Chapter 9 - Part Three

00:00 We’re up to chapter 9 of Tanya, at “But behold, it is written.” Until now, the Alter Rebbe has explained where each of the two souls has its dwelling place. The dwelling place of the animal soul is in the heart itself, in its left chamber, and from there it spreads to the brain and all the limbs. The G-dly soul is the opposite. Its primary place is in the brain, and from the brain it spreads to all the limbs, and also to the heart, in its right chamber. We explained in the previous class that, when it comes to the G-dly soul, it doesn’t merely spread to the heart; the heart is also part of its dwelling place. It dwells in both the brain and the heart. The animal soul dwells only in the heart itself, only in the left chamber, and from there it exerts its influence everywhere—in the brain and all the limbs. The dwelling place of the G-dly soul, by contrast, is in both the brain and the heart, because the G-dly soul knows that avodah must involve not only the intellect, but also the emotions. So it dwells in the brain and in the heart, in the right chamber, and it acts through all the limbs as well. In any case, what we’ve learned so far is where each soul has its dwelling place. As we also explained, this isn’t just to tell us where they are. It’s not simply so we’ll know the address. The point is to understand, on a deeper level, the essential difference between holiness and kelipah, between the G-dly soul and the animal soul. Now the Alter Rebbe continues the chapter and goes on to explain an even more fundamental, more important point in this whole subject. As we’ve discussed, throughout Tanya the Alter Rebbe is building the whole structure of avodah: how the battle between the two souls works. When we understand that battle, we’ll also understand what our avodah needs to be. So the Alter Rebbe begins by saying this. Let’s read it inside, and then we’ll explain. The Alter Rebbe says, “But behold,

02:16 it is written, ‘One nation shall prevail over the other.’” What is the Alter Rebbe trying to tell us? “But behold, it is written.” Based on what we’ve learned so far, we might have thought that each soul has its own base. Each one stays in its own place: one is here, one is there. I don’t interfere in your business; you don’t interfere in mine. Each one has its own territory, its own place, and from there it exerts its influence and does its work. The Alter Rebbe now comes to explain that it isn’t like that. In avodah, between the G-dly soul and the animal soul, there is a battle—a very deep battle. True, one is in the brain and one is in the heart, but there is a battle between them, and each one wants to be the sole master of the entire body. That is what the Alter Rebbe is about to explain. “One nation shall prevail over the other.” In other words, it isn’t that each stays in its own place, working on its own, with no connection between them. No, there is a connection. And more than that: each wants to have total control, to be the sole master of the entire person, of the person’s entire being. This is really the starting point and foundation of everything that follows in Tanya. We’ve said that Tanya is a book about battle. Its whole foundation is to explain to us that a battle is taking place, and when we understand its depth and the nature of the battle, we also understand what our service of Hashem needs to be. There is a story the Rebbe told that sharpens the point the Alter Rebbe wants to explain. The Rebbe told it once at a farbrengen. Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov—Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, who studied… That’s Rabbi Shapira. There’s more to say about that too, but I’ll just tell the part of the story that brings us to the avodah here in Tanya. Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov had studied

04:16 shechitah at one point in his life. It was among the things he learned, but then he stopped. He didn’t continue with it; he didn’t practice shechitah. What happened? What was the story? He learned shechitah in detail, all the halachos and everything involved, and received his certification and so on. Eventually the time comes when you have to begin slaughtering in practice, right? You have to do the… I’m not an expert on how the whole process works. He had to begin actually doing it, to start slaughtering. Before slaughtering, you have to say a blessing. So Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the holy Berditchever, was known for the fervor of his unique way of serving Hashem. He began saying the blessing, closed his eyes, and became absorbed in its words and their meaning. Meanwhile, the chicken escaped from his hands, and he didn’t notice. He was deeply absorbed in the blessing over the shechitah. When he finished saying the blessing, he suddenly looked—and the chicken was gone. As the Rebbe told the story: “Vu iz di hun? Vu iz di hun?” Where’s the chicken? The chicken had disappeared. So he couldn’t slaughter it, because the blessing had been said in vain. The Berditchever decided he wasn’t going to slaughter. That was the end of it. It wasn’t that he had… he stopped… So the Rebbe once told this story and explained its point. The point is that the chicken represents the animal soul, right? The absorbed concentration represents the G-dly soul. The avodah has to be that the G-dly soul battles the animal soul. It wants to slaughter the animal soul, to make it a vessel for G-dliness. But if the G-dly soul works on its own, becoming absorbed in spiritual devotion and in a lofty G-dly state, occupied with itself, then

06:15 you open your eyes and the chicken is gone. In other words, yes, the G-dly soul was occupied with its own concerns, and the animal soul has run away. But it hasn’t slaughtered it; it hasn’t done its work. The Rebbe spoke about this as an image for avodah in which each soul works on its own. And that is exactly the point the Alter Rebbe comes to teach us in Tanya: it isn’t like that. The avodah must be such that the G-dly soul acts upon the animal soul. Within that itself, there are many levels: the levels of the rasha, the beinoni, and the tzaddik; a tzaddik who still has evil within him and a tzaddik who has only good within him, as the Alter Rebbe will explain later. In any case, this is what the Alter Rebbe now begins to explain here: “One nation shall prevail over the other.” What do we see in this verse? The verse is speaking about Yaakov and Esav. Yaakov and Esav were twins, right? They were in Rivkah’s womb, and Rivkah felt a struggle, right? That was what troubled her: she felt two nations within her. So what was she told? “Two nations are in your womb,” right? There are two nations. And why is there a struggle? Because “one nation shall prevail over the other.” In other words, what was explained to Rivkah? Not merely that there are two nations, Yaakov and Esav, each living his own life. Rather, “one nation shall prevail over the other”: Yaakov wants to overcome Esav and bring him entirely under his control. And conversely, Esav wants to take Yaakov, rule over him, and make him… That is the battle between Yaakov and Esav. The same applies in avodah. Yaakov and Esav represent the G-dly soul and the animal soul. So it isn’t merely that we have two souls, each in its own place

08:05 in its own affairs. Rather, there is a war here in which each side wants complete control over the entire person. So the Alter Rebbe continues and says: “For the body is called a small city.” We know that in Koheles, King Shlomo compares the whole struggle with the yetzer to a war over a city. There is a verse in Koheles: “A small city, with few people in it, and there came against it…” an old and foolish king. And then a wise man—a wise, wise, poor young man. They are fighting over the city. King Shlomo, in Koheles, describes the war between the two souls through the example of a small city. “A small city, with few people in it.” The body is called a small city. What is this analogy meant to tell us? It expresses the point being made here: just as two kings fight over one city, each wanting to conquer it and rule over it. What is the nature of a war over a city? Each of the two kings wants to be its sole master. In other words, comparing the body to a small city over which two kings are fighting helps us understand the point. What is happening in the war between the G-dly soul and the animal soul? Think about kings. When a king conquers a country or a city, his rule is total. It is complete, all the way through. That is the very definition of kingship. To say that he is king of a place means that the place belongs to him. There are other arrangements besides kingship. You can have a partnership. There are partners who want to put up a partition; halachah discusses the rules of partnership. Two people can be partners in one piece of land. I have my share, you have yours,

10:16 I have this much, and you make all kinds of arrangements. Kingship does not work that way. Kingship is absolute. There is no such thing as a partnership in kingship: I am the king and you are the king. When you say someone is king over a city, you mean that the city in its entirety belongs to him, completely. If even one part of the city is not his, that is not called kingship. One of the fundamental principles of kingship—and the Rebbe speaks about this a great deal—is why someone who rebels against a king is liable to death, even for the slightest act of rebellion. “Like someone who gestures in the presence of the king”: if you move your finger while standing before the king, you are rebelling against him. The well-known Gemara about “my lord Yoav”: Why was Uriah the Hittite liable to death? Because he said “my lord Yoav.” What did he do? He did nothing. He merely said “my lord Yoav” to David. You are standing before David; you cannot say “my lord Yoav.” The moment you say those words, you are rebelling against the king, and that is why he was liable to death—David had him killed, in the whole account involving Batsheva. So that is the deeper point of kingship. Kingship is total, complete, all the way through. That is why King Shlomo compares the war between the souls to a war between kings. Each is a king. Each wants to be the only master, the sole boss and owner of the entire person. “For the body is called a small city, just as two kings fight over one city, each wanting to conquer it and rule over it.” There are two elements here: conquering the place and being king over it. In Chassidus, we learn the distinction: there is conquest and there is kingship. Conquest can be against someone’s will. Kingship is more than conquest, because kingship involves willingness: it is accepted voluntarily. As chassidim explain, the Alter Rebbe writes…

12:07 What is the difference between kingship and rulership? Rulership can be against people’s will. Whether they want it or not, that is the reality: I am in charge. Kingship, by contrast, requires that the people willingly accept the king’s rule. The people give themselves over—git zich iber—to the king. So too with kingship here: we say that the soul conquers the body, but also rules over it. That means the entire body is given over to the soul. That is, “to direct its inhabitants according to his will, so that they obey whatever he decrees upon them.” He directs them as he wishes. They are completely subordinate to him in everything he decrees, even in matters they do not understand. That, too, is a defining feature of kingship. The people’s submission to the king goes so far that even when they do not understand why, they know that the king has issued an order. It is absolute submission. So in our case as well, each soul wants to be the absolute master of every limb of the body. It wants the body to give itself over to the soul completely—even when something is simply decreed, even when I do not understand why, I will still follow the soul. If it is the animal soul, that means following the animal soul; and, on an entirely different level, the same applies to the G-dly soul: giving oneself over to the G-dly soul completely. The same is true of both souls. Just as that is the nature of kingship, so it is here. “The two souls, the G-dly soul and the animal soul that comes from kelipah, wage war with each other over the body and all its limbs…” And now he will begin to explain this in detail. So it works the same way here. As we have been discussing here in Tanya—what does this mean?

14:15 This helps us understand a little of what the Alter Rebbe is coming to explain. As we have learned in Tanya, one of the Alter Rebbe’s main innovations is that there are two souls. Before learning Tanya, we always thought there was one soul. Right? Ask a Jew who does not study Tanya how many souls there are. He may be a Torah scholar, a learned person, a frum person who has studied works of mussar. How many souls does a person have? What do you mean? There is one soul: “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” There is one soul. Of course there is a struggle, but it is called the yetzer tov and the yetzer hara. That is the straightforward understanding without Chassidus. There is a yetzer tov and there is a yetzer hara. In Shulchan Aruch, we open it here and study this too. This is precisely the subject we are studying now—the discussions of civil law, terumos, maasros, and the whole subject. That is the innovation of Chassidus. Before Chassidus, people understood that there is a soul; the soul is life. There is one soul, and within it a yetzer tov that wants to draw the soul toward good and a yetzer hara that wants to draw the soul toward evil. Then the Alter Rebbe came and revealed: No, there are two souls. These are two lives, two souls, two kinds of life existing in the same body. There is the G-dly soul, with its intellect, emotions, thought, speech, and action—its entire makeup. And there is the animal soul, which also has that entire makeup. Each one is a complete soul. So what are they fighting over? Primarily, the body. There is only one body, not two. There is one body with two souls, and that is what the Alter Rebbe is saying here. Since we are speaking about two

16:13 Souls—so the main battle comes down to the body. The body is one body; you can’t divide it in two. There is only one body here, like the analogy of the city: one city. So the question is, who is king? That is the battle between the two souls. Since the G-dly soul has the character of a king, and the animal soul has the character of a king—one is a king of holiness and the other a king of kelipah, one opposite the other—each wants complete control over the body. And that is because, in practice, the way the souls can express themselves and act is through the body. So each wants the body to be entirely its own. That is what the Alter Rebbe says. Now the Alter Rebbe begins to explain in detail. He speaks about the G-dly soul. And here we see something interesting: the Alter Rebbe explains in detail what the G-dly soul wants, and that takes up the whole chapter. Only at the end does he say what the animal soul wants. It’s very interesting: he explains the G-dly soul’s desire at length, with all the details, but when he gets to the animal soul, he gives it just one line. We’ll talk about that at the end of the chapter, but it’s interesting to see how the Alter Rebbe builds the discussion. So the Alter Rebbe begins: “The G-dly soul desires and wishes that it alone rule over him and guide him, and that all the limbs submit to its authority, be completely nullified to it and serve as its chariot; that they be garments for its ten faculties and its three garments mentioned above, all of which will be clothed in the limbs of the body; and that the entire body be filled with them alone, and no stranger pass among them, G-d forbid.” First, the Alter Rebbe sets out what the G-dly soul seeks from the body. What is he saying in general?

18:33 The G-dly soul wants—he says “desires and wishes.” Those are two expressions: desire and wish. As we know, “desire” implies pleasure. What does it want? It has both pleasure and will invested in this: it desires and wishes to be the sole master. Now it’s very interesting that the Alter Rebbe uses so many words here. He could say it in a few words: the G-dly soul wants to be the sole master. It desires and wishes to be the only one in charge. But look how many expressions the Alter Rebbe uses: “It desires ... that it alone rule over him and guide him, and that all the limbs submit to its authority, be completely nullified to it and serve as its chariot; that they be garments for its ten faculties ...” Why all these words? What does the Alter Rebbe mean to convey with them? If we look closely, we’ll see that every expression, every word he uses here, describes another way, another depth, to what extent the G-dly soul wants to affect the body. Every word here marks another level in the soul’s relationship with the body—in the soul’s avodah, how it acts and what it wants to do with the body. And if we think about it, these are also different levels of avodah. In serving Hashem, each is another level of bittul, of the body’s unity with the G-dly soul. In other words, here is what we’re talking about: the G-dly soul wants to be master over the body. That’s our subject—how the G-dly soul controls the body. And there are several

20:34 stages to that control. Take control in its plain sense. As we said earlier, sometimes you control something by force. It doesn’t want to comply, but you control it by force. Then there is not only the level of a chariot, but the level of a garment. What is the difference between a chariot and a garment? A chariot means that, from the outset, it has no other will. What does that mean? We’ll learn later in Tanya what the concept of a chariot is. An ordinary person has other things he wants, but he understands that he has to devote himself, so he does. Yet it is always a matter of “Nullify your will before His will.” I have desires of my own, and I surrender them to You. A chariot means that, from the outset, it has no desires of its own. That is the definition of a chariot: wherever its rider wishes, he turns it. That is a deeper bittul. Then the Alter Rebbe adds that the limbs should “be garments.” Not only a chariot, but a garment. What is the difference? A chariot goes wherever its master rides it, but they remain two separate things. Think of a horse a person rides: the horse has no other will. It follows its master, carries its rider, and is completely devoted to him. But the horse is not the person. A garment is like the relationship of the limbs to the soul: the limbs are garments for the soul. It isn’t merely that they are devoted to it. There is an inner unity here. The limb is a vessel: the hand is a vessel for the power of movement, and the eye is a vessel for the power of sight. There is an inner unity. So if we translate all this into serving Hashem, the relationship between the G-dly soul and the body has many levels. There is a way

23:53 in which the G-dly soul controls the body by force. That is iskafya. There is a way in which the G-dly soul affects the body to the point that the body submits to the soul’s will—but it is still a kind of “Nullify your will before His will,” like Dovber Nissen[?]. There is a way in which the body is a chariot: it no longer has a will of its own at all. As we say of Avraham Avinu, “They are the chariot.” But even a chariot is not the ultimate bittul. There is a deeper bittul: a garment, where every limb senses that its whole purpose is to be a garment for the soul in an inner way. So in avodah, these are all ways the G-dly soul affects the body. Now the Alter Rebbe will begin to explain in detail what this means for the intellect, the emotions, and all the limbs. That will be the continuation.