Tanya - Introduction

3:07 I would also suggest, and this is my own suggestion, that the Alter Rebbe was doing something which had never been done before. He was taking, as we're going to see in a minute, from a lot of different streams within Yiddishkeit, and he was putting them together. And it was a daring thing to do. So in a certain way, he's sort of reassuring the reader, like, this is coming from somewhere. I didn't just make this up out of thin air. And because it was so novel, so it was like he needed to let everybody know, like, this is normal, this is mainstream, this is coming from Kadosh places. Amarim. Amarim means statements, but really, just to give you a little bit of a background, the Alter Rebbe had gotten to become so huge and his Hasidim had become so vast, that it was impossible for him to sit one-on-one with the Hasidim. When a Rebbe sits one-on-one with a Hasid, that's called Yechidus.

4:10 Yechidus means that you sat one-on-one with your Rebbe and you discussed with him whatever private things were going on in your life and your Avodah Hashem and how you could help. So the Alter Rebbe used to have Yechidus with all the Hasidim, but the Hasidim grew and they grew, like with Baruch Hashem, all Chassidus, and there was a point where you could no longer do that. And so this Sefer, as we're going to see when we get to the Hakdama, this Sefer came. about because he had to put it into writing so that people would be able to access. the wisdom of the Alter Rebbe without going directly to him. So when he says that it was a statement of collections, this is really the statement, the collection of answers that he had given to the Hasidim in private Yechidison. Okay? Yeah, Ezra. Why was it not done like Moshe and Yisro, the disciples.

5:05 Good question. When we get to the Hakdama, he deals with that. Excellent question. Okay? So far so good? So Sefer Likute Amarim. It's a Leket, it's a compilation as we're going to see where it's from. Amarim of the statements, of the things that were said in private between the Hasid and the Alter Rebbe. the first of this Sefer there are a bunch of Halakim but for the first I believe it's 24 chapters it's called Sefer Shalbeinonim. actually it's more than that but it's specifically those 24 are what we're going to deal with for a while. Sefer Shalbeinonim means this is the book that was written for Abbeinoni. Now, Right now, you don't know what a Beinuni is, okay? Or if you do know what a Beinuni is, so it's only because you've learned something a little bit about Tanya before. But a Beinuni, as we're going to see, does not mean, mech tz'z'chuyos and mech tz'avonos, which means half Averos and half Mitzvos, right? That's the way we commonly think about it.

6:07 Like a Tzadik is somebody who has more Mitzvos than Averos, a Rasha is somebody who has more Averos than Mitzvos, and a Beinuni is somebody who's like half and half, right? That's not what it means. The world of Tanya has a totally different definition for these things. And the Beinuni is going to be the objective of everybody in this room. So as opposed to striving to be a Tzadik, which for us is not something we're going to be interested in, we're going to reframe and we're going to strive to be Beinonim. And the Alter Rebbe says that's something that everybody is capable of doing. So he called it, The first Tz'chilik is the Sefer Shal Beinonim, which is the Avodah, Tz'chamav. every single Jew. Every person has the capacity to be a Beinoni. So far so good? Again, you don't really know what that means yet because you don't know what Beinoni means. But we're going to get to it very soon. Within the first week or two we're going to get to what it means to be a Beinoni and then it will make sense to you why the Altareva wants everybody to be striving for Beinonim. Okay. Melukot. Where is this Likot from? Where is this compilation from?

7:10 Mi pisvarim u mi pisayfrim kiday she'elyon, nishmasan edem. I'm reading from the bold words. A lot of what I'm giving you when I'm speaking is in the smaller words but we don't need to do that yet because right now I could just speak it out. So who are the Svarim? There are Svarim and there are Seyfrim. What does Svarim mean? Svarim means books. Seyfrim literally means, scribes. In this case it would mean people that he heard from more directly. Okay. So the Svarim that this Seyfrim is primarily based on. is the Rambam. The Maral Miprag and the Shlah Hakadosh, the Shnei Luchos HaBris, okay? Those were the three major Jewish philosophers that Netanya drew from. And what he does, and we're going to go very deep into this, is he puts together the Rambam with the Shlah and the Maral, which are usually more of the Kabbalistic thinkers, the Rambam who was more generally of the philosopher that was influenced by Aristotle, right? So he takes both of these things together and he mashes them up, which is, again, just from an intellectual perspective,

8:12 obviously, is a major achievement. To be able to take Kabbalah and to be able to take rational analysis and show how they're one is an amazing, amazing thing, okay? Okay? Now, who were the Seifrim? Who were the people that he learned from? So as we mentioned, when we got together the first time, obviously, primarily, the Alter Eba was the major disciple of the Magadmi Mezritch. And the Magadmi Mezritch was the major disciple of? the Baal Shem Tov. So when he says, mi pisayfrim, he's referring specifically to the Maggid and to the Baal Shem Tov. And that's what he means when he says, k'dayshay el yon nishmasa edan, meaning these were, from the holiest souls that existed. So there was a real Masorah that he had from his Rebbe, and he saw this also in the Svarim that he learned from. Okay. Me yusad ha'pasak. This entire Sefer, Sefer Shal Binonim, is going to be built.

9:14 Me yusad. It's going to be founded. The foundation is going to be on one Pasuk. Which if you think about it is wild. You guys are learning Gittin. Right? All of Gittin is one Pasuk. Right? So we're about to take the next six to seven months of our life and we're going to analyze, one Pasuk in Chumash. What's the Pasuk? Ki kara ve'lecha ha'davar ma'od. Know this Pasuk well because we're going to discuss it a lot. This thing, referring to the service of God, it's very close to you. It's very close to you. It's not just close to you, it's very close to you. Beficha, in your mouth, u'belvavcha, and in your heart, la'asoso, to do. This thing, meaning the service of God, is very close to you, in your heart, I'm sorry, in your mouth and in your heart, to do. Now, what's the problem? The problem is, and I'm giving this away now,

10:18 most of us in this room, and the alter ebbe, this is primarily what he's addressing, if somebody tells you that the service of God is very near to you, your natural reaction is to say, I don't feel like that at all. I don't feel like the service of God is very near to me on any level. In fact, often when I wake up in the morning, the service of God seems very far. Right? To actually get up and go to davening, let alone to daven with passion, it feels like a tremendous avodah. It feels like there's a football field of a gap between me and that destination. So how could the Pesach say, Ki kara veylecha ha-davra ma'ay, this thing is so near to you, v'ficha, to speak about it, okay? But v'vavcha, you're telling me, this is what the Al-Jarab is going to ask, you're telling me that to feel my Judaism is natural and normal? Normal? To feel excited about my Judaism? That doesn't seem rational. I shouldn't even say that doesn't seem rational. That doesn't seem true. That doesn't seem like our experience.

11:20 Is that fair? I don't know if you guys have this. I personally don't. When I wake up in the morning, I think on an average day, I'd probably rather go back to sleep than get up, schlep to minyan, put on my tefillin, and actually daven, let alone to daven the kavanah, let alone to have the passion that I'm standing in front of, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's close to us to do. That feels like if somebody told me, it's this easy to turn on your emotions and just be flat out in love with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and to daven every mincha like it's Yom Kippur, I would say, I think that you don't understand what you're talking about, because I've been Jewish for 39 years, and I don't have that experience at all, right? So the Alter Ebb is going to, basically that one question is the entire thing we're going to start with. Now I just want to say this, for us here in Mevaseret right now, this question is of particular importance to us. Why? Because if we're here in Yeshiva telling you guys, Ki karo ve'lecha ha'davar ma'od befi cha'u v'vav chalas, so it's so close to you to start getting close.

12:21 to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, right? Your natural reaction should be, really? Because I don't feel that way at all, right? I slept through Shachas, I walked in, I saw that Rav Berg noticed that I was late, I saw that the reshiva noticed that I was late, right? And yes, there's a part of me that wants to come, but there's also, frankly, a part of me that doesn't want to come. And just three, four months ago, I was in high school, and it wasn't like I was, like, davening necessarily with a passion every single day when I was in high school, and now I'm going to come to yeshiva, and all of a sudden you're expecting that it should be easy? It's not easy at all. As one Talmud said to me last year,

12:53 he said, I came to yeshiva, I don't know what I was thinking. So he said to me, I don't know what I was thinking. I somehow in my mind convinced myself, that Gemara was going to be different in Mevaseret than it was in high school. He said, and I got here and I opened up the Gemara and lo and behold, it was the same Gemara that I opened up in high school. Like literally no different. He's like, what was I thinking? Everybody told me you're going to come to Eretz Tov. All of a sudden you're going to like Gemara. He's like, it's the same Gemara. It's the same Rashi. It's the same Tosha. It's the same words. I didn't like it in high school. Why should I like it now? So he's like, I like my Rebbe more, but the material that I'm learning seems equally irrelevant to me. And so he was really struggling. And I said to him, yeah, why did you think that it was going to be different? That's not a normal thing to think. So the Torah is coming and saying, it's really easy to be into your Yiddishkeit. It's like so close to you to do. What should your reaction be? I'm 18 years old. It hasn't been easy up until now. Why would it start to get easier now? So that's what this entire Sefer Shalvi Nonim is built on, that question. Okay, good? Everyone clear? Mikey, good?

14:01 This has two meanings that I'm going to share with you. The Alter Rebbe says, we're going to explain this Pasuk in the long, short way. What does this mean? First, I'm going to explain to you the simple meaning, meaning the general meaning, and then I'm going to explain it on a more specific level. Chazal tells us the following story. There was a king, and the king is walking down the road, and he gets to a crossroads, and the king is trying to get to a city. And there's two ways of going. You go right, and you go left. And there's a tinuk, a child, a baby, at the crossroads. And the king says to the baby, which way should I go to the city? So the teen oak says, there's the long short way and there's the short long way.

15:06 So king decides to go the shorter route. So he's walking along on the shorter route, and he could see that the city is in front of him, and it's right there. But in between him and the city is a forest. And so to get through the forest, there's these obstructions, things that you have to maneuver around. So even though from a distance perspective it's shorter, it's longer to actually get there. It's a tougher journey. The king doubles back, and he says to the Tenoch, you lied to me. He said, no, I told you that was the shorter way. I didn't tell you it was the quickest way. There's a difference between the shortest way and the quickest way. The quickest way might be more efficient than the shorter way. So if the king would have gone to the left, he would have gone the longer way in distance, but he would have gotten there more quickly and more efficiently. And here's what's critical. He would actually make it into the city. See, when you go the short, long way, you get stuck in the forest,

16:09 and you can't actually get to the city. So what you're doing is you're around the city, right? You're surrounding the city, but you never get into the city because the obstructions are too big. But when you go the long, short way, because the road is clear, so you actually get into the city. So what's the goal? The goal is not to get near the city. The goal is to get into the city. In this case, the city, the destination that we're trying to get to, and this is going to be the buzzword for this year, for the next nine months, passionate Judaism. Not just going through the motions. We don't want to do that anymore. We want to be people that are alive. Alive means it's vibrant. It's within us. So you can get close to the city if you go the short way. But you're never going to have that real passionate Judaism. Maybe you'll fake it, but it won't be lasting because you never really got into the city. The Altarepa says our journey is going to be a little bit more roundabout.

17:12 We're going to go a little bit of a longer way, but ultimately it's shorter. It's more efficient. You actually get into the city. That's the first meaning of Der HaRuch HaVik Tzara. Any questions? When there's no questions, it either means one of two things. Either means I'm doing a good job of explaining, or you guys are just buying it too easily. Okay, good. what's the second explanation of. because that's going to hit on the title on exactly what you're speaking about. The Alter Eba has two paths that he is going to teach us to getting close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And the brilliance, I mean it's really astounding brilliance of the Alter Eba is. basically these paths are diametrically opposed to each other. It's like you learn the beginning of Sefer Shalbi Nonim and it's one direction and then you learn the second half of Sefer Shalbi Nonim and it's like everything he said in the first half it's like ignore that and you can have this possibility. So there are two paths and one is called a longer path and one is called a shorter path. So this is a second explanation of what the Alter Eba meant when he said Derech HaRuch HaVik Tzara, The first one that the Alter Rebbe gives is called Derech HaRuchah, okay?

18:44 And what that means is as follows. Again, I'm giving a little bit away here, but it's okay. An emotion is built, not revealed, okay? So the first half of Sefer Shel Beinonim, of Tanya, is built on the following premise. We're going to build emotions. through having a very deep knowledge of God, right? Because remember that emotions are always the children of the intellect, they're the progeny of the intellect. So the word chabad chassidus means chachma, bina, and das, which are the three levels of intellect that a person has. We're going to learn a lot about that. And from the chabad comes the two primary emotions of a person, which are loving and fearing. We're going to discuss at length what those things mean. So the love and the fear are not natural in the derech haruchah.

19:46 They're things that are developed. The more you know, the more you feel, right? So for example, if a person spends, I don't know if anyone here is into basketball. I grew up into basketball. When you're young, you may not be as into basketball because A, you may not be able to reach the basket. you may not know a lot about the game you may never have followed the sport but what happens as you invest, time and energy into it the more you get into it, the more you get better at it, the more you start to love it let's say you start to follow a team. you invest time in following that team you buy tickets to go to watch that team you have your fantasy players that are on that team, and your Meshuggah, they're in the playoffs it used to be, again I know it's not the way it is today, but it used to be that you had to line up at night to buy tickets when they went on sale the first thing the next morning so if tickets went on sale at 10, already 1 o'clock in the morning, people would be lined up in tents sleeping outside so that you could get tickets to the Knicks-Pacers games so the more you invest in it, the more you know about it, the more there's an expansion of the mind, the more there's an expansion.

20:49 of the way that we feel so that's the Derech HaRuchah if you want to have legitimate, passionate emotions, you have to invest your intelligence, that's Derech HaRuchah then there's Derech Sorrow, which is the second half of Tanya, In the second half of Tanya, he goes the exact opposite way. He says, you already have natural emotions. You already have love and fear of God. It's not a question of developing them. It's a question of revealing them. And in that half of Tanya, the Altar of Rebbe teaches how a person comes to reveal the emotions. that they already have from within. Another way of saying this, and I'll get to you one second, another way of saying this is as follows. If you're an intellectual, the first half of Tanya is really like your roadmap. Roadmap, right? Like for those that are deep philosophical thinkers, they're like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And for those that are much more like passionate, emotional people, the second half of Tanya will speak to you more. And somehow the Altar of Rebbe was able to take these two paths and put them in the same sefer, which is amazing.

21:52 Bensi. It's true. Okay. Toby, you had a question? Yeah. Okay. It's not just about investing time into it. It's about investing time and intellect. Correct. It's like, you know how they say 10,000 hours? If you want to go to something, you need 10,000 hours? So it turns out that's not true, right? Because I could go sit in the gym for 10,000 hours and nothing will change. I'll still have the body of a god, Buddha. Yeah? It doesn't matter how long you sit in there. Thanks. It's a real rugby joke. It doesn't matter how long you sit in there. It matters what you do when you're in there, right? So it's not 10,000 hours of being in the gym. It's 10,000 hours of working out. How hard it works. Right. Exactly. So it's not just a question of saying 10,000 hours I'm going to spend thinking about God. It's what's the nature of that thinking. The Altareba delineates exactly what we need to be thinking about in order to develop those emotions. But it's amazing. I want you guys to understand the level of intellect that the Altareba had. He literally charted a course. And he said, if you focus on these things, and he teaches you the philosophy of those things, that will naturally build these emotions. And I found this very much to be true in my life.

23:03 I've also found that there are times in my life where I'm not ready to do the work that the Altareva wanted, and then I have the second half of Tanya to lean on. For those times when I'm not in the mood to do the intellectual work, then there's a totally another muscle that we develop, which is like this really natural, like, I have this love and fear. And it's, like, very smooth, and that's, like, also a really beautiful thing to have. Ezra, you had a question before. Yeah, what's the name of the second. It's all, it's all Sefer Shalbenonim. No, like, Derech Haruchah and... Oh, Derech Haruchah Uktzara, the short half. That's the, that's, it's, it's short because it's already inside of you, it's already natural. Right. So, it's basically saying the hard way is the fast way. The harder way in this case, meaning the longer way, is the intellect. building the emotions. The shorter way, which is more natural, right? But it will lack something. I mean, you need both halves, right? It's a yin-yang. You need both halves to be complete. But the shorter way is the way of, like, the emotions already are inside of you. By the way, do you guys see how amazing it is that all of this is already contained within the title page? There's not one word that the author... Because the author had spent 20 years writing this.

24:14 And he went over every single letter, including all the extra vavs, to make sure that everything was perfect. So, you could... There's literally even the title page. You could learn everything. Like, it's already all in there. How are we doing? Good? Okay. I have a question. Yeah. What's this parish on the Tanya that we're in. So, this is a parish that was written on Tanya. By who. by a Chabad rabbi from South America, from what I understand. He did a really excellent job. I'm giving you guys the words of the Tanya with the explanation as I understand it. There will be times that we learn the Peirush. For right now, I don't think it's necessary, especially in the beginning. I just want to get you guys into the flow. But there are going to be times where we pound through the entire thing. Okay? Okay. Last words of the title page. Be'ezet Hashem Yisbach. Now, the simple explanation.

25:08 of Be'ezet Hashem Yisbach is that the Alter Rebbe was writing about the Sefer, that with God's help, this is going to be a way that teaches you derach haruch hauketzar. But by chassidim, they say, that the Alter Rebbe was also telling the chassidim something. This will work. With God's help. Meaning, it's going to be a tough journey, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to be with us on that journey, supporting us as we go through it, helping us along, because there's nothing that we can do without God. Okay? So just to sum up everything we just said, and again, remember, this is all just in the title page, this is a compilation. The Alter Rebbe called it, he was a compiler, he called it a compilation. That was a function of his humility, of Amarim, of statements that were said in Yechidus between the Alter Rebbe and his Hasidim, that he was writing because he no longer had the capacity, as we're going to see, to see them all. It was melukar, it was compiled from the Rambam, the Marami Prag, and the Shla. It's all about the question of how the Torah could say that our Judaism, passionate Judaism, is close to us,

26:13 when for so many of us it feels so distant from us. How is he going to do it? It's going to be the long, short way, which means it's a longer way around, but ultimately it's what gets us into the city. There's less obstacles. And as we spoke about, there's a longer way and a shorter way, two halves of Tanya. It's going to come from the Chabad to the Chagat, from the Chacham Abin Adas, from the intellect, into the Chesed Gevurah Teferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchus, which are the Zion Beatles, which we're going to learn a lot about. But right now what it just means is the two primary emotions of love and fear, and then the second half of Tanya, which is the shorter way, which is the emotions are naturally inside of you, but we have to access them, and it's all going to happen with God's help. Okay. Yeah.

27:03 I'm sorry, I should have explained that, and I didn't, I slinged it outside, but I didn't say it. Levar Hetev means the Altar of the Rebbe says we're going to explain this Pasuk well. Eichu Karot Mod, how is it so close to you? Because it feels, Rafi, so distant from us. So if you're not bothered by this, and if you're like, no, I'm good, I'm always passionate about my Yiddishkeit, I got this, so then you don't need to say it. But my feeling is that everybody in the world does need to say it, because who's so passionate about their Yiddishkeit? Aaron, can I ask you a favor? Yes. Would you mind going down to the Chader Ochal? If you go from the back, it'll probably be open. Would you mind filling this up in the water machine? What was that. How do I get there. Just if you walk around, like down the mountain, like from the back. You know what I'm talking about.

27:53 That's fine. You'll figure it out. To the water? Yeah, specifically from the water in the Chader Ochal. Okay, thank you. Let's go to the Haskamas just for a second. Can you get up? if you go if you look at the askamas for a second I just want to show you who the two askamas are from. so two amazing, disciples of the Magadmi Mezrich, wrote their wrote their approbations. askama means an approbation it's an approbation it says like this is a good sefer, you should learn this sefer now the first you'll see is from the Rebbe Rebbe Zusha Me'anapoli you guys have ever heard of the Rebbe Zusha. it's like the praise they put on the back of the book. right, like that, except these are coming from the biggest tzaddikim of the time, right, so, so Rebbe Zusha Me'anapoli was a colleague of the Alter Rebbe, who was also one of the prime disciples of the Magadmi Mezrich, and I just want to point out a couple of things both. Both Rav Zusha and Rav Yehuda Leba Cohen both pointed out that they wrote this Haskamah.

29:14 in the week of Parshas Kisava. We're not going to go through it inside. It was both written in the week of Parshas Kisava. Why? So one of the great Hasidim of the Alter Rebbe explained that, The whole goal of Sefer Tanya is to get you into the Aretz, to get you into the land. Kitavo el Aretz, when you get into the land. Aretz is from a Russian of Ratz, which means Ratzam. So the land of Israel is always identified with will. And it's through the Tanya that you access your true desires. So they wrote it specifically in the Parsha of Kitavo because they wanted you to get to the core of your will. The other thing I'll point out that they both said, is they both said that this was going to be the Sefer that greets Mashiach. This was going to be the Sefer that brings us into the world of greeting Mashiach. And aside from that, take a look at the end, right here at the very end on page Yod Aleph. Of Rebbe Zusha, it says,

30:17 Sh'nas Pidusenu. What was the year that he wrote it in? I think it was 1796, this is the year of our redemption, because the Sefer was identified with Mashiach. And similarly, if you look in page Yud Gimel, he says, Hayom Yom Shlishi Parashat Tavo, Tov Kuf Nun Vav, which is the same letters as Tiknu, or Tikkun, which means to rectify. And he says earlier, he calls this a Sefer, I'll find it for you, he calls it a Sefer. I think it means Ketores.

31:23 I think I have to check, but they say that it's an acronym, for that which is going to rectify, specifically it's going to bring the Torah, the incense of the Ruach and the Neshama. I'm going to be giving you guys notes, like at the end of the week in English, write-ups of everything that we did. I have written up notes that I took on Tanya, so I'm going to be giving you guys those notes, and it's in those notes. But just so you know, to highlight the fact that this is all coming from, the deepest Torahs that a person could learn, because these are the Torahs that are going to bring Tikkun to the world. Yeah, go ahead. Is this what obeys the fact. that the B'avah is traveling with Shia B'Av. No. That was because people, unfortunately, did not know how to live without the Rebbe. So they put him up on such a pedestal that they don't know how to let go of that, that even though right now he's passed on, there are people, as the Rebbe said, that need kubayim, they need crutches. But that's not from our... We can appreciate the Torah that will bring Mashiach without saying, well, maybe he was. I don't know. I don't get involved in the question of if he was or he wasn't.

32:30 It's all speculation to me. But there's no doubt that the truth of this Torah is the Torah of Mashiach. Okay? Okay. Which is it. That's something else. We're not going to get into that. Okay. Hak'tama Samalaki. This is now very important work that we're going to do. This is like... We already started a bit in the Dafashar. And now we're going to, in the next hour, 40 minutes, whatever it is, we're going to finish up the Hak'tama of the Malakit. This is the compilers forward. Tomorrow we don't have Shir. So Wednesday we're going to start with Perig Aleph. Okay? Okay. Hak'tama Samalaki. It's the compilers forward. V'hi'i geres ha'shlucha l'cholos anshe shlomenu. And then it's a question what the Yod Tzadik Vav stands for. Some say it stands for Yevarchem Tzurem V'Yishmirem. Some say it stands for Yishmirem Tzurem V'Gahalenu. But the point is, this is what the Alter Rebbe calls Anash. How many people have ever heard of the term Anash before? Can you hear it? Anashim is people. Anash is Anshei Shlomenu. It means like our people. This is like our tribe.

33:42 So the Alter Rebbe was writing a letter. This letter was being sent to the general Lubavitch community of the time. May Hashem protect us. Yeah? No, I'm just saying. Okay, you had heard of it. Okay. Aleichem Yishim Ekra. Shemu Elai Rod Feit Tzedek Mevak Sheh Hashem. He sends personal greetings to each one of them. Listen to me, those that are Rod Feit Tzedek, pursuing justice. Mevak Sheh Hashem. Those that desire to come close to Hashem. Alter Rebbe here is giving a lot of, very beautiful introduction from the large to the small everyone who's Anash from our Medina, from our country and those that are around our country each person should be with peace and they should live forever. Okay. Okay, I'll take it for now Thank you so much.

34:56 Please forgive me, I get very dehydrated so I need to drink a lot By the way, you guys are welcome to drink and eat I don't. Yeah, I'm singing I wouldn't necessarily encourage you to have a whole meal but okay, you're welcome. Actually there's a big makubal in Yerushalayim Rabbi Gamlio Rabanovich, Who encourages people to eat While he's giving shiur Because he says If you're eating while you're learning So you're investing all of the learning Into the eating Okay. You mean you're investing the godliness In your eating. Okay. Sorry, It's margaleh b'pumeh You guys know what margaleh b'pumeh means? Margaleh from a version of ragil It's regular B'pumeh in people's mouths, It's a regular thing The Alter Rebbe was saying I've heard it from you before That Anash Anshei Shlomenu Our Hever are saying It's not the same When you hear musr From, the Rebbe himself. Thank you so much, Rebbe.

36:22 It's not the same when you hear Musr from a Rebbe from when you read it inside of a Sefer. In other words, just to give you a little bit of the history of what was going on over here, the Rebbe had started writing these contresim. Before he published Tanya in its entirety, he was sending out parts of it. And the Hasidim were frustrated by this because they didn't want to hear it in the Sefer. They wanted to come to the Rebbe and have time to sit with the Rebbe, but it's obviously not possible. As the Chassidus grows, it's impossible to see each person. Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe, you should know, when he was younger, when the Chassidus was smaller, when it was post-Holocaust, so he used to stay up all night long and people could get Yechidus and they could sit down with him for half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, and they could talk to him. As he got older, even though he stood for hours on end, which was crazy because he was an old man and never took a break and he never sat down eight hours at a time giving out dollars, but he couldn't sit with anybody.

37:23 to be Yechidus anymore because it was just too much because he had so many thousands of people would come to get dollars. If you've ever seen the videos, I assume everybody in this room at some point has seen a Lubavitcher Rebbe video. If you haven't, that means that you haven't been on YouTube. Because YouTube somehow suggests, like you could be doing whale watching and YouTube suggests you may also enjoy a video of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I don't know why it is. Yeah, that and impractical jokers. Those are the things that keep showing up on my side, right? It's good. It's good YouTube videos. I always say the two people that know me the best are my wife and YouTube. My wife knows really who I am and YouTube knows what I want. So... So they were frustrated. They said, Rebbe, it's not the same. And the Alter Rebbe is addressing their concern. He's saying, I know you're frustrated with me that I've been sending out these contrasim and it's not the same to hear it from a Sefer. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe says, I'm going to explain to you why, from now on, everything you need, you're going to be able to find inside of the Sefer.

38:25 I just want you to appreciate what that meant. Put yourself back in these times, okay? It's the late 1700s, right? Chassidus is starting to really grow, specifically the Alter Rebbe's Chassidus. And instead of drawing everybody close and saying, I'm going to have a personal relationship with each one of you, he's making a very daring attempt now. And he says, I'm going to write a Sefer that's going to answer all of your questions. Now, naturally, the Chassidim are going to be skeptical. How could a person possibly write a Sefer. that's going to address all of our questions? That's not rational. And the Al-Tareb is going to highlight exactly what the problems are. And what are the problems? There's going to be two problems. The reader and the writer. Okay? Let's first discuss the problems of the reader. When a person reads a Sefer, how do they read it? According to their derech and according to their das, right? Whenever a person, everybody in this room right now is taking in the information that we're teaching differently.

39:26 Everyone has their own derech. And everyone has their own level of intellect. Some people are smarter. Some people are less smart. Some people think in different ways. Right? So, just right away, How could you write a Sefer that's going to be for every one of us when each one of us has a different derech and each one of us has a different das? Yeah. When he wrote this, did he stop meeting with people completely after? Like, I'm sure he was told more further questions beyond the series of letters. He was saying, Obviously, people still came to be by him. But his capacity to service the klal on an individual level, he had outgrown them, or they had outgrown him. It wasn't possible. But it wasn't the same. Meaning, he had to answer their question now with thousands of chassidim. It wasn't going to be possible for him to do that. Here's going to be the thing. And by the way, as we're going to see, by chassidim they say that the Alter Rebbe wrote this not just for the thousand chassidim that lived, or the 2,000 or the 10,000 chassidim that were involved at that time. I believe it was over 100,000 actually. But for every single generation of people that learned Tanya, the Alter Rebbe said, if you're learning Tanya,

40:42 the answers to your questions are in the Sefer. It's an exceptionally daring thing to do. It turns out that if you learn the Sefer, you'll see that it's true. But it's a wild thing to say. Yeah. I didn't have a question, but what I was thinking is that Tanya... He had to address the future chassidim, and without writing a sefer, there was no way to physically do that. Even if there were going to be other rabbis that came after him, there had to be a way for him to speak to all the chassidim to come. And this is going to be that way. So right away, the first question he's saying is, we each have a different derech in learning. We each have a different derech in thinking. And each one of us has a different hasaga. Each one of us has a different capacity to grasp the information. I don't know if you guys had this in high school, but you know the guys that just hopped right away, everything that was said, they hopped right away, they're always in the A class. They're going to have one type of,

41:35 and some people are totally different type of learners. Some people like literature and history. Some people like science and math. So how could you write a sefer for everybody? Everybody's going to learn according to where they are. Then he says something even better. Could be that you're the smartest person in the world. And could be that you've gachap everything. But let's say you're in a dark place. Let's say you're in a place where your Havayit Hashem has grown stale. Let's say you're not excited to wake up in the morning to daven. Let's say you're not excited to go learn. Let's say you have not found the light of Torah in your Yiddish kayet. So what happens is as follows. Your capacity to extract the Mussar becomes very difficult. I'll give you an example. Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you go to them and you're like, I'm in such a bad place. And they're giving you intelligent advice. But because you're in such a dark place, you can't hear it.

42:38 Like you're just in such a foul mood that you're like, I can't even take this in right now. So imagine how you would be so stuck when it came to another person, when it comes to reading a book. So when were the chassidim coming to the Rebbe? They were coming to the Rebbe when they were like, my Havayt Hashem is falling apart. I mamish don't feel it. And the Alter Rebbe is coming and saying, forget coming to me. Just learn the book. That's such a harsh thing to say to someone, no? Because what they need now more than anything is a Rebbe. And what are we getting? We're getting a book. Don't tell me to read a book. Imagine you walked into a therapist's office and you're like, I'm really struggling with anxiety and depression. That's amazing because I have this textbook right here that deals whole with anxiety and depression. Do you feel better now? Just go learn the book. Right, what would you say? Next week you come back. Did you learn the book? I'll be honest with you, I was so anxious about reading that huge book and I was so depressed I didn't even have the capacity to open it. Well, that's okay. I have another book that you can read that will teach you how to get to that book. It's ridiculous. Nobody would ever do that, right?

43:39 Because when you're in a place that's dark, it's very hard to see the light. So the Alter Rebbe says, even if you have the capacity to do that, let's say your seichel and your das are mevubalim, they're confused. Confused. Mevalbel, you guys know what mevalbel means? Bilbul means confused. When was language babbled? At Migdal Babel, when language was babbled in Babylon. That's where it gets its name from. So if you're in a place where you're confused. and you're walking in a path of darkness, it's going to be so difficult to see that good light that's hidden inside of the Isfahim. Even though the light is so sweet. and pleasant for your eyes. The light is going to have such a healing effect on your soul. So the author of the book is saying, even though the light in this book, even though you're going to say to me, the light in this book is so good, but A, you couldn't have possibly reached.

44:42 every single person. Why? Because readers are different. And we're in dark places. It's hard for us to discern these things. The first half, what were we speaking about? The problems of the reader. Now we're going to be speaking about the problems of the writer. Yeah? With me? Aside from the problems with the reader, there's a problem with the writer. Why? Because if you write a book based on your own intelligence, it's absolutely true that you're writing for a target audience. When you write a book, no matter how broadly you write the book, it's not going to be for everybody. So I happen to love a book called, Five People You Meet in Heaven. You ever read that book? It's an amazing book. Mitch Albom. You guys ever hear of the writer Mitch Albom? He wrote a book called Tuesdays with Maury. It's an amazing book. For me, that book really moves me. Yeah, and mom shit moves me. I cry from it. But I met somebody and he's like, yeah, I don't know, Mitch Alvin, it just doesn't really speak to me. And I'm like, Mitch Alvin doesn't speak to you? Tuesdays with Maury didn't cry at the end when, I'm not gonna say, yeah, spoiler alert. He didn't cry at the end when Maury died, right? Sorry, now you know he died. Yeah, he didn't cry at the end of, and they're looking at you like, you're nuts.

46:15 Why? Because, like, no, it just didn't do that for me. I'm not into it. Why? Because when a human being writes a book, by definition, what's gonna happen? By definition, it's not gonna be for everybody. So, A, you have a problem, even if you wanted to write a book for everybody, the readers aren't gonna be the same. And it's not possible for a person to write a book based on his own intelligence that's for everybody. So there's two problems. Because not all people think the same. One person is not excited the way another person is excited. So some people, they learn, chassidus from Rabbi Nachman, and some people learn chassidus from the Alter Rebbe, and some people learn musr, and some people learn gemara, and everybody gets excited in their own way, right? So how could you write one sefer, that's for everybody? And that's what the chassidim were saying. They're saying, Rabbi, how could you write a sefer for all of us? Because you're a human being, and it's not possible to write a sefer that's going to be for every chassid, because every chassid is moved by something different. Now, imagine I was sitting down, right,

47:19 with different talmidim in the yeshiva. I'm sitting there with Bensi, and I'm sitting there with Ezra, and I'm sitting there with Tovio. So as a Rebbe, you can tailor-make what you say for each individual. But when you're writing a book, right, automatically, what are you going to say? It's not possible that the book is going to be for Bensi and for Ezra and for Tuvia. How could it possibly be? What moves them doesn't move Mikey. So even if I figured out how to get all of them in the same place, it's not going to help Mikey. It's not going to help Roy. It's not going to help Sammy. Make sense? Okay. Yeah? Right. But the point. is, the Altareb is going to an extreme. He's saying, I didn't write every single, meaning, I didn't write like well, this half of the book will be for you and this half of the book. He's saying, everything is for everybody. That's a huge statement to say. Right? Well, he hasn't proved it yet. Right? But right now, he's preempting the questions that the Hasidim are going to ask. And I'd, like to think that he probably was already.

48:22 hearing the murmurings and the whisperings that they were upset with him. So he was probably addressing the things that they were already saying to him. Okay. He didn't, like, make the bold statement. He was just addressing the concerns at this point. He will. I'm giving you, so that it makes sense what he's doing, I'm giving you the what's called the background. And where do you see this halacha? U'kamosh om rabba seinim za'al avracha. Where do you see this concept in Shas? The Gemara in Bracha says, Gabay berchas chochem harazim, al shishim riboy mi yisro. It's a bracha that we make when we see 600,000 Jews. Okay? It's called chochem harazim. And if you see someone that can teach all 600,000 Jews at once, you also make the bracha of chochem harazim. What does that mean? Razim means secret, right? Like Raz means secret. So Chacham HaRazim is the Chachma, the secret of every single person's wisdom that every person thinks differently. So when we see 600,000 Jews, what's the natural reaction that a Jew has? Look at the multitudes. Look how different people are. Now I just want to hit pause for a second and give you a little quick comment. Rabbi said, Do you see how Chazal saw the value of the individual?

49:41 That the bracha a person makes when they see 600,000 Jews is not to make a bracha on their unity. What are you making a bracha on? On what makes them different. You got it? That's an amazing... That, by the way, right there is a revolution. It's okay. Should I just press the little power button? Yes. Okay. I feel like you could turn off the phone. It's okay. So, you want to try it? I believe for now. So, We're used to thinking... And this is one of the challenges that we have in education. Everybody has to be the same. And Chazal tells us it's exactly the opposite. Brilliance, right, is when you see so many people think differently. And the bracha that you make on, if you have somebody, like we're going to see in the next line, about Yahushua, who was able to teach 600,000 people at once, that's incredible. Why? Because how in the world do you say one thing to 600,000 people who all think very differently?

50:47 You understand? So that's, in Yiddishkeit, it's always about how different we are. And we have achdus from our differences, not by making everybody the same. Yeah. Why Yahushua and not Bursa. Specifically, there's a sugi here. It says, Let me just get to it already, because you're asking a question. Right? We make this bracha of Chacham Arazm because no two people think the same. Well, The Melchamos is a parish on that Gemara and Bracha. brings the sefri. Specifically about the Yoshua, it says, What was the ruach of Yoshua specifically? He had this talent. Yoshua was so kashur to the tzibur that he was able to teach, it was a special midah of Yoshua, that he was able to teach all 600,000 at once. That was a special midah that he had. That he was able to see 600,000 people in Kalei Yisrael each one thought differently, and yet he was able to relate to them. But in general, can you write a book that relates to 600,000 different people? No, it's not Sha'ayach.

52:04 Okay, now we're going to get into our very first, very deep piece of Chassidus. If we're speaking about, if we're speaking about Svarim that were written based on the intellect of a person, I understand how it can't be for 600,000 people. However, let's say the Svarim were not written by the intellect of a person. Rather, they're gathering statements from Chazal, okay? Sifrei Hayira, okay? And these are statements that are built on the Ruach Hashem. Now, what this means is as follows. How many people here have ever heard of a concept, it's a Kabbalistic concept, called Ayireiso V'Kutshibrichu Kul Achad, which means the Torah and God are one. Have you heard this before? Anyone else heard this before? Have you heard this before? What it means is as follows, and we're going to learn a lot about this this year. What was that.

53:21 Could be this as well. Araisa, which means Torah. Araisa means Torah. V'kudshabrichu means Hashem. Kulohad, our one. Now what does that mean, that G-d and the Torah are one? So it means as follows. If you were to learn a book about architecture, would you say the architect who wrote the book, the author and the book are one? I would not. I would say that the wisdom of the architect, the author, can be found in the book, but not the architect himself, right? What do you mean, like the actual process? No, meaning the architect. Let's say I, Mordechai Berg, am an architect, and I write a book about architecture. So the wisdom that I have about architecture can be found in the book. But Mordechai Berg is not in the book, right? Just the things I know are in the book. Fair. The architecture doesn't make up your entire person. There's other things.

54:22 You're getting a glimpse of you through that. Yeah. I mean, if it's something you love, then maybe you see a little bit more of yourself in the book. Right. You might be able to infer certain things about me, but I am not only my thoughts. So, for example, you wouldn't know anything about the fact that you wouldn't know necessarily that I have a family. You wouldn't know if I'm an angry person or a loving person. If you wrote a book called Reverse Thoughts and every single thing you ever thought was in that book, then we could say that this is reverse. Kind of, right? But let's say I went into a coma. Am I less me because now I have less thoughts. You have less thoughts. Right, but I'm still me, right? I can do less because I'm in a coma, right? But just because I'm in a coma doesn't mean you can kill me, right? Because I'm not just my thoughts. This is something we're going to discuss at length this year. I don't want to fully get into it now. But we should all agree that the me inside of all of us has nothing to do with anything we do. Nothing we say, nothing we think, nothing we feel. So for example, my best friend in the world is missing his leg.

55:39 He lost his leg to cancer. Some of you might know him. A guy named Yitzi Haber. He's one of the schnitzel guys. Any of you guys ever saw him by bar mitzvah? So he lost his leg to cancer when he was a kid. So would you say he's less of a person because he lost his leg? Think about how cruel that would be. I mean, he's physically lacking to a certain extent. Right, but none of us would say he's less of a person. Right, he's just missing his leg. That's all you could say about it. It's actually a part of him even more. What was that? It's almost a part of him even more. It's not that he's lesser or more. It's just like, that's who he is. Right. But it's got nothing... Right, but he's not... It doesn't take away from his person. Now, by the way, just in case you think, like, that's not a novelty, right? Well, remember that from 1938 to 1945, Hitler, Yom Hashem Oum, killed over 250,000 disabled people because he believed that disabled people were less people. And since they were less, we have to remove their genetics from the gene pool, right? So there was a time in history when we thought that. And by the way, just in case you think, okay, every Rebbe always brings an example from Hitler, but that's too extreme for sure slavery.

56:45 But even in England in the 1940s and the 1950s, you know what they used to do when people became paraplegics? They would put them in hospitals, they would dope them up on medicine, and they would leave them in hospitals for the rest of their lives until they died. In fact, it wasn't until a person who was a doctor, who grew up in England, who grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family, was the first person to tell these paraplegics. get off of your medication, get up and compete in sports. This is where the Paralympics comes from. That was the revolution because he said, we're not going to treat these people as less. just because they've lost the use of their legs. Imagine if somebody's sick. Just because somebody's sick doesn't mean they're less. Imagine going over to a Down syndrome person and going, because your chromosomes aren't the same, you're less of a person. So we're not defined by our thoughts. We're not defined by our speech. Maybe our lives are defined that way, but not ourselves, right? So that, yeah.

57:41 I don't, I mean, it might be an unpopular opinion, but I kind of think that, That person is a collection of the sum total of everything that he's, like, if you take somebody and you put them into a room, right, and it's just like four walls and they live their whole life there, really, what are they? They don't know anything, they haven't done anything, they have no interactions with anybody, what can they base, what do they know about themselves. Right. So, to a large part, we are made up of everything. I think where I would disagree with you is I think you're conflating two concepts. I think you're conflating the concept of alive and life. While we're alive, we take up this amount of space for this amount of time, so we're going to be defined by how we interact within that span of time. But even if a person, let's say, grew up and they had some medical or mental disorder where they were a vegetable from the moment they were born, I would not say you could kill that person because they're still a person.

58:46 They have no thoughts, they've never said a word, and they've done no deeds. So where's their personhood? I believe that personhood is defined by your soul. And every moment that you exist in this world, your life is valuable. No, I'm not talking about life being valuable. I thought you were defining what it means to be... Well, that's the point. You would be you even if you were... Even that person, to some degree, would ever... No, but there's nothing going on. They're brain-dead from the moment they're born. They've never had a thought. Why would you not kill them? It would be unpopular to go over with a knife to a person who is like a little baby is a vegetable and go, I don't think you mean anything. That's the type of thing somebody says in an argument to Ben Shapiro just because they want to get on some famous YouTube video. That's not going to be a successful thing to do.

59:44 Right. So when we say that God is invested, that God and the Torah are one, we don't mean God's thoughts. We mean God. That's a big thing to say. Now, what does that mean. It's that the Torah is a reflection of the inner of Hashem. When you say reflection, what do you mean? That the Torah... See, be careful when you say the word reflection because even reflection is not 100% true. When you say God and the Torah are one, what you're really saying is this. Do you want to give it a shot? Go ahead. God and His wisdom are one. Okay, that's what the Rambam says. Now see if you can bring it home. And therefore what? Okay, so what it means to say is like this. You can't say God has parts. The second you say God has parts, you're no longer talking about God. Okay? Because when you say something is one, what you mean is it has no parts. So let's say, for example, why are we all going to die? Everybody in this room is going to die. Why? What was that?

1:00:48 Yeah, that's true, but what's the scientific mechanism by which we're all going to die, Benzie? And what does that mean to get sick? At the end of the day, what does sickness mean? Right, in other words, the parts of the body no longer work with each other, right? So there's decay of the heart, and then it's no longer capable of pumping blood to the rest of the body, right? That's called a heart attack, and then if the blood is not pumping to the rest of the body, you die, right? If for whatever reason a person has an aneurysm. Listen, things break because they have parts, which is why today, when we can make things in plastic molds, right, with these 3D printers, right? Do you guys know that they're making engines of airplanes from 3D printers now? It's amazing. It's amazing what they're doing. And they're much stronger, why? Because there are no parts. There are still parts, obviously, because even all the little slivers are still parts, right? But the more screws you have in something, the more likely something will come apart, right? The stronger something is, the less parts it has. God has no parts, right? There's nothing that makes God in any way. You can't point to any aspect of God and separate it from any other aspect.

1:01:58 When we say God is one, we mean absolute oneness. Right. Because if you say this is the wisdom of God and God and his wisdom are one, then what are you really saying about the Torah? The Torah is one with God, right? So now the author of it, bring it back, see if you can follow this. I told you guys, it's a hard safer. So now if you follow the logic, it goes like this. If God and the Torah are one, maybe you'll argue that... If a book was written based on the wisdom of the Torah, and the Torah is by definition infinite, because it's one with God, then that would be able to speak to every single person. And then all the questions would be answered. The Alter Rebbe is going to point out that that's not true in a moment. But he's preempting this question. So watch what he's doing. If it was written... This is the problems the Alter Rebbe is addressing. Number one, there's the problem of the reader. Every single reader is different. Every single reader has a different derech. Every single reader has different levels of intelligence. Readers are by definition sometimes in dark places.

1:03:00 They're not going to be able to extract the light. That's one problem. Then there's the problem of the writer. The writer, if he's writing from his own intellect, there's no way that he can reach every single person, because people are different. So maybe he'll say, yeah, that would be true if you were writing in your own intellect. But what if you were just putting statements from the Torah together? Then you would be able to reach everyone, says the Alter Rebbe. Still, it's not true. Why? This is the argument. First, before he debunks the argument, this is the argument. He's going to say, you write a book, and the book comes only from statements from the Torah. And every single neshama, the 600,000 neshamas of Klal Yisrael, and their pratim, meaning not only on a general level, but even the specifics, and even the specifics of the specifics, until, this is a beautiful losham, until the spark of the Kal Shebekalim, the weakest Jews, the Jews that are mamish, the lowest.

1:04:10 Pechusei Erech. They're Sheba Amenu Amea Arech. Sheba Amenu B'nei Yisrael. The people that are like such lightweight Jews, not heavily involved in their Yiddishkeit. They're Amea Arech. They don't know anything. They're not involved in Torah and mitzvos. Even that, That Jew has his source where? In the Torah. So every single Jew, by the way, that's why we say there are Yisrael, the word Yisrael stands for, Yesh Shishim Riboi Osios La Torah. There are 600,000 letters in the Torah. Every single Jew has a root in the Torah. That's why, especially, when we write a Sefer Torah, it's such a big deal to write in a letter in the Sefer Torah because it's like you're connecting to your source. So even if you say, we're not the cloud, but we're the prod, but the prod is connected to the cloud. The specific is connected to the general. So every single one of us are connected back to the Torah. So if you write a book based on the Torah, so then every single one of us is connected to the Torah and every single one of us is connected to G-d. Because the Torah is Oraisah v'kutsh abrichu kul echad. By the way, that's what it means.

1:05:12 The real statement of the Zohar is Oraisah v'Yisrael v'kutsh abrichu kul echad. The Torah, Klal Yisrael, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu are all one. still the Alter Rebbe says this would not be good, why? because it's general for all of Klaal Yisrael. even though we know, guys, every day in Davening what do you say? one of the things is. every general, you learn the specifics so the Torah was written in a general sense so what are you supposed to do? you're supposed to learn out for yourself your specific source within the Torah. you know what the problem is, guys? not all of us merit to recognize our place in the Torah, So, so many Jews feel like, I think maybe some of you may even feel like at some points in your life,

1:06:16 you feel like, yeah, like, I kind of know that I have my source in the Torah, but I don't really feel as if I have a place in the Torah. So sometimes we might know it, but we haven't merited to find our path. We haven't merited to find our place. Meaning, yeah, meaning to find your particular path, right? Right? That's within the 70-lane highway of the Torah. You may not have discovered that yet. Some people, they don't discover that until later in life. So even the Alter Rebbe is saying, I'll give you one second, even the Alter Rebbe is saying, even if I wrote a Sefer that was totally based on the Torah, and Avada, you're in that. Why? Because if it's based on the Torah, you're in the Torah, because you have a root in the Torah. Still, it won't necessarily help you, because maybe you haven't found your path in the Torah yet. So how could the Alter Rebbe say I'm going to write a book instead of coming to me for Yechidus.

1:07:13 Yeah, Aaron? He's saying that the reason why the book is going to... I mean, I guess you say he's going to disprove this right now, but he says that it's false argument. It means that, oh, it's because evidence from the Torah, so that way it's infallible. You can find that in the answer, but the Tanya doesn't... It's not evidence from the Torah. Right, so it's a human being, making a book. Right, so even if that human being wrote every single word coming from the Torah... But even compiling the book in a different order... Okay, I hear it. But he's bewarning every argument. Right? Okay. And he's going to prove this. How? This is a common argument that I've heard over the last 11 years of teaching. I've heard this statement many, many times. Ve'hinei ath be'hechaz eser ve'heter Even, let's say, a person is learning hechaz kashus. And they're learning what's mutter to eat and what's aser to eat. Haniglos lanu u'lvanenu These are things that are revealed. Right? This is the revealed Torah. We're not speaking about the deepest Kabbalah now. Matzonu rainu machlokest.

1:08:19 hanoyim v'amoroyim me'akot alakot samamish We find so many machloksem. This one says it's mutter. This one says it's aser. This one says it's mutter. So even when it comes to the revealed Torah, what do we find? So many different machloksem. It's not one path. It's so many different paths. Ve'elu ve'elu div'ri l'kim chayim lashon rabim And this and these are the word of living God. Lashon rabim means it's plural. Meaning there's many, many paths. Alshem mikara chayim l'nishmos yisro Why is it rabim? Because there are so many. different sources, for the life of every single. which are split into three paths. Right, left, and center. Again, we're going to get into this later. But there's different paths. Some people have a path of chesed. Some people have a path of gvura. Some people have a path of teferis. Right? So, So, how many of you guys have heard, machloks in between Beis Hillel and Beishamai, for example, right? So, why were they always in a particular direction? Because Beis Hillel always came from the perspective of chesed. Chesed means loving kindness. So, he always paskind according to the root of his neshama. Mashaim came Beishamai, Shammai paskind according to the root of his neshama, which was gvura, much more strength. So Beishamai's Pesachim L'Halachar.

1:09:52 always come from where? From the root of his soul. Which is why whenever you look at a Machlokas between Beishamai and Beis Hillel, don't just look at what they say, look at what it means. You'll always see that Beis Hillel, with five exceptions, I'm not getting into that right now, but you'll always see that Beis Hillel paskins always in a way of Chesed, and Beishamai always paskins in a way of Gvurah, right? Because we all have different, Shorashim in the Torah. Both are true, right? We're going to paskin like Beishamai in the Ulam Ha'aba in times of Mashiach, because that's going to be more of a time of Gvurah, and this is more of a time of Chesed. But nevertheless, Rabo Sai, Elu ve'elu div'el l'gimchayim. If that's true when it comes to the revealed Torah, how much more so is it going to be true when it comes to personal musr and growth, right? How could a person say, I'm going to write a book that's going to encompass all of these things? If that's true on the revealed Torah level, certainly it's going to be true on the.

1:10:56 concealed Torah level. What's the concealed Torah that we're talking about, guys? The concealed Torah is the Torah that we're trying to work out. Finding our path in Avodah Hashem. You can't just open up a sefer and learn that. So the chassidim are all upset at the Alter Rebbe. Why are you replacing us with a book? We are, we all have, listen to this, d'chilo, what does d'chilo mean? Love. words because they're going to come up for the rest of the year. D'chilu u'rachimu means love and fear. D'b'mocha moach means our intelligence. V'libah liba means our hearts. This is. all Aramaic. So the inun we are. D'chilu u'rachimu d'mocha v'libah. We all have love and fear in our minds and our hearts. D'kol chad v'chad each one of us. L'fum shiur u'dileh. According to his shiur. According to his personality. L'fum madim shiur b'libah. According to what's going on in your hearts. So do we all think the same way? No. Do we all feel the same way? No. We all have different levels of love. People love in different ways. You know that? Some people love like, like just like overflowing with love.

1:12:17 And some people are a little bit more tight with their love. And you kind of always wonder like, let's say you see a guy in yeshiva and he's like a little bit more closed, right? And you kind of like wonder like, how's that guy going to get married? And then he gets married and it's okay, right? Why? Because his wife, her expectation of love is more of like a closed type of love. And there are some guys that are just like, overflowing with love, like the most loving, warm, gushing people. It's like flowing off of them. You crack them open and the love is just pouring out, right? And that's like, yeah, kind of makes sense. But you know, some women, they would find that be like, it's like too much for me. You know, like everyone's got to go according to... So if that's true when it comes to relationships, certainly it's going to be true when it comes to our Avodah Hashem, right? So you can't write a book that's going to satisfy everybody because the way that I love and the way that Rafi loves is different. The way that I think and the way that Mikey thinks is different, right? Each one of us thinks in our own way. K'ma'i sh'kosah b'zor ha'kadash ha'aposach, naydeh b'sharim b'ayla.

1:13:21 Should we stop here for today? You guys need a break? Or should we get to the answer? We're almost to the end. You can't leave us without it. You can't leave you at Cliffhanger until Wednesday. No, you can't. Okay, fine. We can set the beach for this. Yeah, how would you guys possibly go to the beach? You wouldn't even enjoy yourselves. You'll be sitting in the waves and playing tackle football, and you'll be like... I'd rather just, you know, do the conclusion, the corner room, everything together. And then at the end, you want to get a sikoum of it. Yeah, like we did that one time, I got everything. I'm going to put it all together. Okay, so before we move on, let's give a sikoum so that everybody gets it. Let's give a summation. Because I know that Bensi is like... I see him. He's like shivering. He's like, Rebbe, you've got to give me the answer. Okay. What was that? Is this cold? Yeah, I like it that way. It keeps everyone awake. The fire, the warmth of Chassidus cannot possibly compare to the cold, that's coming out of the air conditioner. I've got to keep Mikey awake.

1:14:19 There he goes. Okay. You understand, I always watch the battle. See, the battle of Afternoon Seder is this. There's a fight going on. By the way, I love the struggle. I'm a big fan of the struggle. There's a fight going on in Afternoon Seder, and this is what it looks like. From my perspective, this is what it looks like. You see, guys, literally shaking themselves back. By the time it gets back to Night Seder, they're okay. Morning Seder is okay, but the Afternoon Seder is like, it's like amazing. I never take it personally, because I know the Torah that we're teaching is interesting. But you've got to go to sleep at night. That's the challenge. Okay. And eventually you have to get over your jet lag. So let's sum up. The Outer Rebbe is coming, and he's saying to his Chassidim, Anash, my beloved people, I'm replacing you. No longer are you going to come to me for one-on-one. You're going to be able to find everything you need in this book. And the people, when they heard this, they were very upset. They said, no, you can't replace us.

1:15:19 We need to be able to come to our Rebbe for one-on-one meetings. Why? Three problems they had. Problem number one, you, the writer, cannot write a book that's going to be all-encompassing because people are different, okay? And we, the reader, we're also a problem on two levels. Number one, we all think differently, okay? And number two, if you're writing from a human intellect perspective, you can only reach a certain target audience, right? Even if you were writing from a godly perspective, which is all-encompassing, right? Because the Torah encompasses every single Jew, still it doesn't help us. Because even though the Torah encompasses all of us, we don't necessarily know where our path in the Torah is. So you might be saying, it's somewhere in here, but I won't know where to find it. So you can't replace us with a book. That's the summary. Clear.

1:16:15 Okay. Is there a third reason for those two. It's one. And two broken into two. By the way, you'll notice this about Tanya. It's one of the amazing things. Remember that everything that is mesudar, everything that's ordered, you can remember. So if I say 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, you can remember for as long as it goes on because the pattern is clear. But if I say random numbers, you won't be able to remember more than 5 or 6. I.e. Gemara. What was that? I.e. Gemara. That's right. That's the challenge of Gemara because Gemara seems, even though it's not true, it seems all over the place. That's why one of the avodahs they have to do when you're starting to learn is how to order the Gemara. One of the things I love about Tanya is you'll see that by the time we get to the 8th parakh, which is the end of the Sefer, you could, if you knew it well and you did the proper chazara, you could be able to say over the entire book in less than 5 minutes, because you'll know it so clearly. That's why I'm going to give you those sheets. So you'll have, you'll be able to say,

1:17:14 okay, I'm going to give you the notes. Your job is to pay attention, but I'm going to give you the notes. And this way you'll be able to say, okay, this is everything we covered. You could take a test if you wanted at the end of the first eight Prakim and get 100, no problem. Because everything is very Misudar. Okay? Okay. With the couple of minutes that we have left, let's finish up. Is this recording. Yeah, it should be. meaning each and every one of Anash that are in our Medina, that's in our country and the surrounding countries that are close to it the speech that's between us is loving. that's the speech that's found, this is loving speech meaning the Ati Rebbe is describing the relationship that he has with his Hasidim he said I know, he said our love that we have for each other is so dear it's so present that I'm aware of all the all the hidden things inside of your heart and inside of your mind when it comes to your Avodah Hashem that's dependent.

1:18:39 on your heart. You hear what the Alter Rebbe was saying about his relationship with the Chassidim? He was saying, I know you. I know the things that are hidden inside of your minds. I know the things that are hidden inside of your hearts. The Alter Rebbe was saying, in these contrasim that I wrote through these different seufrim, even though it took time to print them as he said before. on the title page the Sefer is called it was compiled from who were the Sfarim guys, remember? the Rambam, the Shla and the Maram B'Prag, who's the Seferim? is the Magad M'Mezritch and the Baal Shem Tov. and some of them are letters from Rabbo Seinu.

1:19:44 those that already immigrated to Eretz Yisrael because there were Chassidim that were already moving to Eretz Yisrael those Tzaddikim that were already moving to Eretz Yisrael and he said it should be rebuilt speedily and some of these things I heard from these people direct and I heard from these people, mouth meaning I heard from these people, heard it from their mouths, meaning from some of the people that I'm drawing from, because the chassidim of the Maggid had already gone to Eretz Yisrael. There were those chassidim that made Aliyah and they went to Eretz Yisrael. Some of them he said I heard directly. The Kulam, this is critical, meaning everything that I write in this book, So listen to what he's saying. This book has within it all the answers to all the questions that you've always asked me, each person according to his level of how you can do better in your Avot Hashem.

1:20:52 He says, it's not going to be possible for me to answer you as individuals anymore. Just put yourself, I want you to appreciate the historical significance of this. Imagine you were a Chabad Chossid living at this time. You're getting this letter from your Rebbe. It's no longer possible to have Yechidus. That's a big statement. And he says, not only that, but Shikich HaMitzuyah, we know what goes on, guys. We always forget. Our Rebbe said something, we always forget it. So he's saying there's value in having it in writing. because of that I told you this guy's ahead so even though now is when he says it I've been saying it the whole time. I'm giving you now every answer to every question, how can I do it? what's he saying? because I know you because of the love that exists between us I know you I'm connected to you so I'm writing this he says.

1:21:54 for you remember I told you that by Hasidim they say it wasn't just for the Hasidim of that time but for any person who learns Tanya the Alter Rebbe was connecting through the generations the love that he had for every single Jew that opens up the Sefer of Tanya the Alter Rebbe was telling us I'm already so connected to your soul I know the secrets that are going on inside of your mind and inside of your heart that I can predict every single question that you have and the answers you can find inside of the Sefer it's an amazing thing. to see, it's an amazing thing, meaning he was saying but it wasn't just she was saying it's coming from the love that I have for you meaning the alter ebbe already felt the relationship, see it's like I know my daughter really well, I know her since she was born right, it's because of the love that I have for her that I can predict the questions that she has for me so she could look at me and before she even says something I wouldn't do this because it's respectful to wait and ask for to hear the question but if my daughter opens her mouth I go before you ask.

1:22:56 I just want to tell you it's going to be okay because of X, Y, and Z what will your daughter say ah but how did you know I was going to ask that question because I love you so much I've been studying you remember that when you love someone this is critical when you love someone you know, all the things about them, and that's what's amazing about love so think about it like this okay I know, the most trivial things about my wife, Things that nobody in a million years. would ever be interested in, I'm fascinated by. So for example, I know my wife's a very healthy person. She exercises, she does yoga, she eats well, but I happen to know she likes sweets. I know exactly what type of sweets she likes. She likes raglach, chocolate raglach. She doesn't like the big flaky raglach. For her, they're too overwhelming. You know how women get overwhelmed by food? I never met a dude that gets overwhelmed by food, right? You ever see a guy take half a piece of cake?

1:23:58 You know what a serving size of cake is? 9 by 13. That's a serving size of cake. You know what a slice of pizza is? A pie. By guys, it's like how much you can consume. I watch women eat cake like this. I'm just going to take half a slice. Two minutes later, I'm just going to take the next half a slice. I'm like, you're already up to a slice and a half. By the time they're done, they've had the row of cake. Evening out a cake. That's how women eat cake. At least I have honesty. I just take a spoon and eat it. But the women, they're like, it's not even. It's not even. Who cares if it's even or not? It upsets their math, the way they're looking at it. So I know my wife gets overwhelmed by these flaky big ragalos. She doesn't like them. She likes doughy ragalos. That's it? Yeah, but marzipan she doesn't like because they're too oily. She likes ragalos from Maf and Nechama, and she likes the underbaked ragalos. But I know if I buy 10, she's overwhelmed. She's like, that's too many. I could never finish 10. I'm like, you can't finish 10? 10 fits in my hand.

1:24:58 I could just do that, right? She wants somewhere between four and six underbaked raguach. And I'll tell you why. Because when she was a kid, she went to a camp called Sternberg. And in Sternberg, on Shabbos morning, they served underbaked kakush cake, which is like chocolate cake, which is so delicious, right? So when she eats that, I know it brings her back to that place. Now, nobody else in the world cares that my wife likes between four and six underbaked raguach from Maffan of Hama because it brings her back to a time. in her childhood when she was in camp. But if it ever gets for Shabbos, no. Right, and if you come for Shabbos, by the way, if you come for Shabbos and you bring four to six underbaked raguach, I'm going to be nervous about your relationship, you understand? Like, stay away. This is what I know. I'm sharing with you my wisdom here, you understand? But obviously, the only reason anyone would know that is because... of the love that they have for a person. You're going to know the craziest things about your wife. Nobody else should care about those things. But because of the love you have for those people, you can predict it, right? It's like I know... Have you ever loved someone so deeply.

1:26:02 that you know that they're bothered by something before they even tell you. Yeah. That's that famous story that I think the Rebbe Reb Zusha said that he learned how to love from two drunk Russian peasants in a bar. Because one of them said to the other, he said, Ivan, you don't love me. And he said, Igor, how could you say I don't love you? I love you. We've been friends forever. Ivan, you don't love me. He said, Igor, I love you with all of my heart. He said, Ivan, if you really love me, tell me what's bothering me right now. That was the conversation that Rebbe Reb Zusha heard. When somebody loves someone, they know what's bothering them. before they even say it. Because they're attuned to it. So that's what the Alter Rebbe was saying. He said, because of the chiba that I have for you, I know what's going on inside of you. And by a chassidim, they say that the Alter Rebbe had such love for every single person that was going to read the Sefer, that he was already connected throughout the generations to every single one of us that's sitting in this room right now. So he says, I wrote every answer to every question.

1:27:11 It's going to be now extant for you. It's going to exist forever. Every single one of you. You'll have it as a Zikara. You'll have it as a reminder, this Sefer. Don't push to come to meet with me one-on-one privately anymore. Because in this book, in these ma'marim, you'll find serenity for your soul. And you'll find good advice for that which is bothering you in your service of God. And you should have that everything, it's correct, it's appropriate for a person to rely on Hashem. Except that here, you're going to have, and if you work towards that, Gomer Ba'adenu, he's going to take care of you. And let's say you'll say, but Rabbi, I'm in a bad place. I have narrowed my intellect. I'm not in a good place, Rabbi. I'm not in a good place. So how can I find it inside of a sefer? And who asked me before about Yisra?

1:28:15 Now here comes your answer. Daalte Rebbe said, this Sefer, there's something called a Mashpia. Have you guys ever heard of a Mashpia before? Mashpia literally means to influence. So he says, if you don't know, if you can't find it, if you open up a Sefer and your heart is just so broken, go to one of the Mashpiam in your city. Go to one of the Chassidim that's there. A Mashpia. Go to a Mashpia. A Mashpia means like a Mashkiach, except by Chassim they call it a Mashpia. Go to one of those Mashpiam in your city. and they're going to explain to you from the Sefer where the answer is. Now he says to those Mashpiam in the city, to those people that knew the answers, I ask of you, don't cover your mouth with your hands. Don't act with over humility and with lowliness. Don't hide yourselves. Because if a Chassid comes to you and he wants to know, I need help in my abode with Hashem. What should you do?

1:29:18 Open your arms. Embrace Him. Help Him find the answers. V'kanod da'onash hamar amanei abar. That is, it's known. Somebody who, the terrible punishments that await someone who withholds Torah from someone who wants to learn. V'godol ha-sachar. Mimamra al-apasik. Meir einay shneim Hashem. Ki yar Hashem panaveyleim. Or p'nei melech chayim. How great is the reward for somebody that opens their hearts and opens their arms and opens their mouths and teaches Torah to those that want to learn. Mechaya chayim zakayinu viachayinu. liyamim asher lo yolamdu od ish asrayeyu kikulam yedu osi kimal la'aretz v'deyas Hashem amayin k'in yihiratza. Okay, Rabbo, so we'll stop here for today.