Transcript
Good morning, boker tov, and a freilichen Chanukah. Welcome back to ten minutes of meaning as we make our way through Tanya together. A huge thank you for our generous sponsors, Marilyn and Michael Fedak, thank you for this and so much else. Please help yourself in Reb Shayaleh's corner this morning, we have coffee and slushies and sufganiyot. Help yourself to a donate donut and celebrate Chanukah with us. We are on the sixth perek, perek vav of Tanya. We began last time by speaking about the animal soul. We've gone into and dissected, we've analyzed the different layers of the divine soul, the חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, the godly soul, the godliness that is inside each and every one of us, made up of the ten different sfiros, three in thought and seven in midos, and made up of the three garments that we wear, speech, thought, and of action. And the Baal HaTanya, the Alter Rebbe tells us that what's true for the godly soul is equally true because every, we always have balance, equally and opposite true for the animal soul that's inside us. And even though we wouldn't think about it, the animal soul has the same architecture as the divine soul: three intellectual, seven which are emotional, and then the three garments in which it expresses itself, the animal soul in the world of free will and in the, in the world of choice. Which brings us up to the second section of the sixth perek. Second section of the sixth perek. עשר בחינות אלו הטמאות כשאדם חושב ומדבר או עושה. Now when you use these ten impure powers, the animal soul inside us is the lowest and most base part of who we are. If the godly soul represents our sense of intellect, our capacity of cognition, our connection to the source and to the divine, if the godly soul in us represents the ability to be sovereign, disciplined, self-control, to elevate and to empower everything, then the animal soul is the opposite. The animal soul is the place of impulse, the place of instinct. The animal doesn't have self-awareness. The animal doesn't think. The animal doesn't consider the consequence. The animal just has drive. The animal wants to eat, it doesn't say do I own this? Is it the right time? In the right place? Is this appropriate or proper? The animal just dives in and eats. The animal needs to eliminate what it ate. It doesn't say is this appropriate? Is it modest? The animal finds a tree or a bush or a patch of grass, and the animal does what it wants to do. And similarly with everything about the animal, the animal acts on impulse, the animal acts on instinct. The animal is driven only by base desire, and that animal soul is inside us, and we live this tension, this conflict, this battle between the two parts of who we are, these two souls. And we need to understand the architecture of the animal soul, what makes it tick, its drive, in order to be able to not conquer it, as we've said now several times, the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya's chiddush is that we're not trying to shecht or destroy or purge or eliminate the animal soul, we're trying to train it. We're trying to elevate it. We're trying to transform it. So when you use these ten impure powers of the animal soul in the world of thought, speech, or action. In other words, when we speak, we could speak in a way where we're expressing our divine soul. We could speak Torah, we could speak tefillah, we could offer compliments and praise, we could reach out. Chanukah, we can invite and welcome others. We could use the power of speech positively, or we can scream, we can yell, we could be impatient, we can malign, we can marginalize, we could criticize, we can condemn, we can use profanity. The power of speech could be reflective of the animal impulse and the animal inside us. It can go in both directions. That's true for speech, it's true even for thoughts. Our thoughts can be elevated, or our thoughts can bring us down. We can indulge our thoughts to fantasize about the wrong things, or we can, or we can instead choose to direct thoughts in a way that are going to elevate and lift. And of course it's true in the world of action. והרי מחשבתו שבמוחו ודיבורו שבפיו וכח המעשה שבידיו ושאר איבריו. The thought in your brain that's in your mouth or the power of action in your hands or other limbs, נקראים לבושי מסאב לעשר בחינות אלו הטמאות שמתלבשות בהן בשעת מעשה או דיבור או מחשבה. Just like speech, thought, and action are external, they're the levush. On the one hand, we wear them. On the one hand, we identify with them. They're a uniform. But on the other hand, we can take them off, we can disrobe from them. That was true for the godly soul, and certainly it's also equally true for the animal soul, is that the speech that we're offering or the actions that we're doing or even the thoughts inside our head are external and apart from the core and the essence of who we are. And we've spoken a lot about it in the past, that we were surprised by thought. Speech and action, we can understand as external. But thought we thought was something internal and part of the essence of who we are. The Baal HaTanya's machadesh, no, even thought is not the essential part of who we are. It's a levush, it's a garment that we wear, we wear those thoughts, but they they don't define us and they are not the same as us. So here the Baal HaTanya makes this major paradigm shift. Rabbi Chaim Miller in his commentary points it out, Rabbi Steinsaltz in his commentary, every commentary highlights this and points this out. We mentioned it last week, we alluded to it. Ordinarily we think of in the world of Halacha, for example, there's assur, mutar, and reshus. A cheeseburger is assur, it's forbidden. It's bad. Spiritually it's eating poison. Melacha on Shabbos, gossiping and speaking lashon hara. We have a world of issur. Things that we are warned and cautioned we're not to do, there are consequences and accountability if we violate and they're forbidden, they're assur. And then we have a world of mitzvah. The opposite of assur, sorry, is not mutar, mitzvah. The world of mitzvah is that there's inherently a value in doing this. So we light the menorah each night. We're lighting the Chanukah candles. We're saying hallel this morning and al hanissim, it's a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah that we are performing, a mitzvah that we're fulfilling. And ordinarily we think at least from the world of Halacha that there's a third category. There's assur, forbidden, there's mitzvah, which is elevated, and then there's reshus, reshus. Is it a mitzvah or is it an assur to eat a sufganiyah? Now it could depend on your glucose level, could depend on your belt size, it could depend on your cardiac health, could depend on a lot of things. It could be a davar assur mamash. Could be a could depend on your wife, could be pikuach nefesh for you. It could be assur mamash. Assur mamash, if it's bad for your health and it's bad for everybody's health, but I mean that one particular donut could be particularly bad for your health, then it's in the category of a davar assur. It's forbidden, it's forbidden. Is it a mitzvah? We justify it, we rationalize it, we convince ourselves of it, but it doesn't appear in Shulchan Aruch that there's a mitzvah to have a sufganiyah on on Chanukah. It doesn't appear. So we think of it as a davar reshus. You walk by Reb Shaila Corner and you'll see the multi flavors of sufganiyot. Some of you have a little powder on your chin right now. I see. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to make an al hamichya. So which which flavor, jelly? Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate. Okay, nice. So it's a davar reshus. It's a davar reshus. You can, you don't have to. You go to sleep, is that a mitzvah? Is that a davar assur? You, ich vais, you read the newspaper. We have a whole category of life and lifestyle which doesn't fit neatly into a davar assur, it's forbidden, nor is it a mitzvah, it's a reshus. Comes along the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya, and he says, no, there are only two sides in this world. There's the side of God and there's the sitra achra. There's the dark side, there's the other side. Everything we do in all three realms of thought, speech, and action, we are either expressing ego or elokus. Take you back to the Shabbos Shuva drasha. Shabbos Shuva drasha this past year, should really write it up as an article. Shabbos Shuva drasha was that our lives are either ego or elokus. It's about us, our happiness, our pleasure, our need, our honor, it's ego or we're living a life of elokus. What's my mission? What's my purpose? What's my essence? Now, you could eat a sufganiyah, you could eat a donut out of ego or out of elokus. Let's start with the easy one. You could eat the donut out of ego. I crave it, I have an appetite for it, I want it, I'm drawn to it, the sugar rush, the smell, the flavor, the deliciousness of it. It's my ego. I want it. I'm hungry. I need it. I want it. That's ego. You could also, the way you ate it, eat it out of elokus. I don't really want it, and I don't need it. But I'm doing it because I want to tap into Chanukah, the simcha, the yom tov, the holiday, the happiness. I want to connect to the miracle, and I want to be mefarsem ha'nes. The little sugar still on my chin, every all day everybody's gonna say, ooh, you had a sufganiyah. Oh that's right, there was a miracle, the few defeated the many, and the oil lasted eight days. So you're eating the sufganiyah out of elokus. Now how do you know if it's ego or elokus? That's hard, that's the battle of life. But notice that took one for the team. We thank you for it. I hope you had us in mind. The the some are machmir that they can't be yotzei with others, they have to they have to do it themselves. So the Baal HaTanya here says, there's no third category called reshus. There is no neutral, there is no parve. There is no reshus, there's no elective. There's just the good, the light side and the dark side, the sitra achra and the tzad elokus, the ego or the elokus. That's how Chaim Miller describes it in Rabbi Steinsaltz's, he writes the sitra achra is the kabbalistic term for evil, but the words literally mean the other side that is not the side of holiness. In other words, on the most basic level there are two aspects to reality: holiness and the other side. The domain of Halacha contains a broad realm known as reshus. neither virtuous nor sinful, that lies between divinely commanded and divinely aveiros. However, in the kabbalistic division of reality, there is no middle ground. Nothing is neutral. Anything that does not actively relate to God is automatically of the other side. There cannot be anything that does not relate positively or negatively to God. The world of holiness is a world of unity, a world that manifests the truth that ein od milvado, there is nothing but him. The concept of God as the ein sof does not merely imply he's infinitely great, but he is the infant being, being without limit and without definition, being that embraces everything, so there can be nothing else. In contrast, the other side is rooted in the world of disunity in which the light of the infinite is not manifest, so the exclusive reality of God is not recognized. Thus, the essence of sitra achra is that there is something else besides him. In its initial most basic form, the other side does not deny the existence of holiness, nor is it hostile to it. It merely designs to define holiness, to confine it to a set of parameters. It's willing to accept the existence of a lofty and superior realm. What it does not accept is the exclusivity of holiness. In other words, the sitra achra says, you davened, you said Hallel, you put on tefillin, beautiful. Sure there's holiness, sure there's godliness, but there's also the donut. There's also your bech. There's also your ego. That's the sitra achra speaking. Whereas the tzad elokus, the side of godliness says, no, God is here, he's there, he's everywhere, God is in everything, and our mission, our task is to find it. He's in everything we eat and everything we drink, he's in every time we fall asleep. He's in everything we choose to read or watch. He's in every conversation, he's in every thought that we have. With all that we do, and with everything that we are, we face a choice. There is no reshus, there's no parve, there's no neutral, there's no indifference. Everything neatly fits into either the tzad elokus, the godliness, or the nefesh bahami, the animal, or the ego consciousness. והם הם כל המעשים שנעשים תחת השמש אשר הכל הבל ורעות רוח כמו שכתב בזוהר בשער שעם טבירו דרוחו. It is these thoughts, words, and actions of the animal soul that constitute all the things that are done under the sun, which are empty and strain of spirit. In other words, the ego, the animal soul says, this sufganiya is real. And this pleasure you're going to get from it, it's lasting. We know it's fleeting. We know that it's not authentic, it's not real, it's not lasting. We know it's only the here and now. See, the godly soul knows that all there really is is eternity and immortality, all there is is the infinite. And how can we connect and attach everything in this world to the infinite? Whereas the sitra achra, the other side says, no. Yes, there's also the infinite. And there's also the eternal. But the here and now is pretty good too. Enjoy a little bit of here and now. Have that thought. Have that image. Act out in that way. Look at that thing. Eat that thing. Pursue that thing. Express that laziness. The sitra achra, this other side says, there's infinite and there's eternal, but the here and now is pretty good too. And there's another side, there's a sitra achra. And that's the battle. The sitra achra inside us versus the tzad elokus. Ego or elokus or godliness or godliness. Which one will will out, win out? Which one will define us? Which one will be who we, who we are? Just a drop more. וכן כל הדיבורים וכל המחשבות שלא להשם, לא לשם, הם לרצונו לעבודתו. Not only to actions, also any ostensibly neutral spoken word or thought, while not religiously forbidden, are not consciously directed towards God to fulfill his will or his worship. It means that speech too, if you're talking about narishkeit. If you're speaking nothingness, certainly if you're talking lashon hara, if you're speaking gossip, then you're violating, then you're in the world of issur. It's forbidden. But even if you're just speaking about nothingness, but if you're not connecting that to the infinite, if there's no godliness in it, if that speech is not connecting you and bonding you to others, it's not elevating you, it doesn't have substance to it, then it's not elokus. It's not elokus. So it's not only the world of action which fits only into two and not into three, it's the world of speech and it's the world of thought. This is to be clear, chevra, this is an incredibly high level to live by. This is not easy. All of your waking moments, all of your consciousness, to be present and mindful, am I ego or elokus? But it's an amazing excellent barometer. I'm about to post something online. I'm about to purchase something. I'm about to share something. I'm about to do something, to ask ourselves, and sometimes to ask our cabinet around us who will be more honest than we are with ourselves, why do I want to do this? Is this ego or elokus? What's driving me? Why do I want to post this? Why do I want to buy this? Why do I want to go there? Why do I want to tell everyone about this? What is driving me to do this? Is that coming from ego, or is it coming from elokus? That paradigm, that model, that metric to measure what we're doing. Why am I saying this right now? Why am I doing this right now? Why am I eating this? right now. To be able to stop, pause, and ask ourselves, and if it doesn't fit into elokus, we're not perfect, but at least know that it's ego. At least understand that we're battling and that this world, word, world, room for improvement. So that's a way to live by and the Baal HaTanya is going to continue with this and im yirtzeh Hashem we'll pick it up from here next week. Stay happy, stay healthy, stay.
