Transcript
Shalom aleichem. Good morning, boker tov, welcome back to 10 Minutes of Meaning where we're here בשרות טובות ישועות ונחמות for our brothers and sisters in Israel, for Klal Yisrael, and for the world today. 10 Minutes of Meaning is generously sponsored by our dear friends Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Thank you so much for your generosity. Please help yourself to coffee, slushies, pastries in our Reb Shayala corner. This morning we begin perek tet of the Heilige Tanya. We are continuing to make our way learning Tanya together, making our way through perek tet of Tanya. And here is a pivot point. Here the Tanya goes. We've been discussing the klipos, the three negative, categorically negative klipos, which come from the sitra achra, the dark side, the other side. They come from the categorically negative impulse in us, and the fourth klipa, the klipa noga, which is all about our intent, our mindfulness, our consciousness, what we bring to it. And now we leave the world of klipa and we go to the world of ourselves, understanding ourselves, the battle within ourselves, the war within ourselves, and how these different souls that we've been learning about manifest themselves inside us. We began Tanya by learning about, and this might be counterintuitive the order we went, we began by learning about the animal soul. First we learned about the nefesh bahamit, the animal soul in us. The animal we're not trying to obliterate or slaughter, the animal we're trying to train and elevate. But the animal soul. And then we went to the חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, the godly soul. So how do these two souls interact within us? How do they interact? How do they express themselves? We talked about the garments, speech, thought, and action are the garments of the soul. And the big chiddush of the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya, was that even thought is a garment. I would have thought it's intrinsic, inherent to who I am, and the Alter Rebbe introduced the idea that even thought is a garment of the soul. But the essence, these two souls that are inside us, the tension between them, how they operate, how they get along. You ready? Ready? Okay. You don't look so ready. Here we go. והנה מקום משכן נפש הבהמית שקליפת נוגה בכל איש ישראל. The animal soul from klipas noga within every person, what generally found in the blood, which we talked about in perek aleph, has a location in the body where it rests. And where is that location? If I have to tell you point to the animal soul in you, where is this nefesh bahamit? Where is the animal soul in you? Where does it rest? הוא בלב בחלל שמאלי שהוא מלא דם. It's in the heart, in the left chamber that's filled with blood, with energized blood. So if you need to diagnose anatomically, if you want to be able to go into an MRI machine and see where is the animal soul, the soul that says eat that even though it's not good for you, sleep in even though you supposedly wanted to wake up, exercise even though you're too lazy good for nothing bum, the soul that says I want to speak lashon hara, gossip and slander, that soul that where does it reside? It is in the left chamber that's filled with blood. וכתיב כי הדם הוא הנפש ולכן כל התאוות והתפארות וכעס ודומיהן הם בלב. The pasuk says the blood is the soul. Therefore all your desires, your pride, your anger, all these emotions which are negative. Notice that the Alter Rebbe gives two examples of emotions. And they are the examples, they are the emotions that both, the emotions that both the Rambam and the Ramban say don't belong in any measure. The word middah means a measure. I've said this countless times. The word middah means measure. Middos are attributes, character traits, and they belong in some measure within us. But two things that don't belong in any measure are anger, anger's categorically bad, doesn't belong in any measure, and arrogance is categorically bad, doesn't belong. A person has to be extreme in never getting angry and extreme in humility. So the Alter Rebbe gives those two examples. Where do pride and anger exist? They come from the heart. Where in the heart? The heart has four chambers. Is that correct? Four chambers. It comes from the left chamber of the heart. ומהלב הן מתפשטות בכל הגוף. We're going to get in a second. Does the Alter Rebbe mean this literally, figuratively, is this symbolic, is this anatomical? Does it appear in an MRI? We'll get to in one second. From the heart, that's where it originates. Where's that temptation? Where's that drive? Where's that desire? Where's it coming from? That impulse? Where does it originate? The left chamber of the heart. But then it doesn't stay there. ומהלב הן מתפשטות בכל הגוף וגם עולה למוח שבראש. From the left chamber of the heart, it spreads throughout the whole body. And just like the blood that's pumped from the heart circulates and makes its way up to the brain, the blood oxygenates the brain in order for the brain to function, it needs to get blood. So too the impulse, pride, anger, animal soul impulse originates in the left chamber of the heart, circulates like the blood to the brain. לחשב ולהרהר בהן ולהתחכם בהן. Where those feelings which emerge in the heart are then thought about, contemplated, and schemed upon by the animal soul. כמו שהדם עיקרו בלב ומהלב מתפשט לכל האיברים. Just as the blood has its source in the heart and from the heart spreads to all the limbs. וגם עולה למוח שבראש, just like the blood is pumped by the heart throughout the body, so too the impulse begins in the heart and then that impulse is pumped through our body to the brain and it originates in the heart, the place of feeling: I want to eat that, I want to look at that, I want to say that, I want to act in that way. And then that drive, that desire that originates in the heart goes to the brain where the brain now rationalizes, justifies, argues, defends. The word rationalize comes from—the etymology of the word rationalize is rational-lies. We tell ourselves rational-lies. They're lies, but they're rational enough that they make sense. So, \"I could eat this because ebbes Taanis Esther a couple day—a couple weeks ago I fasted, so I could have a bag of potato chips at 12 o'clock at night.\" Rational-lies. \"I'll go to later minyan. I went to minyan—it's okay to miss a day. It's better for me, it's important to miss a day to appreciate how important minyan—\" we tell ourselves rational-lies—I don't mean to give any ideas. We tell ourselves these rational-lies, they're rational lies. It starts in the heart: I'm just lazy, I just want to sleep in, I'm just looking for an excuse, I'm just hungry, I just want a bag of Cape Cod potato chips 12 o'clock at night. ברוך השם בלי עין הרע, I don't want to flex, haven't done that in a very long time. So what do I do? I justify, I explain, I rationalize. It started in the heart, circulates the body, makes its way up to the head. The animal soul functions in that emotional space. Its intellect is used largely to defend, to argue, to justify, to rationalize. And the—the impulses that started in the heart and make their way up to the head, that's the animal soul. Then the Alter Rebbe says: where's the godly soul? If you go in an MRI machine, an X-ray, where's the godly soul? If you had to point—well, I don't know how the left chamber if I'm pointing to it, I don't know where it is, somewhere in this region. That's the animal soul. Where's the godly soul? מקום משכן נפש האלוקית במוחין שבראש. Oh, it's in the brain. ומשם מתפשטת לכל האיברים וגם בלב. It works and operates in the opposite direction. The godly soul is the place of order, discipline, sovereignty, self-control. These are all thoughts that begin in the brain and then they circulate, make their way even to control the heart. That means to say that the godly soul is not emotionless. The godly soul is not pure intellect with no emotion, not a cold-hearted—I won't finish that whichever demographic or subgroup or sub-sect of the Jewish people you think are cold-hearted, have no emotion and no heart. No, the godly soul starts in the brain, but v'gam balev, makes its way down בחלל הימני שאין בו דם. And it is in the right chamber which is devoid of blood, energized blood. כמו שכתוב לב חכם לימינו, like the pasuk says in Koheles: the heart of the wise man is on his right. Okay, so now the Alter Rebbe has set up that the impulse, the animal soul, that's in the left chamber of the heart and then it's—makes its way, circulates around the body to the brain, it tries to get the brain to defend what it wants to do. The godly soul starts in the brain—intellect, cognition, self-control, discipline—and then it circulates in the body until hopefully makes its way down to control the heart. Now does the Alter Rebbe mean this literally? So, possibly. If you look at Rav Chaim Miller's commentary, he seems to suggest—he doesn't say it explicitly—that the Alter Rebbe means it literally. It means it literally: this is where these souls are found in the body. I was discussing this morning with a holy Chabad rabbi who I admire and love and talk Tanya with on Wednesday mornings before the shiur and he also took it literally, but I said to him, \"If it's in the heart, well, what if I have a heart transplant? If it circulates in the blood, what if I get a blood transfusion? Do I get somebody else's impulse and yetzer hara and sitra achra and animal soul? Does it transform—transfer to me? How does that work exactly? Do we mean it literally? And what happens when the soul's extracted from the body? It's only the godly soul, the animal soul's left in the heart? And if the godly soul's in the brain, when it's extracted from the body, did you leave a part of it behind in the brain? Does it mean it literally?\" So he explained and he had explanations. I'm not—certainly not—as I said, I'm not teaching you Tanya, I'm learning Tanya out loud and you're foolish enough to listen. So I'm just learning it out loud. But I was—I felt somewhat validated because I opened up Rabbi Steinsaltz's commentary. And here's what Rabbi Steinsaltz writes—and there's a lot more, we're just beginning this perek, but just to set this up—and I found this very powerful, very meaningful and it really I think gives a context to this perek, to this chapter, which was very meaningful to me. And he says the following. He says, \"This follows the ancients' anatomical conception of the heart as consisting of two chambers with different functions.\" In other words, this isn't from the Alter Rebbe only. The ancients, Jewish and non-Jewish, saw attributes and character in different parts of the body. The ancients, the people who live in the ancient world, those of the ancient world, early. So we—we know the liver represents presents certain qualities, the different the kidneys represent the klayos, the Chazal already talk about different character traits reside in different parts of the body. Does that mean literally? If you dissect them in a Petri dish under a microscope in a lab, you'll find those qualities, those midos in those organs? One ventricle receives air, oxygen, the other's full of blood. In any case, the Tanya, this is Rabbi Steinsaltz, zecher tzaddik livracha. The Tanya is not a book on anatomy and the author is not suggesting that negative traits can be removed by a surgical operation. The issue at hand is not where the animal soul resides in the anatomical sense, but the relation between the two souls and the major role that the animal soul plays in the inner life of a man. In this sense, the animal soul resides in the heart, for the animal soul is deeply connected with the heart and the emotions. It's true that in perek vav, the animal soul does not consist only of desires and feelings, but is a complete entity containing also intellectual and abstract, but the center of gravity of the animal soul is within the emotion, the heart. The difference between the two souls is brought into focus by the question: where lies the center of life? What is the axis of the soul around which all revolve? If in the animal soul the axis of existence is the self, which is identified with the body and the physical life of man, that self is the core of all existence and the end that it serves. The animal soul manifests itself in many forms, including some that are extremely refined and complex, but when these manifestations are traced to their source, it is consistently found to be the base instincts of man. Left ventricle of the heart, the person's identity as a physical being. For the animal soul, the blood is in the soul. Life is for the sake of life, rather than an instrument for a higher purpose. The blood is the soul and the soul's the blood. The self is life and life is the self. The self is the epicenter of being. This self-saturated being is not a holy thing. The experience of holiness by definition separate from the experience of selfhood. Where there is ego, there cannot be holiness. Holiness can reside only where there is a surrender of the I, where the self is nullified before its supernal source. Thus holiness is never a derivative or outgrowth of the ego. Thus the quality and sophistication of the animal soul is irrelevant to its holiness. And he goes on, I don't want to read it all. And then he contrasts it. The opposite of course is the godly soul. And where's the godly soul? The brain. The brain is the seat of Chabad, chochmah binah v'daas. The person's faculties are the mind and intellect, and in a more general sense, power, perception and consciousness. The headquarters of the godly soul, its point of contact with the body in the life of man, is not in the blood and the instinctive throb of physical life, in a different though no less fundamental organ, the brain, the faculty of consciousness. So the way I understand Rabbi Steinsaltz what he's saying is, you need not understand the Alter Rebbe here in perek tes as telling you an anatomical lesson. And you don't solve this with surgery. Maybe it's meant to be taken literally, maybe. But you need not subscribe to it being taken literally. You can also understand it the following way. All of life is a choice between ego or elokus. Is life about me? My needs, my wants, my desires, my honor, me? Is life my ego? Or can I surrender my ego to serve Hashem, recognizing me, my wants, my desires, even indulging them in the service of Hashem, elevating, transforming them in the service of Hashem, capturing my talents, my skills, my individuality, my sense of self, but not a sense of self that serves the ego, a sense of self that serves Hashem. There are two ways you could live life. He doesn't say this, Rabbi Steinsaltz, and this is not a Jewish quote. I think it originates with C.S. Lewis actually. But the quote is, you could live life and think: I am a body that has a soul, or I am a soul that has a body. Essentially, what is the fundamental me? Which is the real me? Where does me begin? Is it my body, eating and sleeping and clothing and and my vanity and my appearance and my... is that me? Oh, and on top of that, I also read and learned and heard I have a soul. So I also try to learn Torah and nourish it. I also try to daven and express it. But fundamentally, who am I? What am I most in touch with instinctively? What most identifies me is the world of the body, the material, the physical. And then on top of that, I try to focus on that I also have a soul. Or am I a soul? That's who I am. I'm a soul. I'm almost 6,000 years old because my soul is 5,786 years old. And my soul looks pretty good considering how old I am. That's what, I've existed for 5,786 years. And my soul exists eternally. And I'm a piece of God. It happens to be that for this finite time here on earth, it's housed in a body. And the body has certain needs. The body wears clothing, the body eats, the body sleeps, the body bathes. The body has certain needs, but that's not who I am, anymore than the garments that I wear are who I am. I need to wear garments, they protect me from the elements, they provide modesty, I need to wear them, but they don't define me. Yes, they're uniform, they to a certain create associations, but they're not me. I can take them off. And the body, I can disrobe from the body. There's a soul without the body. Am I a body that has a soul? Am I a soul that has a body? Is my life about ego, is my life about אלוקות? That’s how I understand what the אלטר רבי here is saying in תניא in פרק ט. Again, with tremendous humility, that’s how I understand it, just learning it out loud with you. What the אלטר רבי is saying is that the animal soul in the heart means the body. I identify with the body, the place of emotion, the place of material, the place of physical, the place that throbs with this blood that circulates in my body, that yearns, that craves, that wants, that has impulse, that acts compulsively. That’s the body, that’s one way to live. That’s the סטרא אחרא, the קליפה, that’s the נפש הבהמית, that’s the animal soul. But the godly soul, the better and best part of who I am, that’s in the brain. That means the place of אלוקות, not ego. That means the place of discipline, self-control, sovereignty. That means that place that realizes I have immortality and eternity, that it’s not just about indulging in what I want and what I’m drawn to in the here and now. Yes, maybe literally in those places, but certainly symbolically and figuratively how we associate those places. The heart is emotion. The heart just wants what it wants and the heart is blind and the heart just pulls us, whereas the head is a place of thought and consciousness and is something bigger and greater and greater than ourselves. And רב שטיינזלץ carries this through now through the rest of the פרק. So literally the left part of the heart, the right part of the heart, starting in the heart then the head, the head starting in the heart, maybe, very possibly. I’m not, certainly not, certainly not negating that possibility, but even if one struggles to see it literally, anatomically, it’s not meant to be understood necessarily only anatomically. It also is meant to be understood symbolically and metaphorically in terms of who we are, how we see ourselves, how we identify, what is our life, what is the center axis around which it revolves. Ego or אלוקות? There are only two ways to live life. When I’m eating, am I eating for ego or am I deriving energy connecting to השם so I can better אלוקות? Everything. When I buy that big house, when I drive that nice car, which are both okay if they’re towards אלוקות. All that I do, is it ego or is it אלוקות? That’s the contrast of where it originates. What are the headquarters? The headquarters of the animal soul is the heart, the place of emotion, the place of material, the place of physical. The headquarters of the godly soul is the world of thought, the world of חב\"ד, חכמה, בינה, and דעת, the world of intellect, the world of self-control, the world of self-awareness, self-perception. The heart has no ability to see itself. The head has the ability. Human beings, animals don’t. Human beings can step outside ourselves and have some self-awareness. How am I perceived? How do I sound? What’s my brand? Who am I? What do I want to achieve? What are my goals? What are my resolutions? How will I get there? All of that is uniquely human and that’s the חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש and that is identified, associated with the brain and then it comes down to the right side of the heart as opposed to the left side of the heart. And then the אלטר רבי is going to take it from here, continuing with don’t get stuck on it, because the main point the אלטר רבי is going to get to is that the head has to rule over the heart. The head has to rule over the whole body. The head, thoughtfulness, consciousness, strategy, moral clarity. The headquarters of the godly soul has to be what’s in charge and what’s in control. It has to be what is the head. That’s what’s most important. We’ll get to then the idea of the ראש and even ראש השנה, אם ירצה השם, we’ll pick up with it next week. May we hear בשורות טובות, ישועות.
