Transcript
Good morning, good morning, Boker Tov, Boker Tov. Welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning at Tanya generously sponsored by Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Please help yourself to coffee, slushies, pastries and Rav Shaya's corner whose Yahrtzeit we just observed. Huge thank you to the Fedaks as we continue learning Tanya together. We are up to Perek Tes, Chapter 9 in the Heilige Tanya, and in here in Chapter 9 in Perek Tes of Tanya, we have gone through understanding the war that takes place inside each and every one of us. Ba'al HaTanya has established the two parts of our personality, the חלק אלוה ממעל ממש, the Godliness in us, not as if there's God in us but there is an actual piece of God in us. We spoke yesterday in the Parsha Shiur that's why V'ahavta L'rei'acha Kamocha we can love our neighbor as ourselves, because Ani Hashem. When you realize there's a piece of God in every person, by definition there is something to love. If you simply look and search, you will find it. That's why Rav Tzadok says the same way we have to have Emuna in Hashem, we have to have Emuna in ourselves because there is a piece of God in us, a Godly soul, that capacity to be disciplined, to be in control. But on the other hand, there's an animal soul, there's the Nefesh Bahamit, there's the Kelipa, the Sitra Achra, there's the dark side, and that's the inner struggle that we all go through from the moment we're born until the day we leave this world. Will our life be defined by ego or Elokus? Will we search our own pleasure, our own happiness, our own ego, or are we living for Hashem as His emissary, ambassador, agent? Are we trying to repair, are we trying to redeem His world? That's the inner struggle, that's the battle in the metaphor of the Ba'al HaTanya, the two armies that are fighting over the same territory. Who's rules will reign? Who will be supreme? Who will be the ruler and the king? Our body, our Guf is that territory that the two souls are battling over and they're battling after. So we spoke about what the Godly soul wants. The Godly soul wants to live for Elokus not for ego. The Godly soul wants to channel and direct and transform and train the animal in us, not purge or destroy, not shecht or eliminate, but to train that animal in us to be able to transform our experience with all of the physical things in this world, to be able to transform and elevate the three Levush, the three garments of the soul, speech, thought and action, and to be able to elevate them to serve the Godliness. But what does the animal soul want? That's what we're up to at the very end of Perek Tes in Tanya. אך נפש הבהמית שמהקליפה רצונו להיפך ממש. But the animal soul which is from Kelipa, we said there are four types of Kelipa, the three negative Kelipas and Kelipas Noga that depends on our intent and our consciousness and our mindfulness. But the animal soul in us comes from the world of Kelipa and that world of Kelipa wants the exact opposite, לטובת האדם שיגבר עליה וינצחה. The animal soul, the animal drive, the animal impulse, it ultimately, it too is also for our good and it exists only so that we'll be challenged to overcome it and reign supreme over it. Now this is a big Chidush of the Ba'al HaTanya, a radically different way of looking at the Yetzer Hara. If you're in the challenge, we have 2200 people doing a 30 day technology challenge right now. If you're in it, you got the text early this morning, day three, today's challenge was about the Yetzer Hara and the challenge today of set your timer five minutes before you go on your phone and so on. Baruch Hashem we have many people, the feedback has been outstanding. And that's what this challenge is all about, these 30 days is this Kelipa, this Yetzer Hara that compulsively is drawing us to our phone, to technology, to mindless scrolling and watching and shopping. How can we break that pattern and how can we restore our sense of autonomy? How can we take back our free will and our choice? So the classic way of looking at the Yetzer Hara, when we talk about the Yetzer Hara, classic way of looking at it or thinking about the Yetzer Hara is that the Yetzer Hara is the evil inclination. The Yetzer Hara is our kryptonite. Yetzer Hara's categorically negative or bad and we've gotta purge it and get rid of it and slaughter it and destroy it and it's a terrible, terrible thing. But that's not how Chazal saw it. Chazal when they talk about hinei tov and hinei tov me'od, Chazal the Medrash tells us hinei tov is the Yetzer Hatov. Tov me'od is the Yetzer Hara. The good inclination, that's good. But the bad inclination, the negative inclination what we call the Yetzer Hara, wow, that's tov me'od, that's really good. Now what does that mean Chazal say that's really good? One understanding of it we can identify with maybe is that if man didn't have, what is the most carnal Yetzer Hara we have? Maybe the most universal, also the most self-sabotaging and self-destructive is the libido, is the Yetzer Hara if unencumbered and unguarded, this week's Parsha Acharei Mos, the arayos. When a person doesn't have healthy boundaries and moral borders in interpersonal relationships it gets that person into, into big trouble, into big trouble, that's the biggest Yetzer Hara. But if a person didn't have that desire... desire, physical desire for intimacy, how many men would get married, how many would invest and compromise and sacrifice in building a relationship? Would the world even continue? Could the world even have a continuity to it? So that's Chazal understood that the yetzer hara, that's tov me'od, because without it, people wouldn't be invested in what was necessary in order to have, in order to have relationships. But the Baal HaTanya here, without referencing that maamar Chazal, is understanding it a little bit differently, and he's saying the following: that the nefesh habahamis is letovas ha'adam. You know that very thing that you think is your kryptonite, the very thing that you're fighting, that urge that you struggle with, to eat the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the wrong amount, the urge to sleep in and press snooze and miss whatever you were supposed to get to early in the morning, that urge to gossip and slander and share that good juicy lashon hara, that urge to look at or watch what you shouldn't be gazing at? Whatever that urge is that seeks to undermine us and we say, \"I wish there were a shot or a pill I could take to get rid of it.\" I wish that there was a shot or a pill I could take to manage this yetzer hara like people are managing others. I wish. \"Don't wish so quickly,\" says the Baal HaTanya. You know why? Because that urge, that nefesh habahamis, that yetzer hara, that sitra achra, that dark side in you, that was created for you. When you face it and confront it and fight it and overcome it, there's nothing better than that. There's nothing better than that. That's also letovas ha'adam, lehisgaber aleha, to display your might and your power, your discipline and your sovereignty, regulate your life and overcome it. You know what's even more delicious than whatever food you didn't eat? The fact that you didn't eat it and you wanted to. And you know what? When you ate it, that deliciousness, it lasts very short. As soon as you're hungry again, you crave it again, and it wasn't really satisfying. But when you overcame it and you didn't eat it, that satisfaction, that deliciousness, that lasts much longer. But we forget that, because when we face it and we want it, when we have an appetite for it, that yetzer hara, part of its methodology is to get us to have amnesia. It gets us to forget how much more delicious it was to be in control, to turn off that screen and not look at it, to not eat the food we shouldn't eat, to not share the gossip that we should keep to ourselves. That's even more delicious, להתגבר ולנצחה כמשל הזונה שבזוהר הקדוש. And here the Baal HaTanya ends perek tes with an allusion to the analogy of the Zohar, the Holy Zohar. What is this analogy of the Holy Zohar? The Alter Rebbe doesn't spell it out, but we will because he references it. So he wants us to know it. So the Zohar says that everything that the, blessed be, everything that the Ribbono Shel Olam has made above and below is all intended for man to manifest His glory and all for His service. Ai, how can an evil servant come, luring people to an evil path, causing them to disobey the will of their master? You're going to tell me the yetzer hara is lekovod Shamayim? You're going to tell me that appetite, that impulse to do the wrong thing, that's also for good? Yeah, it's doing the will of his master. This may be compared to a king who had only one son whom he loved very much. He commanded him in love not to approach an evil woman. The son agreed lovingly to follow his father's will. At the king's home outside was a zona, was a harlot, a woman of the street, the world's oldest profession. I don't know how many more ways to tell you how to translate the word zona. Attractive in appearance, these are the words of the Zohar, not mine, a beautiful zona, attractive in appearance and beautiful in form. Some days later, the king said, \"I want to test my son's devotion to me.\" He called for the zona, he called for this woman of the street, and he said to her, \"Go and seduce my son,\" to see his son's devotion to him. That zona, what could she do? She went after his son and began seducing him with all kinds of enticements. If that son is worthy and obeys his father's command, he rebukes her, pays no heed to her, casts her away. Then the father rejoices in his son and brings him into his palace, giving him gifts and presents and great honor. But who caused all the honor for that son? Who caused that son those gifts, that honor, to rise to that next level? Who caused it? You must admit, writes the Zohar, it was the zona. And that zona, does she deserve praise for this or not? Surely she does, from every angle. First, because she carried out the king's command, and second, because she brought upon the son all of his honor, all this goodness, all this love of the king toward him. So says the Alter Rebbe, this nefesh habahamis, this impulse, this appetite, this yetzer hara, this urge, we wish we didn't have it, just want to take a shot or a pill and not wake up with it, we don't want to have to fight it. We wish. But then there'd be no purpose to life. The king, the king has called that appetite in us and said, \"Do me a favor, test my son, test my daughter, I want to see their devotion to me, I want to see whether they're willing to fight, I want to see whether they're willing to regulate, I want to see how devoted they're...\" I want to see whether they're a gibor and whether they'll be misgaber. I want to see whether they'll have what it takes to do what they need to, to fight it. So don't wish you didn't have it. It's here for us. Embrace it and recognize it's a gift to us. Because when we can overcome that urge, that's growth. That's growth. It's overcoming. What's the metaphor everyone gives about the pearl and the oyster? It's when it's agitated that it develops the pearl. We have real breakthrough and real growth comes when we face tension and conflict. If a person works out—this is a group that looks like they're in fine shape and work out regularly—so you know that how do your muscles grow? Your muscles grow not when you leave them alone, that's when they atrophy and die. It's when the muscle faces tension and undergoes microtears that when it replenishes, it grows. It grows bigger. It doesn't grow because you sit there still doing nothing. It doesn't grow because you haven't moved. That's when it atrophies and dies. It's when the muscle faces a tension, that's when it has microtears that fill in and that grow. So similarly, when we face that tension, that appetite, that impulse, that thing we wish we didn't have, and we wish we wouldn't do, and we wish we weren't. It's when we face it and overcome it that we grow. So rather than regret it, rather than resent it, rather than try to eliminate it, embrace it. So not my words, they're the words of the Heilige Alter Rebbe that לטובת האדם נפש הבהמית מהקליפה רצונה להפך ממש לטובת האדם. The thing that you're that we're confronting that's trying to undermine and sabotage us, it's for our own good, sheyisgaber aleha. If life were just smooth sailing and easy, then it wouldn't have meaning and it wouldn't have purpose. If we want to grow and we want meaning and purpose, we want what is a higher satisfaction than even the animal one, it's to express and to nourish and to touch the חלק אלוה ממעל ממש that godly soul inside ourselves. Rabbi Steinsaltz in his commentary here at the end of Perek Tes he writes, \"The author does not elaborate on the specific ways that the animal soul endeavors that the body's faculties and garments would serve it alone.\" We did that the whole first part of the perek was when it came to the godly soul we elaborated and we enumerated and now at the animal soul he just makes this cryptic reference that the desire of the animal soul derived from the kelipa is the opposite. What's that desire? Why doesn't the Alter Rebbe elaborate? Says Rabbi Steinsaltz, because we're already all too familiar with these details. There's no duty to teach them. The Alter Rebbe didn't have to get into how the animal soul entices us, what yetzer haras we have. We don't need a club, we don't need a book, we don't need a blog, we're all all too familiar with the animal soul's yetzer haras and its and its methodology. The idea the animal soul desires the exact opposite of the godly soul implies that there's no room here for compromise. A person might arrive at some sort of compromise between the two, a peaceful coexistence between them. You might try to get the animal soul and the godly soul around a table. You bring in the vice president, the secretary of state, and you'll negotiate a deal. Maybe there's some room, maybe there's a deal to be had. No. Ultimately both souls want one thing: complete domination. So inherently there's no room for compromise. There is no deal to be had. You cannot put them around the table. You cannot come up with a compromise. There is no negotiating between the godly soul and the animal soul because they both want complete control. They're fighting over the territory called your guf. Says Rabbi Steinsaltz, we emphasize this because a compromise of this sort is one thing that Yiddishkeit cannot accept. This is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to be a Jew. If all that were required of a Jew would merely be to go to shul, daven, it would be far simpler. But the Jew is also required to leave shul for the outside world and the real question is what happens then? It is impossible to make some sort of compromise, cutting life in two, half for holiness and half not, because the spheres of holiness and kelipa cannot live alongside each other peacefully. Inevitably a struggle ensues in which one soul prevails. There is no compromise to be had, there is no negotiation, there is no deal. And therefore the entire presence of the animal soul in us is to give us the opportunity to be supreme and sovereign over it. It's a gift. Don't resent it, don't regret it, don't try to push it out. Embrace it, confront it, overcome it, redirect it, elevate it, transform it and then it's praiseworthy that just like this zona, just like this harlot who deserves the praise because she, she in enticing the prince is the one who brought him all the glory, all the honor, all the gift, it's the yetzer hara in us that brings us all that meaning, all that purpose, all that satisfaction, that gives us essentially all that life that we so much that we so much crave. So we'll pick up next time Perek Tes going all the way back to the beginning, if you remember. Of Perek Yud, thank you. If you remember all the way back in the beginning, we talked about a tzaddik. We talked about the perfect tzaddik and we talked about the imperfect tzaddik, and we talked about the beinoni, we talked about the rasha. What are the differences between them? If the tzaddik never does anything wrong, then what does it mean there's an imperfect tzaddik? If the beinoni also does nothing wrong, then why aren't they a tzaddik? What makes them a beinoni? And who is this rasha? Beginning with Perek Yud, now the Alter Rebbe is going to, now that we've built the architecture of understanding these different archetypes and personalities, now we could start to apply them and see where we fit in and who we are. Halavai, halavai beinoni. Have a great day and a chag sameach.
