Regret ISN'T enough | Ten Minutes of Meaning | Tanya #38

Good morning, and welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning. This trends gratitude to Marla and Michael Fedak for the generous sponsorship. Today she is also sponsored anonymously in honor of their 16th wedding anniversary Rosh Chodesh Adar. Mazel tov and happy anniversary to those anonymous individuals. Please help yourself with Shul Cafe, coffee, slushies, pastries, and the Chodesh tova good and Chodesh mamesh we should be marum b'simcha. We are in the eighth chapter, eighth perek of Tanya. We've been learning about what happens, the cleansing that's necessary, the purge and the purgatory necessary when we've made poor decisions, bad mistakes in this world, when we've indulged in the klipa, or even the klipas noga. What has to happen in order to bring us back? So last time we learned about Chibbut haKever. When the body has absorbed, just like if you eat the wrong thing, even if you have all the regret in the world, that doesn't make the calories disappear. Your flesh and your blood still absorb whatever you ate. Your lab results don't improve just cuz you did a lot of chuva and you clapped al chet in between eating all the gribenes and going for the blood test. Clapping al chet is not going to help with the lab return. So similarly, our body absorbs based on the poor mistakes and choices that we've made, and we have to undergo what's called Chibbut haKever. Chibbut haKever, as we discussed, is the notion of the angel, the soul is returned after death. It comes back into the body for a short time, where the angels, four angels come and beat the klipa out of the body. Afterwards, one of the chevre said, "No, it's so negative. It's describing Yiddishkeit that Hashem punishes and that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to I'm not describing it that way." I sent that individual several articles from chabad.org that describe Chibbut haKever, and that comes from Maseches Chibbut haKever, and it describes what happens. There's consequences, accountability. Just like again, a person can farbreng and be happy, be b'simcha, smile, regret the potato chips they ate at 12:00 at night, that won't help their cholesterol. Reality is a reality, consequence is a consequence. So similarly here, we need to know that the poor choices we make, the mistakes we make, Chibbut haKever, ultimately the klipa will have to get beaten out of us, out of our body. The way to avoid it, there are ways to avoid it, which we all want. Love justice, loving mussar, loving acts of chesed, bringing guests to one's home, davening with kavana, or the Rebbe said, spending four hours a day in Torah and Tehillim. These are ways to avoid Chibbut haKever. But as unsavory as much as we would not like it, that is the reality that a person who used their body as a vehicle, the guf was a vehicle to express free will in the wrong way, to indulge and engage klipa, so the klipa then gets absorbed, much like the calories or the cholesterol, and it has to be removed. Or we sort of R' Steinsaltz compared it to exposure to radiation. Slowly it compounds, and even if a person regrets it, that doesn't remove it, and therefore only afterwards. And some of the Baal Tanya, the Alter Rebbe continues now. Dvarim b'teilim b'heter, k'gon am ha'aretz einam yochlim l'mod. And someone dvarim b'teilim, a person who spoke in a permissible manner. We're talking klipas noga here. We're talking about they didn't speak violation of lashon hara and rechilus. They didn't speak categorically forbidden. What we talked about, the Alter Rebbe defined mutar and assur as bound. Mutar means unbound, assur asur, matir asurim means something tied to and bound to the sitra achra, to the dark side, to the other world. That which is mutar is not bound to the dark side, but still it's waiting for the intent and the kavana when we give it, we bring it. So dvarim b'teilim, a person who talks devoid of Torah content, they talk idle chatter, they talk dvarim b'teilim b'heter. It's permissible. K'gon am ha'aretz einam yochlim l'mod. So somebody who's not literate is unable to learn. It's interesting the Alter Rebbe describes that an am ha'aretz einam yochlim l'mod. Surprising. You would have thought everybody could learn. You know aleph, learn aleph. You know bet, learn bet. Whatever language you need to learn in, who's not capable? If you can learn for an hour straight, learn an hour straight. You can learn for one minute, learn for one minute. Beautiful program, 300 seconds, five minutes a day of learning. Amazing program. But the Alter Rebbe formulates an am ha'aretz einam yochlim l'mod. He's exempt from learning cuz he can't learn. He's not literate to learn. Again, it was a different time. We didn't have access to the incredible library, Ginsburg, others, the great Torah content we have available. Tzarich l'taher nafsho mitumah, such an individual needs to purify themselves. Tzarich l'taher nafsho mitumah zu d'klipa zu. Even though uneducated, the person didn't sin, didn't speak negatively, they were speaking idle chatter. They talked about the NBA All-Star game. They talked about what's happening in Equinox, they're still talking about the Super Bowl. They're talking about idle chatter. It's not prohibited. You won't find a Shulchan Aruch that says it's assur. It's not connected categorically to the dark side, to the sitra achra, to the other side. It's not devoid definitionally of godliness, but still a person has to cleanse and purify from that contamination. How does one do that? Are you ready? Gilgul b'Kaf haKela. So if what the body was a vehicle for poor choices, and the body after death, the soul comes back and experiences the the Chibbut haKever, then here the soul that spoke in a way which wasn't categorically good, it wasn't a mitzvah, it wasn't filled with Torah. And Torah I will take the liberty of defining that the Alter Rebbe here doesn't only mean Torah proper. It doesn't mean things you'd have to make a birchas haTorah on. He means spiritual inyanim, asking a fellow Yid how's your neshama doing? How are you? Caring, concern, love, loving kindness. Those are Torahdik concepts, Torah conversations. So if a person is having something that's waste and wasteful, they're using their words not wisely for meaning and purpose, but they're wasting it on idle chatter. So then they need to go undergo Kaf haKela. K'mo she kashuv b'Zohar Parshas B'shalach, as Kaf haKela is there. What is Kaf haKela? Kaf haKela is the soul enters this world of imagination, thinking it's still alive, and it's drawn to those same thoughts and the idle conversation they were having. And as the soul is flung from thought to thought, it experiences great pain. R' Steinsaltz describes it as follows. In our experience, we know this is the agony of memory. Remembering and re-experiencing past trauma is a major factor in much of our spiritual suffering. Our ability to forget past suffering is a defense mechanism, enabling us to continue living and carry on in the future. Chazal saw shichacha as a bracha, not of our learning, of course, but forgetfulness forgetfulness is a blessing. If we held onto every pain with the same experience as the moment we first had it, and it never dulled, it was never dissipated, it never was forgotten, a veiless. Chazal saw it's a bracha that after a certain time, of course it's never removed from the heart. We don't move on, we move forward, but it's a bracha. It's a bracha. Our ability to forget is a defense mechanism. In the hollow of the sling, Kaf haKela, the soul is compelled to review its past life and relive it. This time, not as a participant, as an objective observer. This process, apart from the pain it brings, is a process of purification, of recalling and reviewing the past in a new light. So imagine if you're a spectator now watching the video of your life, exposed to all the thoughts and conversation which were wasteful, which were idle. That could have been something productive and useful and meaningful and purposeful. And now, in this next life, in the next world, where we're in a place that we say, "Oh my goodness, I didn't take advantage of every moment. I didn't live life to the fullest." Kaf haKela is not only in a form of punishment, but it's also purifying. It's a purification. So what the what the Chibbut haKever is for the body is what the Kaf haKela is for the soul. Now when we say Chibbut haKever is for the body, of course the body has no experience independent of the soul. That's why part of Chibbut haKever is that the soul, after it's extracted from the body, after it sees its neshama, the soul returns to the body for Chibbut haKever. Cuz Chibbut haKever is a pain experienced in the soul, but through the body. As opposed to Kaf haKela, is something which is purely in the soul. It sounds like I know what I'm talking about, no? A little bit. I don't. I acknowledge it. I concede that. I'm doing the best I can. This is the level I understand it with the help of Rabbi Chaim Miller and and R' Steinsaltz. That's how. The diburim assurim. So that was true for klipas noga, that was true for the dibur of dvarim b'teilim, dvarim shemabakak. That was true for idle conversation, not categorically, not assur, not tied to, not bound to the sitra achra, the dark side, but it was just neutral, and we used speech, but not as positively as we could to connect, to care, to learn Torah, to share divrei Torah. But l'dvekus l'diburim assurim k'mo l'shon ha'ra and rechilus bahem. But when it comes to things that are categorically bad, that are tied to the dark side, like leitzanus, like lashon hara, she'einam mishalash klipas hatumah shegamrei, they come not klipas noga, those come from the other klipa, three klipos. They are completely impure. Nothing redeeming about them. Entirely indulging in the dark side. Ein Kaf haKela l'vadah mala l'taher l'hagrim tumas me'anefesh. Kaf haKela will not be enough. Rak tzricha l'eired l'Gehinnom. Oh, wow. This is a very scary perek perek ches of Tanya. Perek ches of Tanya is not all about gishmak to be a Yid. It's not farbreng, let's make a l'chaim. Perek ches is like a reality check. Here's a mirror, look at your life, the choices we make and the consequences that will have. We're in a world that doesn't want to have consequences. You're not supposed to talk about expectations, accountability, consequences. You just have to validate how someone feels, listen to what their story is, acknowledge the level they're on, which there's room for. I'm not disagreeing with. Absolutely. But the Baal Tanya says it's unavoidable. The Ribono shel Olam has expectations of us. He told us how to live in this world, and there are consequences to the choices that we'll make. He loves us, and of course course, he's waiting for us, and he's going to lift us, and how this all plays out, we won't know until we get there. We know it's done as a loving father, as a loving father who wants what's right and what's best for us, but it's unavoidable. Sri Kalera de Gehenna. The most creative tight in the world of Gehenna is still going to have a stickle you don't want to be there. You don't want to get there. It's not where we want to go. Somebody who could not be a artist who the Tanya suggests is exempt from learning cuz they're illiterate, but somebody who could have been learning. And if they're learning, they could have been learning more than what they're learning. And they're also in the tailum, but instead they're still schmoozing about the one in the tailum. Kaf cannot help that soul be cleansed and purified. There are special consequences that he saves for the people who neglect his Torah. You have to understand. When we dive and we're talking to Hashem, when we learn Torah, Hashem is talking to us. There's nothing more cruel you could do to someone than ignoring them when they're talking to you. In the experience I'm sure none have, you're calling your child, you're in the next room, you're on the couch, you're in the chair next, and you're calling them, they're ignoring you. It feels downright cruel. So, to ignore Hashem's Torah is to ignore him talking to us. It's cruel. And Hashem has special and that's the whole foundation of a relationship is when someone's talking to you, calling you, that you answer, that you listen. And when you don't, you're you're demonstrating that you're not interested in the relationship. You only want to talk, you have no interest in listening. You don't want to hear what the other one has to say. So, Hashem has on on Kalera de Gehenna. The Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera in addition to the general punishment for neglecting a Kalera de Kalera de Kalera the Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera in the Kalera de Kalera de Kalera There's a Kalera de Kalera de Kalera There's a Kalera de Kalera de Kalera What does that mean? So, Kalera de Kalera writes a person usually transgresses a prohibition out of warmth, desire and lust. We say a person out of fiery passion to go do the wrong thing. Neglecting a positive commandment is because you are cold and indifferent. Like a molech, a Kalera de Kalera, they poured cold water on our fire. So, when a person sits out the positive commandment, doesn't do it, it's cuz they were cold. They were the opposite of being on fire, they were cold. So, there's a Kalera de Kalera de Kalera and there's a Kalera de Kalera de Kalera. One corresponds with when we followed our lust and our passion to do the wrong thing, we need the fire to purge it. When we were cold and distant and indifferent, then the Kalera de Kalera de Kalera is what purifies. But it's unavoidable that the Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera through other worse things, not Kalera de Kalera de Kalera de Kalera we may need a little Kalera de Kalera de Kalera whatever that means. For Kalera de Kalera we could have been talking Torah and we were talking other Kalera de Kalera then we need in addition to the Kalera de Kalera there's a special Kalera de Kalera special Kalera de Kalera. So, all this is not meant to scare us, it's just meant a little bit to scare us. He's a loving father, he loves us, he cares about us, and he wants what's right and what's best for us, and this too is what is right and best for us. You know, when a parent drops a child off at rehab, it's not because they don't love them. If they didn't love them, they would allow them to fall deeply into their addiction. When the parent drops the child at at rehab, it's not cuz they love them. And a person is in rehab where they have to go cold turkey from whatever they were addicted to will all describe the experience as Gehenna. It's going through hell. To go cold turkey from what you were addicted to is an experience of Gehenna. So, doesn't drop us off at rehab cuz he doesn't love us, he does it because he loves us. But we can't think that we're just going to Kumbaya and love and happy and and then he's going to no Gehenna cuz he loves us. He won't No. If we'll pick up next time What happens if we're neglecting Torah to be involved in the wisdoms of the world? What does that mean? Trey wisdom, heretical wisdom, or even positive wisdom, math and physics. We'll get to the very last line. Cuz the can't avoid the and the were each doctors, they were physicians, they were men of science. How do you avoid that? That's how he'll end. But first we'll have to go through how he got there. A good We're off next week. We continue the week after Hashem.