Likkutei Amarim Tanya, Chapter 28 - Part 3

00:01 We’re here in the Tanya, in the middle of chapter 28, near the bottom of page 35, at “And not as the world mistakenly thinks.” The Alter Rebbe is explaining how to deal with distracting thoughts that come to a person in the middle of davening. He says the advice is to divert your attention. That is the advice the Alter Rebbe gives: don’t engage with the thoughts; turn your attention away from them completely. The Alter Rebbe continues that this should not dishearten a person. A person should not feel bad because distracting thoughts come to him. On the contrary, he should strengthen himself even more, with greater joy. Why? Because when he knows that these thoughts come precisely because there is a battle going on—because his G-dly soul is awakening to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu—then, naturally, the opposing side rises up against him. That is how a battle works. On the contrary, as long as he is asleep, the animal soul is asleep too. It is precisely because he is trying to daven and is awakening during davening that the other side also awakens, trying to bring him down with distracting thoughts. The purpose is for him to overcome them with greater strength and greater resolve, and to daven with more life and more energy, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later. The Alter Rebbe goes on. He explains: “And not as the world mistakenly thinks, inferring from the occurrence of a distracting thought that their davening is worthless.” So the point the Alter Rebbe is making here in this chapter is to reject what people commonly think. It is a common misconception. That means that when people do not study Chassidus, when they do not study Tanya and look at things from a more superficial perspective, they can fall into error. The misconception is that if a person has distracting thoughts in the middle of davening, it proves his davening is not as it should be. If he were davening properly, distracting thoughts would not come to him. And “the world” here means also

02:25 the world from the perspective of—of—also from the perspective of [unclear]. But when the deeper understanding of avodah is missing—of how the inner battle between the G-dly soul and the animal soul actually works—then you can sometimes find this kind of approach even in books of mussar. Yes, it is a common misconception: thinking that if you have distracting thoughts in the middle of davening, it is a sign that your davening is not as it should be. What is the reasoning behind this misconception? It is very straightforward. We see for ourselves that when a person is absorbed in something, when he is living it and fully engaged in it, then usually he has no distracting thoughts. If you have distracting thoughts, it is a sign that you are not truly absorbed in it. That is why people mistakenly think this is the reason you have distracting thoughts: you are not fully absorbed in davening. If you were absorbed in it, davening with enthusiasm, desire, pleasure, and genuine vitality, then distracting thoughts would not come to you. It is a sound line of reasoning, and we do see it in many areas of everyday life. So the Alter Rebbe comes to reject this idea. What is the basis for rejecting it? The Alter Rebbe explains: “And their words would indeed be true if there were only one soul, and it was the one both davening and thinking and contemplating distracting thoughts.” Then the claim would be correct: the fact that you have distracting thoughts would prove that you are not davening properly. That would be true if we were speaking about one soul, a single soul doing both things. Here it is davening, and here it is thinking distracting thoughts. And that is how people thought without Chassidus: there is one soul with inclinations in both directions. In that case, they would be right. If your soul is here, it is not there. And if, in the middle of it, you

04:30 are here and there, it is a sign that you are neither here nor there. You are… you are not really engaged in the service of Hashem, in davening. “But in actual truth, they are two souls battling one another in a person’s mind.” What is the Alter Rebbe’s point here? It is a remarkable point. Here we see what the Alter Rebbe accomplished in the Tanya. Before Chabad Chassidus, before the Tanya, we all knew that every person has two inclinations, a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara. That was not revealed in the Tanya; it is already written in the Gemara. The Gemara says it, and it has been well known since ancient times. The Gemara notes that the word “vayitzer” in “And Hashem Elokim formed man” is written with two yuds. Why two yuds? One for the yetzer tov and one for the yetzer hara. The concept of a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara existed before Chassidus. What was revealed in the Tanya? In chapter 1 of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe changed the names. Instead of writing “yetzer tov” and “yetzer hara,” he wrote “G-dly soul” and “animal soul.” This is not just a change of names; it changes the entire essence of the matter and the way we understand it. What did the Alter Rebbe introduce by calling them souls—the G-dly soul and the animal soul? The foundation comes from the Arizal. That is why, in chapter 1, the Alter Rebbe says, as it is written, and cites Eitz Chaim and the Arizal. In other words, the foundation is in the writings of the Arizal, of course. But here it becomes a foundation in serving Hashem: the G-dly soul and the animal soul. Before the teachings of Chassidus, we understood that a person has one soul. What is a soul? A soul is life, vitality. It is written, “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” A person has a soul

06:21 just as animals have souls. “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.” Every living thing, every level of existence, has a soul: there is the soul of an inanimate thing, the soul of a plant, the soul of an animal, and the soul of a human being. That is what a soul is: vitality. Now, this soul has all kinds of inclinations. In Chassidus, we know that the word “nefesh,” soul, can mean “desire.” Chassidus always cites expressions like “as your soul desires” or “my soul does not desire food”—verses that show that nefesh means desire. So it desires. Why does it desire? Because desire is the essence of the soul. The soul has wants and appetites; it is drawn to things. It is alive, and it wants. That is the definition of a soul. The human soul in particular—its whole existence is bound up with what it wants. So this soul has a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara. What should it want? Where should it direct its desire? The yetzer tov tries to persuade a person to direct his desire toward the things of this world, physical and material things, even forbidden things. That is the yetzer hara, sorry. The yetzer tov draws a person toward holiness, Torah, mitzvos, G-dliness, and serving Hashem. So what are these two inclinations? Two angels, two areas, two paths—whatever we call them. In the Gemara they are sometimes called angels, a good angel and a bad angel, [unclear]. There are different terms. Sometimes they are called angels, and sometimes they are called inclinations, whatever we call them. But the soul is one, and the battle is over which direction to take it. That is how it was understood until the teachings of Chassidus. So what follows from that? If there is only one soul, then where is your soul? Is your soul in holiness, is it in

08:14 In kelipah. Decide: Where is your soul? Where is your desire? Where are you invested? If you’re truly invested in the work of prayer, if you’re truly invested in serving Hashem, how does a foreign thought come to you? And if foreign thoughts occur to you, that means your soul isn’t connected to Hashem. It means you still aren’t truly connected to prayer. So, according to that view, the intrusion of foreign thoughts is a sign that the prayer is not as it should be, not accepted Above. The Alter Rebbe revealed in Tanya, chapter 1, that this is not actually so. According to Chassidus, based on Kabbalah, there are two souls. A Jew has something special: a Jew has two souls. That means there are two distinct essences, two distinct sources of life, and both are in the same body. There is a soul with its own life, desire, and pleasure, whose very essence is G-dliness—“an actual part of G-d Above.” [unclear] is drawn to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And there is a soul with its own desire and pleasure, a soul whose life is rooted in materiality, selfhood, and animal instinct: the animal soul. A person is made up of these two souls. For one soul, what defines life? What is the animal soul? How does it understand “life”? Life means materiality, selfhood, “I”—as the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 1, it is “clothed in a person’s blood to give life to the body.” The essence of the animal soul is selfhood: giving life to the body. “I exist, I exist, I am here.” That is its definition of life; that is the nature of the animal soul. There is another soul whose whole concern is G-dliness, “a part of G-d Above.” Its concern is G-dliness, self-nullification before Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So, since these are two souls, I can begin to pray, with my G-dly soul engaged in holiness, alive and energized and present in the prayer. On the other hand,

10:15 there is the animal soul, whose life and desire are bound up with this world. So there is no contradiction in the animal soul coming along and trying to introduce foreign thoughts at the very time the G-dly soul is immersing itself in the work of prayer. That does not prove that your prayer, from the standpoint of the G-dly soul, is not good prayer. The G-dly soul is there with full force; it lives G-dliness. From its standpoint, you are invested in the truth—the truth that “there is nothing else besides Him,” the truth of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So the G-dly soul wants to enter into prayer with full force. But there is another soul, and it too is stirred up. That soul says there is a world apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that is why foreign thoughts arise. This is what the Alter Rebbe is saying: if there were only one soul, you would be either here or there. But since there are two souls—let’s read it inside: “But in actual truth, they are two souls, and they wage war with one another in a person’s mind.” There are two souls here, fighting each other in a person’s mind. “Each desires and wishes to rule over him, and for his mind to be filled with it alone.” As we also explained, this is another point we discussed in chapter 9: it isn’t just that each of the two souls has its own desires. Each wants to be in charge completely. There is another point about the soul. Since a soul is a source of life, it sees its own nature as the whole of reality. The animal soul’s essence is selfhood and kelipah. That defines it; that is its nature. So the animal soul sees selfhood and kelipah in every part of the body, in every single thing. Everything must—its essence must—

12:10 everything must be connected to selfhood. In everything, it looks for that element of selfhood; that is its nature. Therefore, the animal soul wants to control the body completely, so that not a single part of a person remains unconnected to what it desires and wants: selfhood, animal instinct. For the G-dly soul, what does “soul” mean? G-dliness. And G-dliness, too, has its own essential character. What is the plain meaning of G-dliness? Nothing besides G-dliness. As the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 6, G-dliness means “He alone, and there is none besides Him.” There is no room for anything that is not G-dliness. In other words, each of the two souls seeks total control; each wants to permeate the body completely, all the way through. The G-dly soul wants G-dliness to reach every single detail, so that not one detail remains without G-dliness. That is what G-dliness means: “I alone.” For the animal soul, existence means selfhood: “I.” And “I” means my whole reality is me. Not a single part of a person should remain that isn’t “me,” that isn’t selfhood. So, the Alter Rebbe says, there are two souls here. One wants the whole person to be entirely G-dliness, while the animal soul wants the whole person to be characterized by selfhood. “All thoughts of Torah and fear of Heaven come from the G-dly soul, and all worldly matters come from the animal soul—except that the G-dly soul is clothed within it.” So if we know there are two souls here, that is the reassurance the Alter Rebbe gives us. It calms a person to know that there is, inevitably, a battle. The appearance of foreign thoughts is not the test; it does not show

13:58 that something is wrong with me. It doesn’t show that I’m in a bad state. It shows that there is a battle going on. So what must I do? I must overcome it. That is my work. My work is to overcome the yetzer hara and strengthen the yetzer tov, to reveal the G-dly soul. This point, this knowledge that we are dealing with two souls, tells a person that foreign thoughts are not the test. There is no reason to become disheartened. Instead, one must overcome the yetzer hara, strengthen the yetzer tov, immerse oneself in the intention of prayer, and turn one’s attention away from the yetzer’s distractions. What does the Alter Rebbe add here? “Except that the G-dly soul is clothed within it.” “Except that the G-dly soul is clothed within it.” There is a point here that the Alter Rebbe wants to add. In other words, there is a battle. It isn’t that these are two souls working separately; one is clothed within the other. The G-dly soul is clothed within it. That means that during the battle, when the animal soul brings foreign thoughts, the G-dly soul is there too. The souls don’t function as two separate things. One soul is clothed within the other. So, of course, what the animal soul brings—the foreign thoughts and distractions—causes the G-dly soul pain. The G-dly soul is clothed within the same body, in the same place, in that same experience. Therefore, when the animal soul brings foreign thoughts and bad thoughts, those things affect the G-dly soul too. The G-dly soul is clothed within it. So a person really must work on himself, overcome these thoughts, and not let them interfere with and disrupt his work of prayer. There is an extended explanation here to help us understand what the Alter Rebbe wants to add with these words, “except that the G-dly soul”

16:12 Clothed within it. How does this relate to each person’s avodah? With Hashem’s help, we’ll explain that in the next class. What I wanted to say now concerns the time we’re in, the days we’re in right now. Just a few words: today is 15 Sivan. The Rebbe would sometimes speak about 15 Sivan. In later years there were sichos, and once the Rebbe also held a farbrengen on 15 Sivan. That was in 5734. In later years, in 5748, 5749, and 5750, the Rebbe also spoke about it in sichos. What is significant about 15 Sivan? We know that 15 Sivan was the day the Frierdiker Rebbe was taken into custody. It happened that night—last night, in fact. The night of 15 Sivan was the night when, as the Frierdiker Rebbe recounts in Likkutei Dibburim, the police entered his home and arrested him. As is known, the Rebbe always emphasized that at the time, 15 Sivan was a time of great fear and great darkness. But afterward, the greater light that comes from darkness was revealed. That is the essence of 15 Sivan: although at the time it was the beginning of an imprisonment—and not just any imprisonment, but the worst kind, one connected with the opposite of life—it was later revealed that 15 Sivan was the beginning of a process through which the greater light that comes from darkness emerged. What happened was that precisely through the concealment of the imprisonment came the Geulah of Gimmel Tammuz, and then the Geulah of 12 Tammuz, and then the departure from Russia and the dissemination of the inner dimension of the Torah throughout the world, all the way to the lower hemisphere. That entire process began, in fact, on 15 Sivan, the day the Frierdiker Rebbe was taken into custody. And there’s another point the Rebbe emphasized several times: that on 15

18:33 Sivan itself, the beginning of the Geulah was already present, on that very day of exile. This was only revealed some years later, some time afterward. What became clear? On 15 Sivan, the Russian government had issued an order to bring in ten prominent people, among the most important religious figures in Russia—not only Jews, but others as well, lehavdil—and execute them that night without trial or deliberation. It was an act of revenge: someone important among the Russian ministers had been killed, and in retaliation an order was given to carry out the executions that night. The order was that the whole matter had to be completed before dawn. In practice, they took the Frierdiker Rebbe that night and brought him to the Shpalerka prison, and that was the intention. Then something happened, as the Frierdiker Rebbe recounts in Likkutei Dibburim. He entered a room and was told to go to a certain office, where they were to carry out the sentence immediately. The Frierdiker Rebbe started walking, and for some reason—something completely inexplicable by natural means—they let him walk alone. That was the first miracle. He had to pass through some kind of corridor. As he was walking alone, he decided not to go where they had told him to go. He went somewhere else. He found an open door, entered another room, saw a bench, and sat down. He remained sitting there for some time, until someone came in and began speaking with him. The Frierdiker Rebbe describes what he thought and what he said. He began thinking about his family and the chassidim, and was on the verge of crying. Then he recalled a teaching of his father, the Rebbe Rashab, about hashgachah pratis—that everything happens through Divine Providence—and it struck him. Then he said

20:34 to himself, “How can you be distressed?” In short, all the thoughts that went through the Frierdiker Rebbe’s mind at that time. Eventually they came, found him, and took him away. And what happened then? The night had passed. It was over. The Russian authorities were accursed evildoers, but they were also very precise. The time set by the decree had passed, and that was it. So they no longer carried it out. Instead, they imprisoned him and put him through all kinds of suffering. He was there for eighteen days. But the death sentence for that night had expired, and that was an actual miracle. This happened on 15 Sivan. So the Rebbe spoke about how, already on the first day of the imprisonment, at the beginning of the deepest darkness, one could see within it the spark of Geulah. From it came the entire revelation of the inner dimension of the Torah and Chassidus, and its spread. This speaks to us as well, in our own time, in the circumstances we face today, living after Gimmel Tammuz. It speaks to how a chossid needs to look at things, even though we still don’t understand where the light is within all this darkness. There has been such a long period of concealment, lasting many years, with darkness in our world—and especially lately, when darkness has been added upon darkness, with everything happening in the world, and everything happening in Eretz Yisroel. Darkness within darkness. But certainly, just as on that day, 15 Sivan, we see that within the darkness something was already beginning to be revealed. But he hasn’t finished now. I’ve finished now. I didn’t finish a few years ago—now. Yes, but now you can say it precisely. A moment ago we were talking all along, and suddenly people start climbing the walls. No, that happened years ago. I didn’t learn it just now. I learned it, I learned it several

23:00 years ago, at different times. If there are two statements, why does only something good remain in Gan Eden and not the opposite? If one person is with another person, then even when they do something bad, something better should come of it. Never. [unclear] When you feel remorse, do you feel like a piece of garbage afterward? A second afterward? Ah, you can hear it.