In the previous installment we covered the first part of chapter 32, up to the word "ביניהם" ("between them") in the middle of page 41, just before the Alter Rebbe's words "וזהו שאמר הלל הזקן" ("And this is what Hillel the Elder said"). In this installment we will complete one point that was left over from the previous explanation, and in order to do that, let us first review the subject the chapter is dealing with.
A review of the preceding chapters:
Chapter 32 comes as a continuation of chapters 29, 30 and 31. The conclusion that emerges from those chapters is that a Jew must take a look at himself from two sides:
From the side of the body: he must arrive at the conclusion that his body is "נבזה בעיניו" ("despicable in his own eyes"), truly lowly, through all the reckonings laid out in chapters 29 and 30 regarding the 'bittush', the crushing, of the body.
From the side of the soul: he must know that the soul is the essential thing, and from its side he must always be in a state of joy. The joy of the soul need not be unsettled at all by the lowliness of the body. That is the point of chapter 31: to make the soul prevail over the body.
Following from this we have arrived at chapter 32, the heart of the Tanya. As we mentioned in the previous installment, the entire chapter reads like a kind of parenthesis: in the first edition of the Tanya the Alter Rebbe did not include it at all, and the flow went directly from the subject of chapter 31 to chapter 33. Only in the second edition did he insert chapter 32 here, in the middle.
The content of the chapter: when a person carries out the conclusion of the previous chapter, to live with the joy of the soul and not be shaken by the lowliness of the body, until the soul, and not the body, is what is essential to him, he will come to the fulfillment of the mitzvah of "ואהבת לרעך כמוך" ("you shall love your fellow as yourself"), a love for every Jew "כמוך ממש", literally as yourself. And as we discussed at length in the previous installment, this means a genuinely self-directed love, extended even toward another person who is not himself, something logic struggles to grasp: how can a person possibly love someone else the way he loves himself?
The three stages in contemplating the root of the souls:
"מי יודע גדולתן ומעלתן בשורשן ומקורן באלוקים חיים" ("who knows their greatness and excellence in their root and source in the living God"): from the side of the divine root of all souls, no one knows their greatness and excellence. Consequently there is no room to look at another person and think he is of lesser worth, for it is entirely possible that he possesses virtues and greatness that this person himself does not have.
"כולן מתאימות" ("they are all matched"): at a higher level within the root it is revealed that all the souls match one another. There is no greater and no lesser there; they are all like twins who correspond to one another exactly.
"אב אחד לכולנה" ("one father to them all"): this is the highest point of all, which we explored at length in the previous installment. From the side of "one father to them all" there are no levels whatsoever, and one cannot even speak of levels that match one another. There is nothing but the one Father, as was illustrated by the examples drawn from the formation of a child.
After this the Alter Rebbe adds: "ולכן נקראו כל ישראל אחים ממש" ("and therefore all of Israel are called actual brothers"). Why is this addition necessary?
At first glance, a love on the level of "as yourself" is higher than the love of brothers, so why does he settle here for stressing brotherhood? The answer is that his intent is not to define the level of love being demanded, but to prove the very foundation that there is "one father to them all." For one could have argued that this level exists Above, in the higher worlds, but down here, where the soul descends into a body, and here is one Jew and another Jew and a whole multiplicity of Jews, from where do we know that the level of "one father to them all" applies here as well?
To this the Alter Rebbe brings a proof: the Torah calls one Jew the "brother" of his fellow even while they are here below. And what is it that makes two people be called brothers? One father. From here we have a proof that "one father to them all" exists even here below. [It is worth noting that the expression "אחיך" ("your brother") was introduced after the giving of the Torah, and there are a number of verses built on this theme of "brother."]
But a question must be raised: if the highest, most complete and most elevated level is the contemplation of "one father to them all," the Alter Rebbe should seemingly have opened with it and written only that [meaning, he should have written: why must a person love his fellow as himself? Because "one father to them all," and we all exist together in that one supernal source]. Why, then, does he need to begin from below and work upward, first "who knows their greatness and excellence," then "they are all matched," and only at the end reveal the secret of "one father to them all"? There are several explanations:
The simple explanation: the student is led step by step, and he cannot leap straight to the highest level.
A second explanation, one that is practical: there are two ways in which a Jew who awakens with a genuine desire to love his fellow to the point of "as yourself" can look at that fellow.
The first way: to love the other because he is part of the Jewish people, an integral part of the general essence and of the root, "one father to them all." This is certainly a high and good level: my soul and his soul are rooted in one and the same place.
The second way: to love the other on account of his own personal virtues as well. Even if on the surface he seems different, and even if the person considers himself wiser and more successful, he must contemplate the other's virtues and discover that "who knows their greatness and excellence": from the side of the soul it may well be that the other's standing is higher, and the same is true from the side of the body. Every single person has a uniqueness that no one else has, and a virtue that no other person in the world possesses.
Had the Alter Rebbe mentioned only the loftiest level of "one father to them all," a person would say: I love Reuven and Shimon and Levi and Yehudah, they are all the same, and what they share is that they are all rooted in one father. The Alter Rebbe therefore adds that one must contemplate each and every individual in his own right, his face, his character traits, his habits, his surroundings, and the particular slot in which he stands in his day to day conduct, and find and uncover his unique virtues. And if a person has not uncovered them, it is a sign that he has not contemplated enough, for every single person has a unique virtue, and about it is said "who knows their greatness and excellence."
For this reason this stage cannot be waived and cannot be skipped. "Who knows their greatness and excellence" is not only a question mark, it is also an exclamation mark: who determined that this person is greater than his fellow? Through contemplation he will discover that it is specifically the other who has a virtue he himself lacks.
[And it should be added: someone who is caught up in feelings of inferiority and thinks that everyone is better than he is, it is a sign that he does not have a correct view of himself. For ahavas Yisrael was said with regard to oneself as well, and a person is even forbidden to speak lashon hara about himself, and he must love himself, that is, his soul and his mission in the world, for he too is a Jew who must be looked at properly.]
We should be precise in the Alter Rebbe's wording, "ולכן נקראו כל ישראל אחים ממש" ("and therefore all of Israel are called actual brothers"). What does the word "actual" add? The Rebbe points out something quite simple: in the book of Bereishis, Avraham says to Lot "כי אנשים אחים אנחנו" ("for we are men who are brothers"), and Rashi there offers two interpretations: "brothers" in the sense of relatives, family members; or in the sense of resembling one another, alike in facial features. The Alter Rebbe therefore stresses that all of Israel are called brothers not in the sense of relatives or look-alikes, but "actual brothers," because there is "one father to them all," and this is the very highest level of ahavas Yisrael, from the side of the supernal root.
In summary: in this installment we reviewed the conclusion of the preceding chapters, the bittush of the body on one side and the joy of the soul on the other, and how chapter 32, the heart of the Tanya (added only in the second edition), teaches that by establishing the soul as what is essential a person arrives at ahavas Yisrael "literally as yourself." We examined the three stages: "who knows their greatness and excellence," "they are all matched," and "one father to them all"; the proof from the wording "all of Israel are called actual brothers" that this level exists even below, after the soul's descent into a body; the reason one does not skip the stage of contemplating the unique virtues of each and every Jew; and the precision of the word "actual": not relatives and not look-alikes, but actual brothers.
In the next installment we will continue with the rest of the chapter, beginning with the Alter Rebbe's words "And this is what Hillel the Elder said."