We have arrived at chapter 43 of the Tanya, on page 61b (page 122). Before we enter what this chapter has to say, let us remind ourselves of the main points of chapters 41 and 42. Those two long chapters can be summed up in three points:
The «what», the necessity of yirah: In chapter 41 the Alter Rebbe began to explain yiras Shomayim, fear of Heaven, and why it is absolutely indispensable, so much so that without it one cannot move forward in avodas Hashem in any area at all. And this is true not only for «sur mera», keeping away from what is forbidden, but equally for «asei tov»: even in order to actively fulfill the Divine will, yiras Shomayim is required.
The «how», the path to yirah: The way to arrive at yiras Shomayim is through hisbonenus, contemplation of G-d's greatness. Although every single Jew possesses yiras Shomayim naturally, in order to awaken it and bring it to the surface contemplation is needed, and the Alter Rebbe elaborated at length on various modes of contemplation that bring it out into the open.
The assistance, the mo'ach hada'as that comes from Moshe Rabbeinu: In chapter 42 the Alter Rebbe explained what is the greatest aid to making one's contemplation succeed. Chochmah and binah alone are not enough; the essential thing is da'as, the faculty of connecting and bonding to an idea, so that it speaks to the person and actually affects him. After all, a person knows a great many things, and he is hardly bonded to all of them or practically moved by them. This power every Jew receives from Moshe Rabbeinu, from the «Moshe» point within him, which gives each person the ability and the strength to attach himself to G-dly matters until they genuinely work on him.
Now we begin chapter 43, and for that we need to expand a bit on the yirah that was discussed in the previous chapters. Already in chapters 41 and 42 the Alter Rebbe stressed that the yirah he was speaking about is called yirah tata'ah, the «lower» and more basic fear, also referred to as yirah chitzonis, external fear. In chapter 43 the Alter Rebbe will lead us up to yirah ila'ah, the «higher» fear. In order to see clearly what was explained until now and what is new in chapter 43, let us first lay out in general terms the difference between the two.
The Alter Rebbe bases the division between these levels of yirah on the wording of a mishnah in Pirkei Avos, a mishnah that at first glance contradicts itself: «אם אין יראה אין חכמה», if there is no fear there is no wisdom, which implies that one must begin with yirah, since without it there will be no chochmah. And immediately afterward: «אם אין חכמה אין יראה», if there is no wisdom there is no fear, which implies the opposite, that one begins with chochmah and it leads to yirah.
The Alter Rebbe explains that there is no contradiction here at all. Everything depends on which level of yirah is being spoken of. The mishnah, as is its way, speaks in a brief and condensed style and does not spell out its intention; add one single word, a word that is itself an entire world, and it all falls into place: if there is no yirah tata'ah there is no chochmah, and if there is no chochmah there is no yirah ila'ah.
So the order of avodah comes out like this: yirah tata'ah is the opening move, and it is what brings a person to chochmah, meaning in general terms the keeping of Torah and mitzvos. And once he has that chochmah, he can rise to the higher level of yirah ila'ah.
This is just as he noted in the previous chapter from the verse with which he opened chapter 42: «מה ה' אלוקיך שואל מעמך כי אם ליראה את ה'», what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Hashem, and the verse continues, to keep all His commandments. In other words, this is a yirah whose whole purpose is to bring a person to the actual observance of Torah and mitzvos, and that is yirah tata'ah.
The difference between the two is as distant as heaven is from earth, from one extreme to the other, two completely different worlds. The Alter Rebbe defines this difference in his Siddur, where he calls the two levels yirah penimis, inner fear, and yirah chitzonis, external fear: yirah chitzonis is yirah tata'ah, and yirah penimis is yirah ila'ah. And this is what he writes there, based on what he heard from his teacher, the Maggid of Mezritch:
«יראה פנימית ירא בושת», inner fear is the fear of shame: «by way of example, like the embarrassment one feels before a great man of the generation, a tzaddik, where the shame comes from his inner being and not from his external dimension. This is yirah ila'ah, to be ashamed before the Ein Sof, blessed be He, as He is clothed in chochmah ila'ah.»
«ויראה חיצונית», and external fear: «is, by way of example, like the fear and dread of a great and awesome king, where the dimension of the greatness of his kingship stems from his external dimension, which is the spreading forth of his sovereignty.»
The analogy of yirah tata'ah, the king: The king is great and he rules, he inspires fear and he has power. But is it the case that before the king the people's existence is so nullified that it does not count at all, or is it rather that their existence is quite real, it registers with the king and matters to him, only that it is subordinate to him? Clearly the second option is correct, as in the well known phrase «אין מלך בלא עם», there is no king without a people: a king has no reality as a king if he has no people to crown him and to populate his kingdom. On the contrary, a king's greatness is measured by the size of his country and the number of his subjects; the entire reality of the king is built out of the people.
Therefore one cannot say that the subject feels like nothing, or is ashamed of his very existence. Just the opposite, he feels that his existence matters: he pays his taxes to the king and the king grows thereby, and all the citizens together make up the great kingdom. The bittul of the people toward the king is therefore an external bittul, what is called «bittul hayesh»: the person does not lose his own reality and is not embarrassed by himself, on the contrary his sense of self is fully present, only that he is ready to subordinate himself to the king. There are of course different degrees within this, but what they all share is that the one who is nullified still feels himself to be a reality that is subordinated to the king.
The analogy of yirah ila'ah, the great man of the generation, the tzaddik: By contrast, when a person stands within the four cubits of a tzaddik, of the nasi hador, of Moshe Rabbeinu, and he suddenly senses his power, his greatness and his holiness, that holiness does not depend in the slightest on the people around him. It is a power and a holiness that belongs to him in his own right. What does a simple person feel standing in those four cubits? «Who am I and what am I next to such a mighty and great man?» He is ashamed of himself, he wants to run and hide somewhere where this man will not see him and will not so much as look at him.
This is an incomparably deeper, inner kind of bittul. It is not bittul hayesh, a self that submits, but «bittul bimtzius»: the person is nullified in his very sense of himself and feels utter nothingness. This, in general terms, is the difference the Alter Rebbe defines in the Siddur between yirah tata'ah and yirah ila'ah: fear of a king as against the shame one feels before a great man of the generation, a tzaddik.
Everything the Alter Rebbe said in chapter 42, all the varieties and modes of hisbonenus he elaborated that lead a person to bittul before the Creator, belongs to yirah tata'ah, to yirah chitzonis. For example: contemplating how the Holy One brings creation into being at every single moment and is present in every place and at every moment; that «the eye sees and the ear hears» everything a person does; and that the Holy One sets everything else aside, as it were, to establish His kingship over this one individual and to examine his heart and his innermost thoughts.
What emerges from all these expressions? That there always remains a reality with which the Holy One is occupied, which He creates and forms at every moment. True, the creation ought to feel bittul toward its Creator, since its whole existence hangs on the Creator's existence, but in the end it is a reality to which the Creator Himself has given force and standing. Therefore one who contemplates on this level cannot reach the bittul one feels before a great man of the generation, a tzaddik; he reaches the bittul one feels before a king. There is a world that exists, which the Holy One creates and forms, the person grasps this and is subordinate to Him, and from this he understands that he must conduct himself properly, since G-d examines his heart and his innermost thoughts and there is an eye that sees and an ear that hears.
And the same holds true even for the higher form of contemplation explained at the end of chapter 42: a person contemplates all the creatures and the hosts of heaven, how they all bow down each time the sun sets, a bittul expressed in prostration before the Shechinah. This contemplation touches a person with the exaltedness of the Creator and awakens yiras Shomayim within him, yet it too is still within the category of yirah tata'ah.
In summary: In this section we reviewed the main points of chapters 41 and 42: the indispensability of yiras Shomayim, the path to it through hisbonenus, and the assistance of the mo'ach hada'as that comes from Moshe Rabbeinu. We then laid out in advance the difference between yirah tata'ah and yirah ila'ah: the resolution of the apparent contradiction in the mishnah in Pirkei Avos («if there is no fear there is no wisdom», yirah tata'ah; «if there is no wisdom there is no fear», yirah ila'ah); the analogy of the king and its external bittul («bittul hayesh») as against the analogy of the tzaddik and its inner bittul («bittul bimtzius»); and we saw that all the contemplations of chapter 42 belong to yirah tata'ah.
In the next section we will read the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 43 inside the text itself, and go deeper into what yirah ila'ah is all about.