Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #2

before we officially begin i just want to let everyone know we should have in our prayers and say extra till him um for uh first of all rifka basmalka zwifke bortz who's regular in this class who needs refuse leima and also for uh the leviatha today the leviathan is today for her mother for malka bas rebner um i think have in mind that discourse of this learning is uh for them and any extra mitzvos fearless that you can add will definitely have their impact on high okay so we're in week number two remember last week we uh we finished the title page remember the title page yeah can i quiz you what's the real name of the book it's not called tanya say fish obeying them okay do we know what baiting them are yet no okay fine uh what's another name for the book well that's what we call it another name the author called it can you remember compilation look with the modem compilation of sayings very good paula brought her book hold it up so everyone can see what the real average is okay and uh we have a tiny map googie brought in a framed tanya map should we can we get it on camera maybe can we pass it up even though we just passed it over there you think we could do that can we i won't put you on camera don't worry okay so it's a learning tool a learning aid for the study of tanya has all the 53 chapters of tanya um laid out and color-coded according to the different themes and uh this makes learning oh yeah and it also comes in a smaller version a little handheld fold up version okay fine all right um altodeva said where did he get his where did you get this stuff from do you remember me look at me p s farm friend he got it from books and from teachers remember the idea here is that this is a codification of ideas that have been around but the altareba systemized it and put it into a call it a procedural manual but the ideas have been around uh and then also remember the altitude said it's based on a anaposic and a verse from the title remember which which verse the whole book's based on for this matter meaning torah itself is very close to you in your mouth in your heart that you may do it and which basically means that it is accessible it's attainable it's attainable okay and then he says that we're going to explain a who could have made how is it close to you all right you can you can quote verses of me you can make an argument based on authority the holy torah says that it is accessible to adhere to the dictates of torah okay that's what it says but my experience is that it hasn't been so easy so you're gonna have to explain to me how it is accessible and he says we're gonna explain it in a long and short way which we explained means a way that is both long and short it's going to take a lot of time remember this last week you don't remember this part this is this is the part i gotta repeat because this is the disclaimer so you don't sue me it's going to take a long time this is not fun this is not inspiring we don't get uh we don't get uh spiritual thrills over here you want you want that you can drop acid and go to the pink floyd laser light show at the planetarium i like that i like that no i'm not telling you to actually do that i'm saying [Laughter] we're not going to do spiritual thrills we're learning deep stuff which means you got to figure it out and uh connect to it and then you got to meditate on it and it let it percolate and eventually you know like a week a month a year later the penny will drop you're like oh yeah that's what it's talking about so uh oh because excuse me because you have to actually understand what we're talking about this is not about spiritual thrills or excitement or inspiration or any of that uh dirty language which we called hagas remember we called that last week this is real so therefore if something doesn't make sense to you do me a favor and just interrupt me i don't last time we did this class i was trying to pound it out i had a you know a goal to get a certain amount done every time i'm not going to do that this time i'm going to take it slower so if you don't understand something just stop me and i'll say what is it that you don't understand then you'll tell us and then either everyone will say oh well that's a really simple thing he just said it five seconds ago and you'll be like oh yeah and then and nobody should judge that because people zone out or the whole class will say yeah you know as you just said none of us understand it and now realize that i didn't say it or i didn't explain it properly and we'll go back and we'll re-explain it but you have to do that you have to it has to be quality control so if something doesn't make sense to you just say it doesn't i'm pointing out that you're taking a risk because if you say something doesn't make sense it is possible someone will turn around and say to you he just said it five seconds ago but you have to take that risk because it's possible that you're gonna say something doesn't make sense and then everyone will back you up and say yeah robby the next then explain it properly and then i'll have to go back so is everyone confident enough to do that are even a couple of people confident enough to do you can do it well you'll try okay all right oh do you really see prepare wow see how brave i am it takes me two more times okay so you're setting the tone of vulnerability over here all right it's good that's good all right and you brought the map in get an a for the semester okay so should we start the i'm going to go to the hagdomas hamalakit the compilers forward there are some other um texts in between the title page and the hackdoms there are uh other forwards that speak a little bit about a lot of it's like uh legal stuff um like not copying the book and stuff like that which we'll talk about uh god willing later because the the in the compilers forward it also mentions these things and there's some haskamas there's two has comes a probations specifically from zusha and uh those were colleagues of the altar contemporaries they were tamidia magette they were disciples of the market along with the altar in mesrich so they wrote approbations anyways we're going to jump to the hakadomus hamalakit to the compilers forward if we're all good and if you have a tanya like lake paula then you can look again hold it up and see oh there you go okay excellent thank you all right compilers forward okay compilers forward so this is like domestic the compiler's forward this is a letter that has been sent dispatched to anash to uh the man of our fellowship yovorheim tsurenov the rock bless them and keep them allahim ishim akra i call upon you fellas faith said hashem listen to me those who pursue righteousness and seek out the lord is speaking to people who are interested in serving hashem he calls them fate said hashem i'm going to ask you a question leviticus only how about this this is to expose the paucity of our educational system no erase that okay where in tanya does it prove the existence of god it doesn't 100 100 correctivity why not speaking to people who are pursuing righteousness and they're searching hashem they're looking for who's who's he speaking to he's speaking to someone who already is interested not only they know hashem exists but they've been trying to serve him okay the tanya is not here to convince anybody that they need to serve hashem it's not here to convince them that yiddish kite is true or that there is a god you might find that in in hakira in the works of jewish philosophy that uh use polemic argument logic to [Music] make a case for peter minnes and for the fact that hashem runs the world he has a special covenant with the jewish people you would find that in the works of hakira kusari marana but um he's not here to convince you that you need to be doing this any more than let's say if you would go to a a therapist and you would say convince me i need to be in therapy well you know what when you want to be here we'll work we'll work but if you want if you want to come here then i should convince you that you should be here maybe go go back out mess your life up some more and come back when you're sufficiently frustrated right so the style of the book is speaking to someone who already knows that they want to be serving hashem and they're they're experiencing certain frustrations so they're coming for guidance they're coming for guidance remember i said last week it's sort of like a personal trainer person has been trying to get in shape so he goes to personal trainers like i've been trying to do this on my own it's not working can you help me out so think about it like that it's not here to convince you about the basic premise of yiddish kite it's here to help you do what you already want to do it's a manual that's right right so if you buy a manual it's not going to if it's a manual how to i don't know how to uh put together how to put the barbecue girl together right so the first chapter of the manual is not why barbecue is great if you bought the manual you already know that you want to be barbecue you probably own a barbecue that you don't know how to use right okay very good good muscle his classes very very sharp very sharp over here okay i like it all right so he's speaking to uh people who are who are already interested i'm speaking to all of the anash from around it is a known principle [Music] and it is a common saying you cannot compare hearing words of rebuke to seeing and reading it in books the it's it's funny you guys didn't laugh it's hilarious you didn't get the joke there's a talmudic expression you can't compare hearing to seeing if you see something it makes a real impression seeing is believing like they say if you see something you know it's real if you hear about it like hearsay you hear about it so maybe it's real maybe it's not even if you believe it's real it's sort of uh faint it's sort of vague yeah you got water i'll take water yeah thank you it must be they have the whole tanya online broken down into chapters yeah there's a little tiny navigator tool over there it's a great tool actually um so seeing is believing if you see something then it's real if you just hear about it then it's like you know even if i believe it it's more it's more of a vague concept more abstract so there's a cute saying from siddham that sort of turns that on its head and instead of saying you can't compare hearing to seeing right hearing pals in comparison to seeing so they made a joke and this this is what you got to laugh it's hilarious they made a joke and they said you can't compare seeing to hearing because the seeing in this case and the joke means looking at a book as compared to what hearing means hearing the voice of the rabbi who is guiding you so there's a saying the alphabet says there's a saying people say who says they say if you're trying to get guidance in life there are two ways one is to go one on one and get personal attention the other is buy a book from a master so the sydney say here's the water bottle they say like this you can't compare the effect that hearing it getting actual personal attention in real life has you cannot compare that so much greater than the effect of looking at a book of seeing it printed on the page where you're just reading the book and putting the words together on your own you can't compare so in other words what is the alternative saying here in malakit and the compilers forward the first thing he's doing is he's saying i'm acknowledging that there is an inherent deficiency in the written word that when you want guidance and i've said this before i'm going to say it again and i hope this point becomes very very clear that tanya is a book of guidance it's a manual when you want guidance it is universally understood that if you could have a trainer to spot you and to watch you and to guide you that is incomparably greater than going and getting that same guidance written in a book by the same guy by the same trainer okay so he says like this i'm going to acknowledge the inherent limitations of a book one of the problems is the reader clearly feedback there's a subjective filter when a reader is reading they take it the way that they want to take it now obviously that happens in one-on-one in-person communication as well but there's a lot more adjustment that can be made where the teacher can talk to the student in a way that is more tailor-made or where you know the teacher realizes the student is going off on the wrong tangent and the teacher can sort of bring things back but when you're reading a book the book's written already that's it the books is written so you're reading this book and you're reading it through your own filter so that's one problem the person is reading according to his way according to his mind he's also reading according to his mental capacity he's just he has a certain level of uh capacity to understand the book and the books written in one one tone that's it the book's written already if his mind is confused and he's walking he's fumbling in the dark in in regards to his service of hashem but it's going to be hard for him to see the good light that is hidden in the books in other words the the good light is in the book but subjectively speaking he doesn't avail him anything because it's not objectively discernible it is subjectively discernible in other words if you know how to find it if you know how to be on the right wavelength so you're gonna oh that's a masterpiece but if you don't know how to read it then it goes over your head okay even if that light is sweet to the eyes and healing to the soul but it doesn't help him because he doesn't pick up on it all right so that's that's the first problem the subjective limitations of the reader when you're reading a book obama mean dane and aside from that there's another issue there's another issue basically altareb is telling you all the reasons why this book is not going to work who starts a book like that like don't even bother why are you reading this i can't believe it i can't believe you paid money for this book okay so let's find out i hope we get to the end where he explains it okay no one's going to come back next week altodev said there's no point reading a book all right but he's he's really he's tackling the issues because like i said before and i said again i'm going to say another time this is a manual this is personal guidance if it's just an encyclopedia nobody has to write this kind of a disclaimer because everyone understands a reference book is a reference book you just look up the book and you find information it's like google but if it's supposed to be a personal trainer then we do have to address this issue and that's why the altareb is addressing it you understand because of the kind of book that it is this has to be addressed it's the elephant in the room you know i bought my friend for his birthday i bought him an elephant and he said thank you i said don't mention it it's are combined jokes they take they have to percolate in this in this cycle and then a year later you laugh okay so yeah it's a practical guidebook and a practical guidebook why am i reading a manual i want a trainer i want a one-on-one uh and by the way let me just give you a little historical background just fyi a lot of people reading this book were spoiled they were used to being able to get the one-on-one guidance from the author and he's going to address that in a little bit i'm just giving a heads up that he's going to address that in a little bit that a lot of the people reading this book were accustomed to getting the one-on-one personal treatment and now they're being told it's in the book you know like when when you have like a pundit goes on a talk show and they ask him a question he's like well that's a good question if that's in my book he's trying to sell his book right that's in my book that's on page 82 of my book yeah you're going to get my book all right so the altar ever saying now we're going to have this system now called the book and people a little bit up in arms why are we why are we using a book we know that there's no comparison between one-on-one in-person guidance and a and a book okay so first problem is the subjective filter of the reader he reads what he wants to read also he's limited by his intellectual capacity all right and now another issue so that was like one a and one b issue one is the subjective quality of it like one a would be everyone looks for what they want to find and one b would be like everyone has a certain uh intellectual capacity so you're not gonna get everything that's there or maybe even the worst kissinger you'll get nothing that's there you'll just say i don't know i thought people say there's a great book that went over my head all right well bar meandering aside from that there's another issue another issue books that are based on human wisdom certainly are not shovel a whole mouthful of which means like universal something one size fits all or i i don't know i don't want to say one size it's all but like you know universally relevant books that are written based on human intellect are certainly not universally relevant in other words a lot of times not a lot of times he says he says it as a as a claw when a book is based on what's a book based on human wisdom i don't know the communist manifesto uh shakespeare uh i mean books based on human wisdom so even if a really smart person wrote them and you have to read them in order to be considered smart you have to understand them within a certain context they're not universally relevant you read them to become educated but it doesn't mean that necessarily speaks to you it's not like you're gonna read uh you're gonna you're gonna read the voltaire and you're gonna say oh this guy's speaking to me this is how i want to live my life you read it because that you know you want to be educated doesn't necessarily mean or maybe in a certain cultural context it was important and maybe uh someone was trying to convince me once how funny charles dickens was yeah as a history professor and then i realized that he was trying to convince me that he was a brilliant political satirist and he was satirizing these political figures from 200 years ago i never heard of well how funny is that he's making jokes i don't get the references anyways when books are when books are based on human intellect we all know that they are by definition they are not universally relevant even if they're important books that people read to be aware of what the author was saying they're not universally relevant they have limitations not everyone has the same type of mind the ain't seychelles uh not everyone's going to get excited about the same stuff when you see six hundred thousand jews six hundred thousand jews are the number that came out of egypt so you see a mass a multitude of six hundred thousand jews that hashem is the one who knows all secrets so why do we make the abraham because you're looking at 600 000 jews and every single one of them has a different mind [Music] not one of them has the same mindset so it's it's staggering 600 000 people it's not just six hundred thousand uh faces six hundred thousand different minds they all have different world views so not everyone's gonna get excited about the same stuff what was astounding about yeshua about the successor of maestro moses's successor joshua what was astounding about him is he was a ish a person who had the spirit in him and as the sages explained that means that he was able to connect to the ruach to the spirit of each individual he wasn't just a general leader who was charismatic but he had a he had a knack for con connecting to each person on their level he was able to connect to everyone on their level which is astounding because every single person has a different level okay so we know that when it comes to secular books and by the way although he's not even talking about secular books he's actually even talking about jewish books that were written by an author but based on what the author's understanding of things were okay so even jewish books but the jewish book is the product of an author's ideas so we know those books are not going to be universal universally relevant yeah was the compiler forward written before the pamphlets were issued or before the book wow that is such a great question here the question was the compilers forward written before the pamphlets or before the book first of all i'm blown away you even remember that i mentioned that detail last week that the book existed in pamphlet form before it was bound printed and bound in one single volume so the compiler's forward was written for the publication of tanya the book so the manuscripts the pamphlets that were floating around no they did not have this forward so people did not have this benefit of this this guidance great question okay so there are inherent limitations of books that are based on human intellect but you want to know something even books that are basically a compilation of the wisdom of our sages which is a totally different category the wisdom of our sages is not human intellect now that that itself is an assertion that i'm not prepared to argue right now so i'll just i'll ask you to take it as axiomatic but the words of hazal of are not human intellect they are torah and just like the tereshib the written title that was dictated to maisha baino is from hashem so too the words of our sages and the mishnah and the gemara the words of teresh these are godly words obviously the manner of transmission how they came to the world is different different but the wisdom of the sages is not merely lahav shakespeare the wisdom of the sages is torah it is divine so it's a different category so i understand a book that's written based on human intellect that it is not going to be universally relevant never it'll never be universally relevant it'll be exciting for whomever it's exciting for but even books that are based on the wisdom of the sages which means torah which torah is in theory at least universally relevant even toro books have a limitation he's going to explain okay even jewish books that are based on the wisdom of the sages through whom hashem spoke meaning these these are divine messages and as we know hashem and his torah are totally one meaning this is not human wisdom this is godly wisdom and every spark of every soul from the 600 souls and also the offshoots of those souls even the lowest soul the person who comes down here and then in this world in his embodiment he took the his embodiment process took the biggest toll on him meaning he doesn't look so uh doesn't look so yeah down here okay but nevertheless every single jew cool who missed kashmir about i said they're all connected to toyota inherently connected to taylorvard connects them to hashem they are connected to the terror connects them to neighbors like it's known from the holy zohar so here's the deal secular books or even jewish books that are based on human wisdom we know it's not going to be universally relevant but even jewish books that are based on ghazal on our sages there's also a problem and he says like this the the sages are not just spouting human wisdom they are literally channeling godly wisdom and every jew is connected to torah every jew has an inherent connection to toyota every jew has an inherent connection to hashem through toyota so in theory at least if it's a real torah book if it's based on the wisdom of ghazal then in theory at least the book should have universal relevance i when i when i said i mean of course universal jewish relevance that every jew should be able in theory every jew should be able to connect to it hold on though that's in a very general way but who says that at a particular moment or at a particular juncture in your life or something that's very unique to you that you're gonna go to this book and you're going to find your answer yeah in a very general way i know i'm connected i know that this book is speaking to me it's not just human wisdom but in a really specific way i'm not finding me in this message and the altar is acknowledging that that happens even though toyota was given in such a manner where it is meant to be expounded where you're supposed to unpack particulars from generalities right that's the style of toyota potato was given in a way it's like a bullion cube you have to put it in the hot cup of water to make the soup so sometimes you have to expand on the words that are there so we know that we know that toyota was given you're supposed to work with it unpack it decode it and then you end up getting the relevance for each specific soul that is rooted in torah but not everyone is going to be so fortunate to be able to find their place in torah so yes toro is connected to every jew yes even if i can't find it in particular there is a process of unpacking through which i should be able to ultimately find my particular message however who says i'm going to be so lucky that i'm going to successfully engage in that process so i'm back to the same old problem of books that are written on you based on human wisdom even though i know it's not a book based on human wisdom i know it's a holy book i know it's a godly book i know in theory i'm connected to this book and i can find myself in this book but in fact in actual practice i'm not able to apply that method that you're describing whereby you're able to pull out the particular relevance from the text that's that would be a great answer if the altitude weren't making a certain claim see the problem is we're stuck right now if it's a book of faith then who says you have to understand it maybe just read it then it will have a trickle-down effect but the al-qaeda is making an assertion that this is khabad which means the mind and that you are supposed to understand it so if he's making a claim that his approach is one that though in fact not only in his approach are you supposed to understand but the entire approach is based is predicated on the idea of understanding so now we're in a pickle because who says that i'm going to be able to understand this book so where well that's true with everything we have to have uh we have to have faith that hashem is going to help us but yeah but it doesn't address the underlying issue that i'm supposed to be able to understand what this book is talking about not only understand it uh intellectually but i'm supposed to understand how it's speaking to my issues here and now so that has to be dealt with now the alternative is going to still continue to exacerbate the question i don't think we're going to get to the answer today he's going to build on the question he's really talking you out of this ok even when when you're dealing with laws of uh permissible and prohibited which he calls neglige law no the revealed matters you know in total you have the body and the soul the body means the technical stuff aloha behavioral stuff things that are are easy to describe they're concrete you get up go wash your hands you say brachas is easy to convey because it's concrete it's talking about behaviors then you have the hidden aspects the hidden aspects means the abstract spiritual stuff stuff that's intangible which he's going to say is like emotions that's what he's about to say in another couple of lines like emotions like to describe a behavior that's pretty concrete this is how you get up in the morning this is how you get dressed looking it describes it but how are you supposed to feel feelings are much harder to describe much more abstract so the alternative says like he's still he's still telling you why this book is such a challenge why any book is such a challenge he says even when it comes to revealed matters meaning where you're asking what is the halakhah is this permissible or is it forbidden even in those areas we find disputes of the sages from one extreme to the other one will tell you it's permissible now the other will tell you the exact same behavior is is prohibited and they are both words of the living god uses the word elokim the plural meaning there's the plurality within the truth of torah so within today we're not going to get the whole discussion of how that works how halacha works but the point is even in things that are supposedly so cut and dried like halacha like behavioral law do this or do that oh it's not so simple not so simple even in the stuff that's supposedly so straightforward it's not straightforward well it depends who you ask it depends which opinion right so he says uh i'll shame me he explains that why are there a diversity of different opinions because there are different souls because they're different souls they are hasid and souls so different souls are going to view torah in different ways right like i mentioned basham abuse hello so shama is looking from a good perspective based hillary's looking from perspective um they're going to be more lenient and then souls that are more that are coming from what are going to be more strict anyways the point is that's even when you're talking about things that should be fairly straightforward like the call she came with so how much more so are you gonna find this diversity this divergence this multiplicity of different approaches when you're talking about abstract stuff and he he names it we're talking about love in awe of hashem in the mind and in the heart each one experienced according to their level of delay is uh aramaic shia remains an amount a measure each one according to his measure or according to what he measures in his heart where he assesses in his heart you know it says about the asian style her husband is known in the gates right what does that mean by her husband is known in the gates so shaarim are gates but also it's a sheer it's an amount or to be misha which means to assess so what it means is her husband who's the husband with a capital h hashem hashem is noida is known to a person according to his shahadam according to what he is able to be mesha according to what you are able to assess according to what you are able to appreciate that's how well you'll know hashem okay so what is he saying here even in which should be fairly straightforward you're going to find so many different opinions it's not clear which way to go now talk about something that's abstract something that's that's very uh elusive like love of hashem of hashem these things are very hard to to pin down how much more so the discussion is going to be very all over the place and very difficult to nail it down and to say this is what we're talking about just this this is it you know to categorize it to label it to put it in a box it's going to be very hard to do that so just to review because we're going to we're going to finish in a minute here in general books are difficult to deal with because they're written by an author they're written based on human wisdom and the author's limitations are gonna make the book not be universally relevant but then even if you have a book that's not based on human wisdom it's based on torah where in theory i should have a connection to it because it's toyota and every jew is connected to toyota but who says i'm going to be able to successfully engage in the process where i'm going to be able to unpack that place in toyota that's relevant to me right and uh furthermore this isn't just a halacha book this is a book about elusive abstract intangible stuff where it's going to be really inherently difficult to nail down a particular path subject subject to interpretation right subject interpretation uh inherently so meaning to say that he like he says these and these are the words of the living god legitimately there are different ways of looking at this matter it's not that it's just you know we're not sure what it is we we're lacking knowledge of it no even the experts even gaza who understand exactly what they're talking about are bringing out a complexity they're saying it's not so simple it's not so simple okay so if it's not so simple how in the world am i going to manage to get from this book to actual practical application in my life it's it's it seems almost impossible so this is the problem or the challenge that the compiler has laid out before us without a resolution yet unless you want to do another hour should we do i'm joking we're not going to do another one this is called you know what they call this in show business they call it a cliffhanger okay okay we're we're all good any burning quests we have like one minute any burning questions you want to tie up any nuts that's good then i'm doing my job