This SHOULDN'T feel natural! | Ten Minutes of Meaning | Tanya #31

Good morning, Booker Tobe. Welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning. Please help yourself to some coffee, slushies, a little cold outside for a slushie. Pastries sha corner at the holy booker atone synagogue. 10 minutes of meeting series is generously sponsored by our dear friends Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Today's sh is sponsored by Amanda Lions for Mary for anonymously. Thankfulness to Hashem and gives us the ability to be reborn every day and this of everyone doing amazingly on all work and finals having a focus and discipline and by Stash and Janice Jacobs in memory of Stash's father wasite was yesterday and aliyah we are finishing up the sixth per chapter 6 of the holy seer and the has introduced us to the idea that unlike in where we have three realms where we have something that's a mitzvah it's noble It's righteous. It's virtuous. Or something which is forbidden. You're not allowed to do it. And there's that which fits in neither category. Whether you're going to make a coffee this morning, is that a mitzvah davka? Is it an iser? Certainly not. It's a rash. It's elective. Says the balata. That's not the way to view the world. The truth is there's only two sides. There's ego and elocus. Everything we do, every decision we make, every thought we have, every speech that we utter, we are either expressing our ego. We're indulging the ego. And the ego comes from the sitra, the other side, the animal in us, or we're expressing a locus or we're demonstrating, we're expressing, we're manifesting the godliness in us. Every social media post we put up, every conversation that we start, every everything that we do, it either comes from ego or elocus. And the filter, the way to examine our whole life is to ask ourselves what's driving, what's motivating, why am I doing this thing? Is it ego or is it elocus? There is no third realm. There is no rashus. And the has been developing this idea all through the internal and external. The lavush speech, thought, and action are all external. They're lavush. They're the garment that we wear. They're not part of the essence of who we are. And then the introduces us to the concept of bal the idea that we have to nullify. We have to sublimate and we have to surrender the ego. That all there is is elocus. This whole world and everything in it is filled with godliness. And our mission, our job is to elevate and transform and to reveal the godliness in everything. And this is not bal is not about beating ourselves up or knocking ourselves down. BL is not about seeing ourselves as inadequate or unworthy. BL is not about denying our self-expression. BL is about discover your uniqueness because you are a unique expression with Hashem in this world. And the BL is don't be driven by ego. As we spoke about Chabasha in the book, I based it on ego is the enemy. Ego is the enemy. Ego undermines and sabotages relationship and business and so many other aspects and areas. So much of life altogether. I saw Rabbi Shab my friend Rabbi Tab says BL is be tool be a tool for Hashem be a vehicle for Hashem see your life as I'm not independent I don't have my own identity it's not about me but BL means you're a tool be tool be a tool be an instrument be a vehicle to express godliness in this world which brings us up to the third part of we'll finish item today Anything, however, that has not surrendered its ego to Hashem. Anything that does not practice BL, that thinks it has an independence, that thinks that it has its own identity, that thinks that it's responsible for its existence, that think that it has both a history and a destiny separate from Hashem. If you don't practice, if you think it's all about me, it's all about my success, all about my triumph, all about my effort and initiative, all about my then that person is cut off from they don't have life energy and life force that comes from the holiness of Hashem. So the Balatanya makes that statement. That statement alone is not controversial or difficult. The idea that in order to draw life force from Hashem, in order to be plugged in, in order to be high-speed connection, you need to have BL. You need to have BL, which makes a lot of sense because ego stands for edging God out. So the person who lives with ego, there's not room for them and Hashem. And it's not just the program that came up with that acronym, that acronym that ego is edging God out. Because the gam says looks at the bala looks down at the arrogant person with a big inflated ego and says there's not enough room in this world for both me and you. Tell you what, you think you're in charge. You think you're in control. You need all the spotlight. You want all the credit. It's all yours. I'll excuse myself. I'll be elsewhere. I'll be with those who want to be with me. So the idea that if we have an ego, there is no room for God. We've edged God out. goes back to of course which begs the question the alterb then asks how do we see if there is no entity and nothing can exist that doesn't practice bal towards hashem so where does the sahra come from where does the negativity come from where does the impulse and indulgence come from where does the dark side where does the ego side come from if you're not existing without bal and elocus is the result of bal so where's ego from where is ego from. So to solve this the balan offers us a cabalistic insight into how evil forces come to exist. This is how he ends perv and how he'll begin perag will establish the idea of the kipos noa which is a unique form of the husk of the kipa. But first he establishes the first three kipos. Kipus noa has something redeeming about it. Kipus noa can be reversed can be penetrated. You can reveal hashem in it. But the first three kipos are absolute shade that they block the godliness of elocus. And and where does that come from then? Where do kipos the dark side the other side the veil that covers and conceals hashem? Where does it derive it from? If you can't without an impure entity does not receive its life energy directly from godliness, the splendorous inner essential core of holiness. Where it deres from is the concept of what's when you see a friend you haven't seen in a long time who you love. When you see a family member and you're reunited with them, you run towards one another and you give a hug and you embrace and you're face to face. And when you see someone who you have no interest in, someone who's hurt you, someone who has been disloyal to you, someone who you don't want to be in the same room with, what do you do? You turn your back. You show them, but you show them your back. You're in the same space, but what they see is not your face, is not embrace. What they get is your back. You turn your back. Similarly, Hashem gives life force to the negative and impure, but he does so. He does so, so to speak. He shows his back to evil. It has to emanate. There's something in it that has to come from Hashem because there's no existence that that happens without Hashem, but it's not frontal. It's not Hashem's face. It's the it's from the back. And this is the part that's a little bit beyond me. Maybe Yi can explain it. The life force of impure things descends from its initially holy source. It comes down madrega step by step madreos tens of thousands of times. And it comes down tens of thousands of times through the spiral of spiritual worlds. I'm not old enough or smart enough to understand exactly what that means. The spiral of spiritual worlds or tens of thousands of times or coming down step by step. It's diminished many times through cause and effect transitions to the point where it's divine light and energy has been so diluted so watered down that it can be diminished garbed and exiled into an autonomous entity to energize and sustain that thing's existence from nothing to something. to prevent it from reverting to the null and void. Now, let me explain to you. When we're learning Tanya together, there are parts I understand and I'm confident. There parts I don't really understand, but I make you believe I understand and I can bluff my way through. And then there are the parts, full transparency and admission I don't really understand. I understand that there's an idea here, but I don't want to even pretend to you that I can explain it. I'm not competent. I'm not trained. I don't have the vocabulary. The alterb here is describing that where did this come from? The in the kipa it comes from it originated in something divine and pure but somehow it descended through the spiral of spiritual worlds. It was diluted tens of thousands of times. It was diminished and garbed and exiled. It was energized and sustained. It went from I into yesesh. Not yesesh to I and it went from to yesesh to prevent it from returning to the null and void from its primordial state. I know we have it now and it came from somewhere and everything has to come from Hashem and there was some system or process through which it came which I can't fully describe but Miller in his commentary explains and else does elaborate as well. The logic here follows a principle which will be established in the second book of Tanya that that creation is a continuous process. We just said in our dinging or those who will about to dab we say that is renews and restores creation all the time every day every moment. It's not that he invented and created the world and he set it in motion and now it's on autopilot and he went on to other projects. He maintains a relationship with the world in such a way that if he would not will it to continue to exist poof we would disappear. The mush theba later the second book of Tanya we should all live long enough to get to it the msh the is if I tell you right now to imagine something he doesn't give this mushel but if I tell you picture a red Ferrari picture a red sports car does the red sports car the image of it exists absolutely where in your imagination is it real yes there's an image in your imagination of a red sports car if the moment I distract you and you stop thinking about it does it continue to exist we are an image in the imagination of as long as he has a relationship and wills us to be we the image frankly illusion or in the matrix in the imagination of we continue to exist if he ceases or stops to imagine us we're gone we're done he's so here's the problem concerning evil if Hashem is not present in evil how can its existence constantly renew good we understand how it renews because Hashem wants and wills it to renew but how can evil Well, if he doesn't want it or will it, it only has its back. It was some diluted, diminished entity that came down through the spiral of spirituality tens of thousands of times. It's not part of what he wants to renew. So, how does evil continue to exist? And when I say evil, I don't just mean evil people and podcasters. I just mean even the evil in us, the impulse and urge to look at or eat or say or go or do or behave in a way that is not our best selves. So the T answers, Hashem's presence is to be found in evil, but in a very diminished form, diminished, garbed, and exiled such that it exhibits no divine properties at all. And that's how we finish. appears in the physical world and its contents is sitra. It's the other side. It's set up as the antithesis of Hashem and of goodness and godliness. The natural disposition of physical beings is to sense their own autonomous existence to see the worlds having inherent reality outside of Hashem. The predominant energy of the world then is the kipa of sitra. So that urge inside us that makes us mistakenly want to think that we ex yeah I remember Hashem in the morning and then I come back to remember Hashem in the afternoon but all day in between it's all about me what I want what I need what I crave my drive my ambition my aspiration my work my initiative my success that that predisposition that energy to want to think I have an identity independent of Hashem that's coming from the kipos and the and that is why all the affairs of the world are tough and evil and wicked men prevail as it says in know the default that's why we have to fight it the default what drags us down is this world tries to convince us that we have this independent identity that's the that's the language that's the that's the urge of the kipa and of the I've quoted many times the I heard from Shal I'm sorry from Ra the GB said why do we have gravity everything in the physical world has a coralary in the metaphysical world so what's the lesson to learn from gravity what gravity teaches is there's something pulling us and dragging us down and if I want to hold something I have to fight the pull of gravity if I want to lift something I have to really express energy to fight the pull of gravity because the default is if I let go of something it falls. That's what gravity teaches. Spiritually if I let go there's a spiritual gravity. I fall and to fight it I have to lift. That's why has to always be climbing. We have to be lifting. So there's a spiritual pull of gravity in this world and unless we're resisting it and unless we're fighting it and unless we're combating it and unless we're overcoming it and lifting against it, we're going to fall. We're just going to finish up. The kipos are divided into two levels, one lower than the other. Again, kipos is the name we're giving for the default lowest base level in us that has somehow been diluted and diminished. It only has Hashem's back, not his front. It has to come from him and it has to be willed to repeat existence, but it is so distorted that it lacks divine properties. And that's that part of us. and divided into two categories. The lower three levels of the lower kipos, they're impure and evil. They have no overt good at all. If you still don't know what a kipa is, we're going to get to it. It's exactly what we're going is to better define what a kipa is. And the in the first of his vision, they're called the stormy wind, a great cloud with a flashing fire. Those are the three kipos that are categorically bad. Nothing redeeming about them. You can't reveal Hashem in them. They're categorically bad. And vision of the chariot, the stormy wind, the great cloud, and the flashing fire. And now if you want to know where you see kipa, these three categorically bad, negative, nothing redeemable about them. Where do you see them in this world? says the in the following places. You see the men metaphysically power the souls and sustain the bodies of all the wicked nations of the world. You want to know where you see kipa? The three lower kipas. Nothing redeemable. Pure evil sitra. They're the dark side and the other side. In essence, you know where you see it? You see it in sinar. You see it in Tak Carlson. And you see it in Hamas and Hzbollah and the Houthis and Elan Omar. And you see it all over. Second place you see it is in all the impure living creatures that we are prohibited to eat. Anything that categorically we're not allowed to eat, it's because they have in them the quality of these kipos. And number three, also the sustenance and life force of forbidden foods that come from the ground from the vegetable kingdom from like or you're not allowed to eat or you're not allowed to eat the if you have a hybrid mixed vegetable and vine. So these things that are categorically bad, where do they derive their categorical evil? from the kipa the lower three kipos that's where it's coming from and yes I did call those people that is I left off others plenty unfortunately to add to that growing list and the fourth the three kos are also the sustenance and life force of every action spoken word and thought prohibited by the 365 negative commandments and their derivatives so lest you think here we are sitting in judgment we're going to label all these others the lower three kipos because we were perfect. We we derive from other we now also if a yid were to violate the 365 negative commandments those 365 negative commandments are highlighting 365 things that we must avoid categorically because they have kipa in them because we have kipa in them. So those are that's the end of pericv those are the lower three kipos that are categorically bad and evil so diminished and diluted there's no godliness almost in them at all they emanate and stem from hashem otherwise they couldn't exist but so diminished and diluted there is no godliness in them categorically bad we have to combat and purge and eliminate and that brings us up to another type of kipa that looks bad is bad comes from an urge for bad but yet is redeemable it can be transformed we could penetrate we can reveal the godly is in it and that fourth kipa is called kipas noa and that's what we begin per z with hashem next week have a wonderful and warm Wednesday.