How to read God's mind | 10 Minutes of Meaning | Tanya # 25

Good morning, Booker. Welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning. As we're making our way through Tanya, beginning parakeet today, want to thank our generous sponsors of our 10-minute series, Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Thank you for their generosity sponsoring Tanya and so much more. Please help yourself to a coffee on this cold day or a slushie on the cold day or a pastry on this cold day. And soon, please God, soon where's Musha? We're going to add soup to the repertoire as well. A little early in the day for soup, but it's never too early for a good soup. Okay, perk of Tanya. I see some of you had not had your coffee yet. That's okay. I'm entertaining myself. It really doesn't matter about you. Okay. Perrick Dal, we last left off talking about the greatest way that we can connect and unite, integrate with the ribon, with the Almighty is through Torah and through mitzvos. That even our inner thoughts in essentially our lavushim are garments of the soul. But when does our soul unite, return to its creator? through the observance of mitzvah and through the learning of Torah. And that's exactly what the Balatanya elaborates here on in Perk H in chapter 5. A little esoteric and complicated, but we'll learn it together. I'm the farthest thing from an authority. As I say, I don't teach Tanya, I'm learning Tanya out loud and uh hopefully we'll learn it and make some headway together. So again, we established in Peric Dalid that the greatest bonding experience with Hashem is through Torah study and mitzvos. And now we'll talk about why that is. Last parak we quoted the holy tells us in the name of Eli Yahu that no thought can grasp you. No thought thinking alone leak thought alone cannot grasp the almighty. So what does that mean? That sounds like a riddle or tongue twister. Say it again. When your mind processes and masters an idea, what we're trying to understand is told us no thought can grasp Hashem. So what does it mean thought and what does it mean grasp? In order to appreciate and understand that statement, we have to define our terms which is always true. What is a thought and what does it mean to grasp? When your mind processes and masters an idea, your mind initially grasps the basic point of the idea mentally engulfing it. So when we're exposed to an idea, our mind grasps it and mentally engulfs it. That's the way that translates these words in his Tanya. The mind grasps and then mentally engulfs. Rabbi Steinops in his defines it as when a mind conceives and comprehends a concept, the mind grasps and encloses it within its intellect. So different English words are used to describe the same idea. When you understand something, we absorb it like a sponge that picks up a puddle of water. That idea is absorbed into our mind. So, we're exposed, we read, we listen, we hear or we think, we discover. So, our mind absorbs that idea like a sponge absorbs water. But at this early stage, you've only engulfed and absorbed the basic point. We haven't actually integrated. We haven't analyzed. We haven't delved into. We haven't fully grasped it. So the bat continues and after you've thoroughly analyzed it now it's fully grasped, engulfed and absorbed in your mind. So at first essentially we just perceive it. We're exposed to it. We get a perspective of it. But then when we spend time on it, when we marinate in it, when we analyze it, when we peel back the layers and the onion of it, now we can fully grasp and absorb and become engulfed. But there's another dimension to the experience of mentally grasping and that is during the entering time when the mind is processing it and attempting to grasp it. It is your mind that is absorbed in the idea. There's two directions going on here. We are absorbing the idea and the idea is engulfing us. the holiest and highest ideas, we are absorbing the idea and the idea is engulfing us. So until we've mastered the idea, it still captiv captivates us. When you're exposed to something, when you heard a gishmak, a schmoo, when something really touches a deep place inside you, you're continuing to think about it. You're continuing to marinate in it. It continues to captivate you. It wonders you. You tell everyone you see and everyone you meet when you heard a great vor you tell everyone you know listen to this idea listen to this thought listen to this listen to this concept listen to this it's not just that we're absorbing the idea the idea is absorbing us it captivates us at that point it's absorbed in you so when the idea that when we study Torah text which is one with Hashem then there's a union that takes place between the author of the idea in this case the almighty himself and us as we're absorbing the idea and the idea is captivating us. There's a union that takes place between the two tries to illustrate this by way of example again what are we trying to accomplish here in paran is telling us that we think it's only through experiential when I do a mitzvah and I make and I sing and I dance and I hop and I bop that's my avote and there's nothing wrong there's a time there a place that's also wonderful when I shake the lul love and when I hear the chauffeur and when I wrap the fillin and when I sit in the suka the experiential physical mitzvah also are a way that we're bonding we're connecting with Hashem but the highest union is in the mind is in the intellect the highest union is in the sobriety of thought not diluted or distorted by too many but it's when we're actually able to meditate and contemplate and think about when we're absorbing the ideas that the author that has given himself and we are captivated by so it's absorbing us the greatest union and hereab I would say gets a bad rap and it's wrong to think that it's all about and singing and dancing and the experiential which it is also but at its core the balata system of avod at its core is about cognition the intellect the thought it's about learning Torah people try to sort of create a line and say you know oh the lit it's all about learning to the it's all about learning Torah and by the it's all about because you know that's only for the elite that's only for the highest level it had to be able to speak to the every man so it's all about it's not true it's not true all you have to do is open the Tanya and it's very clear from the very beginning but certainly as you unpack here in parake we already saw but again here in parabina it's the layers of the mind it's the connection through Torah. It's through only the learning of Torah. When you're in the process of analyzing and mastering, the intellect grasps and engulfs this observing all the details, all the consequences, all the ramifications, all the applications. Your mind is absorbed in it and is captivated by it. We are absorbing the idea and the idea is absorbing us. So the author of that idea, the authority who dictates that that idea the ultimate union that we have between us and them is the connection we get through it. This is not just some idea you discovered. It's not the diary of a mere mortal. You're not just looking through the comic book, the artwork, the literature, the essay of a mere mortal. This is divinely written. This is the the essence the rzone of the so when we open up and we learn and we study when we absorb and are absorbed by those ideas there's a union there's a connection that takes place and shim are in dispute. They argue there's a financial conflict. They have a dispute over where the fence goes. Where's the border? Are they encroaching one or the other? Whatever the argument may be and there's a particular legal argument has a counterargument and there's a ruling and the conclusion is so you're absorbing the wisdom and will of Hashem into our mind and we're being captivated by it and that's a union between us and Hashem and I would say unfortunately tragically too often this is missing in our experience of learning Torah. We sit down and we're so caught up in the intellect that we forget that we're having a union with. That's why there's in the beginning when you open the inside of your gar there's a to say before you learn and when you're done learning great sadikim encouraged us to turn that Torah into that whatever I just learned said is this let me inculcate and applicate apply and let me execute those ideas that in my life in this way we have to has to be in who was it uh book used to say you have to read the Mishna not just this is the will we're tapping into the essence of a of the almighty can't see him feel him hear him touch him how do you know what he wants because he gave us he authored his Torah and when we study it when we learn it when we're absorbing it and we're absorbed by it we create this union between us and Hashem it's the moment of rendevu It's a moment of intimacy. We should walk out of every experience of tamorra of learning, every dafomi that you attend or learn on your own, every shir that you go to and say, "How am I transformed? How am I different? How did I just connect? How did I just have a moment of intimacy with the almighty? How am I forever changed by it?" So much so that indeed the intellect what we call it is and the Torah the word that's used for an intimate experience or rendevu we don't have a word for intimacy physical intimacy sexuality the word that's to know so when we come to know to absorb the ideas authored by Hashem and they absorb us that's as close as we can come to an intimate moment with Hashem so his is critically important meditation bringings they're all critically important but the highest level of intimacy of union don't think it's just the and by the it's the highest level is to connect to the divine wisdom and will but what if you study a part of the Torah that has no particular relevance what if you're studying an esoteric part of Torah or part of Torah that doesn't seem to represent the will and wisdom so the continues Even if that thing that you're analyzing, you're studying never happened, never will happen. There's no whoever argued this, there's no whoever counter argued that there's no that ever concluded the other thing. When we learn Torah, the whole method of the Gmorra is to sometimes give extreme examples and scenarios. So the novice says this happens when you're learning. The novice says this is ridiculous. This never happened. This never could happen. Somebody throws something off the roof and you break it before it land. and then somebody jumped off a roof and they landed inside a woman and that's how they raped and therefore that never happened and never could happen. It's ridiculous. It's not ridiculous. The Gmorra gives extreme scenarios, circumstances, even those that might be highly unlikely first of all to extract and extrapolate the principles and the theories, but moreover to expose us to the divine wisdom and will of Hashem. As we said, the zor teaches no thought can grasp him, nor his will, nor his wisdom, since no finite moral can grasp something infinite. Did us an incredible favor. And it's true. He's infinite and omnipotent. He's boundless and endless. We mere more mortal finite minds could never access or tap into or grasp him. So what did he do? He simplified He constricted, restricted. He was mit the lavush. He put in a lavush. The divine wisdom and will is dressed in the Torah, the Mishna, the we have your mind becomes absorbed in them and is captivated by them. And listen what the says. When we learn Torah with that, when we learn Torah with that mindfulness and that intent, when we go in and out of the with that goal and reflect on what we just experienced in that way, then there is no other merging like it the you get from learning Torah with that intention, there is nothing like it. No, no, even not even in wrapping on yourself or someone else in anything physical. There's nothing as high as the merging, the union, the connection, the intimacy. You become completely one with another entity from every conceivable perspective and retain your own experience. That is that is the experience of Torah on that level. So here in parake the alterb is teaching us about why is why is it that above everything physical including mitzvos Torah when the mind is able to connect we're absorbing and receiving and we're being absorbed by and captivated by the ideas we're connecting with the author of the ideas the authority over those rulings and conclusions and that is the the highest ye the highest merger and union that we're capable apable of we we hopefully all learn Torah, but are we really learning Torah? Do we walk away from the learning of Torah that we just had a intimate rand with the Almighty? Are we experiencing it in that transformational way? That is the first part of parakeet. Mitsm will continue with it next