Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #34

so to those who are our veterans or at least have you been here for the past few weeks what chapter are we on 23. very good and um chapter 23 if you had the character not that the altar in tanya actually groups his chapters but based on intuition based on things that you've maybe you've heard from people who've learned tanya a few times before chapter 23 would be part of a group of chapters that would run from which chapter to its chapter 18 to 25 18-25 very good okay and if you would characterize the chapters that run from 18-25 what what what would you say is the theme or the revealing the hidden love revealing that this is really good oh you're looking at the tiny map yeah okay okay so this is not only you're allowed to but that is that's it's genius okay so you know what could do me a favor since you're looking at a tanya map what does it say is the summary for chapters 18 through 25 in the tiny map you're looking at a tiny little image on a phone of the ti the tiny map of this giant natural love for god from the patriarch by tapping into the love every jew can be obey no need through an understanding of divine unity chapters 20-22 one sees how all mitzvahs affirm god's oneness chapter 23 while all sin separates the sinner from god chapter 24. thus the jewish the jews innate desire to cling to god will be enough to drive him to observe all mitzvahs in even under the most difficult circumstances chapter 25 okay right there that was a summary of the whole thing okay you ever follow that basically we said if you want to summon up really intense emotions for hashem there's a method there's a and i stress a with the indefinite article there's a method for doing that why do i stress there's a method why did it what did i tell you like a few weeks ago when we started this group of chapters and i said we're going to talk about something that's uncharacteristic we don't normally speak this way so don't jump on me and say well i thought we don't speak that way and i told you well for this method we do remember what that was a few weeks ago i told you nobody say to me remember what i warned you it's like three weeks the all-or-nothing thing this method does not only encourage but it's based on taking up an all-or-nothing attitude toward mitzvahs there's a reason why it takes it all or not now we don't normally take an all or nothing attitude normally we say whatever you can do do a little bit better try to make the best choice at this moment everything is good for this method we take an all-or-nothing black and white attitude because what we're trying to do is trigger an innate reaction that the jewish person has embedded in his soul we already said where does he get it from it's a yerusha from the obvious we inherited it from you that will not allow him to worship idols that's why we see the phenomenon through history the people who were unobservant jews who are not religious giving up their lives to preserve their religious identity which makes no sense except the explanation is that there is this there's this mechanism within the jewish soul that will not allow the jew to separate himself completely from god through idol worship we said wow that's intense if only we could summon that in regular circumstances we said well you could the only way though is that if you could view a regular situation as if it were an all or nothing do or die black and white type test then you would have that intense reaction remember this is all review anyone who was here this should sound extremely familiar to you right people who are here this sounds familiar okay all right so we said fine how do we summon up that reaction we said well we're gonna have to view all mitzvahs as either not worshiping idols or worshiping idols basically affirming god's oneness or denying it that's it those are your only two choices completely a binary choice either we're with god or were god forbid with the idols really how we're going to view it that way so we said all right this is going to take a long time but we're going to explain to you some deep concepts about divine unity about how it's all one it's all oneness remember we talked about the metaphor of speech how hashem's creating the world with speech he's speaking it into being and that speech has no existence unto itself and really the worlds have no existence unto themselves and really the only true existence is hashem it's all hashem right then we spoke about last week the illusion of separation the illusion of separation that the idea that you have an existence not a subordinate existence see this is this is the thing we spoke about last week a person might say my existence is subordinate to hashem's existence meaning it is incomparably lesser than hashem's existence but it is in existence and we're characterizing that as idolatrous you understand the intense statement that we're making we're saying if you think that you or anything for that matter exists independently of hashem even if you say that it's a lesser existence then that's an idolatrous assertion because you're saying hashem is not everything because he's everything minus this tiny little speck that you've carved out for yourself then he's everything minus the spec which is not everything anymore okay i know these are deep concepts and i told you before the point of this safer is not philosophical or theological ideas the point of it is personal development to serving hashem better but in this particular group of chapters we by necessity get into some of these deeper philosophical and theological ideas okay everyone's good if you were here before does this review make sense to you if you were not here before does it not doesn't make sense to you but uh did i do you want to leave [Laughter] do you want to say oh i got the wrong address [Laughter] i didn't okay you said some some of your classes you skip over 18-25 many times going through tanya i don't skip over it but i condense it into really a really really really quick summary because it's so long and there's so many parts to it that people can't really keep up with it uh i don't think that it's that i don't think the ideas are too challenging i think there's just so many steps in the argument and especially nowadays we're not used to thinking like that we want to have the full-blown chapter because when we started that was the the goal of this class was we're just going to go through every word of tanya so that's why we're doing it this way okay so we're on chapter 23 pettikov gimmel the eem colonies could oh chapter 23 is a little bit long uh i'm hoping we can get through it i don't know i don't know we may not get through the whole chapter 23 today let's see i'm not going to force it according to everything that we've said so far we can now understand what the zayar says that in aramaic desire is a book in aramaic toyota and hashama are entirely one torah and hashem are entirely one uh it says that the 248 positive commandments are the 248 limbs of the king the king being hashem so toyota and hashem are one the 248 positive commandments are the 248 limbs of the king of hashem why is that why why does the desire use such uh characterizations um because the mitzvahs are the inner desire of hashem and his true desire which are there thereafter invested in the worlds higher and lower to enliven them because all of the life of the worlds depends on the performance of the mitzvos down here in this world as is known he says canada as is known meaning he's not teaching you a new concept you should be aware of this concept what's the concept you should be aware of that basically hashem created the world for a purpose and that purpose of the performance of the mitzvah so in the when the mitzvahs are performed by the jewish people down here our souls in bodies in the physical world that brings life into the world worlds plural all the layers levels that they should continue to exist so at any rate the point is that hashem and the torah are one because really all of the energy that keeps the worlds going is but an extension of the energy that originates in torah because the world only exists for the sake of the fulfillment of the mitzvos of tata what are we driving at vinimsa mitsubishi mon who loves so it comes out it emerges that the performance of the mitzvahs is the inner garment for the inner desire will of hashem because through this action the action of the mitzvos light and life from hashem's will becomes invested in the worlds in other words what's the mechanism whereby divine creative energy is infused within the creation right very good very good and the point he's making is therefore the mitzvahs are like the he calls it the lavush panimi the inner garment there are layers of garments for the innermost will think about it like the mitzvahs are not only this mechanism which enlivens the worlds but the mitzvahs are are the closest thing to his innermost will in other words the world exists as a result of divine will why does the world exist because he wants it to how is his will elicited how do we get hashem interested in the world how do we get hashem feeling good about making the world how do we get hashem to be more involved in the world what gets his attention so to speak mitzvahs right so the toyota mitzvahs are called the the garment the innermost garment to his innermost will vlog that's why the mitzvahs are called hashem's limbs why is that the martial why is that the metaphor that a mitzvah is called one of hashem's limbs just like the limbs of a person are completely subservient to that person and they're a uh they're a garment to the person's soul what does that mean you relate to that everyone's experienced that your your arm is reaching out and grabbing the coffee cappuccino right cappuccino all right it brings it to your mouth i did not have to command my arm i didn't have to say arm listen up we're going to need you right now extend your forearm use your fingers to grasp the cup lift the cup now bring your use your biceps to bring your forearm back into your toward your mouth i didn't say any of those commands you know why i didn't have to say any of those commands because i all i have to do is want the coffee and my arm perfectly and efficiently performs that task for me such is the degree of subservience and surrender that one's limbs in a healthy situation obviously have to the person's will my limbs are almost like an automatic carrier of my will all i have to do is desire it i don't even have to articulate it in fact i couldn't articulate it if you made me write a list of which muscles had to move in order to get the coffee to my face i don't even i'm not i don't i'm not a personal trainer i don't think i know which muscles i'm actually using i don't need to know by the way the same thing is with speech we are clueless as to what parts of our mouth are compressing the air when we're producing different phonemes and we do it rapidly without any conscious effort that is the degree of subservience that our bodies have to our will so that's why when we want to describe the mitzvos as being this seamless extension of hashem's will we call them limbs we call the 248 positive mitzvahs hashem's limbs they're just like a limb of a person without really any there's no there's no go-between there's no intermediate phase there's no not even any explicit instructions it's just this automatic extension or or expression of my will that's what my limb is so that's what the mitzvahs are and then that will is then indirectly invested within the worlds to enliven them through the mitzvahs that are performed in the worlds okay let's well there's two things here there's the fact that this this this will is seamlessly automatically reflected in the mitzvos then there's a second thing which is and then when the mitzvahs are done in the world that brings that energy into the world okay but the worlds are a secondary recipient of that will the mitzvahs are the initial recipients of that will like maybe this is a very crude metaphor and i might not even be saying the right thing but the cup of coffee is like the world my hand is like the mitts with a cup of coffee is like the world so i want the coffee cappuccino and i drink the cappuccino i bring the cappuccino to my face without any effort i just want it and then it happens right so the arm does it automatically the coffee it sort of just happens to it because it's it's it's it's there yeah he had to really think about it and pull his hands up because it wasn't what hashem wanted it wasn't the mitzvah that's the answer i think so oh that's how he should have known he should have been like hey question is when somebody is doing it how come they do it automatically why doesn't why don't they aren't they no no no no no no you're getting confused you're asking a question well that means that mitzvahs we should do automatically and evaders should be like almost impossible to force doing innovators should be like stick sticking your face in boiling water right you shouldn't be able to do it okay but you're confusing things here yeah we're not talking about people we're talking about god if a person were like this that would be called a tsadic and there are such rare people who their will is god's will and they they naturally automatically do only mitzvahs and they naturally automatically refrain from all sins but that's a todic and that's a rarity and that's not what we're talking about we're talking right now god we're not talking about people the arm is a metaphor ladies if i've said it once i've said it a thousand times metaphors are just metaphors don't get caught up in the metaphor we're not talking about a person's arm there's a you know there's no cappuccino in tanya also right that was just my metaphor okay we're talking about god that god's will god wants it what does he want what's his will what's his will well his most his deepest will because like we said last week and i don't get sidetracked over here anything that exists in the world even evil god wants it apparently because it's here it wouldn't be here if he didn't want it right but there are levels of will he wants it for a purpose he wants it because it's a stepping stone to something else to something else to something else to something else but his innermost will what he really wants are the mitzvahs yeah so i'm a little confused because the energy that hashem has in the world which which is creative at all times yeah we are but that's what we're saying we're saying that if we didn't do mitzvahs the world would disappear we are saying that yeah we are saying that but i don't want to get that's that's a side point it's not the central point here yeah we are saying that but it's okay for you not to grasp that it's really not central to the point yeah but that is the assertion we're making yeah you're correct your suspicions are correct okay um fine let's continue here kimiya eliminates immediately when it arises to someone's will to extend his arm or foot hey they obey his will immediately and without any express command like i depicted already oblique here calling without any delay you never have your arm say hold on we're processing some old commands you know like i tried to print the other day i was like oh the print queue is backed up it never happens el akirega rather immediately instantaneously at that very moment when it arises to his to his will whenever he wants to extend his hand his hand just goes that commercial so too by way of analogy the vitality which is in the mitzvahs who bought the legometer is completely surrendered to the will of hashem which is invested within the within it the nice lay mama kagufa nishama and literally can be described as a relationship like a soul in a body so when you perform a mitzvah the action of the mitzvah is surrendered to hashem's will like a person's very own hand is surrendered to him what are we driving at here that when you perform a mitzvah the level of surrender and therefore oneness with hashem that you achieve is unparalleled we'll continue here like i said it's a long chapter so i'm going to keep moving don't get confused here you just said the outer garment our outer garment means for the person the inner garment meant for hashem the outer garment remember chapter four we spoke about the three garments thought speech in action okay so of thought speech and action which one is the most external action so action which is the most external garment to the person that's the act that's the garment that's doing the mitzvah when you're doing a mitzvah with your action then your your outer garment called action becomes completely subservient and surrendered to hashem's will like a body to a soul and who's the point is that it's only a it's the outermost expression of yourself action as opposed to speech which is more inner and thought which is even more inward still and and yet when you choose to surrender your action by doing one of hashem's mitzvahs your action at that moment is as seamlessly integrated with hashem's will as the limb of a person is seamlessly integrated with the will of that person when the limb is subservient to that person's will okay get the metaphor okay it's simple metaphor the alkane and therefore gam every goofer adam and mitzvah limbs of the person that do a mitzvah when the limb of the person is doing hashem's will and hashem's will is then invested in that limb that's doing the will that that limb becomes a merkava literally a chariot or a vehicle to the supernal will and he gives examples what we're describing now your limb that is doing a mitzvah is a vehicle to hashem's will in other words just like your arm is a vehicle to your will well now when your arm is doing the mitzvah of hashem it's the vehicle to hashem's will as seamlessly integrated with hashem's will as your own limbs are to your own will through your through your nervous system he gives examples [Music] like the hand that hands out sadaka to the poor or does another mitzvah but [Music] it's for the feet that walk you to going to do a mitzvah or the mouth and the tongue that speak words of terror and also the physical brain that think words of therapy of heaven abdullah and think about the greatness of hashem wizard and this is what our sages mean when they refer to the patriarchs of yankev as the merkava they are collected collectively the obvious are collectively referred to as their cover the vehicle the chariot why were the patriarchs the greats abraham isaac and jacob called the the the vehicle or the the merkava shakal ibrahim kulam moved because all of their limbs were separate from mundane matters of this world villains and their limbs were only ever vehicles to the supernal will to god's will in other words the patriarchs are distinguished not in the qualitative degree of their limbs subservience to god's will because really every one of us has the same degree qualitatively when you do a mitzvah at that moment your limb is completely surrendered to god's will and is a vehicle to god's will a merkava the distinction of the obese is that they only ever did that so it's quantitatively it's not how much bittle there was to use the technical term how much bitter surrender there was because that's sort of binary on or off either it is or it isn't either you're doing hashem's will or you're not but quantitatively how often they did it and the answer is they only did it they only ever did hashem's will so they're called the the merkava the vehicle to hashem's will because that's what they they only ever did that but at a moment when you are doing hashem's will you're doing the same exact thing clear okay you understand where we're heading right now right remember what we're trying to do those who have been here since chapter 18. what are we trying to do what are we trying to engineer here what are we trying to get you to do what what reaction are we trying to elicit what do you want yeah you're trying we're trying to get you to love hashem but through what mechanism are we hacking to get you to love hashem meditation no that meditation 16 and 17 we're not doing the meditation actions in order to evolve ladies we're 16 and 17 was meditation 18 through 25 is a different method what's the method what are we trying to do yeah you said to to reveal the hidden love yeah how are we trying to poke the sleeping bear and get that hidden love to come out what are you trying to emotional connection yeah that's what we're trying to get how we're trying to get ourselves to suddenly emotionally wake up what are we doing to to trigger the adrenaline rush whatever we inherited from diablo that's everyone's still describing what i'm asking how no i have this love in me that'll make me into super jewish in a split second there's a button you have to push where the heck is the button how do you find the button you keep saying what the button does okay the button is that when i'm faced with an all or nothing proposition of serve god or serve idols then i'll become super jew that's the button i asked how can i access that button regular day-to-day life when i'm not faced with such intense dilemmas thank god so we said we will reframe it for you that every moral choice will be such an intense dilemma so we're reframing it right now remember what we're trying to do here we're trying to get you to look at it and don't tell me again i thought we do every little mitzvah in every little bit yes we do this is a special method in this method we're trying to frame things as all or nothing so listen what he's building up here he's building up the level of oneness you have with hashem when you do a mitzvah but then there's the flip side of that coin what there's nothing there's nothing but a sham and when you do a mitzvah you are actually living with that reality you are affirming that reality so when you do a mitzvah you're not just doing a good thing you are surrendering to the reality that there's nothing but god and then by implication when you don't do a mitzvah you are denying the reality that there's nothing but god and therefore any infraction even the tiniest infraction is idle worship because it's a denial of god's oneness yes that's intense and if i have to say it again i'm gonna go crazy yes it's intense but we're trying to get and if you by the way you don't have to use this method if it causes you uh undesirable side effects like on the medication box and they have like in the tiny print like this may cause nausea and sweating and vomiting and hives and like you know what i'll lose a few pounds i'll put that over here okay you don't have to use this method but i'm telling you what the method is the method is to get yourself hyped up that there's one choice connect to hashem or disconnect god forbid so right now what we're describing is this wonderful oneness that you have with hashem by doing mitzvahs and by implication what's at stake what you stand to lose by not doing a mitzvah okay yeah why are there so many more ways of not doing amidst them that is a wonderful question i think it's 117 more ways 365 i believe you um 365 well the difference between 365 and 248. that sounds about right why there's so many more ways of connecting of disconnect well how about if i shock you and i say that the 365 ways uh the 365 prohibitions are also ways of connecting they're just connecting through not doing something you just contradicted yourself no no listen to yourself well i i know what i said but i'll i'll i'll say it to you in a different way there are 613 ways of connecting to hashem 248 ways you connect to hashem by doing something 365 ways you connect to hashem by not even having to do anything actually no i mean if you eat if you're doing something that's that's a pro actually kosher is a positive mitzvah but um not okay one a mitzvah that is a prohibitive mitzvah the way you do the mitzvah is by not doing it meaning by not doing anything by refraining by omitting an act not by committing an act all mitzvahs are connections to hashem so let me out let me say put it very simply if it's a positive commandment the way to sin is by not doing what you're supposed to do if it's a prohibition the way to sin is by doing what you're not supposed to do so that makes more sense to you not at all not at all okay fine so there's 117 though you're right it's 117. okay so this method is that you have a you have two choices you either have or your dog right but we've we've upped the ante it's not just you service him or you don't we've turned that proposition proposition into you are either one with god or completely separate from him which in turn means you either affirm god's oneness or you deny it but go ahead or is that what you were clarifying yeah okay fine okay so we spoke about the aves the patriarchs who were in this state constantly okay let's continue he takes a turn and he says we were speaking about action till now we're speaking about action now let's talk about remember the three garments chapter four three garments thought speech in action so we were talking about action and actually we also spoke about speech because he said your mouth and your tongue which becomes subservient right he says but what about thought what about thought what about thought he also mentioned speech here speech sort of like intermediate can go in both categories outer and inner garments those become completely one and you know it took i think i learned this chapter 100 times before i caught this distinction the difference between a markova and coulomb you caught them he says yeah let me let me just finish the sentence here because hashem's will is whatever halacha it is that you're studying right what is it hashem saying i like you to do it this way and that is that way exactly that's what i like is hashem articulating his very specific desires are expressions of very specific uh elicitations of hashem's innermost desires that it arose to hashem's will that this thing should be permissible or let's do what is the kosher apostle uh this he says all the positives actually he says this thing should be permissible or fit ritually fit or exempt or meritorious or the opposite it's interesting these are all different examples of halachic rulings mutter kosher potter zakai they're all positives and then he says and the opposite which the opposites are the opposite of mutter is us an absolute kosher is possible the absolute potter is the opposite of zachai is also kaif there's just different types of cases where you use those different legal terms the point is he's saying like this that hashem expressing very specific desires about how he wants things done this is how i want it so when you do hashem's will you're using your action action is your our outerm outermost garment and your action becomes like a merkava like a vehicle to hashem's will like a hand which reaches forth automatically and does the will of the person who orders it when you're learning torah then you're using your innermost garment of thought to understand and it's even more than a markov it's even more than a vehicle there's actually a unity that occurs actually it's a greater bond it's even more intimate because a merkava a vehicle is still something distinct from the rider it's just subservient to the rider the vehicle is one thing and the rider is another thing but the vehicle is subservient the car let's use a modern example has no will of its own unless it's herbie the love bug i wanted to see if anyone would respond to that i could have said herbie the love bug or christine but what stephen king yeah anyway but herbie love bugs are more pleasant we're in a children's library so driving cars self-driving cars well somebody has to program them so a car has no will of its own it only can do the will of a person who is driving it or who programmed it yeah but if the the car is not the person unless you live in l.a then the car is the person you guys know about that in my parenting i have this parenting group this mother was telling me the other day that they're they're from arizona they spent the summer in l.a and she's like my son went out with his cousin they were walking melrose avenue in the middle of the night and i don't know how to express to them how dangerous it is i was like yeah you have to tell them that anyone in los angeles who's walking is up to no good like unless you're walking half a block from your car to the store that you're going through like other if you're walking more than a half a block in la like that's steer clear you guys don't really probably relate to that because it's the east coast over here but yeah people in la you know that right you see somebody walking more than half a block stay away okay um just survival skills um so a vehicle is subservient to the rider and that's like when you do a mitzvah your limb is subservient to hashem like the car being driven by the driver the car doesn't get to say you know what i'm getting tired let's go back home no the car has to go you the car's subservient to you let's go left no i'm going right that's a cop car doesn't even say let's go left okay fine i'll go right he doesn't even think it the car is totally subservient that's the beat of action action can't think you know that action can't think it's a truism but it's deep think about that action can't think yeah write it down it's a meme action can't think but thinking thinks and that's part of the problem with thinking things and you know um descartes went to a restaurant and he ordered a he ordered a coffee and they said would you like uh cream he said i think not and he disappeared okay so anyway it was descartes what's his name rene descartes he disappeared okay so um i wonder the people watch on youtube how often they pause the video to google the jokes if you're watching on youtube and you actually gotten this far into the episode i i think people watch like one minute and they're like not for me but if you are still watching and you google my jokes tell me in the comments i would love to hear that there's some 25 year old guy googling herbie the love bug what is that what okay um people in your class could google too you know no but you have to pay attention it's not polite to google in front of me so a limb when a limb does a mitzvah that's like a vehicle surrendered to the captain of the vehicle that's action but when you think words of toyota that's an even deeper level of bonding with hashem called oneness where you are actually thinking hashem's thoughts so it's an even deeper level of surrender the point is both doing mitzvahs and learning toyota represent levels of of oneness and surrender they both represent levels of oneness and surrender but of the two learning toyota is an is a more intimate bond because now you're not only subservient to hashem's will but you are at least your mind is one with hashem's will he's building this all up to explain what it is that we're gaining when we make the right moral choice and what god forbid we would be losing if we make the wrong moral choice okay all right yeah what is the connotation then for a woman versus a man meaning that a woman was not given okay that's a wonderful question so in case what so the people watching on youtube cannot see that well they could hear that this is a predominantly i say predominantly female audience but i'm the exception to that yes this is a women's class so we have a question here what about women who are who are not commanded with a specific commandment to learn torah so let us clarify what that means the commandment to learn torah that men are obligated to do is a commandment to learn toyota for no other purpose than to learn toyota without any other without any other uh goal in mind however there's also such a thing as learning toyota in order to and i'll fill in what in order to is in order to know what to do how to be a jew how to behave so that would certainly be applicable to women also there's learning torah in order to increase your love of hashem your of hashem your faith in hashem which everyone is commanded to do including women so the idea to just sit and learn a gemara to learn about a corbin that another brings just the shame shamayim for the sake of learning toyota you're right a woman is not commanded to do that but there's plenty of toyota there i say more toyota than probably you can fit into your schedule that you actually are obligated i mean are you bucky and kitser you're obligated to be now i'm getting like i'm doubling down on the intensity but every woman you you're obligated to be expert in all of the holocaust that you need in order to live a jewish life so there's plenty of learning that women are obligated to do and furthermore you're obligated to love hashem and to revere hashem to the best of your capacity hence you're at a class like this which really is about if you would ask me what it's about it's about loving all of hashem you're not doing this for fun you're not doing this as a hobby i'm hoping it's slightly amusing and entertaining slightly enough to not be painful but the point isn't fun you're here because you feel an obligation to be here and you're correct you do have an obligation i mean you don't have an obligation to be here you can go to another class but you have an obligation to develop your relationship with hashem through learning about hashem through learning about hashem so there's plenty of learning that uh that women do even though the the direct commandment to learn toyota for its own sake does not exist for women yeah it could be i always like those answers there's always good answers here well women naturally every morning and we have to you make me across yeah and you'll because very good point that that's a very clear way of putting it that's very clear yeah yeah yeah yeah okay let's let's find a landing place here to wrap up um yeah we're only like two thirds of the way through the chapter it's a long chapter um let me just read one more line here and we'll we'll stop so we're saying when you're learning taira and he said he said the example of learning halacha you're you're uniting yourself with hashem's will what about if you're learning teresha you're learning tanakh it's not halacha it's not telling you what to do it's not an expression of hashem's will like hashem's will is do it like this don't do it like that put them put them as those are that high no that high right what about if you're learning tanakh you're learning a story about some battle that yeshua led so how is that wrought in you how is that learning hashem's will so he says actually the arrangement of the letters the the in in the letters are the expression of hashem's will that it was hashem's will that these particular arrangements of letters be placed and as he explains here using using the rambam's wording hashem is both the knower and the knowledge so the tanakh the bible the scripture being hashem's knowledge is also the knower it's the knowledge and the knower and when you're learning the divine arrangement of the letters in tanakh you're not just learning a book written by god you are effectively learning god and that's why it says that torah and hashem are totally one and not merely his limbs like it says about mitzvahs now we're going back to the beginning of the chapter and we're saying those two statements remember how we begin began the chapter it says we started off the chapter by saying that hashem and the torah are one and elsewhere it says that the 248 positive commandments are the 248 limbs of the king and now he says they're both similar statements about how terror mitzvahs are one with hashem but they're also different statements because one is talking about toyota as the knowledge and the others talk about the misses as the performance and there are two degrees or levels of oneness with hashem meaning the knowledge is entirely one and therefore when you're learning theta you're entirely one with him then there's another level which is the 248 mitzvahs are evading the malka they're limbs of the king when you're doing one of hashem's mitzvahs you are subservient to hashem's will like a limb which is automatically subservient and surrendered to the will of a person they're both levels of unity with hashem but just they are their degrees of of levels with with learning toyota being a more intimate bond than even then than performing the mitzvos but the point is they're both levels of surrendering to and being at one with hashem is this clear yeah so what if what would be a one sentence summary of what we learned today one sentence summary simple plain english that's what we said very good okay and if i wanted to do now a second sentence a little more difficult um right but still pretty good right right taylor's the higher of the two but mitchus is also pretty pretty darn good okay okay