As noted earlier, the overwhelming majority of the letters that the Alter Rebbe’s sons included here as part of the Tanya were intended to encourage active Divine service,¹ particularly through the giving of tzedakah for the Kollel Chabad Fund. (This fund supported fellow Chasidim who had settled in the Holy Land, there to serve G -d through Torah and prayer.)

Accordingly, these themes should be sought even in a letter such as the one that follows, which does not refer to them directly. If at all possible, one should also seek to connect this letter to the one which precedes it and thus understand why the author’s sons placed it where they did.²

In the present letter, the Alter Rebbe elaborates upon two general categories in the love of G -d. The first category of love is granted man only as a gift from Above: he cannot attain it by dint of his own service. This pleasurable experience of Divinity is termed³ ahavah betaanugim (“a love which experiences delights”) and is a foretaste of the World to Come, wherein the soul basks in the rays of the Shechinah. The second category of love for G -d—longing and thirsting for Him—can be attained through man’s service and meditation.

The connection between this letter and the previous one, and its lesson in man’s Divine service (particularly with respect to charity), may then be the following:

The previous letter extolled the merit of serving G -d through tzedakah, whereby one simultaneously secures the revelations of Gan Eden and of the World to Come, the time of the Resurrection.

The difference in revelation between Gan Eden and the World to Come is that Gan Eden reveals but a “glimmer of a glimmer” of that which is accomplished through the performance of a mitzvah—its “fruits,” while the World to Come, reveals the reward of the very essence of the mitzvah. Both Gan Eden and the World to Come—to a greater or lesser degree—reveal and enable the soul to apprehend the essential Divinity that underlies the mitzvah.

But all the merits of both the above levels relate only to a consequence of the mitzvah, viz., its revelations. The nucleus of the mitzvah is the fact that through performing it, the individual cleaves to G -d, for מִצְוָה is related to צַוְותָא, signifying attachment. And this nucleus surfaces at the actual time of performance. It is for this reason that our Sages teach that⁴ “Better one hour in repentance and good deeds in this world than all of the World to Come”; the actual practice of repentance and good deeds (for by prefacing the deeds with repentance they become “good” and “luminous”⁵) in this world is superior to all the lofty spiritual levels of Gan Eden and the World to Come.

However, lofty as actual performance may be, its effects are totally concealed; man is neither aware of them nor does his soul perceive them at all. In this letter, therefore, the Alter Rebbe explains the two categories of love, for the love of G -d is a feeling that is manifest in the soul.

The first, ahavah betaanugim (“a love that experiences delights”), is related to the revelation in the World to Come, at the time of the Resurrection. For just as at that time⁶ “the righteous will sit with their crowns on their heads and take delight in the radiance of the Divine Presence,” so, too, is this love a pleasurable love; in the words of the Alter Rebbe, “It is truly a foretaste of the World to Come.”

The second manner of love—a thirstful longing for G -d and a desire to cleave to Him—is a revelation similar to that of Gan Eden, for there too there is a limited degree of longing for G -d, as explained in the previous letter at length.

Thus, when a Jew performs a mitzvah, he not only cleaves to G -d unawares: some aspect of this contact may also become revealed within his soul—both the revelation which foreshadows that of Gan Eden and even the revelation which anticipates the World to Come at the time of the Resurrection.

And even though ahavah betaanugim is a gift bestowed upon lofty souls from Above, some echo of it may resonate within any Jew when his wholehearted performance of the mitzvot is vitalized by his love of G -d.⁷

18 It is written, “How beautiful and how pleasant are you, ahavah betaanugim!”⁸

יח כְּתִיב: “מַה יָּפִית וּמַה נָּעַמְתְּ, אַהֲבָה בַּתַּעֲנוּגִים”.

I.e., “How beautiful and pleasant it is to cleave to You with ahavah betaanugim”—with a love that experiences delight in the state of cleaving to the beloved, as opposed to a love in which the lover seeks to cleave to the beloved.

There are two kinds of love, each of which subdivides further.

הִנֵּה ב’ מִינֵי אֲהָבוֹת הֵן,

The first is ahavah betaanugim,

הָאַחַת – “אַהֲבָה בַּתַּעֲנוּגִים”,

meaning that one delights wondrously in G -d,

דְּהַיְינוּ, שֶׁמִּתְעַנֵּג עַל ה’ עוֹנֶג נִפְלָא

with a great and immense joy, the joy of the soul and its yearning as it tastes that G -d is good⁹

בְּשִׂמְחָה רַבָּה וַעֲצוּמָה, שִׂמְחַת הַנֶּפֶשׁ וּכְלוֹתָהּ, בְּטָעֲמָהּ כִּי טוֹב ה’

and as delightful as wondrously sweet delights.

וְנָעִים, נְעִימוּת עֲרֵיבוּת עַד לְהַפְלִיא,

This sweetness is not sensed as a result of one’s comprehension; rather, this is a sensation of wonderment at that which transcends one’s comprehension.

It is truly a foretaste of the World to Come, where “[the righteous will sit with their crowns on their heads], and take delight [in the radiance of the Divine Presence].”¹⁰