Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #35

welcome to uh our weekly tanya class and uh we are in the midst of a fascinating string of chapters and we're almost to the end we're at the second to last of this not of the whole book but of this string of chapters it runs from 18 through 25 and we're almost we're almost there we're almost in the home stretch we're about to have it all come together all the pieces are about to fall into place it's all going to make perfect sense very soon if you just hang in there don't abandon us just hang in there and it's going to all pop into place okay let's just review chapter 18 we began to speak about a new method for arousing love and awe of hashem a new method meaning new in additional in addition to what we had just learned in chapter 16 and 17 where he told us in 16 and 17 he said if you want to love or revere god if you want to have any emotion for that matter how should you do it meditate after that we said okay fine what if the meditation isn't working yet he said fine i got a method for you it'll work you don't even have to be a seasoned meditator but it takes me eight chapters to explain it to you and we're like okay we'll do it and they're gruesome what sense do you mean they're gruesome very technical oh very technical yeah yeah there is uh there is comparatively speaking the technical kabbalistic mechanics are more more detailed than in other places in this book that's true that's true and specifically we're focusing on the technical mechanics of the principle of divine oneness but we'll get there hold on so chapter 18 comes along and says listen we have this historical phenomenon of irreligious jews who sacrificed their lives to preserve their jewish identity what's up with that we answered and said well there's something embedded in the spiritual dna i don't mean genetic biological dna but i mean proverbially the spiritual dna of the neshama which will not allow the jewish soul to be separate from god and and and that will be summoned at a time of intense threat to that to the connection to god that's why that explains that phenomenon of jews who are not observant throughout history who gave their lives willingly to preserve their jewish identity chapter 19 we said that this impulse may be likened to the nature of a flame but just like a flame wants to lose itself and return to its source so to the soul the neshama i don't mean the vivifying soul that keeps your body alive i mean the godly soul that gives you god consciousness that soul is a very funny entity because contrary to the mo of basically everything else in the world it does not seek self-preservation but self-annihilation through self-transcendence it wants to become subsumed within the one so it wants god consciousness actually i shouldn't even say god consciousness because that implies a subjective relationship of a conscious observer it wants to be in a state of oneness with god more than it wants to preserve its own existence and if we can get that to be summoned to be triggered it will immediately align all of our emotions with god's will so we proposed in chapter 20 a black and white very binary way of viewing all of tata as either connection or disconnection that there's really only two mitzvahs either you believe in god or you deny him basically it's a reduction where we simplify all of torah into the first two of the ten commandments everything i'm saying should sound familiar if you've been here if you haven't been here it shouldn't sound familiar but it should sound like at least it basically makes sense even if you can't really follow at least the words in combination with each other should form intelligible sentences so where are we heading i told you i already remember my disclaimer that i said 20 times yes we are proposing a very black and white all-or-nothing view of judaism that we don't normally take on but here for this method we do in chat so if you understand that it's it's either connection or disconnection so that sort of will up the ante and uh trigger a more intense risk or a more intense uh reaction to what you perceive as a as greater risk all or nothing in chapter 21 we spoke about the metaphor of divine speech how really the creation is nothing it doesn't exist just like a person's speech a person speaks his words don't have existence outside of him uh so too the creation doesn't have its own existence outside of hashem chapter 22 we said in fact it's even more than the metaphor the metaphor was was profoundly limited it's even more than that in chapter 23 which is what we learned last week we said therefore the ultimate oneness is through surrendering to god's will and we spoke about two ways of surrendering to god's will through torah study and through mitzvah observance and if you remember those were two gradations or two levels um mitzvah observance is like being a markov like being a chariot to god's will being surrendered to god's will like the we gave the metaphor of the limb of the body which automatically does the bidding of the person remember i had my cappuccino last week and i kept reaching for it okay now i have my water got healthier and then there's an even higher level of oneness where you learn hashem's toyota and you align your thinking with hashem's perspective of reality and that's an even higher level and either in in either case whether it's performing mitzvahs or studying toyota you know we had that really good question about women's obligation to study title which i hope was answered sufficiently and then we basically finished so in either case the point of chapter 23 was that through doing hashem's will one becomes unified or united with the reality that hashem really is the only reality in chapter 24 we're going to say and conversely not to scare you not to get negative but there is a way of divorcing yourself from that reality yeah oh did we not finish chapter 27. oh that's right continuing chapter 23. continuing chapter 23 um right there and see since or being that you found okay um now we're describing the state of the person when he is learning toyota or doing mitzvahs the toyota and the mitsubis themselves constitute hashem's innermost will we've spoken about this concept before about inner will and outer will degrees of will sometimes there's an ulterior motive something that you desire but only as a stepping stone but the mitzvahs are hashem's actual will that we've spoken about this before i believe that when you ask somebody well why do you want it if they have an answer why they want it it's not their innermost will until you come to the thing where they say just because that's what i want that's the innermost will so hashem desires everything in his world or it wouldn't be there but it doesn't mean it's his innermost will it could be therefore an ulterior motive the mitzvahs constitute hashem's innermost will and when you are subsumed within that will by surrendering to it and being a vehicle to it in the case of mitzvahs or being aligned with it in the case of learning toyota so then you are at one with hashem's innermost will. now he gets into the mechanics of it so your soul and its garments meaning your thought speech and action become one with hashem with the infinite one at that moment in the ultimate sense of oneness like the oneness of hashem's thought and speech her speech and thought with his essence as we mentioned above remember in chapters 20 and 21 where we use that metaphor that all created existence is really as not as speech the speech of a person it doesn't have a separate existence from the person has to upon a niskala l nothing is really separate from hashem it's only concealed and in this case when you're doing hashem's will and surrendering it to surrendering to it there is no concealment because it's overt at that moment your existence is aligned with hashem's innermost will right so he's just describing the state of oneness that's achieved through choosing to learn toyota or do mitzvahs at a at any given moment so far so good but for all practical purposes we create an experience of separation which is the sin of idol worship furthermore he says the oneness that you achieve through doing mitzvahs is an even greater oneness with hashem than exists in the upper worlds we speak about different planes of reality different levels where each one is more transparent the higher the world is the more transparent it is the word is is from the etymological three-letter root i in lamin men which means concealment so the word for world or here world probably is better translated to a plane of reality is synonymous with the word concealment each plane of reality is another concealment and they're compounding so when we have a world upon a world that's like if you put enough translucent fabric over the window eventually it has the effect of being opaque we live in the lowest world meaning the final culminating concealment where spirituality is pretty much completely hidden the ultimate concealment and then there are higher world spiritual worlds where spirituality is revealed or more revealed and the higher the world the greater the revelation and we just made a claim here that when you do a mitzvah or you learn toyota your level of oneness with hashem is actually greater than anything that's achieved in those higher worlds where spirituality is in greater revelation he explains he explains you understand the statement now you don't have to understand how that's true because you didn't explain it yet but you understand the statement okay now he explains how it's true beginning because hashem's will is literally revealed in that soul and in the and in its garments what when the person is learning to do because hashem's innermost will is the tata itself whereas in country distinction all of the higher worlds actually get their life force from the energy of the torah is hashem's will and wisdom and like it says you made them all in wisdom meaning torah is the energy with which all creation continues to exist veeam kane if so what emerges divine wisdom which is hashem's title is higher than all the worlds and that is hashem's will not just his wisdom but his will which is also called the encompassing force too great to be contained shahib islamish alaman something that's too lofty to be contained within creation the finite creation of this lofty energy remains so to speak obviously we use the spatial terms only metaphorically this energy remains outside of the system of finite reality and yet that lofty energy which is too great for the worlds to contain even the spiritual worlds is precisely what is invested within the person and his soul when he's learning toyota so basically what we said is the energy that is revealed in the spiritual worlds is only an energy that is capable of being invested within some system of reality it's lofty to be sure but it's ultimately finite the energy that we access when we are aligned with doing hashem's will or learning about hashem's will is an energy that's even greater than that which normally cannot be contained within anything it's too great to be contained but yet that is precisely what we are united with when we are learning hashem's wisdom and will so when you're doing a myth yeah let's say and you want to channel it somewhere else that's how you you're learning somebody or venus for somebody so how does that channel we're not talking about your will is that what you're asking you're intense hashem when you do something so it benefits you yeah hashem so hashem to channel it to death okay whatever you're doing yet don't worry about that listen no no no seriously because i don't have a month to do every every chapter okay do you understand this radical claim that was just made articulated to me when you were doing a mitzvah yeah learning torah or doing anything yeah so you're channeling it goes to hashem it's it's like part of hashem as opposed to what well anything you do he's making a claim here this is what i want everyone to understand don't worry about that question i i don't mean it to be dismissive i mean it in the sense of being um trying to be a helpful teacher to keep you focused okay because there's many associations that we can make and then we end up far afield follow the the the claim that he just made he said when you learn tied up especially when you learn title when you do mitzvos as well but right now he's focusing on learning turnout you become one with hashem okay great that's a very it's a very inspiring idea he says no no let me let me explain what that means you think it's inspiring let me explain to you you don't even understand half of it think about the higher worlds spiritual worlds yes yes i'm aware of the higher spiritual worlds yes there's a great degree of spiritual revelation in those worlds that's what makes them higher he says yeah they cannot achieve the oneness with hashem that a jew down here soul in body can achieve by learning torah why because the spiritual revelation in the higher worlds is categorically of a lower degree of energy which is capable of being revealed something that can be revealed as impressive as revelation is to us as observers subjectively by definition it means that there's a limit to it or it would be unobservable something that's so ubiquitous uh that it cannot be contained is no longer observable it's like the fish who ask the other fish do you believe in water and the other fish said what's water right that's slave of calallen slave calamine is literally means the encompassing energy so there's mammalic calalman there's the energy that fills worlds that's impressive stuff you see how this energy this creative energy enters into the world and does stuff and when it does it in a revealed way it does cool stuff and you're like wow look at that yeah but precisely the fact that you're able to observe it means it's of a lower grade and category that is capable of investing itself within a finite framework even a lofty spiritual finite framework then there's energy that cannot be contained how do you in how how do you how do you have a relationship with that so he says well you do it not by observing it because it's too great to be observed if you could observe it it wouldn't be it you do it by uniting with the ultimate observer meaning hashem you unite your perspective of reality with his perspective of reality and now instead of looking at god you're looking with god you understand instead of looking at some revelation of godliness you are now taking the perspective of the divine observer that's what toyota is toyota is taking the perspective of the divine observer you're looking at reality from hashem's perspective yeah but right hashem's will and wisdom which are the torah correct which are contained within any any halacha you open up a shogunate and you read how to get out of bed in the morning and you're now observing from the divine observers standpoint instead of looking at and beholding god you are now looking along with god that is the unity with slave that is possible through torah study that you cannot get even if you were privy to all of the revelations of the spiritual worlds okay we'll go boom boom yeah because we are in this world we are kind of when we're doing this that's why that our connection is higher because we're kind of creating where we are and is where we get the benefits or we no longer can the truth is we can make changes up there but like technically saying because we over there we cannot create that kind of connection anymore then we're not creating more only here we can create a better tomorrow and is that why we are more connected to isha no no no no no i i let's stay very very laser focused here all i always tell you guys remember why we're we're you always have to know what a chapter and tanya is doing you have to know its point okay it's not a conversation starter although didn't sit down for coffee with you and say what do you want to schmooze about we have one point here what's our one point what i mean is why are we talking about that why why is he bringing this up why are we talking about oneness with hashem well meditating was or maybe it's working but it's just not working fast enough um and so we need to take a perspective that's going to motivate us okay we already know what motivates us the threat of god forbid disconnecting from god so right now he's explaining to you what it is that you have when you do hashem's will and he's about to explain what you lose god forbid when you don't do ashav's will okay so he's explaining what it is that we have at the moment at the moment when we choose to do hashem's will that's what he's selling you on he's not selling you on anything else none of the other ramifications of of torah observance are are of interest right now the only point he's trying to make is at the moment you choose to learn toyota or to do a mitzvah you are choosing to be at one with hashem and now he's just explaining the particularities of that oneness and in this particular sentence he's contrasting that oneness with the degree of divine awareness that the spiritual entities in higher worlds are able to experience now the next op yeah wait wait somebody wait i want to go to work okay fine all right yeah okay my only question is i understand what you're saying in terms of seeing it from the perspective but isn't that essentially saying that since the the only way we can grasp the torah is because it sounds like it's creating a manifestation of limitation that that's why we can see it we can we can connect to it because it's not this you know energy so the end of chapter four he spoke about how the infinite wisdom was codified and condensed within this finite discussion of somebody's cow was gored by somebody's ox okay but we at the end of chapter four we explained that when you're studying toyota it's not like uh a dumbed down version of infinite truth it is the infinite truth in but you get the best of both worlds in a way that a finite mind can actually understand it okay the next question that you would have to ask at this point is you would say to me well hold on a second you're making a claim that our level of oneness with god that we have when we learn torah if i open up a kitten and i learn a line i'm experiencing a greater degree of oneness with god than any angel in the highest heavens that has not been my experience that's the obvious next question right we don't know because we don't know what that experience is so very good so the next thing that he says even though you don't see this this is an expression from from the from the gemara talks about uh a story where different people had different reactions to a divine revelation and uh the explanation is that or or rather different people had different reactions and yet somehow those who were not capable those who are not prophets somehow sensed that which the prophet sensed even though they didn't know what they were sensing so the gemata explains that basically sometimes you don't see something but your mazel mazza like mazeltov mazel mean literally is from the word nasal which means to drip it means the source of your soul on high that's sort of higher than embodiment and it drips down as it were so even though you don't see meaning even though your consciousness doesn't behold what's going on your mazel does um and he says in brackets and precisely because you can't understand on a conscious level what's happening yahoo least boil that's why you're able to endure it because you don't consciously see it masha and kane by alien not so in the spiritual worlds where they do see it and they would see it so therefore they can't have it because it's a it's an inherent contradiction that that degree of divine wonders if they were to see it they would no longer exist it would completely overwhelm their existence so precisely because we do not consciously appreciate the level of oneness that we are experiencing when we learn toyota that's why we're able to have that level of oneness and not be overwhelmed what do you want to know about the encompassing because this is really not the place where we get deep into encompassing on the most simple level let me ask you what i have a question for you what's bigger god or the world so there's got to be a certain amount of infinity that doesn't fit in the finite that's the save okay no it's not condensed all of the world is god but all of god is not the world everything's a paradox but if you think about it it's like mind-boggling because the awareness that you want to create is actually like you can't because it would overwhelm you right right right so by learning the torah you actually are connecting to hashem and you are achieving awareness but you're not aware that you can't ever feel it because then you would be right right which is why we're learning about it we're taking the altitude's word for it and why this world is so hard and that's why that's why the world is hard yeah because we don't see this stuff yeah so but also what gives us an opportunity to be partners okay let's continue i'd like i'd love to finish this uh chapter was that you've been lama god lemonade miles has uh her asic now we can understand another thing why learning toyota is considered greater than doing any of the mitzvahs um remember we spoke about there's two levels there's the merkava being a chariot to hashem when you do hashem's mitzvah and then there's the oneness when you align your perspective with hashem's perspective through learning tata so he says now we understand why learning toyota is even greater than doing mitzvos now he in brackets says he says i just said that learning torah is even greater than darvening well then how come the halacha is that you don't that you don't just keep learning how come you how come you stop learning and you go dav and he says because you stopped learning anyway you stopped to eat you stopped to go to the bathroom you stopped to go check on your wife and kids so you know you stop anyway so you could stop the darvin too certainly um and with this reflection any intelligent person can draw upon himself in immense awe when he goes to learn theatre how those how his soul and his its garments are becoming completely one with hashem's will and the the the light the infinite light which is revealed in hashem's will mashakolailum is we're talking about a level of light that compared to it all of the worlds even the spiritual worlds are nothing but a level of light that doesn't even invest invest itself within the worlds not even the higher higher worlds al-assad but rather remains save surrounds them rather the worlds receive only a condensed glimmer of light that they can tolerate but at that moment of learning we are united with this higher light that cannot be contained within worlds even spiritual worlds this is what it means and hashem commanded us all of his laws these laws to fear him meaning to say that the very fact that we have this command and if we reflect upon the nature of the command that itself will instill all brackets now regarding this level of awe it says if there is no wisdom there is no awesome you're familiar that there are two formulations of this statement in there's in fact i believe the first is if there's no awe there's no wisdom if there's no wisdom there's no awe it's like how do you get a job you have to have experience but how do you have experience you have to have had a it job says the beginning of wisdom is a fear of hashem but how do you get started if it says without wisdom there's no all without awe there's no wisdom or vice versa there's no all well it's a loop so you could you could enter it anywhere in the loop so he explains it by saying there's actually two levels of awe obviously you can't say that there's something that you need a in order to attain b and you need b in order to attain a then it would be it would be impossible to even get started he says there are two levels of jira there's the yira that's prerequisite to acquiring wisdom and then there's the yiddah that's acquired once one has wisdom so he says here in brackets and he'll elaborate on that actually much later in in tanya he says in brackets toyota is called the the gate to the house that's aramaic like it's explained elsewhere elsewhere it's explained in tiny but the point is the initial um aw of doing mitzvahs meaning have enough impulse control and self-discipline to do mitzvahs and to learn tighter that's a lower level but then we're talking about a higher level of awe that you get from doing mitzvahs and appreciating exactly what it is that you are involved in so that's why toyota is called the gate to the house that through doing the mitzvahs you'll appreciate how awesome that oneness with hashem really is okay so anyways the point is right now he's not trying to instill you with enough auth to do a mitzvah to learn theta to the contrary he's saying think about the mitzvahs and the toyota that you're already involved in and that will instill you with an even higher level of awe because you'll be like blown away by by this thing that you're involved in okay ella de lav colla sovalda but not every brain can tolerate this meaning no brain can tolerate this no you can't wrap your mortal mind around this yida kazoo such a level of thought but even a mind that cannot wrap its mind around this awe lay me never lay my tosser not even a part of it why not because of the low level of his sole route he's coming from a lower soul origin and of course you'll consult chapter 2 where it explains that even when we say a soul is a lower soul ultimately it also comes from the higher source as well but you'll have to look back in chapter 2 for that yet a lack of that awe will not practically hold him back from doing it kamehameha common like it's explained elsewhere so even if you're not able to wrap your mind around that aw or the idea that leads to that awe it's fine uh you'll just realize that it's too big of an idea to understand and it doesn't prevent you from doing that awesome thing that you would be totally in awe of if you could wrap your mind around it the point is here he's selling you on what a wild crazy oneness is happening every time you learn toyota and do mitzvahs and when you hear this you're like wow i never appreciated it in that way i thought i was doing something nice for hashem i didn't realize i was becoming one with hashem that's what he's explaining to you now in the next chapter chapter 24 which i thought we were learning today he says and now here's the scary hour you hear a scary scary this wasn't scary this is awesome this was awesome not scary scary as he says now imagine what happens to you when you choose the opposite not just when you don't do it let's say what happens when you willingly align yourself with opposing god's will that's i mean i don't want to make fun of it but that's scary so next chapter is a scary chapter if chapter 23 is selling you on the glory of oneness within hashem by doing mitzvahs and learning torah chapter 24 is going to scare you about how awful it is and by the way chapter 24 when it says how scary it is does it say anything about gahannam over there no because you know what's scarier than gahannam disconnection from hashem yeah that's right you guys are very refined crowd very good glad you understand that i'm not saying gehenna is not scary but what's scarier what's scarier than than your wife yelling at you not talking to you i mean if you love your wife i mean so if you love hashem then being disconnected from hashem is scarier than gohan him if you don't love hashem then i guess johanna's more of a motivation than being disconnected