Part 1 · Chapter 24

Okay, go ahead. Like even though, in general, this thing is not a צער for him to eat ice cream, ממילא, יצטער ממנו, כמו אם ירצה לאהוב שונאו, יתענג ממנו. If he'll want to love his enemy, like these idiots that want to go and shake hands with Arafat, they're glad they actually get a pleasure to come back and they're so, such a big תענוג they actually got to meet Arafat and they shook Arafat's hand.

Pleasure vs Pain in Loving One's Enemy 0:05

Idiot, וכי נשתנה? He's your enemy. Right. Since they want to love their enemy, so therefore they'll get a big pleasure out of it. ולהיפך, אם לא ירצה באהביו, יצטער ממנו. Like if somebody has, you know, like real mad, you know, like people who really love each other, but at a certain time they get mad, they don't want to see that that person.

They'll actually get a צער, even though they said, "Well, you love them." But right at that moment, they're mad, and for some reason they don't want them, so therefore

they will get a צער from it. וכן, the same thing, so therefore this is the רצון. The same thing by תענוג, וכן אם יתענג בשנאוי לו המזיקו, ירצה בו. Like by drugs for instance. Most drug addicts know that it's a bad, it's a שנאוי לו המזיקו, they know this. Right. Not that they don't know that it's destroying them.

Drug Addicts and the Paradox of Desire 1:32

They know it. They actually do know it.

But nonetheless, because of the great תענוג they get from it, they nonetheless want it. ואם יצטער באהוב לו, לא ירצה. If if something that he really wants, but he gets a צער from it, he doesn't want it, like exercise.

Like you see like a lot of these ladies, you know, like like you want, you know, a lot of There's a lot of guys who want a body like Schwarzenegger, and a lot of ladies want to have a great body, you know. Right. So, so tell them, so so what's the big deal? Go on a diet and do exercise. You can have a body like Schwarzenegger, well, maybe not ממש like Schwarzenegger, but you can have a great body.

Right. Why why don't you want to do it? He says, "I don't find it's, you know, what do you mean? I'm going to eat brown rice?" Right. Why? Because it's it's the opposite of pleasure for him. So therefore, he doesn't want to do it. כי מהות אחת הן, because really it's one מהות. הרצון והתענוג, it's ממש one thing, ולא נודע מי קודם. He doesn't know which is first really.

Desire and Pleasure as One Essence 2:51

You ממש don't know which is first. לפעמים זה פנימי וזה חיצוני, ולפעמים להיפך. Sometimes this is on the inside and this is on the outside, and sometimes the opposite.

ולא ימצא אחד בלא זולתו. He can't find one without the other. שאם אין תענוג אין רצון, ואם אין רצון אין תענוג. Not that they don't work separately, but they're ממש not there.

בין בפשוט בין במורכב כנ״ל וד״ל, meaning that not just if there's no תענוג there will not be a רצון, it means it's really ממש one thing. How can there be a רצון if there's no תענוג, since it's the same thing? They're literally the same thing, and that's the the Hebrew word חפץ.

The Meaning of חפץ in Chassidic Thought 3:50

Right. You know, that's why you notice in the in the מידות of the עצמות, he in in chapter 10, he doesn't call it חסד, he calls it חפץ חסד. Right.

A חפץ is is a word that can mean either תענוג or רצון, and sometimes it's and sometimes it's like חפץ, חפצתי, I want something, and sometimes חפץ means

there are certain usages of it where it means תענוג. Right. Why? Because really it's the same thing.

Right. בין בפשוט, and this is whether in a פשוט, בין במורכב כנ״ל, this this applies in anything. Right. בין בפשוט בין במורכב כנ״ל וד״ל, you know. Now, a person's תענוג, what he takes a תענוג in, is that all that comes out of his his self-perception. The self-perception is a רצון. It's not just a רצון, the self-perception is also a תענוג. The self-perception is called עתיקא דעתיקין. Right, well that's what I'm saying is that the עתיק and the אריך is affected by the עתיקא דעתיקין.

Right. The עתיק and the אריך is affected by the עתיקא דעתיקין, meaning that that's why you can have a בעל תשובה who can actually overcome, like But that's the פנימיות of עתיק, that's the פנימיות of עתיק and אריך. Right, it's the פנימיות, and therefore you can have a בעל תשובה. That's a רצון הנעלם. Right, well that's why I'm saying, is that's why you can have a בעל תשובה because he has a רצון הנעלם not to do his to go after the תענוג that he's נמשך after or the רצון or whatever, because he has a Right, but the thing is that really his רצון הנעלם was different before.

He actually has to change א״ק. Right, he has to change his actual self-perception of himself. He might have to change his actual רצון הקדום even. Because that's how he can The reason that's what he said, we just talked about this last time, Right. that if it comes from מסירות נפש, you can change actually the עצם הרע into the עצם הטוב. Right.

And that's like how you can have אתכפיא and stuff like that. And that's the there's the different levels. That's the basically the different levels of תשובה, you know, like right now we're getting involved in דרך חיים, the two books tie together very much. That's the that the whole thing of the different levels of תשובה. In some in some people, you don't have to change such a big רצון.

Right. You don't ממש have to change your whole self-perception. You just have you just He just realizes that some of these things didn't really fit into his self-perception.

Right. But the self-perception is just is still the same. It's just that he realizes this was a שטות, that he was into a שטות,

that he was fooling himself to think that this kind of thing was would fit into his self-perception. would fit into his self-perception. And then there's other people, ממש have to change it. So, therefore, he's changing it, but he didn't he doesn't change his whole self-perception. Right, that's just the רצון לרצון then. Right. And then there's somebody No, but even the רצון לרצון, even the רצון לרצון didn't change.

Well, it's the Right. Even the רצון doesn't have to change. It might be just the actual applications to change. Right, so as soon as he realizes that this is not part of the רצון He wants exactly the same thing like before. He just realized that this is not what's going to get it for him. Right, right. He realized that really to have the kind of life that he really wanted and to be the kind of person what he really wanted, he thought that it's like this, but now he found out it's not like that.

And he's just changing around. That's a a lower level where where only the action is changing. Right. That's that's the whole ענין of תשובה תתאה. Right. That he didn't He's not changing the עצם הרצון. The עצם הרצון is always the same. The עצם הרצון is still the same. It's He just realized that his actions are not really in in in tune with the עצם הרצון that he already has.

Right. You know, especially like a lot of the בעלי תשובה in America, it's not that they were they weren't really against יידישקייט. Even a guy who's actually, maybe, became a Christian.

Right, his He might not have to do such a high תשובה, really. Right. Because really, he wanted the truth. Right. Really, he wanted to be to be close to the אייבערשטער. אייבערשטער, he really wanted to serve the אייבערשטער.

It's just that and he thought of himself as trying to be a spiritual person like they like the hippies, for instance. A lot of the hippies who became all of a sudden Lubavitchers.

Hipsters Turning into Lubavitchers 8:37

And you notice that they're still the same hippies they were before. Right. Why? Because it's not that they really changed their inner self of what they wanted, they just realized that you don't get it through being a hippie, you get it through being a Lubavitcher.

Right. And you don't get it through Hinduism, and you get it through יידישקייט. Right. Then there might be a higher level where you have to change all the way up to עתיק and אריך.

Higher Levels: Changing עדיק and אריך 9:03

There might be a level you only have to change up to the חכמה, because your חכמה is what's fooling you. Right. You know, the intellect is what's fooling you, that's why you thought like that. Right. Then it can be up to עתיק, then it can be up to א״ק.

Then it could be really that you ממש have to change the רצון הקדום.

Not just that your self-perception, but the actual desire before the self-perception. Then it could be a thing

that you actually have to make an adjustment in the actual היולי מידות of the soul itself.

Self‑Sacrifice to Reach the עצמות 9:51

Right. Now, that's a very hard thing to do. As a matter of fact, it's almost totally possible except through the study of חסידות. And, but for that, you need מסירת נפש to the עצמות. The עצמות is, like you said, the ואינו כן, like you just said, the אין האמת כן. The the עצמות is higher than the תענוג. Right. It can even change the תענוג of the inner מידות.

Right, you need the מסירת נפש to the עצמות. So when you change the תענוג of the inner מידות, even though in general it says that the inner מידות themselves really can't change.

You can only change the nature of the מידות from from physical מידות to divine מידות. Well, even that you could change through מסירת נפש. But nonetheless, if a person is a גבורהדיק person, he he's a גבורהדיק person, whereas a person is a חסד, so it's just that his when he changes over to divine מידות, so in יצחק it's a גבורה, but divine, and in אברהם it's a חסד, but divine.

The Akedah and Changing the מדה 10:59

But that's, that was the whole ענין of the עקידה. Right. ממש changed the עצם המדה. That he changed the עצם המדה from from חסד to דין. Right. And that was the whole thing, that it that that's why the עקידה proved such a big thing. What did it prove such a big thing? I mean, it says that Showed that his מסירת נפש was all the way to the עצם.

Yeah, to the עצמות. Yeah, because you see, I mean, you see a lot of people, even by גוים sometimes you see that they're willing to sacrifice their kids for something, you know. Right.

But the thing is that it showed that he could actually change the עצם המדה, because he was the עצם איש חסד. Right. You know.

And that's why was such a it it was the biggest it was the biggest ניסיון. You'd think, why was the biggest ניסיון? Wouldn't it be a bigger ניסיון when he was thrown into the fire himself?

So to be thrown into the fire himself, that was not a change of the עצם המדה.

So that didn't prove that the מסירת נפש was into the עצמות.

And this showed that the מסירת נפש into the עצמות, meaning מסירת נפש mean מסירת הרצון, that he would actually give up the רצון of the עצם המדה, and change, and he could change the עצם המדה into a different מדה. Right.

Okay. So, I see you're really Yeah, go ahead. Ready? Yeah, it's recording. Okay. כ״ד: והנמשך מכל הנ״ל למעלה למעלה, יובן איך שבחינת עצמות התענוג הפשוט שבעצמותו אין סוף קודם הצמצום, הוא הנקרא שעשוע המלך בעצמותו, שהוא בחינת אין סוף ממש. וגם י״ס עצמיים, עצמיים שהוא כתר עד מלכות דאין סוף, הכל מבחינת העונג הפשוט שבעצמותו. In other words, even like you said, whether by מורכב, whether by פשוט, even the ten and even the עשר ספירות ההיוליים, their קיום comes from their כתר.

The Simple Delight of the Infinite Skeleton 12:40

על דרך משל שגם החסד העצמי שבנפש עיקר קיומו העונג. That's why called חפץ חסד. ואם כל זה באמת הרי עצמות אור אין סוף מובדל גם מבחינת תענוג פשוט, really like you said, ואינו כן, it's not really like that. Not really like that. The the עצמות is really higher than the actual תענוג הפשוט. רק שנמשך ומאיר בבחינת העונג כמו שבעצמות הנפש נמשך אחר העונג וכולי, same like what was explained in chapter 23.

ובזה אמרו אין למעלה מן העונג, that's why it said there's nothing higher than עונג, but it's not really true. Right. וכמו בבחינת חפץ חסד שבעצמות שיש בו התענוג הפשוט, הוא נמשך ומאיר בתוספת אור, because of the תענוג, עד שירד ירידה גדולה גם בדבר נבדל שהוא בבחינת

תענוג ורצון הקדום הנ״ל. In other, in other the תענוג ורצון compared, even though it's of the עצמות, compared to the תענוג העצמי is already הקדום to the world, a תענוג in, for a דבר נבדל. שאחר הצמצום להיות מקור להשתלשלות דאבי״ע עד שירד ונמשך בסיום הכל, והוא גם בפרט עשר ספירות דעשיה אחרונה שבאצילות. Even in the final thing of אצילות, the the עונג is, but the thing is really it's all the same עונג.

על דרך משל הנ״ל בהעונג הנמצא בקיום מידת הנצח וכאי גוונא. זה שאמר בעץ חיים דעתיק יומין ואריך אנפין שהוא התענוג והרצון, שמהות אחת הם, ואין זה בלא זה, ונקראין ג' רישין מתגלפין דא לגו מן דא.

So, how is it that תענוג and רצון, 1, 2, is three? Right. So what's the third רישא? The third רישא is is the is the רדל״א. Right. Which is a which which means that there's a תענוג and a רצון, and then there's a רצון the the the תענוג and רצון בלתי מורגש, which is רדל״א. Right. Which there's a תענוג המורגש and there's a תענוג הבלתי מורגש. Which a תענוג הבלתי מורגש is like the תענוג you get from breathing, that you ממש don't feel it.

Right. You ממש don't feel it, but if חס ושלום it's missing, you see that it's bigger than all the other תענוגים put together. ולפעמים זה פנימי וכולי כנ״ל. And you never know which one is the inside one. מלובש, and מתגלפין, you know what מתגלפין means, engraved, one inside of the other.

Right. מלובש So, it says, שהוא התענוג והרצון שמהות אחד הם, be- before the parenthesis, ואין זה בלא זה, מלובש תוך כל ספירה וספירה לפרטי פרטיות, שבלעדו אין לו קיום כלל. It goes all the way down to the particular ספירות of אצילות, כנ״ל באריכות. And really it goes down even for a דבר נבדל in ספירות of בי״ע.

And really it goes even further down. It really goes even into the ספירות of קליפה. That it really goes down even into the ספירות of of the three קליפות הטמאות, that that תענוג in those things is literally the תענוג העצמי of the אייבערשטער.

And that's why it's a sin. Right. That's the whole reason why it's a sin is that you're using the תענוג העצמי of the אייבערשטער to have this תענוג. Right. You're literally In other words, in תענוג, there's really no difference. Not only there's no difference between a like it said that the תענוג and רצון is one מהות בין בפשוט בין במורכב, the real thing is like this, that that the תענוג and the רצון is the המשכה What they are is the המשכה of the soul itself.

Right. In other words, and the תענוג העצמי, the תענוג of the אייבערשטער, is the המשכה of the אייבערשטער himself. That's what it is, whether with a פשוט or whether with a מורכב. Right. And that's the whole thing of what it is, that when somebody's into a תענוג of קליפה, it's ממש his soul is being pulled after it, his עצם ה- עצם הנשמה is being pulled after it.

And not only עצם הנשמה, he's ממש using the תענוג of the אייבערשטער to to to this thing. And that's why it's a sin. כנ״ל באריכות.

וגם הוא מקיף את כולם, so the same thing, it's ממש מלובש in in each one of them, and it's a מקיף on on on all of them. כמו שמבואר במקום אחר, דמשל י' חפירות זה אחר זה, שהראשונה נמשכת לכל חפירה וחפירה. In other words, if he makes 10 holes with a line between each one of them, you know. Right. And he fills and he fills up he's standing there with a hose and he's filling up the first one.

The Hole Metaphor for Spiritual Flow 18:33

And then the first one overflows through that little channel into the second one, and then the second one gets filled up, and then it overflows into the third one, all the way till the 10th one, that שהראשונה נמשכת לכל חפירה וחפירה. It's not really different water, it's ממש the same water that he put into the first one, that's what's going into all of them.

Meaning till the last one, the חיות that went into it is the same חיות of the תענוג העצמי that went into the first one. Right. וכאן עבד מאני רברבא. I think מאני is clothing, no? Right. דקרי בה גופא and he called with it his his his clothing. חכם וכולי, חכם ולא בחכמה ידיע, etcetera. וכן מה דאמר אפיק י' תיקונין.

And תיקונין also, תיקונין means actually clothings. It means, you know, how you fix yourself up with your clothing, you know. וקרינא לון י' ספירן, and he called these clothings the 10 ספירות. להיות כי בחינת עתיק יומין נחשב מסביב עלמא דא״ס עדיין, לפי שעולם האין סוף נחשב עד בחינת מלכות דא''ק, שהוא בחינת אותיות מסוף מעשה שעלה במחשבה רצון הקדום הנ''ל. In other words, מלכות of א''ק is the end of the מעשה which came up in the רצון הקדום.

והוא בחינה אחרונה שבעצמו. In other words, that's the מלכות of his self-image. That's the last בחינה of himself. שנעשה כתר דעתיק, that that last thing of the self-image, meaning of how he feels that he should act, in other words what he should do outside of himself, that becomes כתר of עתיק, which is the פנימיות of the עונג, what he'll be what he'll have a עונג in, like we said before that that the עונג is according to his self-image, that he'll have a עונג in this and not in that.

Right. שזהו בחינת גילוי אור העונג מהעלם העונג ברצון קדום הנ''ל. That עתיק is the revelation of the light of the עונג from the hidden עונג in the רצון הקדום.

על כן גם כתר דעתיק וחכמה בינה והמידות שבו הכל נחשב מסוף עולם האין סוף. It's still considered, like we said before, the whole עתיק is considered, not just the ג' ראשונות, in particular it's really only the ג' ראשונות that are totally not מלובש, but nonetheless,

since the whole thing of a ספירה is its כתר, so therefore the whole עתיק is considered like that. It's all considered מסוף עולם האין סוף. אבל בחינת אריך אנפין, שהוא בחינת גילוי הרצון, שבא מחמת העונג להיות נמשך ובא להתפשט למטה. In other words, that's the רצון that comes because of the עונג, that he decides that he wants a certain עונג, so therefore he has a רצון for a certain thing.

Now, the רצון is already for this thing. It's not just for inside of himself. The עונג, even when he's having the עונג, it's himself that's having the עונג. That's the difference between the עונג and the רצון.

Whereas the רצון is for the thing. That's what it means, you want the thing. Right. Although really the רצון is also, if you look at it closely, you'll see that the רצון is really also just still at any level, it's really still part of the עצמות, because what you want is that you should have the thing. It's not just you want the thing. Right. You want that you should have the thing.

You want it for yourself really. להיות נמשך ובא להתפשט למטה, שהוא הנקרא ראש ושורש הנאצלים, שהן עשר ספירות דאצילות בכלל ובפרט, ולזה נקרא בחינת הכתר בכלל בחינת ממוצע. That's why the כתר in general, but nonetheless, they're really one thing, the עונג and the רצון. That's why it's called a ממוצע, שיש בו מבחינה אחרונה שבעצמות,

וראש הנאצלים, and it's also the ראש of the נאצלים, כי הארות הנאצלים, שהם בחינת גילוי ההעלם, הרי הן בחינה נבדל מן העצמות כנ''ל. The the גילוי of the רצון, that's already a separate thing, because that's already a רצון for ממש for something. It's not like the רצון הקדום. The רצון הקדום is really still for himself. Here it's already ממש the רצון to have this thing.

כנ''ל באות י''ב, וכמו על דרך משל המידות חסד וגבורה בדבר נבדל, שבאים מכח המדות חסד וגבורה שבעצם כולי. Meaning, שבעצם over here he means א''ק. And א''ק comes from the כח המידות of the actual מידות היוליות. כולי, ועם כל זה בחינת העונג והרצון שבא מן העצמות ומלובש תוך כל, but nonetheless is the actual עונג and רצון which comes from the עצמות is ממש מלובש inside of everything, להיות קיומם תמיד, is ממש the עונג העצמי, means הפשוט in the אור אין סוף.

ואמנם שורש זה העונג והרצון בעצמות אור אין סוף, שנקרא שעשוע המלך בעצמותו כולי,

because the שורש of this עונג is directly connected to one thing connected to the other, like a השתלשלות of a chain. This this This thing is ממש connected to over there. It's the same thing, like the חבל נחלתו that you're writing about just now in דרך חיים. Right. That when you pull one side of the cord, the other side of the cord will pull. In other words, if if if there's a תענוג like that in the שעשוע המלך בעצמותו, say, so that's the תענוג which will come out in the פרטי הספירות of אצילות.

Right. That's what pulls. And vice versa, if you pull on this thing in אצילות, it'll pull upstairs.

And this is the same thing, this is exactly what we're talking about, this is the whole thing that is talking about in chapter one of דרך חיים, by the way. Right. It goes all the way down to here, that if you pull down here, when the Jew pulls down here either way,

even if he pulls it into the into קליפת הטומאה, Right. it's pulling all the way up to the top and it's making a blemish upstairs.

And even though like it says, טהורה היא, in other words upstairs there is no blemish, Right. the blemish is only can be in the intermediate levels, but nonetheless it's affected by it. Right.

Soul Imprint and Near‑Death Misreading 26:20

The soul is ממש affected by it. Matter of fact, I can't remember where I read this, there's a thing from the פריערדיקער רבי where he explains how hell works, that it's ממש imprinted on the soul, that and then when he goes upstairs, you know, like they say all of these near-death experiences, you go up and it's so beautiful and everybody comes up and all your buddies come up and stuff like that, Right.

you know, and it's so wonderful and everybody says, "Oh, it's like being in heaven." He says, "No, that's the beginning of hell." They don't get it, they don't understand. They don't know what happens next because they came back down already, you know, most of these people didn't die all the way. Right. Because what happens next is the angels start singing קדוש קדוש קדוש. Right. You know, and then he wants to run with angels.

Right. And then all of these things that were that are imprinted on his soul, you know, like it says that the the the the מצוות are imprinted on the on the air of of גן עדן, Right. and the עבירות are imprinted on the air of גיהנום, you know, and then all those things like his his mother and his father and all the wonderful memories and everything like that, they hold on to him.

Mitzvot and Sins Imprinted in Paradise and Gehinnom 27:50

Right. And he's trying to run with the angels, and all of a sudden he realizes, "Wait a minute, I'm not in heaven, I'm in hell."

Right. This is and they're holding on to him. And this is also like, and that's already like normal stuff. Then there's like bad stuff, you know, it says that a guy came to the אריז"ל, and I don't remember what, he was a rich guy, and and the and and he was trying to,

you know, scam the אריז"ל, basically. Mhm. And the אריז"ל told him, "Don't you need a תיקון?"

So the guy said, "What do I need a תיקון for?" He said, "For the שיקסה you went with." Right. He said, "What do you mean?

I never went with no שיקסה." Hold on a second, let me flip the tape.