“Yud Tes Fabrengen 5773” - notes by Chuna Silverman

As we can see today, in those days it was even more difficult. To break the barriers going from chitzonius to pnimius. In order to allow pnimius hatorah to come into the world, and open up the heart and the mind on an internal basis so that we recognize, just as the niglah relates to the niglah part of the person's sechel, the pnimius hatorah relates to the pnimius part of the persons sechel. The whole world stands against this. There is now, and even more then, the battles waged, and the people accusing the Alter Rebbe, they were all phenomenal scholars, leaders of Israel. Ultimately, it was found out, the real leadership at the time, they didn't support necessarily, but they abstained from getting into an argument. They remained neutral.

The fight was waged in such an underhanded manner. The AR writes a report in Hebrew was the basis of his trial and that needed to be translated into Russian and several translators were assigned the task. The AR knew it wouldn't be smooth sailing and thought the misnagdim were going to derail the translator. And such it was. The misnagdim bribed, and even more, told the translator that if he were to defame the AR by changing the language to make a clear argument against himself, then it would be doing a great mitzvah. The AR though, always had the right people in the right place at the right time. What strikes Rabbi is that our struggles to relate to chasidus are all worth it.

There's an episode that occurred in the early years of chassidus, before Rabbi came to CH. The Rebbe would turn his jacket inside out, and told everyone to do the same. Also, to turn the bottles upside down (that people prob have heard), and the significance The Rebbe said was that to turn the inside of a person into the outside is just as easy as turning the jacket inside out.

We speak a lot about this, but speaking is not enough, we need to relate to it. The world exists because the neshama tells us it exists, not because the guf says it exists. Rabbi will challenge any psychologist to terms with saying the person is aware of the body before his neshama. This is ridiculous. We are aware of the neshama first. This idea is something we have to fight for. To fight their ridiculous idea is harder than fighting something real. With a real idea, atleast it has something to stand on. Their idea is baseless.

We have all the Rebbeim and the generations for giving us inspiration with writings that are given straight from the neshama. This, with Hashem's help, we'll relate to. We have to focus in and want the life element rather than the existential element. Rabbi shared, “I personally am standing in awe of the great miracles and great blessing that Hashem has given us the opportunity to learn in great depth. I have wonderful participants to delve. Some people I tell, listen to the class. “Which class?” they ask me. “Any class!” Rabbi responds. Every day in and day out, there's a wonderful class. Until bias hamoshiach, we should learn together. 

Lchaim

Pada V'Shalom

Question: Why did the Russian scholars care about Jews telling them they could save the Jewish people if they were to mistranslate the AR's words? In those years, survival of a nation was still meaningful. So the enticement of the Russian scholars by the misnagdim to help save the Jewish people actually held weight.

Pnimius, chassidus, which is pnimius haTorah, chassidus says that it's difficult to focus in and see where's it? Where's it going, and where does it end?

We think on two dimensions. In pnimius, there is no such process. Life begins, not from the little toe living, then the foot then the heart etc. the whole person comes to life in an instant. It doesn't start small. Go and understand it.

Rabbi has sometimes a thought that strikes him and boggles him. There's a halacha. I always like halacha because if you can understand halacha in it's purity, it

Someone damages another, he has to pay. If he blinds an eye, he has to pay him for the eye. Then there's a halacha: 'Chorsho', he made him deaf, took away his ability to hear, he pays him his entire value. There is no value for the hearing in isolation. He has to give him the value of the entire person. IT behoves us to think into this, what the human reality is. The principle is, that there's not a single function in the person that relates the person into the entire reality. The eye sees in two dimensions, whereever he turns. Touching, is only this object. There's nothing that puts him smack in the middle of existence and experiences the whole existence, except hearing. Hearing, you hear the sound of everything equally. Yitzhak questions: hearing as opposed to seeing? The hearing is compensated by the whole being?

Right. Because hearing puts a person smack in the middle of the entire existence. He is embraced by the faculty.

Seeing is only two dimensions, that you can't see behind you.

The correlationship, why it compensates the whole person, needs discussion, but one thing immediately strikes you. What is the reality of the person? The reality of the person is the entire environment. In order to relate to the entirety, it is indescribable, it's not East West North South, it is just there because it's there. This is accessible to the person, this is the source of his pnimius understanding. This is why we say, from a pnimius perspective, you come to know something because you are an insider. Now you try to put words to it. But “I don't come to the world through observation, I am it”. The other way is the whole scientific observation. This is good for pracitical doing, but to say this is the Truth is stupidity. The only way to relate to this is through the life element. Through the neshama. The Guf has a front and back, not the neshama. This is what we say, that in pnimius haTorah, as presented particularly through Chabad chassidus is 'I really understand this before I learn it'. All sechel comes from the sechel ha'iyuli, I know it before I open my eyes. Then I have to bring it down into sechel ha'goli. To translate into midos and specific circumstances. But the human being is way beyond what he sees in front of him, or in back of him, he is the entire reality, at once. This is what's called in chassidus, etzem. Etzem means it doesn't have a source from where it comes from. It's real everywhere. We're struggling with this, and we're learning very deep chassidus. Sometimes we ask questions from a 2 dimension perspective and we have to figure out how to get back to the 3 dimension. 3 dimensional is a manner of speech. The neshama is reality itself. It doesn't have right left up down, it doesn't get to know things by experiencing them, it is the reality itself. This is what the Rambam says, what is the foundation of all foundations and the pillar of chochma, which allows us to climb upward, is that there's a first Being. How do we know there's a first Being? Us being real beings, we know there's a first Being. If we find ourselves smack in the middle of reality, then clearly there's a First Being. It's not two dimensional. It is not a reality as a result of something else, it has no limit, no beginning and no end.

“I'm interested in understanding what the human being is and pnimius and what is the reality.” says Rabbi. This sense of reality comes from the inside not the outside. This is pnimius. So we can readily understand the historical struggle and our personal struggle b/c what is demanded of us from chassidus is that we should literally understand the intangible. We don't need to identify it and touch it. We understand it from the perspective of the fact that we know the truth even before we started talking about the details. Elokus b'pshitus, Gdliness is obvious. Gashmius b'chidhadshus, world is a novel thing. This is the motzei rishon before anything else, than you know about the world. Olam bichidchadshus. What kind of basis does the world really have to be. We learn that we can see elokus within the world. Without that, the world doesn't exist.

We spoke about this lately in class and I'd like to take the opportunity by the farbrengen and the important audience, to talk about how chassidus explains to us our existance and our whole thinking process. For example, this is the reality, people ask, where's the world come from? And the minute we ask this, we look for it on Mars, Jupitor etc. Where does that question come from? It's not like where's the cup come from? The question where's the world come from is profound and it's a uniquely human intellect that can focus in and ask this question. Where does it come from, as an insider, who thinks in terms of Truth (3 dimensional), asks where does this spirit come from? What is the reality that is manifest through the world? I see spirit. This is what I want to understand. What is light, for example? Light changed the whole phenomenon of the world. It elevated the world to a whole new level. The world consists of tangibility. What's the point of seeing it?! That's the question. Not 'how does light work'? Rather, we see with our neshama, a great presence. Sechel senses the greatness of the neshama. It's a window to the neshama. Sechel is a direct flow. In sechel we want to understand here in our bodies, 'how does the neshama relate to this'? The whole question is meaningful only if the neshama is asking the question. The neshama is saying there is something profound here, let's try to reveal it. In pnimius ha Torah, there's no questions or refutation. Sometimes there's a whole list of questions, so what does that mean? The questions in pnimius ha Torah are questions coming from pnimius hasechel. I see the depth and the question is the only means of how to identify it. This is true sechel. This sechel, brings you life. It reveals the life of the neshama and literally brings you alive, enlivens the person.

I'm overly satisfied on how we're learning. Maybe once a week we can please try to focus our questions on what does this mean...not the 'body' questions of finding contradictions. Everyone can choose their own day.

The world being omnipresent. We can prove and explain...there was a chosid who was a physics major who stayed one year in 770 who Rabbi spoke with about the origin of the world. “Creation”, he said with such simplicity, “makes much more sense.”

What is the objection that the world has with Creation? You concoct a source, and convuluted processees. What's so difficult? Because they can't imagine the Creator, so they can't relate to creation. Evolution doesn't make more sense, but they can relate to every step and so they espouse it. This is a 2 dimensional mode of thinking.

3 dimensional and hearing. When you see, you can make sense of it. Hearing has no source. And nobody doubts its existence. Why do I have no doubts? Because hearing relates to the reality. The difficulty we have is not for now. To give it terms: Sight is a reflection of oneg and hearing is a reflection of ratzon. They are both makif but different kinds of makif. There's a long discussion in chassidus of which is superior, but the effect of ratzon on the human being is perhaps more than oneg. What does a King use to propel the gezera? The gezera is from ratzon. I want the world. This is a completely different dimension than oneg. And this is what forces me to go on and relate to it.

Question: how is physicality not seen in 3 dimensions?

“We relate to the 3 dimensions logically. But we experience it only in 2 dimension. When you build a house, you have four walls and a ceiling. Do we sense that the real space is more important than the four walls? When we describe the house, we say, 'six foot walls'...who ever talks about the space? Moreover, this space is the identical space, without any change, as the space that existed before it was built.”

The most important point is that hearing senses the whole reality. I can see you, you can see me. You know why? (The scientific ideas is silly). We can see each other because we're in the same environment. What gives me the sense of the environment? Hearing. I can turn away from you, but still talk to you. Therefor when I see you, I'm not shocked to see you. I can relate to you, because I can hear you.

I really wanted to explain what pnimius is and how do we think on a pnimius level. Just as we hear, we experience that hearing, without the need to identify a tangible source. And this is what gives us the means to identify a Gdly truth without seeing Gd. It's there. 'You're East, You're West, You're up, You're down.' He is everywhere. This is the reality whereby we relate to the Creator. Since He's everywhere, there are things we don't understand, but 'So I don't understand some Gdly things.' Everything is a Gdly phenomenon. And that is the environment in which we function. That is why when we walk out the door, we aren't afraid we will fall off a cliff, reach the end of existence. Because there's a Gdly reality everywhere. There's no end. The scientists say there's no end because they can't identify the Creator. They say, 'don't ask any questions beyond this.' Humans understand that the universe is a creation, a Gdly creation. In sefer ha'akira, by the tzemach tedek, when he went to debate the maskilim, to prove the logic behind the evidence that the world is not a primary existence, but a creation that has a beginning. The TzTz called all the philosophers and the midabrim, the sofists, and quotes them, saying in all, 10 logical proofs that the world had a beginning. But it's the most unintelligent statement. Any human sechel knows this.

Rabbi is interested in understanding all this as insiders. This is the makif. Everything is there, just because I don't see it, or sense its presence, doesn't diminish its presence.

Lchaim

I was talking to Akiva this morning about the higher spheres. Chassidus describes chochma as the lightning bolt. Which means you see something clear, but you can't grasp and identify it. You first have to focus in and sense where does this spark comes from, how do I make sense of it. This is the way we learn. The beginning of all knowledge is from a spark, a light that we can't really grasp, but if we're interested in the truth, that light is our guiding light. If we insist on making sense of it in our tangible world, it's not going to work. A spark comes from hitting a stone on a stone. When you hit the stone, and a spark comes out, do you have a piece of the stone in the spark? What's a spark exactly? What kind of entity is it? It comes from a stone, but the stone stays put. Is there a limit of how many sparks you can elicit from the stone. There is no limit. This is why it comes in the form of a light. It's a real tangible light. The opposite of physicality is light. What this spark is telling you is that this rock represents a reality. As much as you hit it, it will tell you, 'something is here'. This description of barak hamavrik, just as the rock, it comes from the truth of the source, rather than the tangibility of the source. The response of the stone is 'yes, I'm really here'. The source of chochma, the principle is, not 'that this is true, or truth', but that there is Truth. There is such a thing as Truth. Pure Truth. Not that something established it. Truth exists on its own. This is the pshat that there is a neshama. Chochma is a Gdly phenomenon, that comes from the motzei rishon. There is not only no explanation of life, there's no need to explain it. What needs to be explained? Something that has a final presence. Here it is, here it is not. Just as we said before. There's a total environment. There's no need to explain. A 2 dimensional, something gets here, so how's it here? We become aware of it only on the sechel level. But something on the neshama level doesn't need explanation. We don't need an explanation. The stupid question of 'how do I know I'm alive?' Being alive is infinitely superior to knowing I'm alive. No, I don't know I'm alive, I'm alive. Just as we don't need an explanation of what life is, we don't need an explanation of what Gd is. He precedes all existence. He is before being. That is the trick of chochma. It allows us to relate to the preexistent existence. This chochma is a Gdly gift to each one of us. We must cherish this and not forgeit it. This little insights are sparks of life. If we Gd forbid choose to ignore this insight because we have a tangible world, we are giving up life. This insights come from the 'rock' Truth of the neshama. It's a very challenging approach. Our first reactions and thinking process in this world is, 'can you duplicate it?' Prove it in science is 'I can duplicate it.' It's challenging, but it's imperative, that we allow the neshama to surface and be illuminated by the spark of life. It says clearly, the Chumash, the way it describes creation, is so precise, so revealing, although we understand very little of it. It behoves us to try to see what the Torah is saying, even if we can't duplicate it. Gd made man from dust of the Earth. Then He blew into his nostrils a breath of life. Why doesn't the Torah say just 'He made him live.'? A breath of life is stated because It's telling us, the breath that we have now, is a Gdly breath that He is breathing into us. Gdly means that there's no way we can understand and we don't need to. The privilage is not to try to understand, it's to live with it. All of these questions are like denying the spark. “if I knew how these were all formed, then I'd live..” but the only way to live is by the spark, not by the knowledge of the spark.

Shema Yisroel....to know Hashem Ehad. It's interesting. How can we relate to One? A myriad is like a drop in the bucket. There's no limit. So where is Ehad? Based on the inyon of hearing...I was thinking...in hearing, you hear the entire world at once. It's all one. The Torah does not intend to make dumbies of us. Gd created us in a way that we can actually experience this in the world, and be a testimony to it. That's what we want.

Lchaim

mekabel zayin Torah. In Seagate they ask what 'mekabel pnei Moshiach' mean? Receiving is a koach. Receiving Moshiach is not a concept that has a worldly basis. Just like kabalas ha Torah, where there must be a giver. Avos figured out the Torah, but didn't have the Torah. Now we can accept the pnimius of the Torah.

The Rebbe has a whole discussion, pages and pages, of what is superior, ratzon or oneg. Generally, oneg is superior. But there's a maila in ratzon. Let's Not get into the hascala, but only the reality of it.

When a child faints, sometimes whispering his name brings him back. The name is not even a part of the person. He wasn't born with a name. So why does he respond? Here's the antidote to the entire craziness that's going on. First I'll explain and then we'll see how it's an antidote.

A name is only for others to know him, and not for himself. And yet, the baby is born, and we give him a name. The neshama knows, but the baby doesn't relate to the world he's born into, and we still give him a name. And this name becomes so deeply engrained that it can wake him when all else fails. There are two elements in the human being. There is the way he is unto himself, and the way he is to the world. Oneg is an internal reality. “I'm alive and there's Gd, in me.” Ratzon is the human being as he is in the world. Because our presence in the world is of equal truth as our neshama. The neshama is Gd's creation, so is our presence in the world. He made us, and put the neshama in us, and said, 'this world is yours'. That becomes a Gdly reality and as a result, we have a great desire to be in this world, to fulfill our Gdly mission. The will to live is exactly this. A person cannot lift a finger without the ratzon, or lift an object without the ratzon saying this is a reality. The antidote.

They convince fools that we're interested only in ourselves. Its ridiculous- “If you lose interest in life, go eat something tasty.” We have a stake in life. That is what it means to be a human being. The foolishness happens if we don't guard ourselves. People relate to 'the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.' It's such an insult. We wake up, yes we're tired, and lazy, but we want to get up. We're not entities unto ourselves. We have a mission. If we fail our mission, we fail ourselves. It's a mission specific to every individual that identifies with the reality of the world and the real function This is the phenomenal thing of ratzon. He wants to be what he is. This is his ratzon. When he's in faint, he can smell, he can be struck; but if you call his name, he wakes. Because he has a duty to be here and it strikes deeply. We're not fooled by the stupidity that the tv potrays. But the idea of caring only about self blinds a person against his personal will. He doesn't really want this. He's bigger than this. Ratzon is a powerful force and only the human being can counter it. Because he has a will that can counter the will. Oneg, laziness, can't counter ratzon. Ratzon can counter ratzon. The only thing that stops me from doing it, is I don't want to. He relates to the absolute truth of the human being. He has a place in the world. The biggest fool, in front of the King, won't be occupied with himself. Why? What is in the King? The King is the reality, and I want it. I cannot minimize that and I can't be enticed to throw that away. That is the reality of our lives. We wake up in the morning and see a big world. Who's world is this, who's behind it, what's the reality? Is it real, or fantasy? We want to participate. And the minute we start feeling that we're losing focus, we jump up. How can I give up the reality. The chochamim have established a very interesting custom. We say Mode Ani right when rising. Just say it. Why? The hebeshter woke you. You didn't wake yourself. What could be superior than this, that the King wakes you. Negel vasser you need for your activities, but this is the King's doing, his thing.

We should come to the desire to live. Ratzon lichius means that I want to live in the Hebeshter's world. That propells a person to all heights. That is the real person.

L'chaim. We should all have a great year, and all who have an obstacle in ratzon should overcome it.