Who is the boss in your life? - Tanya Chapter 11 - Part One

00:00 Today we’re starting chapter 11 of Tanya. In chapter 11, the Alter Rebbe explains the idea of a rasha who has good in him and a rasha who has evil in him. As we’ve discussed, these chapters are all an introduction to understanding the beinoni, whom the Alter Rebbe will begin discussing in chapter 12. But to understand the beinoni, we first need to understand the two extremes. In chapter 10, the Alter Rebbe explained the tzaddik who has good in him and the tzaddik who has evil in him. In chapter 11, he explains the rasha who has good in him and the rasha who has evil in him. Once we understand both extremes well, we’ll be able to understand exactly what a beinoni is, which the Alter Rebbe will explain in the next chapter. The Rebbe once said at a farbrengen that everything in Tanya is precise, including the chapter numbers: the chapter about tzaddikim is chapter 10, and the chapter about resha’im is chapter 11. It’s well known that a tzaddik is associated with the number ten. Ten represents completeness; serving Hashem in a complete way is the service of a tzaddik. The number eleven belongs to kelipah. As is known, there are eleven ingredients of the ketores, corresponding to the eleven chiefs of Esav. In other words, the number associated with the opposing side is eleven. There’s a great deal about this in Chassidus. So it follows that in chapter 10 the Alter Rebbe speaks about tzaddikim, and in chapter 11 he speaks about resha’im. In any case, let’s learn the text. In this chapter, the Alter Rebbe explains exactly what a rasha is. First he’ll explain a rasha who has good in him, and then a rasha who has evil in him. The Alter Rebbe says: “Corresponding to the tzaddik who has evil in him is the rasha who has good in him.” We discussed the tzaddik who has evil in him in the previous chapter. So what is his counterpart at the other extreme? It’s the rasha who has good in him—that’s the counterpart to the tzaddik who has evil in him. That is, when we discussed the tzaddik who has evil in him, what did we say

02:17 defines him? We said that, in essence, he is a tzaddik. “Tzaddik” is what he is called. It’s just that a trace of evil still remains, but that evil has no significance. The evil is utterly nullified. In other words, it exists, but it is utterly nullified, and he has control over it. That is what it means to be a tzaddik who has evil in him: the evil is subordinate and nullified, even though a little of it still remains. Where? At the very subtlest level. Evil is not yet utterly inconceivable to him. So the evil is present, but utterly nullified. The evil “in him” is subordinate and nullified. With a rasha it’s exactly the opposite. We say he is a rasha who has good in him: he has good, but the good is nullified to the evil. In essence, he is a rasha. It’s just that he has good in him, and even within that there can be many levels. So we say that the good is nullified to the evil, and this itself can take many forms and exist on many levels. As we said about the tzaddik who has evil in him, there are countless levels in the degree to which the evil is nullified to the good. Look at what the Alter Rebbe said in the previous chapter. Here too, regarding the rasha who has good in him, the Alter Rebbe will describe many levels in the degree of the evil’s control over the good. The Alter Rebbe says: “Corresponding to the tzaddik who has evil in him is the rasha who has good in him. That is, the good in his G-dly soul, in his mind and in the right chamber of his heart, is subordinate and nullified to the evil of the kelipah in the left chamber.” What are we saying about the rasha who has good in him? That his good is nullified, subordinate to the evil of the kelipah in the left chamber. That’s the point; that’s the foundation. Now the Alter Rebbe will explain the

04:25 many levels within this. Before we explain those levels, it’s very, very important to understand what the Alter Rebbe is teaching us here about the essential nature of a rasha who has good in him. Many people make a mistake in understanding this. If you don’t grasp the point, you won’t understand the essence of what the Alter Rebbe is discussing. At first glance, when you learn it superficially, it looks as though a rasha who has good in him is a person who commits aveiros. The question is just: Does he commit a few aveiros or many? Serious aveiros or minor ones? How many does he commit in a year, and so on? Those would be the differences between the levels. In other words, the definition of a rasha who has good in him would be someone who, in actual practice, stumbles in undesirable matters, and the differences between the levels would depend on how often he stumbles and in what matters. But that isn’t it. The Alter Rebbe begins the chapter by explaining that the rasha who has good in him is the counterpart to the tzaddik who has evil in him. He’s teaching us that what defines a rasha who has good in him isn’t just his conduct; that comes down to the details. It’s a matter of his very essence, of the essential state of his soul. A rasha who has good in him is a person for whom the good is not the sole master of the body. That is the meaning of the good “in him”: the good is subordinate to the evil. In other words, the evil has control over the person. Now, that control doesn’t begin when he actually stumbles; that’s already the result. The evil begins with the fact that, in his soul, evil has a place. It isn’t inconceivable to him. In other words—and this is very, very important, and it will come up later in the chapter—we’re going to see that a person may not actually commit aveiros, and yet

06:41 he still isn’t a beinoni; he’s a rasha who has good in him. A person can, in actual practice, follow “turn away from evil and do good.” He conducts himself properly; he’s a Jew who observes all 613 mitzvos, turning away from evil and doing good. But if evil is not inconceivable to you within your soul, then your bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, your kabbolas ol, your connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, isn’t absolute. There remains a possibility. And that alone makes a person a rasha who has good in him. This is what the Alter Rebbe means when he says that the good in his soul is subordinate and nullified to the evil of the kelipah in the left chamber. That is, if in his soul, in his heart, he has desires—he has desires in his heart—even though... There’s a person for whom committing an aveirah isn’t inconceivable, but he doesn’t actually do it. Why? Take, for example, a young man in yeshivah. There are young men who sit in yeshivah and learn all day, attend every study session, and behave perfectly well. They aren’t mischievous; they aren’t looking to run away from yeshivah. They’re where they’re supposed to be. So they attend every session, learn, and stay busy. As a result, a long time can pass without one of them actually committing any aveirah. He follows “turn away from evil and do good” completely. He hasn’t committed any aveirah, he’s learning all the time, and his conduct is one hundred percent good. But in essence, this person still hasn’t become a beinoni. He remains a rasha who has good in him. Why? Because of the evil in his soul—that is, from the standpoint of his heart. Who is in charge there? His animal soul. He simply hasn’t had the opportunity. It hasn’t come up; he’s busy learning. He has study sessions, he has

08:56 exams, he has campaigns. He’s so busy that he has no time. Very good. But what we’ll learn here in chapter 11 is what the Alter Rebbe is teaching us: the definition of a rasha who has good in him isn’t only whether or not he commits an aveirah. It’s who is in charge in your heart. Who is in charge—the G-dly soul or the animal soul? As the Alter Rebbe will say in chapter 12, the beinoni “has never committed an aveirah in his life and never will.” He isn’t a tzaddik; he’s a beinoni. But his G-dly soul is in charge. For him, it is settled that one must serve Hashem, and not serving Hashem is inconceivable. Again, that isn’t because he has a love of delights. That would already make him a tzaddik. A tzaddik has a love of delights, so evil has no place with him. It is utterly inconceivable to him, because his entire being has been transformed. That isn’t the beinoni. The beinoni’s essential nature has not been transformed. He has a struggle, but who is actually in charge? Who is the master? For him, serving Hashem is simply what one must do. It comes from kabbolas ol, not from a love of delights. But even with kabbolas ol, it is clear to him that committing an aveirah is impossible, utterly inconceivable. That’s why the Alter Rebbe will say in chapter 12: “He has never committed an aveirah in his life and never will.” By contrast, for a rasha who has good in him, committing an aveirah is not inconceivable. And because it isn’t inconceivable, it will happen from time to time. Clearly, if it isn’t inconceivable to you, if evil has a place within you, then in actual practice it’s inevitable that at some point he’ll stumble—whether in thought, speech, or action, or in a particular

11:00 In one detail or in two. That, that is the point of chapter 11. Now we can... And this is what the Alter Rebbe means when he says, “This opposite that.” The rasha v’tov lo is the opposite of the tzaddik v’ra lo. Just as we understand that a tzaddik v’ra lo is a matter of his essential nature—he is a tzaddik. His love of Hashem is a love... He has love of Hashem, a love of delight. It’s just that it has not yet reached ultimate perfection, so there is a trace of evil, but it is completely nullified. With the rasha v’tov lo, it is the reverse: in his essential nature he is a rasha, a rasha v’tov lo. But in practice, it may happen only once; here and there he stumbles, only very occasionally. Or, as we said, he may go through a long period without doing it at all, and nevertheless he is called a rasha v’tov lo. Now we’ll continue inside the text. The Alter Rebbe will explain that within this itself there are many levels, from one extreme to the other. This is what the Alter Rebbe goes on to say in the chapter: “And this, too, divides into myriads of distinct levels in the quantity and quality of the nullification and subordination of the good to the evil, G-d forbid.” The Alter Rebbe is saying that there can be very many levels here. That is why he specifies both quantity and quality. Simply put, what is quantity? It may be how many times this happens to you, or it may be in how many areas it happens to you. That, too, is quantity. In other words, is it only in thought, or in both thought and speech? Quantity means: how many of a person’s faculties stumble? That is called quantity. Then there is quality. Quality is what kind of transgressions he stumbles in. It could be something involving permissible things, which is also considered something bad, or forbidden things. And among forbidden things themselves, there are many

13:02 levels. Some are less severe, some more severe. So that is a matter of quality. “The quantity and quality of the nullification and subordination of the good to the evil, G-d forbid.” There is someone in whom the subordination and nullification are very slight. In one person, the G-dly soul is subordinate to the evil of the animal soul, nullified to it only very slightly. Even the words “very slightly” refer to quantity and quality: “slightly” is quantity, and “very” is quality. So here, too, he stresses again that it can be very slight in both quantity and quality. “And even this does not happen constantly, nor frequently at short intervals, but only on rare occasions.” And this itself—the good becoming nullified to the evil, meaning that the animal soul rules over the G-dly soul—may happen very, very rarely. “It does not happen constantly, nor frequently at short intervals, but only on rare occasions, when the evil overpowers the good.” The Alter Rebbe uses three expressions here. Why does he use three expressions? What is the difference between them? The Rebbe says in one of the sichos that there are three things here. There is a constant state, where the animal soul always rules over me; there is “at short intervals”—not always, but frequently; and there are “rare occasions.” What are these three things? The Rebbe cites the Gemara in Tractate Sukkah. Near the end of Tractate Sukkah, the Gemara brings the story of the poor man’s lamb. What is the story of the poor man’s lamb? It is the story of King David and Batsheva. The story in Tanach tells us that when King David sinned with Batsheva, what happened? Batsheva... What was his name? Ah, Nosson the prophet came to him and told him what he had done. He wanted to explain to him the great sin

15:28 he had committed, so he gave him a parable about a rich man and a poor man. The poor man had only one lamb, and the rich man took his lamb. He explained it all through a parable and then asked him what should be done to that man. King David said that he deserved punishment; he was a man deserving death. Then Nosson told him: You did the same thing. You took the wife of Uriah the Hittite. He explained to him what his sin had been, and that led King David to do teshuvah. That is the story in Tanach. Now, as the story is told in Tanach, there are several words used for the person who arrives. First he is called a “wayfarer.” Then he is called a “guest,” and then a “man.” So there are three expressions in those verses. Look: at first he is called a wayfarer. What is a wayfarer? Someone who just comes by once in a while, passing through unexpectedly. Then he becomes a guest; he is already staying in the house for a little while. After that he becomes a man—he becomes the master of the house. The Gemara says that these three words describe how the yetzer hara works. The yetzer hara comes to a person first as a wayfarer, entering once. If you let him in, eventually he becomes a guest and stays with you for a while. And if you give him even more room, eventually he becomes the master of the house. You can no longer get him out. He becomes the master of the house. These are three stages in how the animal soul conquers the G-dly soul, how the yetzer hara enters a person. So this is why the Alter Rebbe uses

17:20 these three distinctions. He says, look, when we speak here about a rasha v’tov lo, “it does not happen constantly”—the animal soul is not the master of the house. “Nor frequently at short intervals”—it is not even a guest. “But only on rare occasions”—it is just a wayfarer. This is the highest level, the most refined level of a rasha v’tov lo. “On rare occasions, when the evil overpowers the good and conquers the small city, which is the body,” it manages to take control, to conquer the person, “but not all of it, only part of it, so that it obeys its command and becomes a vehicle and a garment for it, in which one of its three aforementioned garments is clothed.” So, as we said, the Alter Rebbe is explaining here that there are many levels of a rasha v’tov lo. First he explains the most subtle, refined level. Look: this is a person for whom the animal soul has not yet become the master of the house, or even a guest. His animal soul is only a wayfarer who comes on rare occasions. And even when it comes, it does not take him over completely. It catches him in very, very minor matters, and only in certain things, right? In those particular matters, it wants him to obey it, to become a garment for one of its three aforementioned garments. So that is a rasha v’tov lo at its most refined. Later, the Alter Rebbe will also explain the opposite: what a rasha v’tov lo means at the lowest end, at the very lowest levels. But this is one of the higher levels of a rasha v’tov lo. There is a well-known story here. Chassidim relate that in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, one of his students once came to ask his advice on how to get rid of distracting thoughts. He told the Baal Shem Tov that he had many distracting thoughts and could not control them. The yetzer hara was pursuing him, pursuing him

19:38 all the time, and he could not get it under control. So the Baal Shem Tov told him, “I can’t help you. Go to my student.” I think his name was Reb Wolf of Zhitomir. “Go to my student, and he’ll show you a way. He’ll teach you how to do it.” So the chossid went to Reb Wolf of Zhitomir’s house. It was the middle of winter and very cold. He arrived and knocked on the door, but no one opened it. He kept knocking, and he could hear Reb Wolf of Zhitomir on the other side of the door. He was awake, but he would not open it. Meanwhile, the chossid was terribly cold and simply could not bear it anymore. He stood there for a long time until, finally, Reb Wolf took pity on him and opened the door, letting him in. Then he seated him and asked, “What do you want?” He gave him a cup of tea, welcomed him in—everything was fine. Then he asked him, “What did you come for?” The chossid told him, “The Baal Shem Tov sent me so that you could give me a way in avodah to rid myself of my distracting thoughts, the yetzer hara, and all the desires that pursue me.” Reb Wolf looked at him and said, “Forgive me, but I don’t know why the Baal Shem Tov sent you to me. I can’t help you. I don’t know what to tell you.” So this poor man left the house, and the next day he went back to the Baal Shem Tov and told him, “He didn’t help me.” The Baal Shem Tov said, “Tell me exactly what happened.” So he told him the whole story: he knocked on the door, Reb Wolf did not let him in, and finally he opened the door, and then he spoke with him, and he

21:28 He told him he had no answer. So the Baal Shem Tov said to him, “Wait, he did answer you. You saw that you knocked on the door and he didn’t open it. It took a while before he finally opened it. What was he telling you? That he’s the master of the house, and he decides when to open the door and when not to. That was his answer to your question. You have a problem with distracting thoughts? You are the master of your thoughts, and you decide whether to let the yetzer hara in, in which case it will become the master in your house, or not to let it in. That’s exactly what he—that’s the guidance you received for your avodah. You need to understand that you are the master of your body and the master of your thought, speech, and action. So you can decide whether to let your mind get confused and let the yetzer hara in, or not.” So that’s essentially the point the Alter Rebbe is teaching us here: a person’s avodah is to take control, to be the master of his body and animal soul, and not let the animal soul become the master of his life.