Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #53

All right, welcome to weekly Tanya, text base. We learn every single word of the holy Tanya. And we try to explain it in plain English. We're You know what chapter we're up to? 31 32. We just finished 31. 32 is live, lamed base. Lamed is 30, base is two. La- lamed base spells live, which means the heart, the heart of Tanya. We'll talk about why it's the heart of Tanya. Why is chapter 32 called the heart of Tanya? It's an interesting title for a chapter or nickname. I guess it's really more of a nickname. Um but let's get some context first how we got here. Right? Context? You want context? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 32 comes right after 31 31. Okay. What was And by the way, the first line of chapter 32 is that through applying what we've learned in chapter 31, taking that skill, we'll be able to do another skill, which will be the main focus of chapter 32. So it really one flows right into the next. However, you want to hear something shocking? I don't know, shocking, but it's interesting. In the original version of Tanya, meaning the pamphlets that used to circulate before the Alter Rebbe gave it to a printer and they put it into a bound, you know, books used to be very expensive. So the way that most uh texts circulated in those times, which is not that long ago, a couple hundred years ago, was as manuscripts, written pamphlets. And um so rarely they would put together manuscripts and hand them over to to a publisher, to a printer. And you know, they they used to have that movable type print, and it was very expensive. So the pamphlets, there's there's actually something called the Madura Kama, the first version of Tanya, which existed uh before they before the Alter Rebbe had it printed as an actual bound book with a printing press. In the original version, there was no chapter 32. Well, hold on, I should correct. There were no There were no numbers of the chapters, but the chapter that would be 32 did not exist. That chapter did not exist. And if you look even now, 31, the chapter we now call 31, flows right into chapter 33. That chapter 32 was inserted afterwards. Uh the complete chapter, the entire chapter was added for the printed bound version of Tanya. Um now, was this the Alter Rebbe's intent? I don't know, but it's certainly something that is a tradition that we as Hasidim are aware of and has often been repeated that it is Well, first of all, nothing is is is coincidence. Everything is hashgacha protis. Everything is divinely orchestrated. So is it coincidence that this chapter that was added has the number 32? No, it's not a coincidence because 32 is lamed base. Lamed is 30, base is two. 30 + 2 32. Lamed base spells live, which means heart. So this chapter is the heart of Tanya. Interestingly, what is the I'm going to give it away, spoiler alert. What is the topic of chapter 32? Loving someone else, loving your fellow. Interesting. In a book about personal development, about working on yourself, the heart of it is loving someone else. Interesting. Okay? Um and we're going to talk all about that. So chapter 31 spoke about Can someone tell me what was chapter 31? The lost princess. The lost princess. That was the meditation or the visualization. Yeah. The The soul is a little princess who had to leave her father's palace, and every time we do a mitzvah, we we return her back to her home. But there was an important point made in chapter 31 that I don't want us to forget. Remember chapter 31, we addressed the fact that there may be simultaneous frustration and elation. Frustration over being far away Yeah, what what frustration that our animal soul Our animal soul is pulling us away pulling us away, and elation over the fact that We have a godly We have a godly soul. Godly soul, not only we have it, but when we do the mitzvah, we we facilitate its return to its source, to its source. So he he explains over there that you might have two conflicting emotions. And do you remember what he says to do with those conflicting emotions? How to sort of file them, which file cabinets to put them? It had to do with identification. Do we remember this? It was only a week ago. It was less than a week ago. No. Yeah, it was it was a week ago. Remember we spoke about identification? With whom do you identify? So do you identify chiefly as your godly soul? And the animal soul is sort of part of the circumstances that your godly soul is in? Or the reverse, you identify chiefly as an animal soul that has its very materialistic view of the world and its its its its its need for security and comfort, and then it happens to be that attached to that, thrown on top, you have this overlay called this godly soul, this godly consciousness. Do you know how you're going to view it? So um we said it's very important to do that identity shift. Chapter 31 is really about the identity shift. Identify with the little princess, that godly soul, and view the body and its drive, known as the animal soul, as sort of um the chariot The Well, you say the chariot, that's in the ideal situation when you can when you can put them to work in the proper way. But maybe to to view them as part of the circumstances. Who are you and what situation are you in? Who are you? You're the godly soul. Even though in chapter 29, we said the exact exact opposite. We said, unless you're a tzaddik, who's the real you is the animal soul. But everything is context. Over here, we're saying on a on on the level of truth, real philosophical truth, even though if practically, psychologically, we don't relate to it as easily, the the philosophical truth, the theological truth, is that the real me is my godly soul, and the the the body and the animal soul are sort of the circumstances within which the real me has to operate and within which it has to overcome. Okay? So the main thing of chapter 31 is identification. I need to identify chiefly with my godly soul. My main joy should be the accomplishments of my godly soul. And if my animal soul is on the same page, great. And if it's not on the same page, fine. I'll be frustrated with my animal soul, but it's not me. It's sort of like a a foreign element that's exacerbating a situation that my godly soul, the real me, is in right now. Does that make sense? Okay? So once I've done that, once I've flipped that switch to choose to identify primarily with my godly soul, and to shift my body and animal soul into a secondary identity, the next thing that needs to happen, and the next thing that can happen, in other words, let me let me reverse it. There's something important that I need to do. I needed to do it anyways cuz it's one of the 613 commandments. But I had to do something else first. The thing that I needed to do anyways cuz it's one of the 613 commandments is love my fellow Jew as myself. It's a mitzvah. I have to do it. But in order to do that, there was something else I had to do first. I had to change my identity. Love yourself? Yeah, you could say that. That's like the modern way of saying it, but I You don't have to say love yourself. Say just The main thing is, I know that we often say you have to love yourself before you can love others. That's true, but the main way I want you to look at it is identity. I had to shift my identity before I could love my fellow, as I'm commanded to do anyway. And we're going to explain why this is so crucial, that until I could change my own self-concept into a spiritual self-concept, I was not able I was literally not able to do this mitzvah of loving my fellow. But once I flipped the switch and I view myself primarily as a spiritual entity, which happens to also have a body and an animal soul, then I will be able to do this mitzvah which I'm commanded to do, which is to love my fellow. Okay? You get the premise? All right. You don't have to understand the mechanics of it cuz we haven't even explained the mechanics of it yet. I've just made an assertion. The Alter Rebbe will make the assertion, and then he will back it up. Okay? All right. So chapter 32. Chapter 32. Vihinei al yedei kiyum hadivurim ha'na'al or hamish kadim lo el Behold, by implementing the matters that were just mentioned. Just mentioned where? Chapter 31. You can't do 32 without first doing 31. If you try to jump to loving your fellow before you've adequately shifted your self-concept, it's not going to work. But if you build one on top of the other as a hierarchy of skill, then it follows very smoothly. So, through implementing what we just learned And then he summarizes it by the way. If you want a summary of chapter 31, here's the Alter Rebbe summary. that your body should be despicable in your eyes. And your only joy should be the joy felt by the soul, the godly soul. That's how he summarizes chapter 31. That your body can be a source of frustration and your soul can be your ideally exclusive source of joy. If you can flip that switch for yourself This is a straight and easy path. to fulfill the mitzvah of love your fellow as yourself which you're anyways commanded to. for every single Jew Yes, even that one that you're thinking that in 10 minutes you're going to interrupt me and say, "Well, what about so-and-so?" Yeah, him too, her too. from the great to the small. Every Jew from the great to the small. All right, so he made a an assertion here that if you can do chapter 31 and flip the switch for your own self-concept to primarily identify as a soul and take joy in when the little princess goes home and to view your body as a source of frustration. Your body meaning that it doesn't get it. Doesn't understand what it needs to understand. So, that's the source of frustration. So, if you can do that, then you're going to be able to He says it's a derech kal v'chomer. Easy and straight path, straight and easy. to perform this mitzvah. How so? He explains. Since your body is despicable to you. And the soul who knows its greatness and its standing in its source in its root and source in the living God. In other words We all know, for better for worse I look at somebody and size them up physically. I mean, I'm not claiming I'm like expert in aesthetics, but I'm saying you can look at somebody pretty pretty quickly, at least give the police a description, right? Right? Okay. Usually not. Right? They say eyewitnesses are not that reliable, yeah. But I'm saying you can look at somebody's physical container and and make an assessment pretty quickly, okay? Um When it comes to souls though how easy is it to make an evaluation or an appraisal of a soul? You know, like when you buy a house and you got to get the the loan approved, so they have they send out the guy who does the appraisal to make sure the house is really worth what the bank is going to lend you money for, right? So What? It's impossible. It's Yeah, it's hard now. Impossible. Oh, oh, the soul. I thought you were talking about houses. I'm thinking about houses right now. Okay. Um The soul? Yeah, it's impossible. That's correct. That's why it says mi yediah. It's a It's a rhetorical question. Who knows? Nobody knows. So, you can look at somebody and if you want to eval make some evaluations about them based on some physical clues And I don't just mean in the most like crass sense of like is this person beautiful or traditionally aesthetically considered beautiful or they considered ugly? That's not I mean that too, sure. But I mean like Sherlock Holmes type of stuff like, "Oh, I saw you had this certain shade of brown clay on his shoe." But the Yeah. So, you could put together some clues based on looking at bodies and and and and physical trappings and you can make an evaluation. You can start to put together a narrative. Um but how about making an evaluation or an appraisal of somebody's spiritual standing? Impossible. Impossible. So, right away what happens? This shift in giving primary importance to the soul and secondary importance to the body has immediately removed our our our our snap judgement or not even a snap judgement. Yeah, judgement in Cuz it's not even a snap judgement. It's like, "Okay, take an hour and get back to me. Take a day. Take a year." You're looking at spiritual stuff. Can you really assess? No. Yeah, and ultimately you have to admit, I don't know. I'm I don't know. Didn't we already discuss this? Didn't we already discuss in chapter 30, I think is what you're saying, where we said the guy who's failing because he has a raging yetzer hara. Yeah, okay. So, that's a different Thank you for asking. That's a very good question. Shows that you're listening. That's a different concept. Over there we were comparing things that we can know. I can know what it means to struggle. And I and I use that to humble myself. I say, "Look, this guy maybe We're talking about chapter 30. Is not performing as well as I am. He's sinning and I'm not sinning. But the struggle that he puts in to do less sins or to push off his sins is way more intense than the struggle I'm putting in to coast through and do virtually no sins. So, there we're comparing something we do have some type of understanding about struggle. Here we're talking about something we completely can't assess. We have no way of evaluating. And we admit that we have no way of evaluating. So, what happens is the first thing that happens it becomes impossible to rank people anymore. It's impossible. So, you got What you want to say that this guy is lofty and this guy is low. How do you know? How do you know? You have no idea. Well, look at the situation No, that's the situation. Sometimes a lofty soul comes down into a pitiful situation. If you would meet Rabbi Akiva a week before he started learning you would say, "This guy is a not just a an illiterate shepherd, but he's hostile towards Torah scholars. This guy, what a loser." Would you have been right? You'd be dead wrong. But you'd have You'd have no way of knowing that Rabbi Akiva was Moshe Rabbenu in his generation. You'd have no way of knowing it cuz we can't see that kind of stuff until after it comes out in a revealed way in this world then then everybody knows it. It's easy to pick the winners after the fact. So, we have no clue. So, that's the first thing it does. We don't know who we're dealing with. I remember uh when I was in Yeshiva, there's a sicha from the Rebbe that had a profound effect on me. Um I'm not an I'm not an extrovert. I'm I'm I'm an introvert. And so, one of the hard things for me in Yeshiva was going out on Friday afternoons and standing on the street corner and asking people, "Excuse me, are you Jewish? Would you like to put on film? Would you like Shabbos candles?" And I was always looking for things that would help motivate me to make that a little a little bit more palatable. I remember learning a sicha one week in Yeshiva about arei miklat about um the cities of refuge. It says that uh when a student goes into the cities of refuge, so he can say, "I need to bring my teacher with me." Cuz you're supposed to live. They're supposed to provide life. How can a How can a Yid live without Torah? So, if he's a student, he needs his teacher. So If a student goes into arei miklat, he needs to bring his teacher. So, uh it's said over there You You meet a guy and he doesn't know about a basic concept in Yiddishkeit. So, you're the one who has the opportunity and the the responsibility to share it with him. So, because the in that transaction, you're the giver or the teacher and he's the recipient or the student, you immediately assume that you're on a higher level, but that's not at all necessarily indication of anything. Because in that particular transaction, you were the giver, he was the recipient, you were the teacher, he was the student. That doesn't indicate anything about spiritual levels. And quite possibly, this guy who you met on the street corner who hasn't put on film in today or or ever is on a much loftier spiritual level than you. So What After 120 when uh when they're sorting people out and sending them where they need to go this guy is is off to Gan Eden and he's going to say, "I need to bring my teacher with me." You're like, "Oh, yeah, that was me. Okay, yeah, bring me a Bring me along." You sure it's not Yeah. So we don't know anybody's level. That's the first thing. Once you start looking at things spiritually or looking at people spiritually, or let me be more accurate, once you start looking at yourself spiritually and then viewing others spiritually, first thing it does is completely remove your ability to judge anybody's level anymore. Cuz we don't know. We don't know. We have no clue. And I don't mean just to clarify, uh don't judge your fellow until you've stood in his place, cuz that's something that's that's not invoking any mystical concept. That's just the that's just obvious common sense that there are mitigating circumstances why a person does what they do. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about something much more uh profound, which is where when you're talking about spiritual standing, um the different levels of different souls, that's something we have zero information about and zero understanding of, and therefore we have to be humble to realize we we just we cannot form any opinion. Okay, so that's that's the first thing he says. Now, he goes a little bit I'm going very slowly because every line is like another level. Then he says like this, Bishigam Shikul. Now he's adding Bishigam means like also. Achud Likulona. Also, especially since all of these souls are Masimoist, they they they're inter- they're interlocking. They fit with each other. And they have one father. So, here's another thing. There's a certain organic and I say organic in the sense of like a living organism, interdependence of all Jewish souls. So, not only, like we already said, we have we have no ability to assess somebody's spiritual standing, but furthermore, inherently every single Jew you meet will be indispensable because of the interdependence between one soul and another soul. So, it's it becomes impossible to reject or to write off any Jew because to do so, God forbid, undermines the the integrity of of the whole. So, this is on top of the fact that we have no ability to assess spiritual standing, that even if you were able to, uh you can't dismiss someone even on a low spiritual level because they are inherently indispensable. We need each other. I was in Lakewood for Yud Tes Kislev. And I was speaking over there about um So, the night that I was farbreinging in Lakewood was the night when um Henya Federman was brought to the hospital there from Miami to Lakewood. We should mention um Henya Rivka, they added a name, Henya Rivka bas Brocha the veil, I should have miraculous recovery. Amen. So, I was farbreinging in Lakewood Yud Tes Kislev, which is itself something of a modern-day miracle. Yes. And one of the things I said was, you have a shlucha here took her entire family to live on a remote island. Why? Just to help other Jews. Like who would do that? Why would you do that? I mean, maybe you do it for a year, but for a life, why would you do that? So, I explained to them that, you know, it's Yud Tes Kislev, it's the Alter Rebbe's day. Who was my crowd? 90% regular Lakewood uh crowd. Really? Yeah, there was very few Lubavitchers. There was very few Lubavitchers. Yeah, it was it was regular Lakewood crowd. I mean, Lakewood itself has changed demographically, Yes. much to the chagrin of the old uh BMG crowd. They got the the Hungarians came in from from Brooklyn, yeah, but baruch Hashem, diversity is good. Um yeah, it was a like a mixed crowd, maybe half Litvish, half Chassidish. Awesome. And uh sprinkling of a few Lubavitchers. Really weren't too many Lubavitchers there. So, I said to them, "Look, you don't have to go live move to take your family and move to some remote island just to go help Jews." And I was explaining to them like the how how how weird it is, this idea. Where are you going? You're going to the Virgin Islands. So, like basically, most of the people you're dealing with, they either they chose to isolate themselves in the Jewish community or maybe they're on vacation and like they chose to go on vacation and not have Jewish resources. I told them a story about handing out menorahs on on Hanukkah to people getting on a cruise ship. Why do these people not have a menorah? They don't appreciate that it's Hanukkah? And and yet, the whole point is that somebody else's Yiddishkeit is no less important than my own because ultimately it is my own because we're all one. So, I I was saying to them that normally, a Jewish man davens Shacharis and he takes off his tefillin and he puts away his tefillin, and subconsciously at least he he knows that he's not going to touch his tefillin again until tomorrow. I told them, "Tefillin is till shkiah." And until every Jew- Jewish man in the world has put on tefillin today, you do not put your tefillin away until shkiah. And that means if you have a business meeting in the city, you bring your tefillin with you. Seriously? Of course, 100%. You didn't know what? I didn't know that you have to have the tefillin. I mean, I'm not a man. The what? You didn't know the what? What part of it? That you carry that you have to carry your tefillin with you until That you have to? You've done. Oh, to put That yeah. Oh, that's yeah. In this hot park. Well, that's what that was the the the point. Yeah. That after you put on tefillin, you did the mitzvah. No, I'm not saying like to to carry around the tefillin and like keep putting it on cuz you're worried you weren't yotzei. That would be crazy. No, I mean, I thought you were a little After No, no, no. I know what you mean. No, I mean, you did the mitzvah. Great, good for you. And let's say you said every word of Shacharis with pure shomayim, it's beautiful davening. You're talking about for everyone else. You're not done. That's why I said, "Until every Jewish man in the world has put on tefillin today, you're not allowed to put away your tefillin until the next day." And I told them, "When it comes Sukkos and you bench lulav at Shacharis, okay, so then you go to the Bronx Zoo with your kids. You bring the lulav with you because you're going to meet somebody who hasn't benched lulav." And the just the point The animals? Yes, yes, they did they did. They did understand it. They did understand it. And um I'll tell you how I told them. I told them that during the Mendel Beilis trial, you know, the blood libel that happened about 100 years ago. So, there was an accusation of a blood libel. The blood libel was mostly a medieval thing and then it came back like 100 years ago, um an isolated incident in Ukraine. So, Mendel Beilis was accused of murdering a a non-Jewish child. And it was the same old tired uh lie about using the the blood for for matzos, and the same stuff that had been debunked over and over and over again. At any rate, so, this was in the early 1900s. Interesting, by the way, a lot of people don't know that after his acquittal, Mendel Beilis moved to America. He's buried up in Saratoga, upstate New York. Yeah. So, anyway, um And I should add, he was not particularly religious to my knowledge. I think that's important. It only magnifies the importance of this story. He was accused of blood libel. The trial took over a year and it was uh something of a media circus. But at any rate, one of the accusations they were making is they had this anti-Semitic priest who was part of the prosecution, and he was cherry-picking out of context different quotes from Talmud to prove that the Jews engage in ritual murder. And one of the things he did is he picked up a passage in the Talmud that says, "Atem K'ruyim Adam." That you, the Jewish people are called Adam. Adam is normally translated as person. So, he was saying, "The Talmud says only Jewish people are considered human, and therefore, by extension, the rest of the world is is subhuman, and that's why they'll they'll murder them like like like ants." Which is obviously untrue, but how do how do you answer that when they're they're taking text and they're making it, you know, out of context, making it seem like they have proof for what they're saying? How do you explain to them the the the the proper understanding? So, they the defense actually had rabbinical consultation. And one of the uh consultants for the defense was uh Rabbi Meir Shapiro, who I mentioned him in Lakewood, I said, "Of course, we all know for many of his accomplishments, including establishing the Daf Yomi." I said, "You should know also that in Lubavitch, he's beloved for having been present at the Hassana of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin. He was in the when when the the Rebbe married Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka in in Warsaw. So Meir Shapiro was present at the Hassana as were many Gedolei Yisrael. At any rate uh So uh Meir Shapiro consulted with the defense and he said, "Here's what you have to tell them. That in Hebrew there are different words for person. Uh there are four words actually. Ish, Anish, Gever and Adam. And they all have plurals. Like you have one ish, you have many ishim. You have uh one anish, you have many anoshim. You have one gever, you have many gvorim. But Adam has no plural. The only way to make it plural is you can add a word and make it a construct form like benei Adam. But that's not really people. That's sons of the person. There's no way to pluralize the word Adam. There's no word adomim. So he says like this. There was this child who was murdered. The defendant is not the murderer, but the child was murdered and his family will never be the same. And yet in his village life has gone on. It's a year later. And in the whole Ukraine for sure life has gone on. Mendel Beilis is one individual. And in the entire world every single Jew wherever they live, whether it's in London or in New York or in Buenos Aires, every single morning they open up the paper and they try to find if there's any news about the Beilis trial as if they themselves were experiencing this. So he says, "You understand Adam doesn't mean human or not human. Adam means a person. Atem, you the plural Atem is plural for you. The Jewish people, cream Adam, are called a person. The umas oilam, regular humanity, are not called a person. They're called people. And individuals come together and form a people of common uh language or culture or religion or or or ethnicity and and therein they are bonded to each other and that's called a people. But but the Jewish people are also a person meaning a literally a person. There's a guy with millions of bodies called the Jews. So and this trial itself is the greatest proof of it that it's one defendant, Mendel Beilis, and yet the entire Jewish world feels as if they're on trial. So I told them in Lakewood that you cannot say to yourself that cuz I put on tefillin tefillin is done for today. There's no such thing. Tefillin is not done for today just cuz you as an individual put on tefillin. Every single other Jew in the world is interdependent on every other Jew in the world. So I said you don't have to move to the Virgin Islands and go on shlichus, but at least bring your tefillin to a to a business meeting. And at least maybe uh just be on the lookout for somebody who needs a little Jewish boost. Because ultimately it's not like you're doing a favor for somebody else. Ultimately this is this is you yourself. This is you. So this is what we're saying here. That all the Jewish souls are are mesimais. They they they're interlocking. They they depend on each other. V'av echad kulanu, we have one source. We have one father. V'lochein, therefore, I'll continue inside. Nikra kol Yisrael achim mamash. All Jews are called brothers, literally. Mitzad sheirish nafsham b'shem echad, because of their source in the one God. Rak shehagufim muchlakim. It's just the bodies that separate. So there's this one person emanating into millions of separate bodies, but what's the reality? Is it the oneness or is it the separation? Ah, so this is where that switch comes in uh to play. You have to figure out am I going to view it from a physical point of view or from a spiritual point of view? If you look at yourself and hence at others primarily in in in in physical terms, then even though another Jew I surely have some type of a some type of a bond with them, whether it's religiously or culturally or whatever, but it's not me. We're separate people. But that's if I look at it physically. And how do I what's the proof we're we're separate people? Physics, basic physics. Two things cannot be in one place at the same time. So if you sit in the chair and I want to sit in the chair, now I can no longer sit in the chair. If you eat the last piece of cake at the kiddush and it goes into your stomach, it can no longer go into my stomach. That's just basic physics. So if you look at things physically, we're separate. There's you and there's me and we're two separate beings. But if you look at it spiritually, meaning primarily like we did already in chapter 31 to identify ourselves primarily as spiritual beings. And then by extension we view others as spiritual beings. So first thing it does, it removes our our capacity for judgment. That was the first thing. Can't judge anymore cuz who knows about spirituality? We don't. It's off the charts. It's unknowable. Second thing is we realize that we are interdependent because really it's all one being, one guy called the Jewish people. And in order to retain that view, he says, "Remember there are two points of view, but you have to remember which one is the real one. Yes, if you look at things physically, you will see separation, but if you keep in mind the spiritual reality, then you'll remember that we're one." I don't know who was first. Yeah. Um so if the heart is the I guess the spiritual game and we're going to do mitzvahs for other other parts of klal Yisrael under Adam. Yeah. And you approach somebody and their heart is blocked. I'll I'll talk about that. Okay. We'll talk about that. Okay. I have another question. Yeah. The question is what what if you approach somebody and their heart is blocked. We'll talk He'll talk about it at the end of the chapter. We'll talk about it. Yeah. My question is so the original Adam The original Adam was all of humanity in one being. Right. And and really didn't change. And Isha comes from Adam. Yeah. Chava comes from Adam. Yeah. Yeah. Is that the ideal? That the bodies should not be separated. That we are part of each other. What we're saying I don't want to Look, the the the Alter Rebbe doesn't doesn't use the point about Adam. I I was just telling the story that I told in Lakewood. But Yeah, but he he he doesn't use the word Adam. Actually here he he stresses the concept the concept the concept of achim mamash. The idea of brothers. Um And and the idea of brothers you have to be able to look at this on multiple levels at the same time. Because on one level brothers really are separate people. If you Ah, but on another level they have the same DNA. They come from the same father and they're an extension of the same father. So you you have to look at this on levels. He's sort of like pointing your eyes upward. So first of all you realize, oh hold on a second, this is not a stranger. This is my brother. Hold on a second, brother, one father. Oh, really? When I see another, he's not just another, he's my brother. And when I see my brother, I don't just see my brother, I see my father, which means it's really me and my brother are one person. So that actually is the ideal. The ideal is Yeah, which is why why it's so important to have a Rebbe and you can't have hiskashrus without achdus Yisrael and you can't have achdus Yisrael without hiskashrus. I said it. I didn't say it in Lakewood cuz I censored myself, but I'm I'm saying it on YouTube. Um I can explain to you both why hiskashrus to a tzaddik will not work if you don't believe in true achdus Yisrael. It's actually highly theologically problematic. But then there's the the flip side of it, which is you cannot have proper achdus Yisrael without hiskashrus to a tzaddik because a tzaddik is the embodiment of the idea of a father. That when we see that we have a father, then we identify as brothers. Obviously the ultimate father is Hashem, but there are levels of how this is manifest down here. Yeah? You want to Yeah. Um I just want to say even if you reach a level where or you're at that point where you know you can't judge people and you know it's spiritual not physical, even then it's still a daily battle to because the yetzer hara will Yeah, of course. Of course. never end. Yeah, I know. I know, but you here here's but we're not pretending that you learned this chapter and then it just changes your brain forever. It's like something every day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know and then you know, I don't know about you, but most people have that I meet have a tendency of not doing what I want them to do. It makes it very hard to see them as souls cuz they do things that irritate me. So, I have to keep coming back to this chapter. You know what? If people wouldn't be so annoying, I could have learned this chapter once and been done with it. But they force me to have to keep coming back and learning this chapter. Okay, let's continue a little bit here. Let's continue. That's the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what Yeah. Can you explain why you can't have a stopwatch without a conscious? Is that part of the same thing of not You want me to go on that tangent? Why we can't have I can understand like the basic concept of coming where you came from so they are from like the one father that connection of Is that what it is or is It is recognizing in another that you don't just come together for a common cause. It's realizing that you emanate from a common origin. And the metaphor for that is is a father. That's why a rebbe is not just a teacher or a leader, but but a father. That's why when Eliyahu left this world and he went up in into the heavens, so Elisha who was his student cried out father, father. Not teacher, teacher. Okay, let's continue here a little bit. Now he makes an assertion a very very bold assertion. Therefore, based on what we've learned Those who view their bodies as their primary identity and their souls as their secondary identity. In other words, people who do the opposite of what this chapter is telling you to do. Or the opposite of what chapter 31 already told you to do. People who do the default which is they identify primarily with the body and then secondarily, if at all, they identify with the soul. Listen to this assertion. It is impossible for such people to have true love and fellowship between them. They can only have conditional love or fellowship. There's a concept of Love that is based upon a factor. Right, the Pirkei Avot speaks about that. About like for instance, Amnon and Tamar that he was infatuation. It was lust. So, once he got what he wanted, he hated her. So, that was not gratuitous unconditional love. That was love for a reason. Now, that's a very coarse example. And sometimes the ulterior motive for loving somebody is more refined, more noble, but it's still an ulterior motive. There's still a reason. And the danger of that kind of love is that once the factor that causes the love dissipates, then the love will also dissipate. So, the alter rebbe makes a very strong assertion here. Somebody who is a body-centered individual will not be able to have unconditional love. He'll be able to love, but only if there's a reason. And it's a very simple argument, actually. The argument is since the body separate, as we just said, then you are not me. You are not me. By default then, you are a threat to me. You are encroaching on my space. You are competing for my resources. Why in the world would I view you favorably? Ah, because you have something to bring to the table. Okay, so I'll make an exception. So, whatever it is that you give me companionship maybe maybe even something as noble as uh understand you understand me. We share the same values. Even more noble. We share the same values. I'm I'm I'm proving the point by not giving egregious example of someone who's using somebody else for, you know, money or something really crass like that. But even where the love is motivated by some the pursuit of some rather lofty or noble value. But ultimately, it's a love that's not going to be essential. It's going to be um circumstantial. And therefore, at least in potential, that kind of love can disappear. So, those who are body-centered cannot make room for somebody else unless they have a compelling reason to do so. As opposed to what? Follow the logic here cuz I want to close the loop. When you have a spiritual identity, ah, then you and I are one. And what reason do I need in order to accept myself? I don't need a reason. Now, I don't need a reason. I don't need a compelling argument to say, "Well, why should I care about you?" You understand? If I have to get up and say to Lakewood, "Well, let me tell you, if you don't bring your tefillin to business meeting, what's going to happen is secularism and assimilation is going to grow. It's going to become rampant and eventually it'll come back and it'll bite you in your own backyard. So, in order to prevent it from coming back and affecting your family, let's go out and let's be proactive and let's be mekatzev Jews." So, that's noble, but it's that's not what we're talking about. What what we what we're talking about is exactly what I told them in Lakewood. I said, "If somebody else hasn't put on tefillin, then it's just like you haven't put on tefillin." So, you got to carry your tefillin around till she get. It's not that I will make a consideration for someone who's other than myself because ultimately it'll affect myself. What do they call it? Enlightened self-interest, right? No. This is an understanding that I cannot reject or or furthermore, choose to accept another Jew anymore than I can reject or choose to accept my identity. I can be in denial of it. Yeah. But my assertion or my feeling about it doesn't change the fact. The fact is I am who I am. And part of that fact is that that includes every single other Jew. Who's not really an other. So, let I I just I just want to continue a little bit here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is the alter rebbe saying that the animal soul and the body are synonymous? In this context, animal soul and body are synonymous. The animal soul is the personality of the body. Yeah. So, an animal soul will make allowances to permit another animal soul into its space if there's a reason. All right. Hillel the Elder said And this is what Hillel the Elder said regarding the performance of this mitzvah. Which mitzvah? Love your fellow as yourself. He said about this mitzvah, "This is the entire Torah and everything else is commentary on it." That's a very bold statement. We know the story in the Gemara in Shabbos about the prospective convert. In fact, there were three prospective converts. Three stories that are told there. And each of them had relative relatively preposterous requests and Hillel dealt with each of them masterfully and caused them ultimately to become Jewish which was apparently their fate. So, one of them made this preposterous request that Hillel should teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. The prospective convert had asked the same of Shammai and Shammai told him it was impossible. He chased him off. Chased him off. He told him, "Get out of here." He asked Hillel and Hillel accommodated him. And he formulated it as a statement that that actually didn't even say the possuk vi'ahavta l'rei'akha he formulated in Aramaic and he said it a little bit different. He he's said it as a negative statement. Whatever you don't like, don't do to your fellow. And we can discuss that later why that's important, but um that's a whole other discussion. That is the entire Torah. The rest is commentary on that. Not only that that's the most important thing in Torah. That's the most important thing in Torah and everything else is commentary on that. So, it's really all one thing. It's just that theme. So, hold on a second. We know in general there's mitzvahs ben Adam l'Chaveiro, i.e. the social justice mitzvahs, and then there's mitzvahs ben Adam l'Makom, worship, religious duties. I could understand if Hillel would say that all of the mitzvahs ben Adam l'Chaveiro could be reduced to don't do to others what you don't want done to you. But how is putting on tefillin? How is keeping kosher? How is keeping Shabbos uh contained under this rubric of don't be mean to people? So, listen what he says. Ki yesod v'shemesh kol haTorah, uh kol haTorah. Because the foundation and the source of all of the Torah. Hu l'ha'alot me'al ha'alot et nefesh ha'adam l'ma'alah l'ma'alah ad ikar v'shoresh d'chol ha'olamim. It is to lift up the soul over the body way way up up up to it to not only its source, to the source of all worlds. So, transcendence. The purpose of Torah is transcendence, to lift up the soul. V'gam, and also twofold purpose, but really other side of the same coin. L'hamshich or ein sof baruch hu b'chnisas nafsho, to draw down infinite light into the souls. K'ma she'yisbarer k'mo l'ka it will be explained elsewhere to bring about the oneness, the revelation of God's oneness in the oneness of the Jewish people. V'lo yechesh pirud chas v'shalom bein haneshamot, and that cannot happen when there is separation between the souls. D'kudsha brich hu lo sharya b'sar p'gim. That the Holy One, blessed be He, will not dwell in a blemished place. He will only come to rest in in a whole in an intact place. So, k'ma she'amarnu, like we say, borcheinu Avinu kolanu k'echad b'or panekha. Bless us, our Father, together as one in the light of your face. That means when we are together, we have the blessing of the light of His face. K'ma she'yisbarer b'makom acher, b'arichus, like it's explained elsewhere at length. Now, the Alter Rebbe explains here. What is the point of the entire Torah? It is twofold. It is to transcend our selfhood, our separate selfhood. And then to draw down God's light below. That characterization could be applied to all of Torah. It doesn't matter which mitzvah you're doing. So, essentially what he's saying is that all mitzvahs are a mechanism through which one rises above ego rises above separate selfhood or the illusion of separate selfhood and then triggers a reciprocal uh effect back down here below that brings about unity in the world. And it doesn't matter if that mitzvah is shaking lulav on Sukkos or if it's uh making an eiruv tavshilin, could be a rabbinic mitzvah or could be uh could also be something that's uh social justice. Could be charity, tzedakah. Doesn't matter. Could be ritual, could be social justice. All mitzvahs have one aim and one effect. And that is that the one who does the mitzvah experiences self-transcendence. So, the way that Hillel chose in this context, in this conversation with the prospective convert to express that idea was he just chose the mitzvah which most quintessentially embodies that. Because as we just explained to love your fellow in the way that we're commanded to love our fellow, not loving him because it's convenient and we have an ulterior motive. That's not the mitzvah. But to love him the way the mitzvah commands us to. That's not possible as long as you cling to your separate selfhood. As long as you cling to your identity as a body, as an animal soul you will not be able to do that mitzvah. So, basically he says, "Look. Once you can transcend your sense of separate selfhood and let yourself realize that you're interconnected with with with others essentially that same movement, that same my my movement I don't I don't mean like a social movement. I mean like a a direction or a focus that a person takes. That embraces everything you'll have to do, whether whether it's uh putting on tefillin or or lighting Shabbos candles. It it it all it's all the same idea. It's all the same idea. Just the mitzvah that most clearly, vividly exemplifies that is identifying with others. Because the only way to identify with others, again, not as a matter of convenience, not as an alliance the way that people come together and they for a common cause, they put aside differences. No, but to actually see the other as you, or rather to see you as the other, to understand that I don't have an identity that is separate from the whole. It's not like, "Well, I'm setting aside certain self-interest in order to gain other interests or even to benefit the interests of of the greater good." We're not saying any of that. Any of these discussions that the the the philosophers the philosophers of the the Enlightenment to discuss to discuss social contracts, they all just try to figure out like to well, how much do I give up of my individual rights and how much is important the greater good. What we're talking about is something completely beyond that, which is that ultimately, you understand, I don't want to get into a whole discussion about Okay. Here here's the 30-second version of it. Okay. Uh I know that politically today that word liberal has become politicized, but the truth is every Western thinker today is a liberal. Liberalism just means that you believe in the the rights of individuals. Today in in America they fight about which which individual rights are more important, but that's not the point. The point is there was a very successful movement about 300 years ago that argued that individuals have rights. And that that movement conquered all of Western thinking and it won. And now it doesn't matter if you're on the right, you're on the left, basically everybody believes that individuals have have rights. Now, how do you I'm I have how many seconds left? I said I'm going to do it in 30 seconds. How how do Now, how you choose to explain the limits of those rights on one hand as well as the motivation for the individual to compromise some of those rights on the other hand um meaning the limits of it, how much do you really are you really entitled to? And then on the other hand, even that which you're entitled to, how much of it would you forego for a for another cause? I'm oversimplifying a lot of stuff here right now, but that so those are those are discussions of the philosophers, the political philosophers. What the Alter Rebbe is saying roughly in the same time, by the way. He's writing in the in the He's writing this in the the 1790s. What the Alter Rebbe is saying is that for the Jewish people our peoplehood is not a social contract. He's saying that when you uphold or pursue the greater good it is not a compromise of your individual rights. He's saying that from a metaphysical standpoint there is no distinction to be made between the individual and the whole. There's no distinction to be made. So, therefore, putting on filling with the guy at the business meeting at 4:12 p.m. when I'm looking at the atomic clock and shkiahs in 1 minute is just as urgent and important as making sure that I put on filling today. Not for any other reason than my own filling is important. And with the identical urgency. If I somehow, I don't know, ended up on a plane and I was an idiot and I checked my filling. I never check my tone, never. It's the most expensive thing I have anyway. And then let's say my plane got delayed or they lost my bags and I was in an airport in the middle of nowhere and I hadn't davened yet that day. You think it's a You think it's possible You think it's possible that I would just say to myself, "Well, you know, it's it's an onus. It's beyond my I'm It's beyond my uh What do you call it? The It's a case of uh compelling I'm compelled. There's really nothing I can do here. I would just I guess won't put on filling today. You think that's possible that would happen?" It's not It's not going to happen. Whatever I got to do, I'll get on another plane. I'll fly to a place. I'll I'll buy a ticket and I'll fly to place where there's It's I'll pay for someone to fly to me at the airport and get filled. Whatever I have to do. I'll pay $1,000 for for for FedEx to to Whatever it is. Okay. So, what we're saying here is the same way that I feel about my Yiddishkeit, my connection to Hashem, is how I feel about every other Jew. So, I'm not doing anyone a favor. I'm not investing in the community so that I'll ultimately benefit from living in such an environment. This is me. Okay. But, we all understand Now, let's a little reality check. We all understand that that's not a normal way to look at things. As much as I'm trying to build it up and make it sound attractive, it's not a normal way to view things, right? We all know that that's not the normal way to view things. It's not the normal way to view things that someone else and me are not only equally important, we're the same person. That's not a normal way to look at things. So, that's what he's saying to us. Hillel told the prospective convert, "My friend, if you can get this If you can get this, not just liking the Jews who are likable, which is the always the trap. You think you're doing ahavas Yisrael cuz you found a few likable Jews. That's not ahavas Yisrael. He says, "My friend, if you can do this mitzvah, to truly realize that there is no separation between you and any other Jew and that you have one identity. It's not about individual and community. Individual and community are the same DNA. If you can get that, then you've got the entire Torah because it's all about that. It's all about that act of transcending separate selfhood and connecting to the oneness. And in fact, furthermore, probably the most efficient way to get yourself into that mode, which will bring to the performance of all other other mitzvahs, is by focusing on the mitzvah of loving your fellow.