Rabbi Shneur. So the topic tonight is the view of Chassidus on מידות טובות. מידות טובות means having good human traits, good characteristics, מידות טובות, and it's very important to have מידות טובות. But I'm not going to discuss how to get מידות טובות and what to do about מידות טובות and how to get and how to get rid of מידות טובות, but we're going to discuss the Chassidishe approach of what it means to have מידות טובות and a little bit how to acquire מידות טובות that you want to hear, but not in the simple sense, but a little bit deeper, which should help a person in finding a way how to acquire מידות טובות. Now, מידות טובות we know it's easier to know what מידות רעות, chas veshalom, are, then we understand what מידות טובות are. מידות רעות would mean a person who has the מידה of כעס, anger, גאווה, arrogance, and things like that, those are called מידות רעות. מידות טובות is a person who is humble, a person who is kind, a person who never gets angry, things like that, those are מידות טובות. And we know that מידות טובות, to have מידות טובות are very, very important. And as we will see later on, מידות טובות are important not only because of בין אדם לחבירו, but also because of בין אדם למקום. We know that in Torah בכלל, we have two sections: we have certain things which are בין אדם לחבירו, מצוות and things that you have to do between man and man, and then there are things that you have to do between man and God. מידות טובות usually are known to be that section of בין אדם לחבירו. These are things between man and man: you're a kind person, you're a nice person, you don't get angry, that's all because you're doing fine between man and man. But the truth is מידות טובות also are connected to בין אדם למקום. If you have מידות טובות, then there is a different approach that you have in אדם למקום, between man and God, as I will explain later on. But let's go in a seder, let's go in order and try to explain what I want to say. The Tzemach Tzedek once asked the Alter Rebbe, his grandfather, he asked him, \"What is the main oif'tu, the main chiddush, the main focus of Chassidus? We know that the Baal Shem Tov established the דרך החסידות, the way of Chassidus, and then the Maggid continued, and then the Alter Rebbe established the דרך of Chassidus Chabad. So he asked him, 'What is the inyan of Chassidus? What did Chassidus accomplish? What do we expect of a person who follows the derech of Chassidus? What is it?'\" So the Alter Rebbe answered him, \"The derech of Chassidus teaches a person that how or that and how he should change the nature of his middot.\" That was his answer. Which seems that he said that the whole purpose of Chassidus is that a person should acquire good middot, good human traits. And it fits to the concept of Chassidus because actually, that is the meaning of the word chasid. The meaning of the word chasid comes from the word chesed. Chesed means kindness. So a chasid means a person who is extra careful in kindness, he's a kind person, a good person. And it goes even further, not stam that you are a good person and a kind person and a nice person, but it means, the Alter Rebbe said in a different place, a person who is extra, extraordinarily kind and good. And he brought a proof from a Gemara. The Gemara says, בנוגע a person who cuts his nails, what should he do with his nails? So the Gemara says like this: a person who buries his nails is a rasha. A person who a person who throw, I'm sorry, okay, a person who throws his nails away is a rasha. A person who buries his nails is a tzaddik. But a person who burns his nails is a chasid. And as the mefarshim explain, the problem of throwing nails away is that it is damaging, it is harmful for a pregnant woman. Tosafot says if a woman who is pregnant will walk over nails of a person that was cut, she could miscarry, chas v'shalom. And therefore, a person who just throws his nails away means that this person doesn't care about somebody else, this person is a rasha. A person who buries his nails means that he cares, he doesn't want it to just be around, and that person is called a tzaddik. But it's still not really enough because you never know, maybe the ground will uncover and there's still a possibility for it to be harmful. So therefore, the best thing to do is to burn it. The only problem is, as Tosafot says, if a person burns any part of his own body, it is harmful for himself. That's what it says. A person, person who will burn part of something that was part of his body, it is harmful for him. So here we have a question: this person, if he's going to burn his nails, will cause harm for himself, but this will be done in order to protect somebody else. So a person who's ready to do this, who is ready to overgo his own needs, and he puts himself in danger in order to help somebody else, that person is called a chasid. So the Alter Rebbe said from this Gemara we see that what's a chasid? A chasid means a person, it's not just kind and cares about other people, but a chasid means a person who would give up of himself for somebody else. So this all fits to what the Alter Rebbe said to the Tzemach Tzedek, that what is the whole accomplishment of Chassidus? To change your, the nature of your middot, to become a person with great, good human traits, with good middot. But when we start thinking about it, it's not so simple, because in truth, we don't need Chassidus to teach us that you have to have good middot, and you have to stay away from bad middot. In the Chazal, in the Gemara, in the Midrashim, it is full about a person's supposed to have good middos. That's not Chassidus. Chassidus we always think of something that is added, not chas v'shalom something added new to the Torah, but it's something that wasn't stressed before. Something that the Baal Shem Tov came and pointed out how important it is that wasn't there before. So if Chassidus is just to show you and to tell you that you have to change your middos, and you have to have good middos, the Gemara speaks about it, the Midrashim speak about it. That's not something that's new. Actually, we have a whole מסכתא, a whole Gemara, a whole tractate in Gemara which is concerning good middos: מסכת אבות, Pirkei Avos. The Bartenura says in the beginning of פרקי אבות, כולי מדות טובות, the whole Maseches Avos is good is good middos and teaches you how to have good middos. The Gemara says הרוצה, someone wants to be a חסיד, should learn מילי דאבות. Someone wants to be kind or someone wants to have good middos should learn Maseches Avos, Pirkei Avos, because Pirkei Avos teaches us how to have good middos. So that's not something new of Chassidus. Actually, there is a Chazal, the Midrash tells us that לא ניתנה תורה, לא ניתנו המצוות אלא לצרף בהן את הבריות. The whole reason why Hashem gave us the mitzvos is to purify the people. Hashem gave us mitzvos in order that through the mitzvos we will become nicer, better, eidele human beings, לצרוף means to אויסאיידל, to make us fine. So here we have the mitzvos, which is not because of Chassidus, that's there all along, and it's all to make your middos better. So what is the peshat that the Alter Rebbe said that the whole purpose of chassidut is in order for you to change טבע מידות, to change the nature of your midot, which means, which would seem to mean that a person should have good midot, and that's what chassidut is all about? We have to understand, there must be something deeper there. And a proof that there must be something deeper there is that in chassidut, if you look through all the מאמרים and different ענינים that we have in chassidut, we don't really find much, at least in proportion, of describing how a person should get rid of his bad midot, how a person should get good midot. If the whole ענין of chassidut is to teach a person how to acquire good midot, then half of the ספרים in chassidut should be talking about what, how bad bad midot are, and how good good midot are, and what you have to do. We don't find. We do find, sometimes it talks, it discusses, it mentions, but you can't say this is what chassidut is all about. So obviously, there must be something more than that. But here we see the Alter Rebbe said that the whole purpose of chassidut is to show the person how to change the טבע of his midot. So obviously, there must be something deeper here.

The truth is that we do find other places in chassidut that changing the, one's midot into having good midot is something that comes before chassidut. Something that you don't have to come onto chassidut, something that before you get involved in the דרך החסידות, in the way of chassidut, you have to change your midot. The Mitteler Rebbe, in the lifetime of his father yet, of the Alter Rebbe, was appointed by his father as the mashpia over the yunge leit. So once he mentioned to them, and he said, \"If a person did not purify his midot, I don't want him to stand in my daled amot. I don't want him to stand close to me.\" So they said to themselves, probably he means if somebody didn't reach a very high level. So he said to them, \"That's not what I mean. I mean very simple: if a person doesn't have good midot, don't come to me to learn chassidut because you still are not ready for it yet, because you still didn't finish the level before chassidut. In other words, to have good midot is not what chassidut is about. To have good midot is something that a Yid has to have. Every Yid, every person has to have good midot, and you have to learn how to have good midot. And we find many מוסר ספרים, not chassidus, מוסר ספרים that tell us how to have good middos, describes the how bad it is to have bad middos and what a person should do to have good middos, etc., etc. So that's not what chassidus is. Actually, we find a sichah from the Frierdiker Rebbe where the Frierdiker Rebbe says there are three categories of middos: good middos—not talking about מידות רעות, bad middos—he says there's one category called middos tovos, good middos. Then you have a second category called מידות חסידיות, חסידישע מידות. And then you have a third level called מידות נעימות, געשמאקע מידות, which is even more than חסידישע מידות. And he explained. He said, when you say middos tovos, good middos, means a person has his middos that fit according to halachah. This person will not speak lashon hara if you are not allowed to. But in the case where על פי הלכה you're allowed to, because there are cases where you're allowed to and you're allowed to say things, he wouldn't care to say it. Why? Because it's good middos, the proof that it's good is because it fits the halachah. If it would be not good, halachah would say no. And nevertheless, he could go and speak, and he could tell say things to people and not be nice, and he will find within the framework of halachah that he was okay. It's similar to the expression of the Ramban, where the Ramban says there's a possibility for a person to be a נבל ברשות התורה. You could be a נבל, means a disgusting person, with the permission of the Torah. You could find things which are disgusting to do, but you don't find in the Torah that it's forbidden. You don't find a איסור in the Torah, then you did על פי הלכה, but you're a disgusting person. So, you can have a person who we could refer to as middos tovos, he has good middos, but the middos tovos, he says, are just by the border of middos tovos. מידות חסידיות means that you look at a person and you have such good middos that you see the person's מעלות. In other words, you could see the person's חסרונות, you could see the person's negative traits, but you also see his good, and therefore you would look at him with a different eye, you would look from the good side. You would look at him with the eye that looks at the good. But that's still not the highest level. מידות נעימות, he said, געשמאקע מידות, there's such a concept as געשמאקע מידות, means that you don't even see anything negative about the other person. Not that you see his מעלות, which would mean you see his חסרונות, you see what's negative about him, and you see at the same time his מעלות, but you don't even see his חסרונות at all, you only see his מעלות. But what I'm trying to bring out from this שיחה is that מידות טובות is not something that Chassidut, middot tovot is something that comes before Chassidut. So, we're back to our question: If מידות טובות is something that comes before Chassidut, then what does it mean that the whole purpose of the דרך החסידות is that a person should change the nature of his מידות, which means to which would seem to mean that you have to change your מידות to have מידות טובות? On the other hand, we do find that Chassidut does stress the point that a person should have good מידות, because one of the things it says in certain ספרים and in Chassidut, what should a person think about when he's Davening? When you Daven, and we expect a person to daven with the proper כוונה, and one of the things a person should think about when he daven is look into himself and make a חשבון הנפש, take an account of himself, and see if his מידות are good מידות or not. Actually, it's brought down in the Rema in Shulchan Aruch, it says that before you start Davening, you have to think about רוממות הא-ל ושפלות האדם, you have to think about the greatness of Hashem and how low a person is, not like some people think how low that person is, how low I am, the person meaning himself, meaning looking in himself, \"Well, my מידות are not good enough, and I have to change, and I have to become nicer, have to become better.\" That's one of the things we have to think about davening, and that's one of the things that we have to be מתבונן, we have to think about when we daven. What חסידים used to call דאווענען באריכות, דאווענען with התבוננות, davenen long and thinking, one of the things that Chassidut expects a person to think about is think about his מידות. So, we see Chassidut does care about מידות טובות. So, it is an aspect of Chassidut, but obviously, it's not the whole aspect of Chassidut, the whole thing of Chassidut. So again, what did the Alter Rebbe mean when he said that the whole ענין of Chassidut is לשנות טבע מידותיו, to change the nature of the middot? So obviously, he meant something deeper. So I'll get up to it but I'll start off with one diyuk, one looking into the wording that the that's Alter Rebbe said. The Alter Rebbe said that purpose of chassidut is לשנות טבע מדותיו, to change the nature of your middot. There is another expression which is similar. The other expression is לשנות מדותיו הטבעיים, to change your natural middot. And this expression is to change the nature of your middot. It's not the same thing. To change the natural middot means the middot natural middot are not such good middot. We know naturally a human being is born not with such good middot. כי יצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו, there's a pasuk that says that the yetzer hara of a person is bad from birth, and if a person would not be trained or train himself, he would grow up like עיר פרא אדם יולד, like a wild animal. It says the pasuk says that פרא, אמ מה הפסוק שם? פרא אדם יולד, a person is born like a wild animal. And just like an animal doesn't have anything of middot tovot, a person naturally from birth, I'm not saying essentially what's inside his nefesh, I'm just saying naturally from birth is born with middot which are not good. And when we say a person should change his natural middot, it means that he should change his bad middot into good middot. But when you say you should change the nature of your middot, that has a deeper meaning. And that's something that chassidut is all about, as I will explain. But let me go in order and start from the beginning.

As I said before, in מוסר ספרים, we find a lot about middot. Talks about how a person is supposed to have good traits, all about middot. But the way, the approach of mussar is that they mainly talk about how bad bad middot are. They describe how if you're you get angry it's no good and all the chesronot, all the problems that come from anger, and all the problems who come from gaavah, and all things like that, that's mainly what they stress. They stress the negative. In חסידות בכלל, the approach is we stress the positive. There's a pasuk that says סור מרע ועשה טוב, stay away from evil and do good. So there are two inyanim. You have to stay away from bad and you have to do good. Now, which of the two do you stress? And that is the major difference between mussar and chassidut that in ספרי מוסר, in the מוסר ספרים, we talk about how bad evil is. How bad aveirot are, but we're not talking about that aspect, we're talking about middot, so in Mussar sefarim we find all about how bad these bad middos are. How bad it is if a person is stingy, how bad it is if a person gets angry, how bad it is if a person is about ga'avah, and all kinds of other things how bad it is. But Chassidus, when it does talk about it, it usually talks about the good side. How good it is to be generous, how good it is to be nice, how good it is. It's all from the positive side. And even when Mussar does talk about the good part of the good middos, it just goes into the details of the middos and tries to explain why it's good to be a certain have a certain middah. Chassidus does different. Chassidus what it does is it brings out within the person that the neshamah that a person have should start shining. The expression would be it brings out the אור הנשמה, the light of the neshamah, and when the neshamah shines automatically the bad middos go away and the good middos come. You don't have to work. See, if you go with the דרך המוסר, you have to fight with the bad middos. And then you have to try to work on the good middos. But you have to fight with the bad middos. And what happens when you fight with the bad middos? You know what happens? They fight back. When you fight with the יצר הרע, they fight יצר הרע fights back. You think he's going to sit back and take it? He fights back, that's what it is. That's the nature. The nature is if you attack somebody, he'll fight back. He won't take it. Now, sometimes you will win, sometimes he will win. And even when you do win, but if you have a war, you might win the war, but you have casualties. So if you fight with your יצר הרע, you're trying to fight because naturally I have an instinctive I want to uh hurt somebody. I am nasty, and I realize I shouldn't do it, but within me I have the feeling I want to do it, so there's a fight. And if you're smart, and if you work, and your מוח שליט על הלב, and your brain controls your heart, you will win, but not always. Sometimes not. And especially when you corner your יצר הרע into a corner, he'll take when he sees he's losing, he'll take all his kochos. You know what they say: never a mouse, a rat is afraid of a human being. But don't ever be stuck in an elevator, they say, with a rat. Because when he's cornered in, and he sees there's no other choice, he'll jump at you, and he's very dangerous. He's afraid, but when he sees he has no choice, he'll jump. Because when you really fight and put somebody to the corner, he'll pull, he'll fight back. There's a halachah in Rambam that when the Jewish army, the Yidden, would besiege a city, it says you're not allowed to surround it from four sides. Only three. Give them a chance to escape. Don't corner them in, because if you corner them in, they'll fight. They have no berirah, they have no choice and they'll fight, you'll have casualties. Don't, let them run away. Same thing with the יצר הרע. You're going to fight with the יצר הרע, he'll fight back. Besides the fact that there's an expression in תניא, כל המתאבק עם מנוול מתנוול כמוהו, if you fight with a dirty person, you might win him, but you get dirty yourself. Fighting means wrestling, mit'abeik. You wrestle with somebody who is dirty, you'll leave dirt, with dirt on. That means that and that's the casualties we're talking about. So, fighting the יצר הרע is not a good idea. If you have no choice, you do it. But Chassidus says, don't fight with him. Just shine the light of the neshamah, like I'll explain this in a moment. Automatically, all these bad middos will go away, and the good middos will come. And they have a mashal, the famous mashal, that there was once an argument between the sun and the wind. There was a man walking in the street wearing a coat, and there was an argument between the sun and the wind: who could get the person, get get the coat off the person? So, the wind started blowing, and what happened? So, his coat started falling off. So, he buttoned it. He fought back. So, the wind started blowing stronger, and it started pulling the buttons, so he took the belt and he closed the belt. And then the wind started blowing, so he held his hand. And the wind couldn't get his coat off. And he turns around to the sun, \"Nu, what do you say?\" \"I'll show you,\" he says. The sun came out, started shining, and the person took the coat off himself. You see? All I did, I shined. The expression is מעט אור דוחה הרבה חושך. A little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness. And darkness you can't fight, you can't push away darkness with fighting. The Alter Rebbe, how everyone knows he used to talk in a singsong, used to talk with a niggun, how when he used to talk. So, he once said to somebody on yechidus: מיט שטעקנס קען מען ניט פארטרייבן קיין פינסטערניש. With sticks, you can't chase out darkness. Walk into a dark room and try chase it out. מען ברענגט אריין א קליין ליכטעלע, ווערט ליכטיק. You bring in a small light, it becomes lichtik. So, if you shine the light of the neshama in yourself, then automatically all middos all all bad middot would go away. What the meaning of shining your neshama, having the light of your neshama? What is chassidut all about? Chassidut tells you you have to learn and think and behave in a way that there is nothing but Hashem. Chassidut is a person who learns chassidut is a person who's involved in thinking and realizing that there is nothing but Hashem, and wanting to get closer to Hashem. And that's really what the neshama wants. Every Yid's neshama wants to get close to Hashem. The problem is the neshama is in jail in the body, that the body does not allow. So, the neshama is in jail, can't shine, because it's blocked. What you have to do is bring out in your body what the neshama wants, and then the neshama will start shining. So, if we as human beings with our body start learning, we learn chassidut and we learn all about רוחניות, automatically, when the neshama is stronger, then it makes the person into an eidel person. Imagine when you think a person is involved in thinking about Hashem, can this person be a nasty person? If he really learns, it's impossible. Why? His neshama shined. And that's the greatest thing. The greatest thing a person could do is have the אור הנשמה, the light of his neshama, shine within him. That's higher than many things. There is even a story just to bring that that once Reb' Levi Yitzchak Barditchever came to visit the Alter Rebbe, and he came with a chassid, one of his greatest chassidim. And he was talking to the Alter Rebbe in shul, and he introduced his chassid, and he said to the Alter Rebbe, who was a חבר of his, \"You see this man,\" he called him by his name, \"he's such a great man, he has גילוי אליהו. אליהו reveals himself to him. He has גילוי אליהו.\" At that moment in shul, Reb' Binyamin Kletzker, one of the big chassidim of the Alter Rebbe, stood in a corner and was davening שמונה עשרה. And he happened to be holding by שים שלום. So, the Alter Rebbe says to the Berditchever: \"און דער ייד,\" and this yungerman, \"while he's standing\" שים שלום and דאווענינג, לאכט ער פון זיין גילוי אליהו. He's laughing at his גילוי אליהו. Why was he laughing? What is, so the חסידים טייטשן עס אויס: he had גילוי הנשמה, that's much greater than גילוי אליהו. גילוי הנשמה is when your neshama is revealed, it's much greater than גילוי אליהו. גילוי אליהו is a zechut, a malach comes to you, very great and you have to be a great tzaddik to reach that madreigah. But גילוי הנשמה means that your neshama, which is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, part of Hashem, is revealed in you. You feel what your neshama wants. Then it's much greater than גילוי אליהו. גילוי אליהו is a certain zechut, this is an avodah. This is a very high madreigah where you reach. And that's what really Chassidus teaches us. And certainly, not everyone reaches the madreigah of R'' Binyamin Kletzker. R'' Binyamin Kletzker is the one, remember I told this story, when he made the סך הכל, he was a businessman. He had a business, and when he made, when he gave someone a bill once, and he wrote, \"You owe me for this, for wood, this and amount money, this,\" and he wrote the amount, then he made a line and he wrote, \"total: אין עוד מלבדו, nothing but Hashem.\" And he was the one that I told the story that when they took him once to a business appointment, and they stopped, and he didn't go off the wagon, he was thinking. It took an hour. And when he finished thinking and he stopped, he says, \"Oh, let's go to the appointment.\" So his wagon driver says, \"Rebbe, what was happening?\" He says, \"I was thinking about השם אחד.\" He says, \"What? We're going to talk about Kletzer, about wood\" - because he was in the wood business - \"you're thinking about השם אחד?\" So he said, \"If other people in the middle of השם אחד can think about wood, I can think about השם אחד in the middle of the wood.\" But this is R'' Binyamin Kletzker, we're not R'' Binyamin Kletzker. But even in our madreigot, if we only lig in Chassidus, lieg in Chassidus means we're thinking about that level, which is a spiritual thing, בכלל if a person liegt in learning, he's involved in learning Torah, automatically he's an aideler person, that's true. But still, after all, when you learn, you don't feel the רוחניות of it, because we learn about גשמיות'דיקע things. When we learn a Mishnah about an ox that gored, and about a person who is holding a טלית and they're fighting, and we learn and it's Torah, so it has a certain purification it causes on the person. But Chassidus, you're, lechat'chilah what are you learning about? You're learning about Hashem. You're learning about the ענינים רוחניים. So when you learn about the ענינים רוחניים, so certainly this aidelt the person, the person is, that your middot automatically become good. So there's a difference: if you try to go through Mussar, you have to fight the middot. And number one, you have to fight each middah separately. You have to fight ka'as. If a person feels that he has the middah of ka'as, of anger, you have to work on anger. You have to work on it and think about it and see how bad it is and see how good it is not to get angry. If you're stingy, you have to work on that. And if you're a person who has a baal ga'avah, you have to work on each one separately. So first of all, you know how long it will take you? Work on changing our, the בירור המדות, changing the middot is going to take a long time. I remember my first farbrengen I was ever by the Rebbe. My first farbrengen by the Rebbe was שמחת תורה תשי\"ח. שמחת תורה 1958. I was a kid. Used to live in Cleveland, came. And I didn't understand what the Rebbe was talking about. But I remember a word. So I remember in the middle of a שיחה, the Rebbe said, he mentioned, I didn't know the whole thing, he mentioned the word בירור המדות, that a person has to purify his middot. And then he said, \"s'iz nisht kein gringe zach, it's not easy.\" And he stopped for a second, this is my, I remember from that, and he started smiling, he says, \"aderabah, try it, you'll see.\" So he said, \"farvut es, ir vet zen. It's not an easy thing, especially if you're working with each middah. But when we're working with Chassidus, you don't work with each middah separately. The אור הנשמה shines. And when the אור הנשמה shines, automatically, everything falls off, because every bad middah is darkness, and when the neshamah shines, all darkness goes away. So if you're fighting with the darkness, so you have a dark, one aspect, another aspect, everything goes away, because it's very general. It's similar, not the same thing, but similar to what it says in the Zohar, concerning what it said, we say, \"התנערי מעפר קומי\", you should shake yourself and get up from the sand. So the Zohar says a mashal, a mashal of a chicken. A chicken, when a chicken rolls in sand, gets full of sand, thousands and thousands and millions of pieces of sand are there. Start picking them out, try to clean the chicken, pick out one sand, another sand, you'll never finish. But when the chicken gives itself one shake, everything go falls off. \"התנערי\", he says, give a shake. That's called a הזזה, a shake. So the same thing here, not exactly the same, but when you shine the light, then automatically all the things which are dark are not there anymore. So that, the first thing of Chasidut, that when we said before in the name of the Alter Rebbe that the purpose of Chasidut is to change the midot, איי, we said that's not Chasidut, that's before Chasidut. But Chasidut has a different approach of how to change the midot. But besides that, let's go a step further. When we talk about changing midot, Chasidut בכלל,

one of the things that Chasidut does is it looks at everything deeper than the superficial way it looks. That's the whole idea. Chasidut, if you learn Chasidut it's very philosophical, and it goes deeper in trying to understand the root of things: the root of creation, the root of a person, and the root of mitzvot. That's the whole inyan of Chasidut. Chasidut, if you learn Chasidut the way you're supposed to, or בכלל, learn the sichot, so whatever, which brings inyanim of Chasidut, this is what it is: it goes into the root of things. Chasidut goes into the root of מידות רעות. If a person doesn't have good midot, Chasidut will go into the root. See, musar speaks about the midot themselves, and also a lot of times tries to see the root of the midot, try to help you. But this, Chasidut, if you learn Chasidut, you'll have a different approach to the way, you'll have a different approach to the way the outlook on midot, on where midot, bad midot come, and how to get good midot, that it's completely different than the way it's without Chasidut. And also, when you go with the approach of Chasidut, there's one nekudah, one point, which will get you rid of all the מידות רעות. The other way you have to work with each one separately. There's one approach that will get you rid of all the bad midot. And what is that? Let me explain what it says in Chasidut. It says in Chasidut that when we talk about the nations of the world, the goyishe nations, Chassidus says each one represents a different bad מידה. Especially the seven nations of ארץ כנען. A person has seven מידות, and these represent the seven bad מידות. Now in truth, it's not only these seven, there are 70 nations in the world. Now, the 70 nations of the world, we know originally, represent all seven מידות, divided by 10. Each one is a detail of another aspect of that one מידה. So you have seven, like the מידת החסד, you have the חסד שבחסד and גבורה שבחסד, וכו', you have all, each one, so that's why you have 10 of each. Then there is a pasuk that says: ראשית גוים, what's the beginning of all the nations? Amalek. ראשית גוים עמלק. And according to many opinions, Amalek is not even counted as one of the 70. Some say that Amalek is one of the 70, and some hold that it's one that's the beginning, and then you have all 70. What does that mean ברוחניות according to Chassidus? That all 70 מידות, or all seven מידות, which means all bad מידות start off with Amalek. And what's Amalek? Amalek represents what Chassidus calls ישות. Amalek represents the person's ego, the person's selfishness, self, and he is the self, the \"I\", that's what Amalek is. It says in different sefarim even that this is the level of Amalek. And this is the source of everything. We know a person has the נפש הבהמית. His נפש הבהמית, an animalistic soul, is something that naturally cares for itself. It's not bad. It's nature. Hashem created us that way, that everyone cares for himself. Like I always say, in English when we write \"I\", write a capital letter. Where do you write capital? Or when you write \"God\", in the mid- middle of a sentence, at the beginning of a sentence always, but in the middle of a sentence, or God, or me, \"I\". Or when we talk about a king. That's capital. So that, and that's nature. And that's the נפש הבהמית of a person, as I explained in the other shiurim, we spoke about tefillah, that the \"I\", that is the נפש הבהמית. From this \"I\" come all the מידות רעות. All the bad מידות come based on this feeling of \"I\". It's me, because, and that's already the second, the מידות רעות, that's what we call the יצר הרע. הרע, הוא רע, רע means bad, he destroys. נפש הבהמית is not bad, he's just a behemah. But he's not bad. A behemah means he has no שכל, he does, he's just natural, and natural is the מידות are the person feels \"I\", from that you get bad מידות. And if we start thinking, that's exactly what it is. Why does a person get angry? Because he said something to me, he did something to me, everything is because of me. Why is a person stingy? Because I want the money, I don't want to give. It's, there's all \"I\". Everything is, why is a person nasty? Because \"I\", it gives me pleasure. It's, everything is based on the \"I\". And if you start thinking that this is the problem, and you start fixing this problem, automatically all the middot ra'ot fall All off, you don't have to start working with anger, or with ga'avah, or ga'avah is obviously I. Because if you start, if you learn Chassidut, and one of the main things of Chassidut is to teach a person to have bitul. And when we say before that you have to be מגלה, reveal, the אור הנשמה, the light of the neshamah, what is a neshamah? The neshamah, it says נר ה׳ נשמת אדם. The neshamah is compared to a candle. That's, in Tanya it says, just like a candle, the nature of a candle is always to go up. Whichever way you'll hold the candle, the fire, it'll always go up. Because the candle, the fire wants to go to its source. The Rambam says that the source of fire is around the moon, תחת גלגל הירח, under the גלגל of the moon, and the fire wants to go to its source. So the neshamah is like a candle. Why? The neshamah always wants to go, it wants to go up, wants to get closer to Hashem. And in Tanya he says an interesting thing. It's a funny thing, the fire wants to go to its source. Do you know what will happen to the fire when the fire would get to its source? It'll disappear. So why does the fire want to get there? The nature is כל דבר רוצה בקיומו. Everything, everybody wants its own existence. So why would the fire want to go there? Because the nature of fire, the fire for some reason recognizes that its own metziut doesn't count. Since he is fire and he has a source, he wants to be in the place where he is, where he belongs, even though it means his ego, his self will not be. And neshamah is exactly like that. The neshamah wants to go back to Hashem, even though when the neshamah would go back there, it would lose its sep- separate identity, separate, it wouldn't be a separate entity anymore. It doesn't care, because it doesn't have any self- selfishness. But the problem is that the neshamah is covered up by the body. The neshamah wants it, the body doesn't let. But if a person would let his אור הנשמה shine, then what would be? He'd want to get close to Hashem, and then his whole self would fall apart in a good way. So if a person learns Chassidut, and a person really understands and follows and feels what Chassidut says, which is the concept of bitul, automatically the person would not have bad middot. So Chassidut goes to the root of things. Chassidut goes to the root of middot ra'ot, and the root of how you get good middot, and that is by getting closer to Hashem. So in other words, if you feel that your metziut is nothing, and there's only the metziut of Hashem, and that's really the foundation of Chassidut, there are hundreds and hundreds of books of Chassidut, and they all say one thing. They're all one nekudah, that we're nothing, and אין עוד מלבדו, there's nothing but Hashem. So if a person learns chassidus, then his middos tovos will be the way you're supposed to, automatically. And this is one point of what the Alter Rebbe meant that what's the purpose of chassidus, that a person should have good middos, because, yes, if a person learns chassidus and he follows chassidus properly, yes, he will have good middos. But there is still more, and that's what I'm trying to lead up to.

I said before that the Alter Rebbe did not say that the purpose of chassidus is to change your natural middos. It is to change the nature of your middos. And that's connected to what I just said. Changing your natural middos means, like I said, naturally a person would have bad middos, and you're supposed to change your bad middos to good middos. Changing the nature of your middos means changing your good middos. Changing the good middos? What's wrong with good middos? Why should you change it? You have to make sure that your good middos are there not because of yourself, but because of Hashem. You should change the nature of your middos, not your natural middos. The natural we certainly have to change, without chassidus, but the nature of why you have the good middos. If you have your good middah because you're a nice person, then after as much as you have a good middah, which is fine, you didn't reach the goal, because after all, it's for yourself. If you're a nice person, you care. Like I said many times, you have a person, I once heard from a person, he saw a car accident and he ran to help the person. The person was bleeding. So someone said, \"Oh, you're so nice.\" \"Yeah,\" he says, \"I can't stand blood. I can't stand blood.\" So why did he help him? He helped him? He helped himself, he can't stand blood. Just like people say, some people will want to say that there is no need to have kibbud av, to respect your parents. What do you mean don't have? You have to. After all, they raised you, they helped you. They helped me? It's nature of a human being to care for a child. Lehavdil, an animal also cares for a child. So they care for me? They care for themselves, it's their nature. They satisfy themselves. And that is true, you care for yourself. So if you do that, it's for yourself. And therefore, if sometimes this person would have to have an opposite middah, he wouldn't. If a person is naturally good, and sometimes you should not be good, you won't. Because you're doing it because that's your nature. And what happens in a case where Hashem wants you for some reason not to be, you wouldn't do it. But if you'll have the good middos not because it's your nature, but because Hashem wants it, that's completely different. Then it's not you, then it's Hashem. And that's what the Alter Rebbe... and that is the chiddush of chassidus. That chassidus is to forget about yourself. And therefore said, what the purpose of chassidus? He said to change the nature of your middos, to realize that you're nothing, and even your good middos are nothing. As we find concerning Avraham Avinu, it says by the Akeidah, after Avraham finished with the Akeidah, Hashem said to him, כי עתה ידעתי כי ירא אלקים אתה. Now I know you you fear, you're a fear, a God-fearing person. Now he knows? The Akeidah was the tenth test. You know how many tests Avraham went through? You know how many things Avraham did for Hashem all these years? And only by the akeidah? Know how old Avraham was by the akeidah? By the akeidah he was 137 years old. When he was three years old already, he broke the idols of his father and he was put into the furnace, I mean, all kind mesirat nefesh. Now, now I know that you're a fearer, fear Hashem? So Chassidus has a peshat like this: all the things that Avraham Avinu did, spreading Hashem's name and all the kindness, hachnasat orchim, all he did, could be he did it because of his nature. Avraham is the middah of chesed, his middah was chesed, kindness, אהבה, he loved Hashem and he did everything. But we still not sure that it's done for the sake of Hashem. Here, when he used an opposite middah, imagine he was ready to kill his son, which is not chesed at all, Hashem says, \"Now I know.\" Now I know that all this, this revealed that the whole time it wasn't because of your nature, it because of Me. And that's why he used the term, \"Now I know you fear Hashem.\" Because all along Avraham Avinu's middah is אהבה, that now I know you have יראה, oh, now I know that's what it is. Also the Alter Rebbe brings a a ראיה from the Gemara. There's a story in Gemara that one time that Rav... Rav... Chanina ben Teradyon, Chanina ben Teradyon is one of the ten people who got killed, עשרה הרוגי מלכות. And it says he was מקהיל קהילות ברבים when the government said decreed that anybody teaches Torah will get killed, he got people together and he taught Torah. And later he was killed. So once he asked one of his חברים, the Tannaim, and he said, \"What do you think, I'm going to have olam haba?\" So he says to him, \"You know what, tell me, you know any good deed that you did that, tell me something that you did.\" So he said, \"Yeah, I think I remember once I put aside money for Purim, for מתנות לאביונים I have to give for the poor people, and it got mixed up with other money, and I didn't know which one this was, and what I did was I laid out extra money and I gave it all away.\" He, \"Oh, yeah! Oh, you're going to have olam haba.\" Said the Alter Rebbe, that makes no sense. First of all, what was his question? He knew that he went on mesirat nefesh all his life to teach Torah. Chanina ben Teradyon, the greatest tzadikim! What was his question? And even when he got asked this question, what did he answer him? He should have answered him, \"What? You're asking if you have olam haba? Sure, you're going on mesirat nefesh!\" No, he asked him and he told him a maaseh with the דמי פורים? That's going to be the proof that he goes to olam haba? The answer is what he meant to ask was, \"I know I did all these things, but maybe that's my nature. I'm an adventurous person. There are some people who take risks and do things and that's maybe that's my nature. That's why I'm doing all this.\" So he said, \"You're right. Is there anything the opposite direction that you did?\" He said, \"Yeah.\" And the other ones were acts of gevurah, he told him, \"I had an act of a chesed that I did.\" \"Oh, really? Oh, so obviously you're not limited to one kav, one direction. That shows you have olam haba.\" So that's the pshat that you change not your middot... your your מדות טבעיות and natural middot, but the nature of the middot. And it's all connected to what I said before, that how does this come? This comes because if you do it the way chasidut expects you to do, is then you're doing it for the sake of Hashem. You do it because there is nothing but Hashem, and your neshama feels there's nothing, so you're batel. If you're batel, then automatically you have good middot. If you do that, then your middot are not natural. You're not doing it because you're good. Or some people say, you know why you have to have good middot? Because imagine if all people would have bad middot, know how society would look? It would be a churban, a destruction of the world. They have to be nice, otherwise, civilization won't work. And they're right! But if you do that, you're not doing it for Hashem. You're doing it for the sake of the world. That's not what we Yidden are. We Yidden have nothing but Hashem, and whatever we do is for Hashem. So the good middot have to be for Hashem. And if you think of Hashem the way chasidut wants, then you have middot for Hashem and it's not natural. You have changed the nature of your middot. The The nature of the good middot. And that's how we find by certain specific middot, actually it says, let's give an example of middot of gaavah. It says Hashem says if someone is a בעל גאוה, אין אני והוא יכולים לדור במדור אחד, I can't live with him. So some people think that it's a punishment. If you are a baal gaavah, Hashem says, \"I'm going to move from you, I can't live with you.\" Not a punishment, it's an automatic thing. A person who is a baal gaavah is a contradiction to Hashem. Baal gaavah means he holds of his own metziut, \"I\", and if it's an \"I\" and Hashem, it's a contradiction because there is nothing but Hashem, and if I am something, then it's a contradiction to Hashem. Hashem says, \"I can't be here.\" And if you learn Chassidut, you realize that there is no real \"I\". That's why they even say a joke, by Chassidim they used to say a joke, what is the difference between a chassidisher baal gaavah and a non-chassidisher baal gaavah? Because unfortunately, you have chassidishe baalei gaavah's too. But the difference is like this: if you're a non-chassid baal gaavah, how do you express your gaavah? \"You are nothing, and I am something.\" A chassidisher baal gaavah says, \"I'm nothing, and you're two times nothing.\" They're both gaavah, but the chassid knows that whatever it is, he's nothing, that's for sure. \"Well, you're even worse than me!\" But because the approach is that there is nothing but Hashem. Take kaas, anger. A person to get angry, if you really know the truth, how can you get angry? You're angry at somebody that he did something to you. He did something to you. If you believe in Hashem and Chassidut teaches us that's אין עוד מלבדו, there's nothing that happens by itself. If that person hurt you, you deserve to get hurt. So who are you angry at? You're angry at Hashem? Now, it doesn't mean that that person who did it doesn't have to get punished by the beit din or whoever has to punish him, because he had bechirah chofshit. He chose to do it. But if he wouldn't choose to do it, הרבה שלוחים למקום, השם would find some other way. But the person who got it would get it anyway because it came from Hashem. That's why it says David Hamelech said concerning who cursed him? Nu, who cursed him? Nu. Ah? No, nu. Anyway, I'll remind myself. He said the pasuk is השם אמר לו קלל. He said, says, \"Don't I can't be angry at him. Hashem told him to curse.\" Shimi! Shimi ben Gera cursed David Hamelech! So he said, \"השם said told him to curse me.\" Hashem told Shimi to curse David? What David meant was, \"Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, Hashem told him to curse me. If I got cursed, I deserved it. Hashem made it happen. Hashem made\" Now, Shimi had to get punished, so later taka he told David told Shlomo to punish him, because that's one thing, because he chose. If he wouldn't curse, someone else would curse. Hashem would make sure that he would get cursed. So the person has no reason to get angry at anybody or at anything, because if you know it comes from Hashem and you know that the person is only a vessel through which it happened, so I'm going to be angry at him? So therefore there is no reason for kaas. And the same is with all other midot. That if you only realize that everything comes from Hashem and realize it with an emet, to say it is very easy. To really mean it, and that's what chasidut is. Chasidut is to make you See, everyone says this. Ask anybody that doesn't learn chasidut and they'll also tell you, \"Everything comes from Hashem, I know\" It's a vort from the Berditchever, R'' Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, and I'll finish with this. After he got married, just a young couple, he left his wife and went to Mezritch to be by the Mezritcher Maggid for two years. You can imagine how furious his father-in-law was. He wasn't a chasid, and so, when he came back, he attacked him, \"Where did you go? What did you do? You left your young wife!\" Uh, attacked him. And finally, says to him, \"What did you go for? What did you\" Says, \"I went to learn.\" \"What did you learn there?\" \"What did I learn? I learned that now I know אז ס'איז דא א גאט אויף דער וועלט. Now I know that there is a God in the world.\" So that got him more angry. \"For that you had to go to Mezritch for two years? Who doesn't know that? Everyone knows that!\" He had a maid, a Jewish maid, a simple woman, calls her in. He says, \"Esther, I think was her name, Esther, who controls the world?\" Says, \"What's the question? ס'איז דא א גאט אויף דער וועלט.\" She said, \"There is a God in the world.\" So he screams at him, \"You see? She didn't go to Mezritch for two years, and she also said there is a God in the world.\" He says, \"Yeah, she said, and I know.\" There's saying and knowing. Chasidut, if you learn chasidut, you know. If you learn, it לייגט זיך אין קאפ, it goes into your And if you know that really there is nothing but Hashem, then there is no reason to get angry, you can't get angry, automatically. That brings out, your neshama shines, and if your neshama shines and you know this, you won't get angry, you won't have gaava, you won't have any of these midot raot automatically, because you have the source. And that is what we have to think about, how to get go about this. The truth is is again, it's easier said than done, but if we at least know what the formula is, then we can work on this, and the Eibershter helps that we succeed.