Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #43

all right so welcome back from our brief High holidays hiatus um there are some new faces people joining us for the first time and all of us have been off for a few weeks so we probably all could use a little refresher so basically this is Tanya we're going through the text every single word we started from the title page a year ago um this is a new year but the truth is you're joining us right in the middle of Tanya and in fact right in the middle of a chapter does anyone remember what chapter we're in the middle of 27. okay so here's the thing I'm not going to review the entire premise of Tanya but I think that as we go through you'll pick up on some of the major recurring themes and if you have any questions about it feel free to ask and it'll be either it'll be new for those who haven't heard it yet or it'll be a refresher for those who have okay so we're in the middle of chapter 27. just for a little bit of context and I always do do this at the beginning of every class I always give context I think context is very important we started a new theme in chapter 26 the theme of simcha the importance of simcha that in order to serve Hashem at our best we need to be joyful because anything we do joyfully we do well and anything we don't do joyfully we don't do well that's why simcha is so important so in chapter 26 we spoke about a couple of sources of negativity that could undermine our simcha and we gave advice how to overcome those issues I'm not going to review that I'm not going to go over it again in the beginning of chapter 27 we introduced another source of negativity and that is what I referred to as shame the altaraba doesn't call it shame but for me I think in English shame is the right word shame as opposed to guilt guilt is feeling bad about what I've done shame is feeling bad about who I am and specifically who I am meaning the things I'm capable of or the things that I'm drawn to or attracted to not that I've done them in fact maybe even it's a red line and I would never do those things because they're abhorrent to me and that itself is what's troubling me because things that are so abhorrent to me that I would never do them are not on an emotional level are not abhorrent to me I'm interested in them maybe even I I'm attracted to them I'm excited about them and therefore there's a certain amount of self-hatred and uh self-loathing and that's what we're addressing in the middle of this chapter okay so I'm going to ask it as like a quiz to sort of get your brains yeah I'm gonna get your brains thinking jog your memory so the altered says not only I'm going to set up this is a softball okay not only should you not be ashamed of this if you are interested in things that you find morally repugnant but rather be happy and proud that you have the opportunity the opportunity to do this Mitzvah which mitzvah of not giving in right which is which is in the Shema the last paragraph of the Shema do not stray do not go straight it's one of the 613 commandments so he says not only should you not feel bad about it but you should actually feel good about it because it's an opportunity to do a Mitzvah and hey if after all this is all about doing Mitzvahs now if it's about your own uh ego and you're using religion as just another thing to be a perfectionist about and to get you know so then yeah I understand how how unnerving it would be that you would have immoral desires but if it's really about Hashem and you're really trying to do his Mitzvahs well I got news for you one of the 613 is not giving in when you have an immoral desire so every time you have such a desire it's an opportunity to do that Mitzvah so instead of feeling bad about it be happy okay very good and we mentioned thank you that that would have been my next question that not only should you be now there's another reason to be happy not only should you be happy because you're doing a Mitzvah but in addition do you know what happens every time that you exercise control and overcome your own internal struggle he says there is a cosmic ripple effect that weakens the powers of negativity in the universe so there is a there's a double cause for Joy there so he took something that we were feeling very bad about and he turned it into a into a positive okay and then where we left off we said and this this is a powerful sentence he says maybe this is what you were made for not saying this is what you were made for but there could be a person it could be there could be such a person that his mission in life is to just constantly struggle with inappropriate urges and to overcome them and that person rather than hating himself and say what a loser I am no this is your way of serving Hashem you're not a loser you're a winner you're serving Hashem oh but the way that I serve Hashem is so shameful who says it's shameful maybe that's how Hashem made you to constantly struggle and overcome this this inner battle okay now where we left off those who are following the text following the text if you don't have a text you might want to start bringing a text and if you don't have a text uh it's not that hard to follow without but it's always better to have the text okay yeah 118 in English numbers yeah we're up to um does everyone see what that is and regarding this job said two-thirds of the way down a page 118. okay ninth line yeah from the ninth line up from the bottom and regarding this job said you Hashem created Wicked people where did job say you Hashem created Wicked people who's going to impress me no not in the book of Youth not in today's not in not in written scripture what was the question where did job in fact say this God you created Wicked people well we yeah we discussed Wicked people yeah you mean you're looking for a chapter I'm looking for a chapter in Tanya yeah [Music] um early on pretty early on yeah okay so take a guess that's right chapter one this was way back in chapter one we had a question remember back in chapter one when we were discussing yeah okay this is an opportunity to discuss that because those are basic basic basic terms in Tanya I mean they're basic terms in Judaism but Tanya has its own set of definitions for these terms so sadik we defined in Tanya don't worry about what it means anywhere else I don't have time to retain multiple parallel definitions give me the most simple functional definition Sadiq is someone no evil impulses no internal struggle fine Russia is someone who gives into it how often does he give into it no no no no what no no even once well I didn't get debating yet Russia is someone who does not have behavioral control over his impulses and he gives into it how often I don't know it's a big Spectrum once a day once in a lifetime he sins all the time yeah but it's a big Spectrum all right and then abandon knee is what he's always fighting there he's always fighting it so he has the same impulses as Russia but effectively his behaviors out outwardly at least would appear identical to itsadiq that's the mainly okay so remember back in chapter one we asked um what is this Russia and we brought up this uh gamara Basra where e of the biblical job says to God God you created to show him you made people who are ashamed you made people who are wicked and we were wondering about that like do you remember in chapter one we were saying like hold on a second what free choice free choice says [Applause] that when a person's born they say smart or foolish or or rich or poor they even say who's going to marry they say what field he's going to own but they don't say good or bad because free choice so how can we say that God created certain people to be Wicked remember back in chapter one we asked this if you were patient then you made it to chapter 27 and now you're having the answer to the question that was asked in chapter one let's find out okay let's find out we have this question so Eve said to Hashem but also to show him Master of the world you made Wicked people you made them Wicked continuing the life that doesn't literally mean Wicked people rather she again it means that Wicked Deeds occur to them in their thoughts and in their fantasies it doesn't mean a pronouncement on their behavior that they will sin because there's behavioral free choice you can always choose your behavior what it means is Hashem created certain people that they are destined to have proclivities that they will desire Wicked Deeds but it doesn't mean they'll do the wicked Deeds because they have free choice whether or not to do them and therefore they are constantly waging battle to avert their minds from these Wicked thoughts in order to subjugate the forces of negativity both within themselves and in the universe as mentioned a few minutes ago so Eve is talking to Hashem and he's saying Hashem you know I noticed it's interesting there are some people who you Hashem created to be strugglers always striving never arriving on an emotional level on a behavioral level yes they've arrived because they've achieved perfect behavioral control but emotionally inwardly they're always struggling and what do we call that kind of person what's our Tanya term for that kind of person for that person right they cannot entirely get rid of it they can't get rid of it entirely because that only happens completely expunge that internal uh drive but they don't they have it they have that drive okay now we're going to continue to talk about the role of such a person he how he or she fits into hashem's plan like why does Hashem have such people all right there are two types of pleasure of gratification for Hashem two types two general categories one of them is through complete eradication of the negativity this happens where they actually transform the bitter into sweet and the dark into light they've gotten rid of it and actually converted it into positivity through whom who does this can do that they completely get rid of their negativity yeah if someone would be Noni before they become exotic or they're predestined it's not necessarily there's not necessarily a stage that one goes through on the way to becoming a tadiq the name of the book you say for chobanian because that's our goal it's not vanity isn't like a stage you go through on your way to becoming exotic we're not even pursuing the goal of tadiq so people is it so you're saying like they are the two tracks it's not like oh very good I like that word so eov is attesting the fact that the nature the Divine the divinely planned nature of certain people is it just a different track there are some people who they have the potential to completely eradicate the inner battle and those are called Sadiq other people are not on that track they're just not on that track so don't think about baiting the inside because two stages on one track think of them as two different tracks why do I feel like that why did I feel depressing to me I mean the depressing is a subjective judgment call I guess I mean you're asking you're asking why does it feel depressing to you that's like asking why do you like chocolate I don't know like you're never gonna reach that goal yes you're always on the hamster wheel okay yes you don't want to be a hamster well I got another option you could just give up okay but after today you're going to be like yeah I'm a hamster because you're gonna find out you're gonna find out why it's precious to Usher okay so we have one type of we have one type of gratification for Hashem that is that Hashem gets when the tadiq him completely eradicate their inner evil and it ceases to be a uh a struggle for them bahashanis and the second type today um those who subjugate not transform but subjugate grapple with struggle with the negativity while it's still in its intensity in its full force and it's lifting itself up like a hearty Eagle not ego but a little Freudian slip there the the definitely exatershava ego ego it's flying like a haughty Eagle this is by the way this imagery is from the book of a vadya a vadio was a righteous convert from the nation of edoim descendant of Esau Jacob and Esau and he actually prophesized about the downfall of the descendants of Esau which is Rome or western civilization in the Messianic era and he describes he describes the arrogance of the as being like a eagle flying Aloft but that's also describing the internal Edomite condition which is the the yetzahada remember Jacob and Esau are twins and it's basic Tanya that you are pregnant with twins right like Rifka like Rebecca she said why what's going on with me and they told her oh you got two babies fighting in you remember we learned this back in chapter one is one way calling it but more more often we refer to in Tanya terms we refer to it often as remember the terms we use Godly saw animals yeah um so there are two types of nachas just reviewing one is the tadiq who completely eradicated the inner bad guy in fact he turned him into an ally he transformed him so he's got like two Yates or types and then there's the regular person who he gratifies Hashem by engaging in the struggle he has not overcome and will never overcome his his yet Sahara it will always be a source of struggle okay so continuing here it lifts itself up heartily like an ego um but then Hashem swats it down he brings down that hearty Eagle because of a reciprocal uh reaction to the struggle of the banana again we're alluding to this Cosmic ripple effect that when the banani when this person wages his or her internal personal battle this causes a cosmic ripple effect that Hashem then weakens negativity in the universe yeah unit is what has to happen but it's not it's not our actual uh it sounds like it's a gift from God because often I think you think like it's an island power right okay correct Hashem created a button that when you push it has an effect but if he didn't set up that button obviously it doesn't have that effect yeah it's not just the bun sometimes we don't know if we're doing the right thing meaning it's not that we're necessarily let's say for example there's each one of us grapples with something different but let's say we're trying to negate it doing a certain action right it's not necessarily the best of being successful oh oh okay let me let me clarify regarding your internal struggle at least in this context we're saying no you have complete agency it's up to you you can do this it's very humanistic from that standpoint at least in this immediate context your internal struggle you can do it there's another dimension to that which is saying um is is sort of um an amplification of what you accomplish Hashem amplifies your what you accomplished on a personal level and also makes this happen on a on a universal level so that's the part that Hashem is doing Hashem is making it Global rather than just personal concretize it I mean it's very spiritual but basically look at it like this you may have a struggle in your little life in your little corner of the world no one even sees you you're in your kitchen and you have a moral dilemma whatever it is I'm not going to give you a scenario because I don't want to give people suggestions for sins but and you have this little internal battle and unbeknownst to you at that moment of moral victory you have Unleashed a power into the entire universe to give strength to strangers who you who whom you've never met who live tens of thousands of miles away perhaps on the other side of the Earth and they're struggling at this moment with their own battle and all of a sudden at that moment it becomes just a little easier to do God's will in this world and it's because of something you did that you think is just personal to you and actually know it weakened the forces of negativity in the entire world and that happens from a pain only It could only happen from abandoning because a sadik doesn't have that resistance right could be all the time we said there's a range there's a spectrum could be as as often as all the time well now he's not always overcoming because remember sometimes a vanity does the right thing because he actually feels like doing the right thing it's not not always a struggle even if they do it one time so then they're no longer available they become Russia right so well Russia could still also do this thing that we're talking about Russia could also overcome uh their personal negativity um and have this effect in the world they're just not doing it constantly right Russia could become a better yeah no one could ever become yeah well someone could become a tadek yeah so maybe it's even better than Sadiq sure um right okay so without going into a whole Treatise about this so as I said like I said earlier and I I said it very quickly but I'll say it again we're using terms the way they are defined locally in Tanya terms like it's these terms have different meanings in other places one thing I'll give you a free lesson right now here's how to be a good student of Torah do not try to globalize any definitions that you ever learn terms have meanings within context if you drive yourself Crazy by trying to make them fit other contexts what happens is you end up misunderstanding either the term or the context within which you're learning it so yeah means different stuff in Tanya it means a different it means a different thing he says it in chapter one he's like look you go to besden you go to Urbana court and at the end they say this guy's a tadiq this guy's Russia I mean like those aren't or on the day of judgment to the end of someone's life they say those these are totally different terms totally different terms okay so let's continue here so we're saying that Hashem has two types of pleasure pleasure from the tadiq who are perfect and pleasure from the regular people who have to put in a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears to produce acceptable behavior okay this is the meaning or the deeper meaning the esoteric meaning of the verse let's see who's smart you're all smart but let's see who knows this is this is a tough one where is this verse from foreign who says it who says the line close it okay very good so excellent all right and by the way that Parsha is coming up in like four weeks which means we haven't learned it in almost a year so very good okay so yitzclock says make me Delicacies that I love make me Delicacies that I love time Delicacies plural are two types two types and this verse isn't just yet speaking it's actually the shrina it's hashem's presence speaking to her children the Jewish people clawless Israel explains that's what's going on on an esoteric level in this verse the shrina is saying make me Delicacies plural Delicacies like obviously this is a metaphor but just like with physical Delights or Delicacies data commercial uh metaphorically speaking there are two types of Delicacies you know there are two types of Delicacies what are the two types saying well there's more than two types of galaxies hold on it depends how you categorize it but they're generally two categories of Delicacies let's talk about them one of them from sweet food sweet treats the hashani and the other one the other one from spicy or sour food but they're spiced and fixed up well done fish until they become refreshing treats you know what I had the other day you guys heard about the Pocky chips here maybe no p-a-q-u-i p-a-q-u-i Pocky chips no I took the haunted ghost pepper chip the haunted ghost pepper chip yeah yeah the time is sweet yeah Yankee was like the the Sadiq he has no internal uh struggle it's like the sweet delicacy and then Asaf could have been he could have overcome that's like the Packy chip the haunted ghost pepper can we get back to haunted ghost pepper because that's really can I tell you something I had a haunted ghost pepper on Shabbos and I've been thinking for three days how I'm gonna have an excuse to talk about it publicly to brag about it we're gonna have to buy it for you no no I can't do it again okay what can you talk loud well you have different expectations that are appropriate of the child right right a Todd that should be outside the company should be a baby shouldn't try to be a tadiq it's addict shouldn't try to be a baby yeah of course yeah and or to give you a good metaphor um a chocolate cake shouldn't try to be a haunted ghost pepper chip and a haunted ghost pepper chip should not try to become a chocolate cake they each now you understand sometimes sometimes you need something sweet yeah that's right and that's what we're saying and you guys could relate to this because you're like oh what do I want right now I don't know what do I want uh do I want something sweet no I want something spicy yeah okay I'll share with you recipes afterwards and this is what it means I'll tell you really quickly I once um chemical warfare at my house yeah it was terrible I bought a sack of habanero peppers from Trader Joe's and I was like oh I'm going to fry this up in a pan I'm gonna eat them and I fried a whole skillet full of like yeah like a whole bag of like 20 or 30 of them I chopped them up and I was so careful now I chopped them I didn't touch my eyes no because I knew I knew I knew and then I put them in the pan I started frying them up in the air in the air and it was like it was like the middle of the night too and I was so ashamed I had to wake up my wife and children like we have to get out of the house yeah yeah because even on like the upstairs floor maybe even especially because smoke Rises the like it was what happened oh it's the doors we opened all the doors to get it if you if you fry habaneros you could Google this if you fry Habaneros the gas or the smoke that it releases is is toxic it's like it's tear gas yeah it's like tear gas what yeah I had all the fans on had all the windows open all the doors open it's yeah so then after that though I was like I worked so hard my family and I sacrificed so much for those Peppers so in the end what I did is I I was like I can't throw these out I got to use them so I I was like but you could only have like a little drop of it and I had like a whole thing like it looked like it looked like apricot jelly that's what it looked like and it was like a whole big there was so I did but I could only tiny so I froze it and I kept it in the freezer and every like Shabbos I would take off like a little bit to like smear and then it was in the freezer for like years because I could not yeah I could not finish it and finally my wife threw it out she's like you can't you got you like yeah what the Habaneros I'm not sure how okay so now that we've described this so vividly imagine now but this is not a joke imagine you are that habanero jelly or habanero paste that's you Hashem yeah sometimes the Sham wants chocolate cake he wants a toddick and he gets a lot of knocks from Attack of course he does but sometimes it shows like I don't know this is crazy and it's gonna give me heartburn but I want some habanero sauce that's you your struggle that you're so ashamed of and you're like oh I'm a hamster I hate myself no you're a gishmaker habanero paste that is like something when you're in the mood for the habanero you're not in the mood for chocolate cake no that's not what's gonna hit the spot right now so he gets nagas from that he gets knockers from of course there's two types of nachos that's the point so let's oh the community the habanero is living in is telling the habanero you're a disgusting chocolate cake and she has to realize she's a beautiful Swan she's not a duckling she's a swan she's not a chocolate cake she's a habanero paste yeah we got to get the message out and that's how we got to get people to learn Tanya because what happens is in a religious community is that they judge everyone based on whether or not they're at Sadiq which like we learned in chapter one of Tanya based on the Madras Hashem saw there are very few they're they're sprinkled yeah yeah very good uh he went and sprinkled them out in every generation very good so we got to get the message out we got to get people learning Tanya we got to normalize Tanya so people understand that most of us are not going to be chocolate cake we're not going to give our sham nachos by being perfect we're going to give Hashem nahas by being wonderfully imperfect by struggling and having challenges and even having immoral desires that we overcome and uh yeah it's not pretty it's not pretty but that's how Hashem made us not the God forbid we are actual Wicked people because we have free choice but that we've been given the challenges of wicked people which is not a shameful thing to say it's not shameful we have to normalize saying yes Hashem gave me the challenges of a wicked person I remember Rabbi Dr torska Oliver where he took a personality test at a hospital where uh they asked him uh are you capable of murder all right could you have you ever become so angry or capable of murder uh so he answered yes so they like flagged him and they took him aside like well you know like you're a threat you're like red flag you're saying you're capable of murder and he's like I am and they're like well well we can't have you in this Hospital you're capable of murder why do you think you're capable of murder so he said it's one of the Ten Commandments don't murder if Hashem told me don't murder I must be capable of it right so instead of pretending that you're at Sadiq of of Tanya who's never tempted to murder or to do any other sin which is ridiculous and it's not even it's not even necessary it's not even necessary it's like some lies are expedient it's not even an expedient lie what's what what's wrong with just saying hold on a second there's a very established tradition of a personality type in fact it not that not that we need this in order to make it worthy it's not a democracy here but not only is there such a personality type but it is the most common personality type it is the most common personality type A person who was implanted with desires that are prohibited according to Torah he never overcomes them on an emotional level he struggles with them his entire life and his entire goal is to maintain proper behaviors even though internally there are all types of other distractions going on and ready he would of course we need the Habaneros to lead our community and that's true that we need people so the problem is like this the person who's going to teach our children as well as lead our adults and teach them how to how to how to deal with dignity with your own internal spiritual failings has to be somebody who has not only um compassion about that but they have to have experience they have to have compassion that comes from empathy that they are also struggling on their own level obviously you don't want a teacher who's whose level of struggle is beneath the level struggle of the student because then how could the teacher teach the student But the teacher has to have their own struggles and have has to have gone through what the what the students are going through there's yeah that's right that's right so yeah you have a problem with what the whole premise what concert because not the children of Asa yeah ASA is the spicy sour person yeah and Jacob is pure yeah we all come here with it yes I don't believe that our souls are the Ace of souls okay I believe okay can I say one phrase to you that will make it all click for you yeah two Souls [Music] so you say we are pure Souls well who are we that's the first lesson in Tanya we are two Souls Two personae so yes on the deepest level your Eternal self is your Godly Soul which is Sonic like and only wants the right thing but also at least in this embodied situation that we're all in we have another identity gave us the animal Soul yes in order for us to work really hard is on top yes and that's it's a lot of subjugating it yeah right right right but we're not Angels either we're not animals but we're not angels an angel does not have a struggle and neither does an animal a dozen Angels we're a combination of both extremes no an angel does not have an ashama okay let's continue here let's get to a good stopping point we're getting close to the end here okay I don't know I don't know about angels we don't care about angels because this is a class about people so let's not worry about angels okay foreign including even the wicked person on the day of his wickedness so the simple meaning of the verse is everything that exists in the world is for the sake of Hashem even this seems so strange it's counterintuitive even the existence of evil is for the sake of Hashem that's what it says there how so let's let's finish pirush the explanation is that the person should return from his wickedness leave his wickedness come back to his pure State and turn the wickedness into daylight that's what it means Russia the wicked person on the day of his wickedness means the wicked person should turn the person who was given the proclivities of wickedness should turn his wickedness into joim into daylight he should transform it so that's what it means that everything is for God's glory it's all for his sake even wickedness because the wickedness itself serves a vital purpose in the spiritual service of the vast majority of us for at Sadiq wickedness serves no purpose and that's why it's not part of his life but for the vast majority of us wickedness is an integral part of our spirituality not to give into it God forbid but to resist against it you got to have weights at a gym okay and when does this occur that we use the wickedness for its intended purpose when we subjugate the negativity and thereby cause the glory of Hashem to ascend in all the worlds okay that's a good place to pause in the text so let's just wrap this up here okay there we started EF said Hashem you created does that mean he created people who are predestined to sin no no no God forbid because free choice it means he created people in fact a lot of people with the inclinations oh why would he do that he's putting them on a permanent hamster wheel so now we understand no no the hamster wheel is powering the city [Laughter] what yeah no it was a toddler Sadiq have their own little relative struggles but they're not real struggles they're not moral struggles why [Laughter] hold on a second you're mixing metaphors you're saying you're feeding the Habaneros to the hamster no no the hamster is the habanero pepper that's right he's a spicy Happy Hamster with no shame he's proud of the fact that his struggle is powering the city question someone asks can a hamster ever be a chocolate cake okay it's very interesting there's a mimer from the rabbit that says that everyone regardless of the general category which they would normally be defined as according to Tanya has a complex personality where there may be not only or maybe there probably is um aspects of your life where you have the other uh personae so uh the Reba says that the Bilal is the mimer one of my favorite my mom a short little minor but very very dense and deep below um it says there that every one of us has Sadiq like areas of life where we have no resistance and we're just seamlessly connected to hashem's Will and it could be in a particular Mitzvah or even it's interesting whatever says there in something that's meaning something that's not a Mitzvah but it's a way of doing a mundane thing in a holy way and elevating it so yeah you do have aspects of life that are chocolate cake like um and you know when obviously when that happens you don't have to lament that and say oh let me go look for problems oh let me go create resistance when there are areas of your life where doing the right thing is just natural and easy beautiful write it you know when you have a wave ride the wave and then soon enough you'll get back to the resistance training because that's the the default for for most of us okay and uh so that that was what job said and then we talk about the two types of the the spicy and the sweet and the sweet and the spicy and then yeah I think I want to repeat one more thing here we said but I think it's super important we need to normalize as a culture as a community that the spicy Paradigm is far more common and in some ways more valuable than the sweet paradigm and uh I think this could save a lot of children and adults from unnecessary unproductive religious guilt and it would make our community a better community I'm saying we should do it let's go do it again well so if you've learned Tanya you should go wherever whatever schools or wherever you have access you should tell people we need to have a Tanya share you should bring Tanya yeah so relatively speaking for him yeah then he's not Israel but when he's close to hashem's will his Israel So within Jacob and Y Israel the Israel is like the the Transcendent and jakov is down struggling in the struggle yeah the embodied soul is often called yaakov and I'll tell you even more not only Yakov in Israel but Ace of two because ACE of's also buried in Madison but just his head what does it mean his source he lost his head but his head meaning his Source the spiritual source of ace of is redeemable okay we'll see you next week not finished with 27. we're not finished with 27. no yeah