Tanya (Part 7): Chapter 1 - We have Two Souls

Good morning, Booker. Welcome back to Tanya. I want to thank our generous sponsors of our 10 minutes of meaning, Marilyn and Michael Fedak. We're very grateful for all their generosity and leadership in our community. Please help yourself. Coffee, pastry, slushies in the lobby corner. We are learning Tanya together, not teaching Tanya because I'm not qualified to do that, but we are learning Tanya together. And in learning Tanya together, we have the balatanya set the following question. The brace that describes there are five levels. Sadik Vlovo. The righteous with bad, the righteous with good, the evil with bad, the evil with good. And a fifth category later in the bra was called the Bayoni. By process of elimination, he has described that the Benoni cannot possibly be how we ordinarily think of the Benoni. The Benon is not someone whose scale is exactly even as merits and demerits, rights and wrongs. They're exactly even. And one more thing can change. It can't be that way because Rabba describes himself as a Benoni and he was so diligent in his Torah, study the Malikovs couldn't get him. And if indeed he was half and half, when did he have time to do all those wrong things? If he was so diligent in learning Torah, the Malikov couldn't even get him. So it can't be what we think it means. Sad also doesn't mean what we thought it meant. Said the balatba. It doesn't mean the external reward or punishment in this world. It's not that the righteous suffers or the wicked prospers. It's sad. Even the one whose internal judge always makes the right decisions low. He can relate, identify, understand that there's evil in the world even if he doesn't struggle with it. And the Russia, the toll, the one whose internal judge always has him make the wrong decisions. But there's a toll. He can see the world and its goodness and the possibility to draw close to Hashem. That's what ra tollo means within the saddic and the Russia. What the alterb has begun to explain to us is that the benon is the individual who struggles who makes the right choice comes to the right conclusion in the end but does so with a sense of struggle which brings us up to so now that we've by process of elimination said the benoni is neither a saddic nor a russia if you make the wrong decision in that moment you're a rush. If you make the right one you're a sadic. The Benoni there is no straddling the fence. There is no half and half. There is no in between. So who is the Benon? If this is a safer of Benonim the inbetweeners as Miller calls them the intermediates the inbetweeners theimon is what we aspire to be and we need to define them. So says the alter explains as following we said lived in the 16th century. one of the major one of the major figures and leaders in one of the great cabalist students of the Arizal and he explains the following to every individual young and old wealthy and poor smart and foolish athletic and uncoordinated men and women to every individual Russia everyone in between we have shamos we all are operating we're all living with two souls and there's a confrontation, there's a tension, there's a battle from when we're born till we die, from when we wake up till we fall asleep between these two souls, the two definitions of our very existence. And it's not that the Russia struggles with two souls. Says the alterb. Everyone, no matter what lofty level, no matter how far they've sunk, no matter where they are, all of us have and struggle and feel a tension and navigate a confrontation and a battle between two souls. Unlike what was thought that we have one unified persona, we have one unified existence. There's one part of who we are. And the one part of who we are sometimes makes good choices. sometimes make bad choices, sometimes has a positive inclination, sometimes indulges the negative inclination. Comes along the Baltan and says no human being is made up of we have in fact two separate complimentary parallel competing at times souls. In many ways, this is what we spoke about on Shabashua uh last year, which is the notion of IFS, internal family systems, which is the um modality in psychology of a contemporary Jew, but finds its basis all the way back to Tanya and much earlier than that. When you once you learn about it, you see it everywhere in Torah. the idea that we have a sense of self which is the pureim the godly divine spark in us and then we're made up of parts and as the name of his book is called no bad parts there are no bad parts there is not one unified definition of who we are it's not that we're good or bad I'm anxious or I'm successful or I'm righteous or I'm no there's a sense of self and the sense of self is layered the sense of self has to engage and interact act with the many parts that we have. And a person can have wonderful parts and they have parts that they're less proud of or parts that act out or parts that need to be trained and need to be navigated. The balan is going to come back to this several times in Tanya. And here is the first we all have two souls. And where does he get this from? Where does he have the audacity? The Torah describes Hashem created man. He breathed life into us as if we have one sense of self. One soul comes along and says no no we have two souls remain above separate parallel parts. They're competing sort of um central computers within us. He gets it from aos says describes souls which I have made. Souls which I have made. The first half of that puk refers to the spirit which is singular that we're speaking of a single individual and yet within the single individual shamos there are multiple souls then explains nefas now that's a very big shift in language the describes that we have that we have nishamos we have nishamos in plural nishas which the balatanya interprets to mean we have two nishamas shah which means why did he change the language to why is there a shift here in this in this language in this language so the the zatal explains the shift in terminology that the inh speaks of namos every soul is on the lofty level of nishama but only the level of nephesh is actually vested in the physical body and it's up to man to draw down the higher dimensions of his soul into his life. So in speaking about every every Jew saddic and Russia alike possess two souls the speaks of because that's the baseline lowest level of the soul and we have to draw down the higher ones. So since he's addressing he's addressing the he shifts from the language of the higher level soulos to the lower level soul of the nephesh in his commentary explains a little bit differently. He says the following. The term nephesh has two meanings. A general meaning and a particular meaning. In its general sense, a nephesh is an all-inclusive term for soul. The entire range of forces, potentials that constitute the spiritual essence of man. Not only man, but every created thing including an inanimate object has a nephesh. The table, the chair, the wall, the building, the mita, it all has a nephesh. What does that mean for it to have a nephesh? Maybe I can understand that the animal also has a neph. It's an animated living being. Maybe I can understand that the landscaping outside, plant life, vegetation has a nephesh. It is a living organism. But what does it mean that the table and the chair also have a nephesh? So the nephesh and body are the two basic components of every physical entity. The nephesh is a thing spiritual substance. The body is its material substance. So when I talk about a table, I talk about what are its measurements, what is its material, what color is it, what purpose does it serve? All that describes the material. Maybe not the purpose. That's all the material. What color? What shape? What material is it made out of? That's the physical description of the table. When I say what's its purpose, what's its mission? Why is it here? How does it elevate our experience in this world? How is it utilized to serve Hashem? That's the nephesh of it. So everything from animate to inanimate has a nephesh. And the nephesh means in what way can it serve the mission and purpose of Hashem in this world? In humans, the general nephesh includes five specific aspects and levels of the soul. So we have five levels of our soul. Nephes and neph is also the name of a particular aspect of the general nephesh conoting the level of the soul that in the most direct contact with the body is the source of biological life. So the lowest level of those five levels of the soul is the nephesh. That's the closest in contact with the body and that is the source of biological life. So when we talk about our heart is beating and our lungs are breathing and we have a body that's operating in this world. What gives it its life force? That's the nephesh. That which gives the physical its life force is the lowest level of the soul namely the nephesh. Soal suggests that with all this now we can understand why the balata begins by calling the two souls nishamos but then corrects this to nefas is the word employed in the verse the psay from which derives the existence of two souls the however employs the terminology of kabala in which nama is a particular level of the soul the highest in this language it would not be accurate to say every Jew saddic and Russia possess two nishamos because not everyone gets to that highest level of the soul of nishama So that's why he shifts every Jew however does possess two nefasos in the general sense of the word two distinct life forces in play. Okay. So we haven't begun to define the B yet. All we've introduced is no bad parts. We're made up of multiple parts. There is not one unified sense of self. We have parts. There are different parts to who we are which is so important. I don't want to revisit the entire Shabbashu dasha now, but it's so important to how we understand ourselves, how we judge ourselves, how we relate to ourselves, how we regulate ourselves, and also how we relate to other people around us. Even when there's a part of them that we wish there wasn't that we're trying to change or improve or condition or elevate, that's only a part of the person. It's not the sum total of who someone is. So the bal said that quoting based on the a person is made up of two which he then quickly corrects or shifts in language to say not only two nishamos most don't notice or they overlook some commentaries didn't even pick up on or at least didn't explain offers a couple of explanations why the balan shifts so what are these two souls that we have nephesh aasipa one soul stems from the kipa. What is the kipa? Kipa is the husk. Kipa is the peel. Kipa is the egocentric force. Shah kadusha explains kipa is the ego. The ego that can overlayer everything that we do. It distorts. It's called the kipa. It's a peel or it's a filter because it distorts our perception of reality. When we look at and interpret and absorb and analyze the world, we do so through a filter. You know, we can understand this in our generation because our kids on their cell phones, I don't mean the good kind of filter that helps them not look at bad things. I mean you could put on a filter while they're facetiming you where all of a sudden now they have a funny nose and funny glasses and they're looking through a filter. It's like a funny what you might call a funny mirror. If you went to a carnival as a child and they had a funny mirror and you look into it and it distorts what you see, the mirror is supposed to reflect back exactly what is in it. But a funny mirror reflects back a distortion of what's in it. So the kipa is the filter through which we look at the world in a distorted perception of reality. And it causes us to focus on the external and the false and interprets based on the ego. Not the highest part of who we are, not the best part of who we are, not the most aspirational part of who we are, but the ego part of who we are. The pleasure seeker in who we are. The one who only sees the surface and the external. That's the peel. That's the filter. That's the husk. That's the kipa that's blocking out the light. So there's a light that represents the good, the positive, the authentic, the true, the highest part of this world and of ourselves. But the kipa, the husk, the peel blocks out the light. And so we have this distorted perception or understanding of the world. Kipa is the consciousness of the unmodified perception. It's when we trust our sensory physical experience of this world without interpreting it at a higher level without seeing the depth and the plemius of it. So we'll finish up. So one soul one side is the kipa the husk this filter it's blocking the light and the sitra. So in Zohar in Cabala we have this concept called the sitra. What's the sitra? Pop culture picked up on it right? They they call it the dark side. We belong to the dark side. The head of the dark side. It's the dark side. The sitra is the other side. What is the other side? It's the side that is not holy. The side that's not holy. There's the holy side. There's kadosha. This week's pasha kadosh to you. is holiness. Aspiring for holiness, living with holiness, defining ourselves an identity of holiness, action and behavior of holiness, being in touch with the holy part of who we are. And then there's kipa and sitra which is the dark side. The other side, the other side. It's interesting the balan here makes a very subtle but critically important point and it's different than the way normally interprets the world. In you see this in elsewhere. We have three categories. And the three categories of how we live life are mitzvah, a rash. Mitzvah means a positive commandment. A mitzvah. You put on your talis and your fill and you dab this morning. You gave a little bit of sucker this morning. Mitzvah, mitzvah, mitzvah. Check, check, check. Mitzvah, objectively positive deed. A mitzvah, you're connecting to Hashem. Ara is the opposite. God forbid a person did a spoke lashhara. They talked during davining. and a vera. So an aa is a negative. A vera distance us from hashem. A vera goes against the will of hashem. And then there's a third category which we'll call rashus. When you go home and have breakfast so the braha that you made on the food, that's a mitzvah. But every spoonful of cereal you put in your mouth, it's rush. It's neither a mitzvah nor an a. It's what you'd call neutral. It's a neutral category. Rishus and life and the world and our average day are made up of much of rishus that it's a neutral parav intermediate category that is neither a mitzvah nor a it's rishus it's a rishus comes along the balatan here and he says no this kadusha and the sitra comes along cabal and it says there's only two sides either the mindfulness and the consciousness you're bringing to what you're doing the meaning and the purpose and the reason for what you're doing is elevating it to kaduca. I'm eating so that I have energy to serve Hashem. So the act of eating now is transformed to kaduca. It's holy eat. And if I'm not, if I'm eating like a pig, if I'm indulging my animal self, if I'm not eating to live, but I'm living to eat, then I've given into the sitra. I've given into the dark side. So unlike our usual understanding or interpretation of life, there's mitzvah a and rash. Here the batan comes along and says, "No, there's only two sides. There's either kadusha or sitra. what you're doing. You're exercising. You're choosing what to wear. You're getting dressed. You're having coffee in conversation. You're eating your breakfast. All these things that we would call rashus. They're sort of neutral. Balatana comes along and says, "No, there is no neutral. Our entire lives, every choice we make in speech, thought, and action. It's either adding to kadusha. It's either transformed into mindfulness and a consciousness that elevates it to a level of holiness. We're fulfilling kadosh to you. or we're indulging or it's the dark side and we're giving into the other side. And where is the animal soul of is embodied in your blood? I had to end with this because it's because in this week's parasi the soul of the flesh is in the blood. So the animal soul of Kipa, that animal soul inside us, that husk, that peel, that misperception, that egocentric life is found where the animal, the sensory life is in the blood. It's in the blood. It's embodied within us. So lest we think it's outside and apart from us, it's in our senses. It's in the animal part. It's flowing in the blood of our body. The blood is the source of life. And So this nephesh of the animal badam is in the blood. It is embodied in us and it's part of our body not outside and separate from it. What we need to do is train it and elevate it which is going to be where the balana goes from here. Obviously a lot more to cover but we've begun to find our answer. Bes.