap this chapter, which as you can tell it's a very fascinating chapter. What the author was saying is up until chapter 49 we dealt with one love. A love of water. What's the love of water? There's a world. You recognize God created it and wonderful. We're peaceful. We're peaceful. Comes along and that everything and he says in this chapter we're going to stir the pot. We need to create a love of fire. You need to really know that the reality is what? Who's real? God's real. That's the infinite. And we should we cleave to to that infinite God. When we do that, we will have love of fire. We'll have real love. Love of gold. But as you do that, remember that's not the real That's not the That's not the ultimate. The ultimate is a God against your will. You got to come back in this world and make this world a place of God to hang out, doing mitzvot, studying Torah, and praying. And as you get comfortable, guess what? The cycle starts again. And that's why it's called fire because it never ends. Water, you create this beautiful calm place and you're relaxed. Fire is always it's burning up and burning down. It's always going somewhere. But guess what? That's a good thing to be. It's a good thing to be alive. It's better to be alive, right? Than not to be alive. So, this chapter you think we're coming to an end, right? It's the exciting chapter. Chapter 50 is all about love of gold, love of fire, being on fire to cleave to God. But then again, taking that inspiration and bringing it back into this world through Torah and mitzvot.