Transcript
Good morning, Boker tov, welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning, generously sponsored by Madeleine and Michael Fedak. Please help yourself from Shilo's corner to some coffee, slushy, pastries as we continue Perek Zayin of Tanya. Yesterday was the Baal HaTanya's Yahrtzeit, the Alter Rebbe's Yahrtzeit, so we continue to learn and draw from his Torah all these many, many years later. In Perek Zayin of Tanya we began by discussing Klipat Noga. We ended off the last perek talking about the four types of klipos, three of them categorically bad. A klipa is a husk, a peel, it's something that essentially blocks the light. It's an eclipse. If the Or Ein Sof represents the infinite light of the Ribono Shel Olam, the great light, the great clarity, the great truth, then the klipa are the actions, behaviors, thoughts, speech that block the light, that essentially cloak us in darkness. Something which is forbidden is part of the klipa, it's part of the Sitra Achra, it's part of the dark side, the other side. It's a husk, it's an eclipse that entirely blocks that light. Klipat Noga is a partial eclipse. It's something that can go either way. Klipat Noga applies to the realm of Reshus, what we ordinarily otherwise think of as that which is neither forbidden nor is it a mitzvah. It's in the middle. Eating, eating kosher food, enjoying as we'll see in a moment, comedy, sleep, all the things that are not categorically good or bad, depends on the intention, the thoughtfulness, the mindfulness we have and bring to it. That's Klipat Noga. We could redeem and draw or reveal the light of it, or it can be an eclipse that's covering that light and leaving us in darkness. The whole world is divided as we spoke last week between ego or Elokus. When we engage in speech, thought, and action with permissible things, we can do it for ego. Why am I eating? Why am I sleeping? Why am I saying? Why am I laughing? Why am I going? Why am I posting? Why am I... Is it ego or is it Elokus? I have a mission, I'm advancing, I'm elevating, I'm positioning myself. So says the Alter Rebbe, says the Baal HaTanya: Zayin. היא בחינה הממוצעת בין שלוש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי ובין בחינת מדרגת הקדושה. The Tanya says the relationship between this Klipat Noga, this fourth klipa and the other three. In the Tanya's worldview, the closest thing we have to neutral is the experience depending on our thought, our intention, what kavanah do we bring to it? Ego or Elokus. ולכן פעמים שהיא נכללת בשלוש קליפות הטמאות. Sometimes Klipat Noga will be absorbed by the three impure klipos and nourish a self-centered consciousness, ego. Sometimes ego: Why am I eating? Because my boich, because my appetite, because I want it, because I crave it, because I desire it. Nothing to do with Elokus, nothing to do with finding and seeing Hashem who nourishes us, gives us life, finds the life force in what we eat. Nothing to do with wanting to eat so I can be in a happy and a pleasant and a positive mood to be able to learn and connect and serve Hashem. Nothing to do with eating so I can make a bracha before and a bracha after. I'm eating only for my boich, I'm eating only for my appetite because I want to. That's ego, that's klipa, that's the klipa in Klipat Noga. ופעמים שהיא נכללת ועולה בבחינת מדרגה הקדושה. But sometimes I can do that same permissible thing but with the right intention. I'm now elevating it, I'm now uplifted and absorbed into the realm of holiness. Why am I eating? Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world, created this great food, it's delicious. And when I taste it and I eat it, when I'm nourished by it, when I draw life from it, I'm connecting with the source of all life. And that's my thought with every bite I eat, and as I chew, and as I swallow, I realize what a miracle that is, the human being, the human factory that takes in food and takes out the nutrients and is able to expel what's unnecessary, the waste. And wow, Hashem, you're amazing, your world. So now I've taken that same neutral act of eating, and instead of indulging in the klipa, the ego in it, I've found the light, I've revealed the light from it, from it. דהיינו כשהטוב המעורב בה נתברר מהרע גובר ועולה ונכלל בקדושה. Namely, when the good mixed in it is extracted from the bad, empowering the good to be uplifted to holiness and absorbed by it. I have found the light, revealed the light, exposed the light even within this fourth klipa, this partial eclipse, the Klipat Noga. This is what happens when we have that mindfulness and that intention, that capacity to live that level of Elokus rather than ego. It's not easy. In fact, Rabbi Steinsaltz in his commentary here on the Tanya, he says, \"Can this degree of awareness and control be demanded of every man?\" The Tanya insists yes, this is humanly possible. This is the essence of the Beinoni, the intermediate about whom the book revolves. By no means is it easy. but it is within the realm of possible for every individual. A person does not have to be an exceptional human being in order to achieve that. However, it involves a constant effort of unceasing awareness that whatever we do must be toward this aim. And the higher the degree of awareness, the higher the level of holiness that we can attain. It means living a life of mindfulness, of intention, of presence. It means in everything that we do, every act, every speech, every thought, that I'm not simply indulging, I'm not giving into the animal, to the Nefesh Habahamis which is Klipas Noga, to the dark of the dark side, but I'm living with that intention, that mindfulness, that presence, that Kavana for all that we do, that I can elevate it, that I can elevate it. And says Rabbi Steinsaltz, lest you think this is reserved for the Gedolei Hador, Tzadikim and Tzidkaniyos, but little me, lowly me, the Beinoni, I can't live that way. No, it is, and it is possible. And now the Alter Rebbe gives some examples. כגון דרך משל אכל בשר ושמנה וטובה, a person who's eating fat meat, marbled steak. I know it's only 8:11 in the morning, but how do you not get excited just by the word marbled steak? Marbled meat, marbled, delicious. And veshoseh yayin mevusam, and you're drinking fragrant, delicious, incredible wine, להרחיב דעתו לה' ולתורתו. So why? You could sit down to a delicious marbled black and blue steak - do you know what black and blue is? It's the proper way to eat a steak. Char on the outside, rare on the inside. That is how you know if you're in the right restaurant. When you say, 'Can I get it black and blue?' and they say, 'What's that?', then you say, 'I have to leave now. This is the wrong place.' If they know what that is, then you're in the right place. Black and blue, char, nice char on the outside, rare on the inside, marbled steak. And with it a delicious glass of a fragrant, a nice aged wine, a proper wine, a red wine to go with your meat, with your steak. And why are you eating it? So the Alter Rebbe writes why: להרחיב דעתו לה' ולתורתו, to broaden your mind for Hashem and His Torah. Now here's the thing, here's what I love about what the Alter Rebbe writes here in Perek Zayin of Tanya. He doesn't write you're eating it, you don't really want it, you'd be satisfied with bread and water, you'd be okay with eating the bare minimum, eppes why are you eating it? Because the Bracha that you make on it, you're finding the Elokus in it. No, he says you're eating it because you like a good steak and a good wine. But why do you like the good steak and the good wine? Because it brings a calm and a happiness and a joy and now you're going to be a better husband, a better wife, a better mother, a better father, you're going to have a better Chavrusa, you're going to go learn more Torah that night, you're going to be a better volunteer, you're going to give more Tzedaka, you're going to do more Chesed. להרחיב דעתו לה' ולתורתו. He doesn't say you're eating it and drinking it because you're finding the Elokus in it. That's a very difficult high level to live. Rabbi Steinsaltz says this everyone of us can, because when we sit down and we make that Bracha on that black and blue delicious steak, we make a Borei Pri Hagafen on that incredible glass of wine, what we have in mind, the Kavana we have is Hashem, wow, I live in your amazing world and this amazing world that you put me in has such pleasure and such goodness, and the reason I'm recognizing you in it and I'm grateful for it because it will leave me happier, healthier, holier, and more ready to serve you. כדאמר רבא חמרא וריחא as Rava says Gemara in Yoma in Daf Ayin Vav that wine and fragrance sharpen a person's mind. או בשביל לקיים מצות עונג שבת ויום טוב, or you're sitting down at Shabbos, and let's say you happen to be, you can't be because I already am married to the greatest Shabbos cook on the planet earth, the daughter of a great Shabbos cook and Yom Tov cook. So when you sit down to that incredible, absolutely outstanding, amazing everything they touch is perfect food, you say, 'this is giving me Oneg Shabbos'. This is Oneg Shabbos. You're not saying eppes a little all I really need is a piece of challah, a little water, mistapek bemuat, I don't need it, I don't want it, I shouldn't have it. What you're saying is it's amazing and it's delicious and I'm enjoying it in moderation, in a healthy way, the right amount... leave all that aside for a moment, never leave it aside, but leave it aside for a moment, it's a healthy way. But what you're finding in it is again the Oneg Shabbos. I'm not reading this into the Tanya, these are the words of the Alter Rebbe of the Baal HaTanya that you're not meant to or expected to live some ascetic life, some perfect life. It's to find in the physical the pleasure, the joy, but to recognize that that positions you to serve Hashem, to appreciate Hashem, to be blessed and grateful to be in His world. The Oneg Shabbos. So when you make another plate, when you go back for seconds, when you're enjoying what you're having and you say leshem kavod Shabbos and you're on the... it's kavod Shabbos that I'm enjoying this incredible challah, another piece with a great dip, I'm having another bowl of the chicken soup, the matzah ball was outrageous. אזי נתברר חיות הבשר והיין שהיה נשפע מקליפת נוגה. The meat and the wine's Klipas Noga energy is refined ועולה לה' כעולה וקרבן. So now you took the marbled meat, you took the fragrant wine. And instead of it being a lowly animal based stuff your face indulgence you turned them into a korban. You turned them into yayin nesech. You turned it into nesachim. Now you all of a sudden you elevated it. How? How? Simply by saying oh Hashem you're amazing and this food is amazing and the gift of it is amazing and it comes from you and it connects me to you and it positions me more now and better to serve you. Happier I'm healthier I'm enjoying the company of whoever I'm with and I'm blessed to be in a position to pay this outrageous markup on that steak and on that wine. And thank you for that. And that is finding the light the ohr ein sof in the klipas nogah. It is finding the light in that partial eclipse וכן האומר מילתא דבדיחותא לפקח דעתו and then the Alter Rebbe gives another example. It's funny I wouldn't have given this example I would have thought of sleep you go to sleep and you say oh what a shluft I shluft gezunt what a shluft oh amazing. You wouldn't say I don't really sleep I don't want to sleep I sleep to minimum no. But he doesn't give this example he gives another example milsa de'bdichusa. Humor humor a good joke a good joke comedy humor. So you say why am I listening to comedy clean of course appropriate why am I listening to comedy why am I listening humor because it sharpens my mind ולשמח ליבו להשם ותורתו ועבודתו and it puts me in a joyous mood to serve Hashem. So lest you think I heard a comedy show bitul zman what a waste what kind of a shul brings in such a comedian if they're appropriate but it's going to make you laugh and that laughing is going to let you relax a little bit in the stressful life and the world in which we live in which there's such anxiety and the milsa de'bdichusa is going to let you be a better eved Hashem. Why? Because the jokes were laced with Chazal and Torah and psukim gevaldik if you found such a comedian. But even if you can't because the comedy and the jokes made you laugh you enjoyed the company of who you were with because as the Alter Rebbe writes le'pakeach da'ato it sharpens your mind and it puts you in a joyous mood for Hashem his Torah and his worship. So you say oh from here I'm going back to the beis medrash I'm going to my chavrusa where there's a mariv or catching a mariv after the event after the show and my mariv was a more gevaldige mariv because I was relaxed because I laughed because I lived because comedy is medicine and it restored my soul and my sanity she'tzrichim lihyos b'simcha which ought to be carried out joyously כמו שעשה רבא לתלמידיו שאמר לפניהם מילתא דבדיחותא תחילה ובדחו רבנן גמרא שבת דף ל so lest you reject and you say you know if you're really yerei Hashem you walk around like this sad and and farbisseneh and miserable and you look down and you're that's an eved Hashem you have to be you have to be introvert and sad and looking down can't ever smile if you smile you're not a real eved Hashem the Alter Rebbe the Baal HaTanya is writing us he's giving us license he's giving permission and he's not giving it Rava did the Gemara in Shabbos tells us Rava opened every shiur with a joke every shiur with a joke a little humor a joke because when the people who attend that shiur sat back they laughed they smiled now they're ready to learn now whatever you're going to say now it can penetrate now it can get in now it can get in they were closed they were anxious they were worried they were miserable they were frightened they were scared now you told them a joke relax good joke comedy's the best medicine it's medicine so so the Alter Rebbe says ha'omer milsa de'bdichusa a good joke a good joke good comedians know that they're doing a mitzvah and in fact that's what the Gemara tells us the Alter Rebbe doesn't quote it Steinsaltz does others point out the Gemara says that Eliyahu HaNavi who's going to Olam HaBa points to the two in the in the shuk in the marketplace who put a smile on people's face the comedians those who tell the jokes those who bring the smiles baruch Hashem we have good people and they and they make us laugh and they and they take the edge off and at the end of a stressful day you you happen to catch on their status or whatever it is and and you find something again it should be clean it should be appropriate it should elevate not bring down but if they can make you laugh and laugh even at ourselves then then they elevate then it's a then they open us up they open us up they open us up like the most popular gabbai I mean I was thinking I was thinking more about my friend Dovi and Elan and others but yeah maybe you too maybe you too that they they could put a smile on a face and they open up your heart and they let in the messages that otherwise are getting shut out because we have this this hard shell around us isn't it amazing that's what the Alter Rebbe chose to give us the example eating and drinking I get that's where we all would have gone first after that I would have gone to maybe sleep travel recreation sports the Alter Rebbe's second example is comedy it's comedy it's humor comedy and humor is is for the beinoni can be serving not the ego but the elokus this should be the introduction for every comedy show that הנני מוכן ומזומן לקיים מצוות אלקות, not ego. That here we are לשם ייחוד קודשא בריך הוא before the comedy, before the jokes, before the laughter, before the medicine that we need. If we can't laugh at ourselves and we can't laugh, I don't know how we get through. I've shared before I've been on podcasts, they ask me how do you get by, what do you do for fun, whatever. And I say I like to listen to comedy. I like to listen to good kosher comedians, but laughter is the best medicine. And if we don't laugh, and if you ask yourself, when's the last time I laughed? When's the last time I laughed? When's the last time I laughed out loud? Not I wrote LOL back to someone in a text, but actually laughed out loud. Laughter is medicine, it restores the soul. I'm not telling you if you have a choice between putting on a shiur and the comedy, you should put on the comedy, but if you're already not going to put on the shiur, I often drive back from a funeral unveiling that I do, and I listen to a few minutes of comedy. It restores life. It's medicine for the soul and I feel better. The Alter Rebbe Perek Zayin Tanya, he says it sharpens your mind, puts you in a joyous mood to serve Hashem, his Torah and his worship. And that's why Rava understood and knew to go there. And it gives you Olam Haba. That's who's going to bring Olam Haba, the people who put smiles on other people's faces. So Torah doesn't require us to desist from worldly activities. That's the message of the Alter Rebbe. He doesn't say how do you serve Elokus not ego, minimize your eating and drinking, minimize your smiling and laughing, minimize your sleep, minimize your shopping, minimize your travel. And that's how you serve Hashem. No, he says enjoy it, but enjoy it the Elokus in it, not the ego of it. Enjoy it because you're directing and channeling it and positioning you to be a better eved Hashem from it. That's how you find, turn it into a korban and nesach and niskei yayin. Turn it into sharpening your mind and laughing and smiling and being ready to serve Hashem. But if on the other hand מזוללי בשר וסובאי יין, if you're a gorge on meat and you guzzle wine, if you're gluttonous in your attitude, you don't make a bracha before, you don't make a bracha after, and you didn't do it because you want to be happier and serve Hashem better and now you're going to be in a better mood and now you could do more, better husband, a better wife, a better mother, a better father, a better son, a better daughter, a better chavrusa, a better eved Hashem. That's not why you're doing it. Why are you doing it? Because epes I want to gorge. I want to be a glutton. I want to stuff my face למלאות תאוות גופו ונפשו הבהמית. I want to satisfy the desire of the body and the animal soul שהיא בחינת יסוד המים מארבע יסודות הרעים שבה ממנה מידת התאווה. על ידי זה יורד חיות הבשר. If you do that, you haven't turned the meat into a korban, you became an animal. היין שבקרבו ונכלל לפי שעה ברע גמור שבשלוש קליפות הטמאות וגופו נעשה לבוש ומרכבה. What you did is instead of being the you didn't become the mizbe'ach that turned the meat into a korban, you became a lowly animal that dragged the meat down into complete negativity of the three klipos hatmeios. Meaning if you indulge the klipas noga and the darkness of it, you put it in the category of the first three klipos, whereas if you find and reveal the light of it, you take it out of klipas noga and you elevate and you elevate. So all of this is determined by whom? Us. The object or the act is inherently neutral. We choose through our mindfulness or mindlessness, through our intent or lack of intent. We determine the value of it and we can either elevate it and we are elevated by it or it lowers us and lessens us. Now the chiddush of this I'll just end by repeating it yet again. To me the chiddush of this is we always heard this and we always knew parts of it, but again it's the Baal HaTanya's examples of it. Because I always thought, what does it mean to elevate it? What it means to elevate it is to eat it like Rav Itche Meir, to eat it like Rav Amshinov, to eat it like a person bare minimum, you're just doing it to serve Hashem to survive, you fast from week to week and only eat a little bit on Shabbos, and that's an eved Hashem. Says the Baal HaTanya no, black and blue marbled steak, a glass of red wine, a good comedy, a good laugh, but that you're doing that to be a better eved Hashem. It's opening you up, you're enjoying, you're seeing Hashem, you're finding the Elokus and that is still a high level. Halevai Beinoni. Halevai Beinoni. Im yirtze Hashem we'll pick up next week. Stay happy, stay healthy.
