How to easily overcome desires - Chapter 12 - Part Four

00:00 Yes, we’re here on page 17, in the middle of chapter 12. Here the Alter Rebbe explains the beinoni’s ability to control his body and all its faculties—thought, speech, and action—even though he cannot transform his soul, his heart. He still has a yetzer hara; he still has desires. How do those two things go together? We see that the beinoni has an animal soul, and that his animal soul is still in full force outside the time of davening. His desires awaken. So what enables the beinoni to maintain control? That is the question the Alter Rebbe is coming to explain now. What gives a person the ability to overcome those desires and, in practice, take control of his thought, speech, and action—his body and all its faculties? So the Alter Rebbe says this. Let’s start again near the top of page 17, on the second line: “For the mind rules over the heart.” That ability exists because the mind has control over the heart, as it says in Raaya Mehemna, Parshas Pinchas. “By virtue of his birth and the nature of his creation.” This is something every person has from birth. The mind ruling over the heart is not a spiritual level one has to attain. After all, the Alter Rebbe wants to explain why this is possible for everyone. We’re learning Tanya, the “Book of Beinonim,” and the Alter Rebbe wants to explain that this is within everyone’s power and ability. Being a beinoni is not a level reserved for exceptional people. Every one of us can become a beinoni at any moment. It is possible for everyone. That is why the Alter Rebbe stresses that the mind’s rule over the heart is present in every person “by virtue of his birth and the nature of his creation.” A person is born this way; that is how he is made. So since it is part of human nature,

02:21 since that is how a person is born, it follows that it is possible for each and every person. What is possible for everyone? For the mind to rule over the heart. We said in chapter 9 that the Alter Rebbe explained the difference between the G-dly soul and the animal soul: the animal soul’s primary place is in the heart, while the G-dly soul’s primary place is in the mind. So because the mind naturally rules over the heart, this gives the G-dly soul the ability to rule over the animal soul. But first the Alter Rebbe explains this simply in terms of human nature, even without bringing in the G-dly soul—just the nature of the mind and heart themselves. Let’s read it inside. The Alter Rebbe says: “For this is how man was created by birth: every person can, through the will in his mind, restrain himself and rule over the spirit of desire in his heart, so as not to fulfill his heart’s wishes in action, speech, or thought, and to turn his attention completely away from his heart’s desires to their very opposite.” So first of all, the Alter Rebbe is saying that this is something natural, present in every person. As we said, he is first speaking about the mind’s natural ability to rule over the emotions. This is not yet about anything specifically G-dly; it has to do with the way a person is made, with the nature of the mind and the heart. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the human being—and, as we know, there is a difference between a person and an animal. In an animal, the brain and the heart are physically at roughly the same level. Its head is more or less level with its heart. But a person, as the Rebbe writes in Hayom Yom, was created by Hakadosh Boruch Hu with the head above and the body below. That means the brain is higher, which, in spiritual terms, tells us that the human mind naturally has control over the heart. Hakadosh Boruch Hu made it that way. Why is that the natural order?

04:25 We’ll learn that later in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 50—sorry, chapter 51—that when the soul enters the body, it first becomes enclothed in the brain, and from the brain its vitality then reaches the heart. In other words, the order in which the soul descends into a person is that all 613 powers of the soul are in the brain, and from there they spread out. So this, too, is part of human nature. It should apply to a Jew as well, because it is human nature. What, then, is the difference? Since a non-Jew is naturally governed by his animal soul, it works differently for him. But if we’re speaking about human nature as such, the mind has the ability to rule over the heart. So even if my heart is full of desires, even if my heart wants all sorts of other things, I can use my mind. My mind can take control over the heart’s desires, so that I do not do what I crave, but what I need to do. This is true even in matters that have nothing to do with holiness. It comes from the superiority of the intellect. A person has control. The Alter Rebbe adds something more: “And especially toward the side of holiness.” Here we are not speaking about just any mind. We are speaking about the G-dly soul in the mind. So there is also the superiority of holiness over kelipah. Besides the mind’s natural ability to rule over the heart, there is something special here: the G-dly soul is in the mind, so we are speaking about holiness. And where holiness is involved, there is even greater strength, because of the G-dly light that shines in the mind. So this is not merely the power of intellect, a human ability, or the superiority of the mind. There is also the power

06:27 of G-dliness. The soul in the mind has a G-dly power, and that power gives a person the ability to control the emotions of the heart. So these are the two points the Alter Rebbe makes here. “And especially toward the side of holiness”—when we’re speaking about the side of holiness, there is even greater strength, as it is written: “And I saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, as light has an advantage over darkness.” This advantage that holiness has—the fact that the side of holiness is stronger than kelipah, so holiness can overcome kelipah—means that the mind, where the G-dly soul is found, has control over the heart, where the animal soul is, on the side of kelipah. This is what King Shlomo says in Koheles. What does he say? “And I saw.” What did he see? “That wisdom has an advantage over folly, as light has an advantage over darkness.” King Shlomo is speaking about wisdom. He was the wisest of all men. He says: I looked and saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly—that it is stronger, greater, higher, more elevated. Wisdom has an advantage over foolishness just as light has an advantage over darkness. Now, if you read this verse simply, what is it telling us? Do we need King Shlomo for that? What great wisdom is there here? Everybody, even the most foolish person, knows that. And why does it say that wisdom has an advantage over folly just as light has an advantage over darkness? Usually, you use an analogy when the point you’re trying to explain is hard to understand on its own. You need the analogy to make it clear. What is difficult to understand about the advantage of wisdom over folly without an analogy? What does the analogy add? Just as every little child knows

08:34 that li—light is better than darkness, every little child knows that wisdom is better than foolishness. You don’t need any of this. So what did King Shlomo see here? What is the point? The commentators explain that he is not speaking about ordinary wisdom and folly, a wise person as opposed to a foolish one. He is speaking about holiness and kelipah. By “wisdom” he means holiness, and by “folly” he means kelipah. He calls the yetzer hara “an old and foolish king.” King Shlomo speaks about the yetzer hara in Koheles and calls it “an old and foolish king,” while he calls the yetzer tov “a wise and poor child.” So “wisdom has an advantage over folly” means that the G-dly soul, which comes from holiness, has an advantage over kelipah, just as light has an advantage over darkness. But we still need to understand: what is the great insight here? It is also obvious that holiness is better than kelipah, that wisdom is better than folly. What is he teaching us? This is where the Alter Rebbe explains it. This is the continuation in Tanya. The Alter Rebbe says: “Meaning.” He is coming to explain what the verse is saying. King Shlomo is not simply making a comparison, saying that just as light is better than darkness, wisdom is better than folly, or holiness is better than kelipah. That is not his point. He compares the two to explain the nature of this advantage. That is what he wants to tell us. The advantage of light over darkness does not just mean that light is better than darkness; it means that light has the power to overcome darkness. Let’s look inside. “Meaning.” That is why the Alter Rebbe adds the word “Meaning.” Like someone who

10:28 That light has an advantage and mastery. The plain meaning of “the advantage of light over darkness” is not just that light has an advantage, that it is better than darkness. No, no, that is not Shlomo’s insight. Rather, “advantage” means superior power: light has the special quality of being master over darkness. “Light has an advantage, control, and dominion over darkness, for a little physical light dispels a great deal of darkness, which retreats from it on its own, as a matter of course.” That is the insight of King Shlomo, which we can see with light and darkness. Light and darkness are opposites. Usually, when you have two opposites—two people who hate each other, two kings fighting each other, two countries, two nations—when two things cannot coexist, there is a war. “One nation shall prevail over the other,” as we learned earlier. There is a war; this one gains the upper hand, then that one does, until—until someone wins. But that is not how light and darkness work. Light does not fight darkness; light has the advantage. That is what he is saying. It has control over darkness. Light is master over darkness. You have a dark room? The moment light enters that room, it does not have to do anything besides be there. As soon as it is present, it becomes master as a matter of course. A little light dispels a great deal of darkness. There are two points here. First, light is master over darkness as a matter of course, without a battle. As soon as light is present, darkness flees. And within that is another point: a little light dispels a great deal of darkness. All of this is the advantage light has over darkness. So King Shlomo says, “I saw” that kedushah and kelipah work the same way. Kedushah and kelipah, wisdom as compared with folly, work the same way: wisdom is master over folly. Kedushah

12:28 is master over kelipah. The G-dly soul is master over the animal soul. It does not need to fight it. The moment the light of the G-dly soul shines within a person—that is, the moment a person allows the light of the G-dly soul, the soul’s desire, to enter his mind, and decides that he wants his life to be guided by the will of the G-dly soul—he allows the light of the G-dly soul to shine within him. Then, as a matter of course, even a tiny bit of light from the G-dly soul dispels a great deal of the animal soul’s darkness. That is what the Alter Rebbe says: just as we say this about light, so too “the great folly of the kelipah and sitra achra in the left cavity is automatically driven away, as our Sages said: ‘A person does not sin unless a spirit of folly enters him,’ and so on.” How do we know that kelipah is called folly? Where do we find this idea of folly in relation to the animal soul? In that teaching of our Sages. The Rebbe cites it here in parentheses to show that every sin and transgression a person commits happens only because a spirit of folly has entered him. In other words, the whole nature of the animal soul is connected with folly. If a person lived according to reason, he would not want to distance himself from G-dliness. The Alter Rebbe will return to this in chapters 18 and 19. In the coming chapters, the Alter Rebbe will explain why, what the reasoning is. But at any rate, we understand that kelipah is, by its very nature, in the category of a spirit of folly. Kedushah, by its very nature, is wisdom. So we say that it works the same way: as soon as the light of the G-dly soul shines, a little light dispels a great deal of darkness, “because of the wisdom in the G-dly soul, which is in the brain and

14:14 desires to rule alone in the city.” After all, what does the G-dly soul want? As we said in chapter 9, the G-dly soul clearly wants G-dliness, and wants G-dliness to be the sole master over every part of a person’s existence. “Because of the wisdom in the G-dly soul, which is in the brain and desires to rule alone in the city”—to be the only master, with no place for anything other than G-dliness. In G-dliness, there is no room for anything that is not G-dliness. There are details to this. The bochurim are studying it here now in tonight’s maamar as well. The maamar from the year 5679 discusses the same point. As for the G-dly soul, the difference between it and the animal soul is this: the G-dly soul—or G-dliness in its very essence—never goes over to, how do you say, to—it never becomes evil. It will never give in. It can be in exile, it can be in captivity, but it will never become evil, G-d forbid. For the G-dly soul, it is clear, it is deeply felt, it shines, that G-dliness is the one and only reality. So what does it want? The G-dly soul wants to be the sole master over the person, completely: “to rule alone in the city and to be clothed in its three garments and in the entire body, so that thought, speech, and action will be occupied with the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.” So the G-dly soul wants to be master over the body. We said earlier that this is the G-dly soul’s aim; its goal is to be master over the body. But in what way? In a way that leaves no room for anything else. And therefore, the moment you allow the G-dly soul to act, allow its desire to shine, it has tremendous power to overcome everything else—the animal soul’s folly and foolishness—in a way

16:05 that, as a matter of course, a little light dispels a great deal of darkness. What exactly is the “little light” in our avodah? The Rebbe explains in his explanations that it refers to the soul’s descent below. In its essence, the G-dly soul—certainly, as it shines on its own—has no limitations. But the G-dly soul descended into this world and into a body, and is clothed in the physical brain. As a result, the G-dly soul becomes contracted to fit the body and its faculties. So, as a matter of course, there is only a little light. It no longer has the same intensity as the soul above. As we have also learned, the maamarim explain this whole idea of a lamp—a lamp, what is it called there? Sunlight. Light that illuminates the darkness. When it has to illuminate darkness, the light itself becomes dim. It loses its... Nevertheless, because it is light, it has the strength to overcome darkness, and light dispels darkness. So this explains where I get the strength to be a beinoni. Where does a person get the strength to be master over thought, speech, and action, over the body and the animal soul? There are two points here. One is that the mind, in general, rules over the heart. It is human nature that when a person wants to be a human being, to live like a human being, then, as a human being, he has the ability to let the decisions of his mind take control of his life. A person comes and says, “I can’t, I can’t. I have a craving; I can’t overcome it.” That is a reality in the world today: people have all kinds of addictions and other things. “I can’t overcome it. I have a craving. I can’t—it’s stronger than me.” But that is not true; it is false. If he is a human being, he has the ability. First of all,

17:55 by virtue of human nature itself, because the mind naturally rules over the heart. So even though your heart is burning with all sorts of cravings and the lowest impulses, the mind is stronger. If you decide that the mind will rule over your life, you have the ability to change your entire reality. That comes from the very principle that the mind rules over the heart. All the more so because the G-dly soul is in the brain: kedushah has an advantage, an essential advantage stemming from the G-dliness within it. In the maamar, the maamar, the maamar about [unclear]—a remarkable advantage. There the Rebbe [unclear] also brings up this point, its connection to the G-dly soul’s power to overcome the animal soul. There he discusses its boldness, which comes from the advantage of yechidah, found only in kedushah and not in kelipah. That is to say, it explains what is written here in Tanya. We have said before that the Alter Rebbe does not speak about yechidah in Tanya. That terminology does not appear in Tanya; it appears in later maamarim. Tanya does not discuss yechidah. This whole idea is not mentioned there. But Chassidus explains that the G-dly soul has an advantage the animal soul lacks: the G-dly soul has a yechidah, while the animal soul does not. A shadow, a shadow of a shadow; a transcendent level, and a still higher transcendent level. Yechidah does not exist in kelipah. That is essentially the boldness: G-dliness is something essential, the yechidah’s bond with true G-dliness, and it cannot be without G-dliness. This sense of G-dliness as the true reality, this essential bond, exists only in kedushah, not in kelipah. Kelipah can have a craving; it can also have the level of chayah—chayah is desire—and a desire with all the force of a will that is not from us. Even when a person understands rationally that it is not good, that it harms him and damages his health, and so on, still he—but, but, but,

19:48 But the will is stronger. Still, will is not yechidah. Yechidah exists only in holiness. That is why the Rebbe says there that Jews are, by nature, the boldest among the nations. The boldness found in a Jew refers to this power. A Jew has an essential power that can overcome all the desires of the soul. Here in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe puts it more simply. Again, it comes from the mind’s ability to rule the heart, and even more from the stubbornness of the soul, which gives him a power [unclear]. Because of this G-dly soul, he has the ability to overcome all these forces and to control his thought, speech, and action in practice. But that does not necessarily mean he can overcome the heart itself. That is what we will learn shortly. It is much harder and takes much more work, as the Alter Rebbe explains in the following chapters. And that brings us to the general point we are discussing here: the mind rules the heart. There is a famous story that chassidim tell—actually, the Frierdiker Rebbe tells it. Reb Moshe Meisels was one of the great chassidim of the Alter Rebbe. He spoke French; he had studied in France earlier. In short, he was an educated man. Later he became close to Chassidus and became one of the great chassidim. He has family here in Argentina, descendants [unclear]. He served as a spy for the Alter Rebbe during the war with Napoleon. The Alter Rebbe sent him to spy, and he did a great deal. He helped Russia. Once, Napoleon entered a room where some of his most important ministers were directing the war. They were sitting and planning various things, and Reb Moshe Meisels was there. Napoleon came in, became suspicious of him, and put his hand over his heart. Reb Moshe Meisels managed to remain calm, as though nothing had happened, and that saved him. It was simply—

22:11 Just a moment. An ordinary person could not do that. Imagine being in real danger, and Napoleon comes over and touches you—your heart starts pounding; you panic. But he managed to control it. Later he explained that he had learned this from Tanya, from the Alter Rebbe’s teaching that the mind rules the heart. He put it into practice, and it worked for him physically as well. So, as we said, this is not only a spiritual matter. It helped him physically, too. The mind ruled the heart, and he was able to overcome his fear. Outwardly, no fear showed at all. Now, the Alter Rebbe’s wording is very interesting: “rules.” Why does he say, “The mind rules the heart”? Why “rules”? What does ruling mean here? The word sounds like the use of force, but the mind does not work by force. As we said, it is like dispelling darkness. Why call it ruling? The term does not seem to fit. The mind acts on the heart, changes it, refines it. Why does the Alter Rebbe say that it rules the heart? This really calls for a lengthy explanation, but the point according to Chassidus is that we are speaking here about a beinoni. A beinoni does not transform his heart. The heart still has its desires. It is just that the contemplation and the will in his mind have the ability to change the heart when it comes to action. That is why it is called ruling. In the language of Chassidus, ultimately this is still iskafya. With a tzaddik, the mind does not merely rule the heart; it transforms the heart completely. “And You found his heart faithful before You”—his heart, with both hearts, becomes entirely, entirely one. “His heart is in his control,” as Tanya puts it

24:15 in chapter 17. With a beinoni, it is not like that. The heart itself remains as it was. What happens, then? The mind in the head persuades it. So ultimately, on a subtle level, this is still a form of iskafya, and that is why it is called ruling. He has not changed from one essence into another. It is a great quality and a kindness. But that is the main point the Alter Rebbe is explaining here.