Tanya (Part 19)

Morning Boker to good morning Boker to welcome back to 10 minutes of meeting please help yourself oh shalom welcome back please help yourself to coffee slushies pastries 10 minutes of meeting is generously sponsored by our dear friends Marilyn and Michael Fedak we're grateful for their generosity and their leadership in so many capacities we are learning Tanya together we're going to finish the third perk per paragiml today we've been learning until now the importance and the notion of understanding where our feelings come from feelings are not fleeting feelings don't rise up inside us. Feelings are not out of our control and feelings should not be stimulated by outside by outside stimulants and by outside substances. Feelings says the balatana all come from they all stem from they are born they're conceived and they have gestation in the mind and the brain and our intellect cognitively the when a person meditates and contemplates and thinks about and opens their eyes and sees and experiences hashem everywhere and everything then the feelings that emanate that come. So that's what we're up to. So therefore we should understand as we mentioned last night that the bal last week the balat's philosophy is not simply to and make and try to arouse feelings within us that come from nowhere. There's nothing wrong with fabanging. There's nothing wrong with a beautiful but it begins with a vart with the with the meditation with a reflection with understanding with seeing with analyzing the greatness the godless or the three different things that the itself lists that all existence is saturated with Hashem that all existence is engulfed in Hashem because and that in his presence everything is nothing. So when a person meditates and reflects and lives and sees the world through those glasses and with that perspective then the feelings that emanate the feelings that arouse that arrive all have a basis. They're all born from this union from this conception that takes place between the and the continues to describe the feeling that comes then the legitimate genuine authentic feelings of aa and aa is love. Aa is being drawn towards close. Ava is awakening arousal. is love a flaming fire like a rapturous love like a flaming fire is the it's not fear it's not fear of consequence or punishment or accountability it's a saroma is to see as we spoke about last week days of awe they're days of goosebumps they're days of awesomeness wow something is mamish awesome we're filled with awe recoil with awe awe for the greatness and the vastness and in contrast in comparison how small we are a sense of reverence a sense of awe and then there's which is when we realize that we're in the presence of greatness we in contrast are small we're accountable and there are consequences then we're filled with a sense of awareness that there's wow what's going to be the result if I don't meet the expectations continues the feeling of love for hashem that if a person is meditating reflect acting, thinking, seeing the world in that way. Then you should be a flame with fervor and is a burning desire. And chuka, a chuka is a longing, a longing. And a nephesh that is sha, a soul inside us that is an insatiable craving. An insatiable craving for what? the greatness of the ensof of the infinite endless light of Hashem to never get enough to never be satisfied to never have our fill but just to be yearning to be drawn like a magnetic pole to have this insatiable appetite to want more and more and more the medish rabba says what's the difference between these these descriptions what seem to be synonyms it's a medish based on a piccious paracidal first is is the notion that we're supposed to perform our mitzvah with a sense of to cling to cleave to attach ourselves that we do it with an emotion. We don't just go through empty acts. We don't just do something as a checklist. We're not just being but a person is cleaving. They're clinging. They're connecting. There's an emotion through it. Is with a sense of inspiration with an inspiration. And is an even more intense state which is that unlike physical desires that when you've eaten person who has an insatiable appetite a delicious steak a great piece of flesh somebody who wants loves a herring bar a cocoa bar whatever shakuri board whatever is in fashion in vogue today okay there's only so much of it you could eat when you feel full if you keep eating you're nauseous you've had enough most physical sensations of appetite it could return and it could return relatively quickly but when it's full when it's satisfied you're done means when it comes to the so when it comes to the shalom there is no enough you had an incredible you had an incredible learning of Torah you did an act of you connected to the of another you connect through his you have an incredible conversation with you never say you know what I'm good now back to life I could detach I'm done person has a kafita there's a a yearning an insatiable appetite that can never ever be satisfied. And then the highest level the says is the love of this highest level gets a person to a place of as the says in my soul thirsts for you. My soul thirsts for Hashem. My soul yearns. It languishes. What is this level of close? More than just I have an appetite. I have a yearning. I'm curious. I want read learn the next year, the next fel, the next opportunity to do the next connection with Hashem. Not just this is what's nourishing and nurturing and lighting me on fire and I want more and I can't be done but to get to the level of means not like we sing it's not just it's my yearning it's what I'm drawn to the point that there is no me other than him what we learned in the a couple years ago about ourselves mean not that there's Hashem and I'm in conversation. I speak to him. I hear him speaking to me. My whole mission and my purpose is to serve him. But then there's also me and the me enjoys this food, likes to go to this place, likes to relax this way, likes to watch this game, likes to there's there's him and I know my job is to serve him and it's his world and I surrender and I submit to him. But in addition to him, there's a there's a little bit of me. Means I absolutely surrender. There's no ego. There's no I. There is no me. There's nothing but Hashem. I am just an extension of him, an expression of him, a manifestation of him. That there is no me. That is a love for Hashem. The highest level. A person could get to that highest level. Not just that I am a nra. I was created and I am here and I was created and I am here to serve him. But even beyond that, there's no me. I am not here. I am just a expression, a manifestation. I am just a a light. I am an illusion. There's no I. There's no sentence that begins with I. There is no I to practice that level of BL which is close to get to that point of absolute surrender and submission. Not that there's me surrendering to him, but there is no me, there is no I. But now says that this notion, this capacity, this ability, this yearning, this insatiable appetite, this drive, this love, this endless and boundless love, I don't want to connect it because we can't even compare it. But you know the couple that's engaged and it's like nauseous to be around them. the way they look at each other, the way they talk about each other. You just you're in the room, you want to throw up just being around them, they're they're obsessed with each other, they're infatuated with each other. You don't say, and that's why today some say you have to put some gdorum until you're married. You got to put some gdarum. Take a break, relax, fall back, get on with your lives, designate some time, but otherwise create some space. Why? Because without those gdarum, a person once said, "Okay, I was yay. I spent some time. I was y we had a conversation. I was I answered your text. Now I want to go out with my buddy. Now I'm back to life. No. When a person is in that place and that state of obsession of infatuation, you can't separate them. They're obsessed thinking they're they're they're picturing they're they're they can't wait to be together. They don't want to be apart. So that's that level. That's that level until the level of we're so attached. We're so shalom. We're so madly in love. We're so infatuated. We're so obsessed. We can't stop thinking, experiencing, being in conversation, spending time connecting intimately. This thirsting is a result of the element of fire of the divine soul. As the natural scientist right states similarly the element of fire is in the heart. So fire is emotion. So scientists naturalists saw the world at the time. Rabstein in his commentary speaks about it at length. They saw the world as divided between these two elements. It's either under the banner of fire or water. There's a balance between fire and water. And we can understand and interpret all the everything in the world under the label or the banner the heading of these two elements either fire or of water. So fire represents the emotion. And where does emotion born? Where is emotion housed hosted? It's in the heart. Whereas water is moisture is rooted in the brain. says it says is water of the divine soul expresses this a little bit the the water and the fire just to expand a drop I guess pun intended and he says the following fire and water yeah fire represents upward movement ecstasy and emotional arousal in general and in the godly soul the soul's thirst and desire to rise rise above its material embodiment and merge with the divine. Water is the soul's intellectual element. Like water, the intellect is cold and damp as opposed to the hot and dry nature of the heart. Water moves downward, always descending to the lowest point. There's this is also the directional flow of which descends from superernal heights to all points of existence. So thought is like water. It's cold and damp. It's not the facts don't care about your feelings. They're cold and damp. facts don't care about your feelings. That's that's from the Balatanya. That comes from the Tanya. Even if the person who said it didn't know it comes from the Tanya that the the water is cold and damp because facts don't care about your feelings and they flow flows down to the lowest point just like water. Whereas emotions they burn like fire. While water flows to the lowest point in a terrain, fire always flickers which direction? >> Up. No matter which way you hold the candle, no matter which way you hold the fire, fire always flickers up because emotion is upward movement, ecstasy, emotional arousal, the soul's thirst and desire to rise above the material embodiment, the material embodiment. And all the other emotions can be subsumed under love and fear. In other words, every emotion is either bringing you close or it's pushing you away. Every emotion can fit under either ava because that emotion is contributing to drawing you close or it fits under ya because it is making one recoil and move forward and move further away. So we saw so far the bat has defined and is the spark the flash of light. You see something and there's wisdom here. It's not defined. It's not in words. I haven't analyzed and dissected it. But there is a flesh of light of wisdom. That's to distinguish to analyze to compare to contrast to to begin to formulate. And yet now we have to define what's d because it's not it's and these aren't synonyms. Each is different what is in the system of what is and that's how he ends the third paradas. The Torah when it wants to tell us about a physical intimate romantic union it uses the language of knew his wife. He knew her we would say biblically he knew her. It doesn't mean he knew her. He saw her profile online. He read her resume. He knew her. Doesn't mean he knows her phone number. He knew her means he knew her physically. He knew her intimately. Das is an awareness, an exposure, an access that creates an intimacy. It is the depth of access of bonding of connection, the union, the joining of something that it's not sterile and it's not available to all. It is a personal very intimate connection like physical bonding. Das is the process of focusing your mind with a firm and strong bond. An intense fixation of thought on the greatness of Hashem. So you could have a knowledge which is dry and sterile and an ivory tower. Data information it's it's intellect. Das is the emotional connection to that knowledge. It's integrating it into ourselves. It's leading to transforming who we are and how we behave. It's not information from the neck up. It's not information from the neck up. A couple years ago, there was a professor of ethics at one of the Ivy Leagues who was arrested and and let go because he might have been teaching ethics in the classroom, but he wasn't practicing ethics outside of it. You can you can teach ethics as information. It could be knowledge that's housed from the neck up in the brain and then it'sma maybe and maybe but das is the intimate connection we have with the knowledge that it filters down and transforms and becomes part of our identity. Das is not adding any new information. That's das is the attachment and the connection and the joining and the intimate relationship that we have to render the wisdom or the knowledge to make it real and to make it relevant because you could be brilliant and you can be have encyclopedic knowledge of the greatness of the and that's you could know but that's not D he namely Unless you bond your das, focusing your mind with intensity and consistency because that feeling that you're really meant to have, the life you're really meant to live, that's filled with genuine love and with a reverence and an awe, the awesomeness of Hashem, unless it's donos, they are worthless delusions. So there are people even Raban who can spit back a lot of knowledge and a lot of information but they're shav unless they translate and filter down to becoming das unless there's an emotional attachment connection to them unless there's a union with it unless it's an intimate ongoing relationship conversation with Hashem then they're simple delusions worthless delusions says the Batana deos very powerful expression worthless delusions. You need das. You need das. You need in fact say based on a that mo before he would enter the he would wait to be called from you see that if a doesn't have das a putrid carcass is better than them because waited to be called summoned before he entered. He knocked before he came in. Someone said come in before you walk through the door. That's such d. You have to be brilliant in order to know. Knock before you let the person say come in before you come in. That takes das. That takes das. Das is you could have information. You could have knowledge. You could be brilliant. You could have a photographic memory. You could be knowledgeable about everything. If it doesn't translate into who you are, if it doesn't filter and come down to what you are and who you are in an article in Das Torah writes of a story when he went to pay a shiva call to his rebi had lost his wife and went to go see his rebi and just before him there was another very prominent gul a prominent rashiva who walked out and hutner was iate and he turned to and he said that this uh great rv who had just walked out was offering all kinds of really silly silly comfort. At least you had your wife for this long. It's all for the good. All kinds of things that were not comforting to say the least. So turned to and said they didn't say they didn't say an ignoramus who doesn't have they said what do you see? You could be a you know and you have no D simple common sense. It hasn't translated and informed who you are, how you carry yourself. You lack das you could be. So his thesis in his article based on the story with his rebi was on the concept and the question of do we believe in das Torah. You can't even talk about Torah if somebody doesn't have Das Torah and you could be. So to be someone that we turn to for their wisdom, their knowledge and their vision for our world, they have to be but they also have Das because you see you could be. So the Batani here is saying what's D? Das is nothing new to it's not adding any new information to but da is the taking the and the and it filters down so they're not dim they're not some delusions that you know a lot of information but you don't know how to pay a basic shiva call you don't know what to say in the right moment you lack common sense you don't carry yourself having translated and absorbed and be transformed by that information ensures the sustainability of emotions and their energy. And now it depends on it incorporates. We're back to the spheros a little bit of love and its derivatives and reverence and its derivatives. And with that we endem will pick up with the fourth per of next week. May it be a day of Yeshua. Amen.