You Think You're in Control | Ten Minutes of Meaning | Tanya #43

Good morning, Boca, and welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning. Hope everyone had a beautiful, wonderful, healthy, and happy Pesach. 10 minutes of meaning series is generally sponsored by our friends Marilyn and Michael Fidock. Please help yourself in the shul at the corner to a coffee, pastry, slushy. Enjoy as we delve back into the ninth perek of Tanya. In perek test, the ninth perek of Tanya, we've been discussing, we began with the struggle, the inner battle, the war inside you. Tanya is based on the premise that we're made up of two parts. There's the chelek Eloka mimaal mamash, the godly soul inside us, the piece of God literally in us. We are a piece of God, which is why, as the Tzaddek Kohen writes, we have an obligation not only to have faith in Hashem, but if we believe we're a piece of Hashem, then having faith in Hashem means having faith faith emunah in ourselves. To believe in our redeemability, believe in our goodness, believe in our purity, believe in our possibility. To believe that there is a piece of God in us, it also gives us and empowers us the ability to be able to love kamocha. We can love others because we believe there is a God in them, that which is beautiful and redeemable and wonderful, that which is holy in them. So, the premise to our relationship with others and importantly the relationship with ourself is to know we're chelek Eloka mimaal mamash, a piece of God quite literally inside us. We are an extension of the Almighty himself. But, there's also a nefesh bahamis, there's also an animal soul. And our job, our goal, says the Alter Rebbe, is not to slaughter, not to purge, not to eliminate or remove that animal soul, but rather to train the animal. But, this godly soul, the disciplined soul, the soul that's able to regulate ourselves, to reach and to stretch and to strive for high and higher, is at war. There's a battle taking place with that animal. It happens this morning when you woke up and you were trying to decide, do I make it to kol haboker? Do I turn over and stay in bed? Am I going to hit snooze and come late or am I going to be on time? Am I going to talk during davening or am going to focus? That battle is happening from the moment we wake up till we fall asleep at night in what we say, what we think, and what we do all day in between, our attitude to sleep, eat, what we look at, and everything else. That's the battle. And the Alter Rebbe in this perek test gave us a moshel of a land, Russia and Ukraine, other areas of the world. Some are trying to conquer there. Who's going to govern? Who will be the ruler and king? Who's going to be in charge? We have this guf, we have this body. Who's in control? Who's in charge? Who's in charge? Who's in control? Who's deciding? That's the discipline we're meant to live with. Are we going to give in to the impulse of our lower self? Just eat that. Who cares what time, who cares what food, who cares where, when, what? Just look at that, just say that, just go there, just do that. Or we say, "No, no, no, you're not in charge. You're not in control." That's not I'm in The godly soul is in charge. The godly soul is in control. And the Alter Rebbe here in perek test has told us where it emanates, the head or the heart. The heart sends the message to the head or the head sends the message to the heart. The two sides are parts of the heart. We went through whether it's meant to be taken literally or meant to be taken figuratively, but the anatomy of the soul, of where the different parts of the soul are found within the body. And then we got to healing the dark side. The sh'ainos pokem nigalim Hashem. This big chiddush of the Alter Rebbe, again, that we're not shachting or destroying or eliminating the animal soul, but we're redirecting and we're channeling and we're training and we're using the cravings of the animal soul to our advantage. So, even those animal acts of eating and sleeping and the drive for relations, one can indulge that and it can lower and lessen and compromise us, corrupt us, or you can channel it. So, even what we call those base or the animal impulses or cravings can be transformed to lift us. As the pasuk says, we say b'chol levav'cha, not b'chol libecha. In sh'ma, we want to worship Hashem b'chol levav'cha, with all of our hearts. Hearts is in the plural. What kind of hearts in the plural? The answer is bishnei yetzar'cha, chazal darshon, Gemara Brachos daf nun dalet. It means with both of your uh both of your uh drives. It's yetzer tov and yetzer ra. They can be challenged and redirected in that way. And then the Alter Rebbe, and this is the end of our summary, brings us up to what we're up to, talks about two types of love. There's the ahava b'taanugim, l'sanei galus Hashem. There's a love of the flaming fire. There's the pleasurable love, which is main olam haba. They're the different types of love that we can have in our attitude and our relationship to Hashem. Ahava ahava k'rishpei eish, or there's the ahava that is the ahava of the taanugim. So, that's what we're up to. Ha'onah gufa b'moach, chochma u'seichel, mis'anek b'sichlus Hashem v'diuso. See where we're at? You following on inside? We're in the middle of towards the end of perek test. Ha'onah gufa b'moach, this delight, this connection that even our animal soul is capable of getting, is experienced in the mental faculties, b'chochma u'seichel, in inquiry and intelligence, mis'anek b'sichlus Hashem v'diuso, by the sheer pleasure of understanding, of pursuing knowledge of Hashem, k'fi hasagascha l'chochma u'seichel, according to the limits. Everyone is different. We're designed differently. Our cognitive ability, our analytic ability, our memory, it's all different. I will highlight, as I have been throughout, that even though Chabad sometimes gets a wrong or a bad rap, that it's about farbrenging and drinking and l'chaims and other things, which it is too, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's room and a place for it. But, most fundamentally at its core, the Alter Rebbe's philosophy and ideology, his approach to life was chochma, binah, and daas. These are all mental faculties. These are all cognitive faculties. The core and the foundation for the Alter Rebbe of a life of service of Hashem is grounded in learning Torah. In learning Torah. Learning, learning, learning. Knowing, knowing, knowing Hashem. On top of that, you also farbreng and you make a l'chaim and you enjoy a kiddush and you also find within these physical uh components of life, you also find the opportunity to connect Hashem. But, the emphasis and the focus, the priority, and the fundamental, the foundation, and the non-negotiable throughout Tanya, certainly in the Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Tanya, Torah, is learning Torah. See here too, he says, "What is the oneg amiti?" This ultimate delight in Hashem, this taanug, this anaga l'Hashem, to get high on God, is not to get high on God like l'havdil chalila getting high on a substance. The ultimate high you can have on God is getting to know him. Is the delight and the pleasure and the bliss and the joy in the knowledge of him. How do you get to know him? Cuz the Ribono shel Olam gave us access to his diary. He gave us the Torah Hakadosha, this Torah Chaim, this Torah Hashem. He gave us the description of Elokus. He gave us his diary. And when we learn it and study it, you walk away elevated and enriched. You are high, you are excited, you are inspired. K'fi hasagascha l'chochma u'seichel. So, in contrast to the love of the flaming fire, k'rishpei eish, which is experienced in the heart, pleasurable love, this other love, this ahava b'taanugim, is experienced in the head. They're both high levels. They're both ahava is a high level. Ahava is a higher level than yirah. Love of Hashem is a higher level than awe of Hashem. How do you know that? The Ramban says, "Because mitzvos assei are ahava s'Hashem, positive commandments are love of Hashem. Mitzvos lo sa'asei are out of awe or fear of Hashem. Assei doche lo sa'asei." So, assei doche lo sa'asei, ahava doche yirah. Yirah is the starting point. Reishis Hashem What's the pasuk? Reishis Reishis chochma yiras Hashem. Thank you. Reishis chochma yiras Hashem. It begins with yirah, but the goal ultimately is to get to the place of ahava. With our children, we want them to first listen to us because they have awe. The because they have, sorry, a little a little fear. But, we want it to get to a place of ahava, out of love and out of embrace. And within us, ahava is the higher level, but within ahava there's two levels. There's the ahava k'rishpei There's the passionate love. There's the the um infatuation love. There's the the love of the heart. But, then there's the higher level, which is the love of the head. The love of the heart can wear out. If you think about this in the human realm, when a couple are first courting and there's an infatuation and there's passion and there's a love, you know, that can wear out. That can run into a wall. That can grow stale or grow old. But, when the love comes from the higher level, which is knowledge of values and priorities, of appreciation, of respect, of admiration, that's a love that lasts. That's a love that endures. That's a higher level love. The Rambam writes this in Hilchos Yesodei in The Rambam writes it in Hilchos Yesodei Hilchos Deos. And the Rambam talks about is the ahava s'Hashem How do you fulfill this ahava s'Hashem? He says, "To know Hashem." And when you know Hashem, so the commentary on the side of the Rambam, you'll ask, "Who?" It just says "Parish." The commentary on the side of the Rambam, there writes, "There's an ahava t'liuya b'davar, ahava einah t'liuya b'davar." When you love Hashem because of the good things he gives you, when you love someone because of the good things they give you, you love them all they give you. If they stop giving you, you stop loving them. But, when you love them not because of what they give you, but you love them because of who they are and your knowledge of them, then that's a love that lasts. So, similarly here, this is the higher level love. V'hu b'chimas mayim. Says the Alter Rebbe, "This is the element of water." This intense yearning Now, I'm reading from Rabbi Chaim Rabbi Chaim Miller. This intense yearning and passion with love like flaming fire stems from the experience of a distant God. Pleasurable love, the love of taanugim on the other hand, while representing a more powerful love, is ironically less enthusiastic. It's like cold water, as the beloved is more real and immediate. Pleasurable love, being derived from elemental water, is a greater force against physical desires, which are from water. So, pleasurable love parallels or offsets the pleasurable pursuit, meaning passion, pleasure. So, we have passion in the pursuit of the physical pleasures, and it can be replaced or offset by the pleasurable love of Hashem, that's from water. And seeds sown light, passuk in Tehillim, is within the divine soul's holiness. I'm going to read to you from Rav Chaim Miller now. The parts of Tanya which I I think I think I understand and I'm happy and excited to share, and there are the parts that I lean on and rely on others as I'm still trying to understand. Probing deeper into the psyche, the Tanya here draws on the Kabbalistic descriptions of man's origins, commenting on the fivefold mention of light on the first day of creation and water on the second. Let me repeat that. Commenting on the fivefold mention of light on the first day of creation and water on the second, the Zohar notes, quote, "When a person comes to be, he is first seed, which is light, for that seed is the light of all the limbs of the body. Afterwards, that seed, which is light, spreads and becomes water. By the moisture of the water, it becomes further detailed and the form of the body expands into these waters, growing in all directions." So, in other words, within the seed of our creation was all the possibility. The fingernails that are growing, as he says elsewhere, the the little fingernail that's going to grow on your small toe was also included in the DNA and the design of the original seed that would later become you. Then that became that light spreads and becomes water. I don't know what what percent of the body is made up of actual water. Some large percent. By the moisture of the water, it becomes further detailed into the forms of the rest of the body, growing in all directions. Since light, seed, precedes water in the order of creation, through accessing the higher power of light of the divine soul, you're capable of transforming the water of the animal soul for the good. Okay, I said the words. I think I understand a little bit. But let that sink in. The light seed precedes water in the order of creation. So, by accessing the higher power of light in our soul, we're capable of transforming the water that is the animal soul, the passion, the pursuit of pleasure, for the good. Back to Tanya. The divine soul's light transforms the source of all desires for pleasures of this world, the element of water in the animal soul, to good. Forget the exact formula or mechanism, or don't forget it right now. But what I think he means to say is the following. This nefesh bahamis, this desire, this craving, this drive we have, food, sleep, intimacy, the base animal physical material pleasures of this world. Our goal is not to extinguish them. Our goal is not to transcend them. Our goal is not to live an ascetic life where I don't sleep, I don't speak, I don't I don't uh procreate. That's not the goal. It's not a Jewish value. It's not a Jewish view. Our goal is to take those very drives, those very passions, those very animal the animal soul, the drives of the animal soul, but to redirect and rechannel them. That the impulse to wrong can be transformed into pure good to be on par with the impulse to good itself. The yetzer hara can serve you, so that the yetzer hara and its drive is serving you, as well as the yetzer tov. He writes here a practical lesson. Your animal soul is not evil. It just has crude taste. Through meditation, the study of Hasidic wisdom, the study of, I will add, wisdom, chochmah, maybe through learning Gemara, too. You can teach your animal soul to appreciate sacred and spiritual things, too. So, now that drive for food has a has a yearning for a Shabbos meal, a Yom Tov meal, has a yearning to make a brocha on that food, has a yearning to find chiyus and Elokus in that delicious food. That you're not indulging in some animal act of eating. You're not fressing. You're not stuffing your face. But now you're holding a piece of Hashem in that food. You're going to make a holy brocha on it. When you eat it, you're going to do it with the mindfulness that this is giving me life. So, the Ribono shel Olam is in this food because it's giving and extending me life. I'm taking that yearning, that hunger, that drive, that appetite for food, an animal urge, but I'm using it as a conduit to achieve something holy, sacred, something elevated. So, it's serving me now as well as the yetzer tov. If this art is perfected, it's possible to completely eliminate the lustful desires of the animal soul and transform them into spiritual yearnings. That doesn't mean you've given up on the pleasures of life. You've replaced them with even greater pleasure. You know what's even better than fressing on food? Eating food with mindfulness that you're enjoying its delicious taste. Your delight in the delicious taste, while also simultaneously doing it in a disciplined, regulated, elevated, mindful, conscious, intentional way. Now that food not only tastes good on the taste buds, that food tastes delicious in your soul, as well. The impulse to evil is not irredeemably evil. It is a force for desire. By training it to appreciate the greater pleasure of immersing in Hashem's wisdom, it can be transformed. So, that notion of drive, of desire, that's good. There are people who lack it, who don't have it. There's people that that fire is extinguished. That flame is running so low. There is no drive. There is no appetite. When you have it, that's good. And wherever you have it is a window. It's revealing where you have the potential and possibility for the greatest good. This is done when we shed, when we take off those begadim atzumin, the soiled garments, which is a reference to Zechariah, which are the pleasure of this world in which it is closed, clothed. If we're indulging in those drives, whether it's for money, for things, material pleasure, material objects, if we're indulging in them in a this world way, then we're giving in to that animal soul, animal impulse. But when we take that drive, that appetite, that first expressed itself through that animal soul, but we now capture it, redirect it, channel it, pivot it, and use it in the pursuit of good, now that's a We've now that animal soul is great. We can redirect it. We can redirect it. And with that, the Alter Rebbe is going to go back to this battle, the war that's happening in our body about who's in charge and who's in control. So, we'll just finish with this. It will take us to the fourth and final section of of perek tes. The divine soul desires other emotions of the heart that are derivatives of avah and yirah to be devoted exclusively to Hashem. The divine soul, the nefesh, the chelek Eloka, nefesh Elokus, wishes to have full control over the words of your mouth, of thought in your head, to be dressed only in the divine soul. So, there's a battle. What are you going to think? Lower thoughts or higher thoughts? What are you going to say? Are we going to waste, misuse, and abuse the power of speech, or are we going to use speech to elevate, to build, to complement? Our actions, similarly. Topics of our conversations our mouths should never cease to study. Are we going to talk about people, gossip, and slander? Are we going to talk narishkeit and waste of time? Are we going to talk about ideas? Are we going to build a world? Are we going to energize? Divine soul wants to have full control of all the actions of our hands. The two limbs. Yeah, but my son should actually should never shall look at this. We learned earlier, a couple prakim ago, that the just like we're wearing a garment, you're wearing clothing, and we express ourselves through the clothing that we wear, so too the souls wear clothing garments. What are the garments of the soul? Thought, speech, and action. Speech and action we understood were garments. The big chiddush is that thought is also a garment of the soul. Even though it's in our inner world, it's a garment of the soul. So, who controls what garment you wear? When you go to your closet and you're putting on the garment, who's in charge? Who's in charge? So, these garments of the soul, speech, thought, and action, which are the garments of the soul, who's deciding what garment you wear? What you say, what you do, what you think? Is it going to be the godly soul or the animal soul? Who's in charge? Who's in control? Now, the Alter Rebbe reference 248 cuz that's the Mishnah Oholos, that's a chazal, traditional chazal. We have 248 parts delineated by the bones of the skeleton and surrounding flesh. Now, he points out here, Rav Chaim Miller, "A person is born with 270 bones, and through ossification of cartilage, the number eventually falls to 206 in adulthood. So, why does the Mishnah Oholos talk about 248 bones?" So, he quotes here from HaTalmud v'Chochmat haRefuah, Berlin, 1928, that the Mishnah's count of 248 refers to the skeleton of a 16- or 17-year-old. Between the 270 bones that you're born with and the 206 that you have in adulthood after ossification, you're age 16 or 17 when you have 248 bones. So, whenever chazal talk about 248 bones, they're talking to the 16- 17-year-old, or the 16- 17-year-old in you. 16- or 17-year-old in you. That's an interesting footnote. Okay, we'll pick up with section four, what the animal soul. We covered what the godly soul wants. What the godly soul wants is to be in control. Godly soul wants to be in control of the body and of the garments of the body. What does the animal soul want? We pick up with next week. It should be a day of Taivos. Yeshua Hamas.