Tanya By Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz - Chapter 2, Getting to know Your G-Dly Soul

so today we're discussing the second chapter in Chania and this obviously a very very important chapter of tanya because it lays down an important foundation to comprehend the whole book of tanya and for that matter the whole concept of mysticism and that is where the author of introduces a concept and he says that we discussed last week that we all have two souls and last week we discussed in depth about the animal soul actually two weeks ago and last week we went into a little bit we discussed a godly soul so today we're going to explore what the godly soul is what the godly soul is because the godly soul by the definition just by the name godly right godly and tarnish um like the soul so what is the godly soul so to talk about something like the godly soul on a physical level it's very hard to comprehend because if you want to talk about a phone you can describe it what it's made out of what its structure is and so on and so forth so to describe what a godly soul is a very hard thing to describe because we're physical human beings we can relate to the physical world so to talk about something like you said formulas or spiritual is very very hard to relate to so what is an astronomer what is a godly self correct yes yes correct okay so let's talk about what what what a notion is what our Sun is so first of all the author explains and he says that based on the Torah that God by epoch the app of knishmas high in that God blew into the physical human being that he created a soul of life means it's coming from a blowing God like blew he blew from his essence and he put the soul of life into this human being so in other words like this the practicality of it three two points Oh welcome welcome you're started okay we're talking about in the summer we just started talking in the summer okay so back to the question is what is this in the summer what is this soul okay so the reality is that we have a physical body which we can relate to and then we have Ana Shama which kind of look we're going to learn about which we subconsciously know about and hopefully we'll know more consciously what the neshamah is so for example when a person is hungry right so you want to eat whatever may be you want to eat you want to drink the you eat you drink the physical body feels satiated for the godly soul doesn't do it in other words the physical human being and the animal soul is all about physical survival not only physical survival physical existence this physical enjoyment and physical pleasure of life the godly soul by definition it's a part of God so it's survival and it's being alive it's a whole different reality than the physical body and the physical and the and the animal soul being alive and this is all going to discuss today but this godly soul so the godly soul because by definition it's a godly spirit its nourishment is being close to God anything that you can do to bring yourself closer to God the godly soul is on fire in a good way in other words if you for example study Torah you take a hamish you think I'm a missionary he takes from Talmud you take some Kabbalah whatever may be and you sit down and you study Torah try to cut try to create a visual just like if you were hungry you're thirsty you drank something you ate something oh you feel satiated when you sit down and study Torah your godly soul feels oh it's literally being nurse and being fed and being nurtured and being well taken care of when you do a mitzvah whatever they make the myths maybe the 613 to choose from we know 248 positive 365 negative when you do a mitzvah whether it's putting on tefillin or keeping kosher or Shabbat you are basically feeding your godly soul just like you would be feeding your animals so that wants to eat a drink now again it's hard for us human beings a physical nature we know what a jacket is is a physical jacket you put on the jacket we know you want to drink we have a cup and we have water that's what we can physically relate to that's what we see and that's what we feel but the same way that you feed and nurture you got your animal soul and your physical body your godly soul is fed the same way by studying Torah namely as we discussed in doing a mitzvah when you pray yeah true the physical body it's boring just like for the godly souls boring to sit down and eat here's no interest in it so the godly soul and you take out a prayer book and you pray or without a prayer book you open your heart like the random writes prayers from your heart so it's from the heart or the prayer book irrelevant how you pray but when you pray you are feeding nurturing cultivating and giving true life and sustenance to walk to your valley so my question for you then is like when I pray it lightens me and makes me feel better it feeds me in a different way and gives me more energy than any of the food does ok yeah I mean isn't out what prayer is supposed to do for us get us closer to God satisfied again no there's no there is no question about it that when a person feeds their godly soul you also feeding your animal soul and your physical body to another look see for example you're hungry right you can try this you take one you know I'm not ready to eat now let me go ahead and let me go ahead and pray a little bit you're not gonna be as hungry afterwards because when you feed your godly saw you also feed your animal soul and your physical body there's no question about it in other words matter of fact I even friend of mine who's in Jerusalem and he has a big Outreach Center and he deals with a lot of people that are you know returning to Judaism Jerusalem we know is the capital for everyone that wants to return to Judaism meaning you got inspired in Jerusalem once you inspired you go to Jerusalem Jerusalem is is the place you know the center for the world for anyone that's looking for God and he said he found something very interesting is that people that are into spirituality and godliness are usually into physical in into health healthy eating means that they don't have to eat so much to garbage food in the junk food they eat more the health with an eat less also the why exactly because what happens is when you just take care of your physical self and you don't think of your godly self you're gonna have to overdo it because there's still a vacuum in other words the bottom line is we have a godly soul there's if you don't feed it you're starving it so you're gonna have this starvation feeling you're gonna try to eat you're gonna try to drink you're gonna try to gamble or whatever you gonna do to fill the hole it's never gonna fill it because you're not dealing with the godly soul so what happens when you start feeling the godly soul and you we all feed the god animal soul because otherwise you'll be dead we need a drink drinker ech but the point is that when you feed your godly soul you don't have to feed your animal soul unnecessarily in other words you're able to feed your animal salt exactly what it needs no more and no less and you feed the godly so balanced on one or less and that's when a person is out of balance they're not they're starving their godly soul they're going to try to make up to it by feeding more than animal soul and hoping and thinking maybe they're gonna feel more fuller it's not going to happen when I was younger one of the elders said to me very simply God abhors a vacuum he will fill it if you allow him to so when you become hungry he will fill you correct correct okay so let's so let's go on so the first point is which is an important point is that just like we have an animal soul and we have a physical body that we have to take care of we have to nurture we need clothing we need food we need rest we need relaxation whatever we need to take care of it the same thing also with the godly soul we have to take care of just as well different tools there's different types of garments there's different types of food and there's different types of entertainment that's special and unique for the godly soul namely as we discussed prior Torah study doing mitzvahs you know spiritual from bringing is your getting together with other human beings creating unity praying love between other of the other people etc okay that is the first point and an important point that we have a godly soul and we have to feed the GAVI so now this godly soul that we have and we have to feed so we know generally speaking what's it called its called a neshama what are some one now in a sum that what does it mean in a summer so neshama actually there's five levels to the neshamah we're gonna go now for a journey into the neshamah what are the five levels for the summer so I'm gonna give you the names and I'll explain what they are we'll start from the bottom we'll go up now when we say in general it's a general rule of mysticism when we say bottom to the top or top that about him we're not referring to physical going from lower to the upper or from upper to the lower physically we're return referring to different language and the language meaning body means less godliness and higher means more godliness more-- lower means godliness is concealed and higher means God is more revealed so we're gonna start from the bottom of the neshamah what does that mean even in the neshamah there's different levels of how much God revealed so the lowest level what's called the nephesh that's the lowest level of the soul above that and we'll go back on explain each one is Rua it means it's more God revealed above that is neshama so even though the shaman has a name for the whole package just like you hear sometimes the term nefesh for the whole package but now we're going into different levels it's neshama which is a higher level up then Ruach there I am in your feeder 5 levels now what does it need 5 levels if it's a part of God what does it mean 5 levels the reality is very simple that true it's a part of God the only question is how much is revealed so in the lowest part of the nefesh what does that correspond to practically in our world it means like this in our world we have something which is called will there's many levels right now there's something which is called thought speech and action so we're going to talk now about three levels of the soul not the all five just three and these three are actually called the parts of the soul that we can actually internalize it actually becomes part of us so the lowest level of soul we said is nephesh that is basically the action area of our life in other words without nefesh we don't exist with it so every single person to function there needs to physically get up to physically move anything of action that we do need to do or do we do want to do has to be infused by nefesh the NEFAs is rolling you're moving never stops rolling you're stopping to move and you're in trouble so you got to make sure the nefesh is always alive and then Efes usually gives you is always like you know I got a dormant state and you have some energy to it and as you feed a nephesh then it's more active so for example it's a person happy whether it's happiness from a good thing right or from a celebration what happens to your feet you start dancing water you also start dancing you're dancing five minutes ago because the nefesh got infused with energy and then the feet start moving so the lowest level is called what is called nefesh there moves us physically then there's something which is called our speech and that comes for or when a person basically his Roarke has fired up of his soul so his speech is much more developed he's much more open he's much more expressive he shares more right that means his rucas going means we have a higher enthusiasm infused level of a soul well in the summers on fire then not only is your action godly and holy and excited and motivated they're not only as your speech healthy and expressive I'm positive but here is extremely important your thoughts your thoughts are holy and godly in other words if you can get the neshamah rolling which we'll talk about soon how do you do that if you can get your your thoughts and we know that action for example you can choose to move not to move speech you can choose to share not to share but bullets are always always thinking so if you're not gonna proactively get you in the summer on fire to have godly thoughts to be in a godly space who knows what your thoughts are gonna be bad negative who knows we don't know danger zone but it's working you can't shut it off the only thing you can do with your thoughts is one thing you can't shut it off there's no there's no shutoff valve there's only a directional valve you can shoot it towards well that's will go to negativity and you know laziness and so on and so forth that you can you can direct it to what godly thoughts healthy thoughts positive thoughts empowering inspiring and so on and so forth so that's the power that you have what your thought but that's only even do that when you know some reasons neshama is on fire that is one level which is Mohammed Ibrahim I so you thought speech and action which is affected by your by your godly soul now then there's another level in within us and that is our intellect our emotions and our actions our functions in other words what happens like this when we feed our godly soul again whether it's pray your Torah study image don't the goal is that our godly soul the nefesh should be alive godly and a godly level the Ruach and then a soma right so how do you how do you know or what happens when you feed your nefesh that it should be godly then where do you go to you're gonna do a mitzvah you go to shul you're walking in a healthy way in a happy way your whole movement is a godly movement joyful staying it you've seen it in the footsteps you see in the footsteps then you have your emotions now what is your emotions practically in the spiritual world in the godly world and Hebrew it's called a very narrow larvan or now what is law of an all mean practically to your emotions in other words are you in love with God as the Rama writes what's love for God and he gives an imperative from a relational husband and wife that you're constantly thinking about God what can I do to develop that loving positive relationship with god what else can I do for God how can I serve God you wrote you're in all of God Wow God created this world God created me God created you O God created everything he gives us ear to breathe everything so where I was when you start feeling God and godliness where arms to your emotions they start being alive you start living in a real way you become a real you'll mean emotionally that's what's cool spiritually you're Ruach comes from wind you're wind is blowing in a real powerful godly way that means the National that you're aurora ovular summers a lot what's the next level above that table them talk about three levels not gonna go into high you fina today I'm watching what's the level of neshama neshama is where your intellect lies more than you in turquoise we all know that the most powerful even though we live in our emotions but our emotions are directed with our intellect that means if we have a clear vision if we have a clear purpose if we have clarity in our mind guess what we automatically do the right things we automatically say the right things we automatically love God and we don't love what's counter to godliness we're in awe of God we're not in awe of NARAS kind of things which are not important and so on and so forth we're not distracted so like so another way so it's not intellectual comprehension like you're studying something is stunning you have a godly intellect you you intellect views things from a godly perspective an insight insight is a good word you have godly insight into things a godly vision but through the channel of intellect so you have a question it's very clear this is what God was not from you own ideas but from what it says in the hummus and the mission in the Talmud and according to Jewish law and so on and so forth now what's the essence basically of the life of the neshamah the on all these levels whether it's action speech and thought or action emotions and intellect is that the goal of the neshamah is it feels great and operates the best when it is connected to God when it's connected to God then it operates the best so the neshamah wants one thing very simple it wants one thing exactly it wants to be connected to God it wants to Cle to God it's all the Cure's that's what just like a person let's see for example on the animalistic side I'm not talking bad or negative on the animalistic soul or the physical body you want to go eat for example let's say a good dinner whether it's a steak dinner or if you're vegetarian some kind of you know a nice mushroom whatever it may be right whatever whatever you like right you have this physical passion right feed a nice right and I use vegetarian mushroom right or a nice steak whatever whatever you like or some sushi correct so you have it and you dream about all day at work and you can't wait to come home or go out to your favorite restaurant right you ever had anyone ever had these thoughts praying nobody here right we all have so you have these thoughts all day you can't wait to calm down then there you go okay there you know right you got it so huh lamb chops whatever maybe no I by the way it's good think about this because you'll see the way the animal soul operates and you'll see the way the physical body operates wouldn't want something guess what it thinks about it and then make sure it gets it and doesn't go to sleep until those and get it positive absolutely but on the other hand now let's look at from the godly Souls perspective what does he think about I can't wait to pray right that well I can't wait for that cleaving moment to me with God can't wait to get to Tonya's I can't wait to get to a Tonya class I can't wait to go do a mitzvah I can't wait to visit this woman that had been a visitor in three weeks she's home in bed oh dude grocery shopping for somebody whatever the Mitzvah might be I can't wait to sit down like you said time your class whatever the class may be this so just like I mean literally the same amount of energy that's flowing when you want to have that dinner or you want to go play that game of golf or you want to take your family vacation which again these are not bad things these are things that you need to live when I'm talking even bad here but you have like a certain energy that you can't wait to do it and you think about it and you talk about how much money you want to spend on it right that and even more so does the godly soul want to be close to God and just like you couldn't you couldn't I don't have to question you all know how you you're in it and how you're gonna feel before you do it and once you do it it feels great right then you relish in the moment that's the same way the godly soul feels now it's hard for us to comprehend it because we're physical human beings we can relate more to our nice good dinner right give me a bottle of wine a nice old bottle of red wine maybe a bottle of scotch those look like scotch right whatever whatever you're wearing fancies and pleasures are that is the same passion that the godly soul has and yearns for 24/7 and yet and when you do that more than that dinner or that because it's a feeling that you cleave to when you want again and again and again once you reach there it's it's a driving force in your life yes yes yes it is no yes right no aftertaste no hangover it's just cetera it doesn't cost money and guess what the pleasure that you can get from yearning and cleaving to God is by far you cannot compare to any physical pleasure in this exist in this world that's a reality ask anyone that sort of speak as well about chuhwa someone that lived a life of you know the materialistic pursuit and found God and godliness they can tell you because they were on both sides of the fence I'll tell you there's nothing in this world that's more pleasurable and sitting down and studying some Torah praying or doing a mitzvah it's me it's not even like a comparison Oh exactly it's King Solomon's and all vanity and it's true it's gone so with the thing is you're got everyone's godly soul yearns to feed that yearning how often 24/7 and the more often you want you yearn that and the more you feed that the godly soul feels great and guess what happens it infiltrates into your being makes you laugh makes you really happy it becomes exponential but then in turn that godly soul feeds other godly soul absolutely it's cause limit okay right okay so now so we know what the godly soul is we know that the godly soul one - and needs to be fed just like the physical animal soul and the your physical body wants and needs to be fed we know that pending on how much you feed it and not in other words depending on how much you feed it whether Torah pray are doing mitts vote it will affect you in a way that you're literally your soul that affects your movement physical movement will change your movement will change your physical behavior will change it will affect you in your speech the way you talk it will affect you in your emotions your love and all for God it will affect you in your thought in your intellect in your clarity of vision and purpose in life and you'll be living a real human being that's alive on the spiritual level listen alive on the physical level I guarantee you if the way we're anybody everybody will eat every a little drink and no one's dying we have thank got plenty of materialistic needs in this world but spiritually that when you feed that now you're living on both levels okay so here's the big question how do we feed this godly soul I know there was like this obvious when we spoke about prayer we talked about Torah study we started doing Mitzvahed but and that's hope that's all good it's all important but now the real question let's say you you need like a a boost you know you open up the prayer book it's not moving it's not moving you take out some study you try to study Torah you're sitting there but you know you're not being moved it's like a blockage you do Mitzvah but it's like cold you can still do it because you believe eventually a little kick in what can you do to really jumpstart the battery so the outer comes along and he says something which is very very profound and very very powerful he says like this the author says okay they're all services like this I'll give you an example if you have a beautiful car nice car nice model right the electric windows leather seats air conditioning right bluetooth everything all the bells and whistles sunroof right if you're living in Florida all the bells and whistles and you come to the car you want to start the car and guess what doesn't start you know Florida's very common batteries go dead every couple of years right battery's dead now it's not totally there that's but it's not strong enough to start your car so what do you do right you pray your friend comes you either call triple-a or you call your friend and he brings his car triple-a brings him back you know a nice power to battery and they put cable someone battery to the other and they put the cables all of a sudden it gets warmed up you started car starts takes up the cables you go for a drive and continues every time you need to start it starts it's not amazing is that amazing yeah in other words you Valley was what was that it wasn't so it wasn't starting you got a boost and then the car works and now you can start with a low boost what happened the answer is very simple your battery was low on juice low on energy it got a boost from someone that was full of energy and guess what it revives itself so why because the battery wasn't really dead it went down it didn't have enough energy to start the car it started the car once it started the car it got itself you know going again the alternator you do gives it gives a juice so the objects are the same thing also with us we each have a godly soul that means we can live in San inspired life thought speech and action their intellect and our emotions in our action but sometimes our batteries weak so what happens in your batteries read coppers a very simple more culture polite well call the good friend that has a good battery in other words what does that mean practically go to someone that's inspired thank you like you're a boy that's a good idea you go to your rabbi go to the Rebbe the leader of the generation who has a fired-up battery a fired-up spiritual soul plug yourself into him you know go for our Shabbos and go to the Rebbe yes true but we're not but let's stay focused go to them for our Shabbos hang out in their synagogue a little so even though you're not inspired just like that Barry that was almost dead got fired up you can you fired up as well so in other words what happens if you you're like totally you feel like chopin synagogue show up with the clients do the Mitzvah the Mitzvah the synagogue the rabbi the Rebbe has the power not consciously a directly just by being there Olson you get fired up and it works just like it doesn't make sense how the battery works say they also doesn't make sense why it works but it works why because there are certain souls that are on fire and have so much fire that if you take from their fire doesn't the minister fire and now you're back on fire and guess what's more you can be someone else's fire that someone else things the fire pass it on his right here so here comes the author of a law and says very very simple that ultimately if we want to live a real godly life we have to shift engines from the animalistic engine to the guardianship in other words you can expect to live a godly and spiritual life when the cables are connected to the physical engine if you think you're going to get spiritual energy from physical food or materialistic pursuits it's not going to happen you'll be a nice guy you're physically alive moving around the world doing stuff but if you want to be spiritually alive if you want to be plugged into God you have to connect and develop a relationship with your godly soul and the more you develop the relationship with the godly soul by prayer by Torah study by doing mitts vote your godly soul will lighten up starting from literally physical activity and as you'll walk around will see somebody gets a godly human being there's a big difference between the way a regular human being walks he's physically walking he's alive but then there's a difference between a godly human being is walking he's not only physically walking he's spiritually walking he's spiritually alive there's a difference between a person talks hey listen thank God we can speak but the difference when you're talking divinely inspired talk and the difference when you talk your thinking divinely inspired thoughts there's no room for negativity there's no room for hatred animosity you're nice and kind to everybody you want to make the world a better place because that's what God wants for you there's when a person his emotions his love and all for God if it's godly inspired to hold of reality his intellect he has clear vision so where does the power come from and the Alpha gives one key point here and this is the key point key point is ultimately where does the Rebney the rabbi have this tremendous power and the answer is he doesn't could it's not his power it's God's power ultimately ultimately the way to get the godly power don't do anything just allow God to live through you be the channel in Hebrew in Hebrew it's called and Hebrew it's called bittle which is humility when a person practices humility what's throwing what's flowing through you godly wisdom godly inspiration godly ideas and then it's very very simple so when a person connects to a ready to a rabbi to a synagogue to a tour class really what you're doing is you're humbling yourself and getting all your thoughts and ideas out of the way and you're able to be a vessel that's able to study come on it's so only C correct get the ego out of the way is half the job but but now once you got it out of the way you have to bring in you have to bring in God and you have to bring in golf eNOS and there's part of that ego that's as godly that you must have to inspire yourself correct so just do it just to just to just just to finish off with this approach we can all benefit to live godly inspired 24 hours a day 7 days a week and it can penetrate us on all levels but don't but but you have to remember if you're not using your godly soul it's not gonna work you have to activate your godly soul which we all have and you have to make godly your godly soul the reality in your life and the godly soul it's like think you said it's it's simple it's so simple there's one one thing the godly soul wants it wants to get close to God and by diverse definition or to be close to God yet can't be so close to yourself and the minute you let go of what you want you say hey what has gone from one for me what's God's message here you're automatically a vessel to receives gut receive God's message and God's light and you live a beautiful life that's inspired by God and godliness and that is why this chapter of tanya is literally like the basis for the whole tanya because it sets the foundation of a total perspective and vision that once you accept the fact oh my gosh I have to switch over gears to the godly soul now I'll be a vessel for everything else we're going to learn as we go through the book of Tanya