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Okay, v'hinei ma shindes b'haer, yuvan ma shekas v'anet, ani Hashem lo shanisi. The Passock says, I am G-d, I have not changed. Pirush she'eim shum shinoy k'lal, it means that there is no change whatsoever. K'mo she'hayah levad l'yik haidim b'ri yisraelim, k'ah hu levad l'yachash she'nivra. Just as Hashem was alone before He created the world, so too He is alone after He created the world. V'zeu ma she'ayim rim, atu ashe'oleinivra holim, atu m'she'nivra oleinim. This is what it means, you were alone before the world was created, you were alone after the world was created. B'li shum shinoy b'atzmuso, there is no change in Him, in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. There can be no change in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So creation does not affect any change in Him. Now here he does a very good summation in the English, we're going to read it very quickly, just to chazer over all the different things we've said about how we relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The first principle we said is the world exists, but its existence is dependent. So from... the perspective of malchus right so the shefa that comes into the world it's dimmed right it's it's.
so that we can feel like we exist okay then we spoke about from a kudus baruchus from a kudus baruchus perspective so the world has no significance it exists but like a ray of light to the sun its existence is void from the perspective of the sun nothing about something, right so again that let's just make sure we stay here you're right but let's get there one second so first level the world exists from our perspective we feel like the world exists the. world exists we feel like the world exists because malchus has dimmed the divine light to allow the world to exist then the second perspective from the perspective of kudus baruchu the world exists but it has no significance like if you're standing on the sun the ray of the sun has no significance, you, Then, level number three, if Malchus is open, so then we have what we call the Yechuda Tata, the lower unification, mean time and space are aware of the infinite.
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And then we spoke about the highest level, which is Yechuda Ila, and then Malchus loses its identity, and it becomes part of the upper worlds. That was the four levels we discussed, okay. Now, what does it mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is alone and nothing has changed when the world was created? Let's discuss the problem for a second. Problem is as follows. How can we say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has not changed if the world was created? Before he was alone, and now there's a world. What does exactly that mean. How would that mean he changed. Well, but he's not alone anymore. So there's a change. Right? If you're alone in the room and then somebody else comes into the room, there's a change. No, but alone implies other. Like, not being alone implies something other. So that's what we're going to try to see. Is there something other from him? So this says, the Rambam says, וְלֹא בְדַעֹתֹוּ כִּבִי יְדִיָהָסָּ עֲצְמו יְהוֹדֵיָהָה כָּל הַנֵבּרָאֵים By knowing himself, the Rambam says, he knows all of creations. Meaning, everything exists within Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So by knowing himself, he knows everything that's outside of himself. שָׁהַכֹּל מִמֵנוּ Because everything is coming from him. וּבָּטֹל בְמִצִיִהָתָּסְלו.
And it's an extension of him, meaning it's buttled to him. So when we say, Ani Hashem lo shanisi, what we mean to say is there's nothing that is not inherently an extension of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's why He's alone in the room and then the world is created, right? But at the end of the day, it's Him. It's all Him. So Ani Hashem lo shanisi, nothing changed. As the Rambam says, He is the Knower, He is the Known, He is the Knower. The Rambam says God is the Knower, God is the Known, God is the Knowledge, right? Which means, as we discussed earlier in Tanya last year, which means that from the perspective of a human being, we are not our thoughts, right? But since Hakadosh Baruch Hu is HaKol Echad, so He is the Knowledge, He is the Known, He is the Knower. He's all the things at once. ודבר זה אין כוח ופלא, אמרו, ולא באוזן לשמוע. It's difficult for any mouth to say this, right, and it's difficult for any ear to hear this. ולא בלב אדם להכיר הבוריה.
And there's no way we could actually understand this, as the Rambam says. Why? Because how could we? Our human experience only allows us to understand that which is human. This is beyond the realm of human. We can't possibly understand what it means, but it's true. כי הקב' ברוך הוא מהו סו ועצמו סו ועד הייתה הכל האחד ממש. He called Tzadu Pina B'Kol Derech Yichad. הקב' ברוך הוא איזה אחד בכל דרך. He's one in every single sense of the word. He's unified with himself. זה אין די טוב דבר נו סו ועצמו סו. His knowledge is not something that exists, as we said, it's not something that exists. in addition to himself. כְּמֹשְׁהוּ בְּנֵפֶשְׁה אַדָּם, שְׁדַּי תְדַּבַר נוֹסְפָה, מְהוּסֹוּ מַרְכָבָה Just like, it's not like a human being where our knowledge is something other than ourselves. We employ our knowledge, but we are not our knowledge. Which is why just because a person is more intelligent or less intelligent doesn't mean, right, that he's more a person or less of a person because it's an added talent. You understand? When a person learns something, he already has the capability of learning before he learns that thing.
He has a capacity called intelligence that allows him to learn. And now after he's learned that information, so he's taken the information inside of himself. And this is true. Every single day a person acquires more and more knowledge and that's how he accumulates knowledge. But before he got the knowledge, what did he have? He had the capacity for intelligence. One second. The Einzuachdus Pshutah Elumorchevas. This is not achdus with your knowledge. This is morchevas. This is a feature. This is a talent that you have. But it's not you. let's just finish this up and then I'll answer some questions, but G-d is one. there is no components to G-d there's no multiple aspects to Him so you can't say that G-d has a talent called knowledge like you can by a human being. so that must mean that G-d's essence.
and His knowledge, it's all one because if G-d is one that means He has no features He has nothing that He employs it's all Him. so therefore just like we say that a person can't possibly understand G-d can't possibly understand His intelligence either wouldn't even make any sense. Rather, this is where we employ our emunah. Because what does emunah mean? Emunah means the talent of the soul to know the limitations of the intelligence. and nevertheless to accept that something is true. Emunah doesn't mean to believe things that you're capable of understanding. That's not what emunah means. You have a talent called seichel, and seichel has a limitation because it's limited by the finite world. So you can't say, I have emunah in science. Science is all about the known world. That's not seichel to emunah. That's seichel to yediyah. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu's essence is not seichel to yediyah. It's not something I can connect to intellectually because the mind cannot comprehend that which is bigger than it.
The mind can comprehend that which is finite, but not that which is infinite. Just like the mind cannot comprehend that which is infinite, rather it's infinite. So how do we relate to Hashem? Through emunah, which is a talent that's larger, and emunah is infinite. Transcription by ESO. Translation by — Intellect is finite. So I need my emunah to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's essence. Memelah, I also need emunah to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Last line, Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is one. He and his das are one. Okay, take some questions now. Yeah. In the Washington Times, when someone learns something, it says it becomes incorporated in his soul. Yeah. So when it's not, even when you can learn something, but you don't have it at all, but it's still incorporated in your soul. No. If you learned and you didn't understand, you didn't bring it inside of yourself. When it comes to the mitzvah of Talmud Torah, there's a mitzvah, when it comes to, let's say, Torah Shevech Saav, a person could read it, and there's value there. But you can't say that he really brought it into himself. It requires Chachmah Bina and ultimately Das to say that you brought it into yourself. Just reading it alone would not be enough.
Is a Jew limited in his Torah growth and knowledge if Hashem gives him a certain amount of knowledge. Do you mean a certain amount of intelligence or a certain amount of knowledge. Intelligence. The answer is yes, you are limited because Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave each one of us a specific capacity to be intelligent about our learning. Each person, as the Alter Rebbe says earlier in Tanya, each person has to do his best to use the seichel that he was given to understand something to the depth that he is capable of understanding. So a person, on the one hand, like Chazal said, a person can't say, I wasn't capable of learning, but then they go out into business and all of a sudden they're learning everything in business and picking it up left and right. What's the pshat there? The pshat is, they cared about one, they didn't care about the other. But if you know something as well as you could possibly understand it, then that's your mitzvah.
How does someone know their capacity, though. You challenge yourself. It's interesting, nobody asks themselves that question when it comes to science or business, right? We throw ourselves in and we go to the best of our ability. Same thing here. But just knowing you're limited. Honestly, in terms of everything, you're exerting yourself so much, you're sweating over it, breaking your teeth, but you know that there's a point that you can't get above. Right. Not in terms of Torah or whatever. At a certain point, is it fair to say that someone would be like, what's the point. I would say the opposite. I would say that the person that's Mamesh breaking themselves and really working on themselves until they get to that Mamesh last, last, last piece, right? And they're frustrated because they're seeing some friends of theirs maybe that are going ahead of them and they're not even close to working as hard. You should know, who does the Ebeshter get Nachas from? The Ebeshter gets Nachas from each one of us when we work according to our capabilities. So we're not focused on the goal. We're focused on the process. If you've gotten as far as you can go, you can't imagine the Nachas. Neither can I. None of us can imagine the Nachas that our Kaddish Baruch Hu gets from such a person.
The point here, this is not like science, right? This is like, this is Tyra. Science, the goal might be, can I say, this is the, you know, the answer. In Yiddishkeit, it's about the process. That's why we say, We work and they work. They work and they don't get reward. What's the p'shat? A guy works and he doesn't get reward. So Chavetz Chaim says it's a foul. No. We're working and they're working. We get scar for what? For the work that we put in. They don't get scar for the work they put in. They get scar for the result. So if you work really hard to make a business pitch and the pitch doesn't go, it doesn't matter how hard you worked, you're not going to get paid. But in Yiddish kind, it's the opposite. Whether at the end you did or didn't get to the understanding of Akiva Eger and figuring out how it fits into Taisos is not our medubber. Each person has to know themselves.
And outside of the individual, if Torah is infinite, how could we be limited in the endeavor. Well, again, our capacity to connect to Hashem is infinite, right? But we're limited in the sense that our intellect is limited. Some of us have higher IQs and some of us have lower IQs. But remember that the Tanya says that when you're learning Hashem's Torah, that's like hugging the king. So you don't say you're hugging the king's clothing, right? You're hugging the king. So even if you're learning on a lower level, you're hugging the king, right? And to the degree that your intelligence allows you to go higher and higher, it will be a deeper hug, right? According to your level of intelligence. So the seven-year-old whose level of intelligence is not as developed yet, when he's learning to the degree that he possibly can, that's the tightest hug that he could give the king. Now, for the 12-year-old, it wouldn't be the same if he's only learning on a seven-year-old level because, again, assuming his intellectual capacity is that of a 12-year-old, right? So then to learn on the level of a seven-year-old, it doesn't have that same tightness. But if he's learning on the level of a 12-year-old, even though he's not necessarily the Gadladar, he's also being Mechabek the king in the way that he knows how.
So will a Jew never get to his finish line. I think at the end, you're at the finish line, right. So once you hit that finish line, that's... Then it's over. That's life, right? Life is about the pursuit of that finish line, but it's a horizon that keeps on moving. We're running after this horizon, but the horizon keeps on moving. So would you say, I mean, I don't want to sound so crass, but we're running towards death. That's the only thing that's sure, right? I wouldn't say we're running towards death, though. Why would that be the finish line? Well, then it's over. It's still, like, even when you hit the... Well, after death, I can't improve. There's still so much more that you can improve. Yeah, which means you're not at the finish line yet. Yeah, you're not at the finish line. The finish line is when it's over. That's the point. I wouldn't say we're running towards death. I would say we're running towards life. It's just that death is a part of it.
Running towards the finish line. Yeah, there is going to be an end. We're running to the finish line, which the process of running is life, but the finish line is death. It's a very relevant comment, especially for this week's parasha, right? Because Yaakov V'nu, this whole parasha, is about Yaakov V'nu's death, and the name of the parasha is Vayechi. it's all about life because death and life as we've said many times life cannot die just like salt cannot go bad death has nothing to do with life death is just the process by which alive ends so at the end there's going to be a finish line, alive ended but that doesn't mean that you weren't running for life the entire time all the mitzvahs are called life the mitzvahs are called life. every time you engage in that you become more alive so yes we are limited by our intelligence but I'm never going to understand that Kaddish Baruch Hu's essence because he didn't give me an intelligence that's capable of understanding you understand? or no? yeah good okay later, So now we can understand that since G-d is one with His knowledge, that means that G-d knows Himself, and through knowing Himself, He knows everything that exists,
because He is one with everything. So if G-d knows Himself, what does He know? He knows every blade of grass, He knows every tree, every bush, every person, every thought, right? Because it all exists within Him. Because G-d and His knowledge are one, and the known, which is us, the subject, are one. So once He knows Himself, what does He know? He knows everything. How does G-d know Himself? Because He's one with His knowledge. Why don't we know ourselves? Because we are not one with our knowledge. The knowledge that we have is a talent. You understand? until the tiniest worm in the sea. down to the smallest mosquito in the earth nothing is hidden from G-d as the Rambam says so why is that? you know yourself you know everything you know down to the cellular level. this knowledge doesn't mean that G-d has any parts because it all exists within him. knowing himself he's one with his knowledge he knows everything so it all comes to one. this is why it's so difficult for us.
to picture this in our minds why do we have such a hard time picturing this in our minds? As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. What does it mean? It means that we cannot compare our machshavos to his machshavos. We cannot compare our ways to his ways. Just as the gap between Shamayim and Aretz is massive, so too the gap between his ways and our ways. Between his thoughts and our thoughts, it's not shaykh to compare them because we are not one with our knowledge. Can you find what God is searching for? It's not shaykh. When we look at something, we're looking at something that's outside of ourselves. But when Hakadosh Baruch Hu looks at something, he's looking at something which is within himself. As the Bala Tanya does many, many times, he puts the Rambam together with the Mikubalim, specifically with the Rambam, with Hermosha Kordovero. And he's saying here, you should know that that which we just said, Al-Pichasudus, not only is it the Pshad in the Rambam, but it's also the Pshad in the Balei Kabbalah. We're not going to start Simtsum today, but I do want to make one important Ha'ara. This Tanya that we just discussed,
I don't want to raise a sore topic with you guys, but this Rambam that we just discussed is a very important Rambam when it comes to the discussion of free will. Why? Because we always say, how could Hakadosh Baruch Hu know what we're going to do? And yet we still have the free will to do it, right? But that question assumes that God's knowledge works like our knowledge. How does it work by us? If I know, Lamosha, what Yoshi's going to do, right? So then, of course, Yoshi has no choice. But God's knowledge doesn't work like our knowledge. He and his knowledge are one. Since God and his knowledge are one, and he's looking at something that's within him, right? So then there's no before, after, it's all one. So God's knowledge of what's going to happen, you can't look at your knowledge and then apply it to God's knowledge, because that's the mistake, and then ask the question, how is there free will? It's coming from that mistake to begin with, yeah.
I don't know if it's a weird question, but that can't mean that we're thinking more than God. I would say just the opposite. We're thinking less than God, because God, he is his thoughts. And for us, thoughts are only a talent. Oh, because Hashem is one. Right. So it encompasses everything at the same time. That's correct. So when God's thinking because His thinking is one, He's thinking about what we see as everything, to Him is just one, down to the tiniest blade of grass. So for us, we couldn't possibly conceive or think, imagine of all these things. But God, because everything exists within Him, it's all one. Okay, stop here.
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