Translation:Likutei Moharan/53

In the main, the ability to have children is dependent upon the heh, in the aspect of “Heh (Here) you have seed” (Genesis 47:23). Thus Avraham and Sarah did not have children until they attained this heh. <As the Sages, of blessed memory, taught: Avram could not father offspring, but Avraham could father offspring (Bereishit Rabbah 44:10).>

This is because the ability to have children comes essentially through the daat, in the aspect of “Adam knew his wife” (Genesis 4:25). Hence, “a child cannot bear offspring” (Sanhedrin 68b), <because he lacks daat that is whole>. And the essence of daat is that he makes use of his daat — i.e., he converts his intellect from potential to actual. For a child also has daat, but a child’s daat is still in potentia and not actus, because he has not made use of his daat and has not converted it from potential to actual.

Yet someone whose daat is whole — because he has converted it from potential to actual, and has attained with his daat that which is possible for the human mind to attain with its daat — he is then close to the daat of the Holy One, and there is no difference between human daat and the daat of God other than five things, as is brought. Then his daat nourishes from God’s daat, which is the aspect of heh, and he can then father offspring.

The only way for a person to complete his daat, so that his daat is whole, is by means of his active involvement with people to bring them closer to the service of God. Through this his daat becomes whole. For they sharpen his daat, in the aspect of “but from my students, more than them all” (Makkot 10a). This is the reason [one’s] students are called [one’s] children, for through them comes the ability to have children.

This is why Avraham and Sarah made such an effort to enlist converts, because through this they completed their daat and drew close to this heh — i.e., to the daat of God — and so merited having children. For through the converts, their daat expanded, in the aspect of “but from my students, more than them all.”

But someone whose daat is not whole, so that he is far <even> from human daat, and certainly from the daat of God, which is the aspect of heh, he is <in the aspect of> a child and cannot bear offspring.

This is the reason the tzaddikim work so hard and run after people to bring them closer to serving God. This is not so as to increase their [own] glory, God forbid, but to complete their daat, in the aspect of “but from my students, more than them all.”

This is why the tzaddikim have the power to grant special providence to barren women, for they are whole in daat and close to the Upper Daat, so that there is nothing separating their daat from the daat of God other than five things, as explained above. And five things — this itself is the daat of God, from which comes the ability to have children.

This is the explanation of: {Three things broaden a man’s daat — a beautiful wife, a [beautiful] home, and [beautiful] furnishings (Berakhot 57b).}

a wife — That is, the corporeal, <which is> called “a wife.” A person should be temperate in his corporeality, with a balanced temperament so that he is suited for receiving intellect.

a beautiful home — This is the fear of God. As in the teaching [of the Sages]: Woe to the one who has no home (Shabbat 31b). For a person should ensure that his fear of God precedes his wisdom.

and beautiful furnishings — These are fitting students to receive from him.

When a man has all these preparatory elements, <they broaden his daat — i.e., his daat becomes whole, as explained above>.

Now these are the five things that distinguish His daat from our daat:

The first is that with a single knowing He knows many things, and there is no multiplicity in His daat.

The second is that He knows things before they come to be, even when they are totally non-existent.

The third is that His daat encompasses things that are infinite.

The fourth is that His daat never undergoes a change, so that there is no change when He knows something in potential that afterwards becomes actual.

And the fifth is that His knowing something does not preclude its contingency.

Here you have a second version, in which I recorded on my own a part of this lesson based on what I had heard:

When a person merits perfected daat — i.e., he merits a [level of] daat beyond which <the human intellect> cannot <grasp> — then the difference between perfected human daat and the daat of God is [only] in five aspects. These are expounded on in the holy books.

Thus, a person has to strive to attain perfected daat, [to that level] beyond which man cannot know. Then there will be no difference between his daat and the daat of God other than in these five things. For these five things cannot be known by man’s intellect, unless by someone who is more elevated than [all] mankind.

Yet the way to merit perfected daat is through converts. As the Sages, of blessed memory, taught: “I learned much from my teachers… but from my students, more than them all.” Because each one questions and asks, for each one has impediments to the service of God, and it is necessary to answer each one’s questions — through this his daat is completed. As a result he merits having children.

A child cannot bear offspring because he lacks daat that is whole. But when he merits daat that is whole, he merits having children. Therefore through this, Avraham — he would convert the men and Sarah would convert the women — merited perfected daat, so that there was no difference between his daat and the daat of God other than these five things. And as a result he merited the heh mentioned above.

Thus: “Avram could not father offspring, but Avraham could father offspring.” For by means of perfected daat, which is the aspect of the heh, he merited having children.