Who Are You?

The Torah tells that Isaac asked: “Who are you?” Ask yourself one simple question: Who are you? Most people answer right away: “I’m a teacher.” “I’m in business.” “I’m a father.” And in that answer they make a basic mistake. We asked who you are, and they told us what you do. These are two completely different questions. Mixing them up costs a person dearly. The Clothes Are Not the Person The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, teaches that the soul has three “garments”: thought, speech and action. The word “garments” was chosen carefully. A garment is not the person. It is what the person wears. You wear a coat, but the coat is not you. You do a deed, but the deed is not you. This is a deep distinction. Our actions, the good ones and the bad ones alike, are the outward expression of a person. They are not who he is inside. Someone who counts his successes in Torah study as the basis of his worth is making a mistake. Someone who defines himself by his failures in making a living is making a mistake too. Both have hung their identity on the garment. They have forgotten that someone is standing underneath it. A Piece of Hashem Above, Truly So who are you? The Tanya opens with words unlike any others. The soul of every Jew, it says, is “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” This is not a metaphor and it is not poetry. It is real. Your soul is a part of the living Hashem. It does not change. It is not damaged. It is not affected by what you did yesterday, or the day before. The Torah itself calls us by this name: “You are children to Hashem.” It does not say “children when you behave the way children should.” It says children: by your very being, from birth, with no conditions. The Talmud makes the point even sharper: “Even though he has sinned, he is still a Jew.” Sin does not erase that name. The name comes before the sin, and it remains after it. This is the foundation of the love for every Jew that the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, taught. Even the simplest of the simple carries within him a soul that can only be described as “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” Not because of what he has done, but because of what he is. The Secret Power of Returning to Hashem Now we can understand the secret behind the power of returning to Hashem. If you were nothing more than your actions, returning would be impossible. You would be stuck forever in what you did. But “who you are” is, at its very core, separate from “what you did.” So the possibility of coming back to your pure inner self is always there. Sin damaged the garment, not the person. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, explains in his Letter on Returning to Hashem that sin damages “the garments of the soul,” its thought, speech and action, and not the core of the soul itself. That is exactly why returning to Hashem has real power. It goes back to something that was never diminished at all. His book Likkutei Torah teaches: “Even though the Jewish people have sinned, the light within them has not departed.” The foundation deep inside is healthy. Always.

Putting It into Practice

The next time you feel you have failed, whether in your studies, in making a living or in your relationships, stop for a moment before you define yourself by that failure. Ask: Who am I? Not: What did I do? The failure is a garment, and a garment can be changed. You, the real “you,” are “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” And from that place, you can always get back up.

Questions and answers

Q: When asked "Who are you?", why is answering with your job or role a basic mistake?

Rabbi Landau answers: The Torah tells that Isaac asked: “Who are you?” Ask yourself one simple question: Who are you? Most people answer right away: “I’m a teacher.” “I’m in business.” “I’m a father.” And in that answer they make a basic mistake. We asked who you are, and they told us what you do. These are two completely different questions. Mixing them up costs a person dearly.

Q: What does Isaac's question "Who are you?" teach about the difference between who you are and what you do?

Q: What does the Tanya mean when it calls thought, speech and action "garments" of the soul?

Rabbi Landau answers: The Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, teaches that the soul has three “garments”: thought, speech and action. The word “garments” was chosen carefully. A garment is not the person. It is what the person wears. You wear a coat, but the coat is not you. You do a deed, but the deed is not you. This is a deep distinction. Our actions, the good ones and the bad ones alike, are the outward expression of a person. They are not who he is inside. Someone who counts his successes in Torah study as the basis of his worth is making a mistake. Someone who defines himself by his failures in making a living is making a mistake too.

Q: What does it mean that the soul of every Jew is "a piece of Hashem above, truly"?

Rabbi Landau answers: So who are you? The Tanya opens with words unlike any others. The soul of every Jew, it says, is “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” This is not a metaphor and it is not poetry. It is real. Your soul is a part of the living Hashem. It does not change. It is not damaged. It is not affected by what you did yesterday, or the day before. The Torah itself calls us by this name: “You are children to Hashem.” It does not say “children when you behave the way children should.” It says children: by your very being, from birth, with no conditions. The Talmud makes the point even sharper: “Even though he has sinned, he is still a Jew.” Sin does not erase that name.

Q: What should I ask myself when I feel I have failed?

Rabbi Landau answers: The next time you feel you have failed, whether in your studies, in making a living or in your relationships, stop for a moment before you define yourself by that failure. Ask: Who am I? Not: What did I do? The failure is a garment, and a garment can be changed. You, the real “you,” are “a piece of Hashem above, truly.” And from that place, you can always get back up.