Text-Based Tanya—Week #66

weekly text-based Tanya we're in the middle of chapter 38 38 very good okay last week we had a whole long intro regarding what's going to be happening in the next few chapters 38 39 and 40. I told you I've been worrying about this for over a year how am I going to deal with teaching chapters 38 39 and 40. as you remember we're just going to review very quickly chapters 35 36 and 37 were about the power of our action right physical action the Mitzvah needs to be done in actual physical deed but coming out of that we now address the other side of the coin which is what about intent very good okay so 38 39 and 40 is dealing with intent all right so we spoke about the beginning of chapter 38. um do you remember the four levels we spoke about yeah very good very good okay that theme is going to continue through the chapter so I'll just remind you what we said there are four levels within creation Diamond which means the inanimate say mayak which means that which grows meaning vegetation plants that means that which uh is alive meaning [Music] animated runs around by its own volition other in other words animals and then is the speaking species which is um Humanity very good yeah Diamond the inanimate do you ever play 20 Questions okay is it an animal vegetable mineral you ever do that it's a person is it animal a vegetable a mineral that's all this okay is it bigger than a bread box smaller box bigger than a car okay that's all that's all it is Diamond is inanimate it's vegetative um Kai is animal and madaba is human those are four levels okay and we mentioned also that those four levels correspond to the four letters of Shame hashem's ineffable name or essential name the yood and the hay and the vov and the hey okay so I think that's all I'll say for now because that those those are the terms you have to remember because we're gonna we're gonna refer back to that again as we move on but um where we left off we left off we said can I get dollar days we left off with those words that those four categories correspond to the four letters of hashem's four-letter name okay so let's just continue here talking about kavana and the importance of imbuing our Mitzvahs with feeling and intent okay foreign just like there's no comparison between the energy that's in a Daemon and a diamond or a tameric and the energy that's in a high in a madabir so see what he does here he divides the four into two so he groups the two lower ones the diamond and the Samar together and he groups the two higher ones the high and the madaba together and he says that there's this is going to be used metaphorically but he he's setting up an analogy here just like there's no comparison between the lower two categories and the higher two categories so too I'm not gonna I don't want to ruin the punch line but but just understand that he's formulating an analogy right here okay and he's grouping together the lower two categories with the higher two categories you're following yeah okay now here's the little disclaimer which is a little bit confusing even though really they're all the same degree of concealment because they're all clipassnaga they're all the same General category because they're all in this physical world although um yeah it's a little bit complex here because he's saying on one hand they're all the same because they're all nougat on the other hand it's obvious that the level of energy in each of these categories is different which is self-evident because that's what makes these different categories what what distinguishes one category from another the the amount of overt or revealed or manifest life force that it has right the madaba can do stuff that none of the other levels can do whereas the high can do things can't do what a madaba does but it can do it it can do things that the levels lower than it can't cannot do and Tamer can only do that which uh a diamond can't do and the diamond can't do anything but just exist doesn't exhibit any overt life force okay car so too here's the other half of the analogy so two ain't addicted from chocolates in Chinese foreign that was a long sentence but basically so too there's no comparison between the physical performance of the mitzvah and the kavana the emotions that that are imbued into the performance of the Mitzvah that's the analogy that he sets up that these two lower categories of creation inanimate and vegetative are to the higher two categories animal and human like the action of the mitzvahs are to the kavana of the mitzvahs I wish I had a chalkboard behind me but can you say yeah it's an analogy right very good so you're following this now you might ask what are you saying or do we you know the difference between inanimate you're asking to quantify it nah I don't know I don't know yeah it's not it's not important all that's important here for our purposes is just to know relative to each other which one is higher yeah how much higher I don't know uh yeah I but the the point is that we have these we have four categories that break down into two larger groupings and we haven't spelled it out explicitly in the analog yet but the just like the four Realms of creation break down into four um so too when we're talking about the performance of the Mitzvah and the kavana that goes into the mid so we can break those down into further categories so it really is a four to four corresponding metaphor you guys following this okay all right Phila uh also this includes the kavana the intent that is invested into Mitzvahs like prayer and shma and brachas what do those all have in common prayer and saying Shema very good they're all speech they're all verbal as opposed to as opposed to how we normally perform Mitzvahs which is action okay very good the light should okay this is a tricky maybe I'm uh overthinking this but for me this is a this is a tricky sentence not that Vegas the connection to Hashem that you get through your thinking is inherently greater than the connection to Hashem that you get through your physical action camaceous like we're going to explain later Allah but rather Nations but rather this is hashem's will say Wills that you should cleave to him through your thoughts and your intent um that you imbue into your mitzvahs both the physical Mitzvahs as well as the verbal mitzvahs so it's not that there's an inherent superiority in cavana over action but rather that it is hashem's will it's his preference it's his Fiat that he places a certain value upon the de vacas that comes through your inner intent and that value is greater than the value of the actual physical performance is this degree of energy that's in the kavana is incomparably greater than the performance of the Mitzvah without cavana now he gives us another metaphor don't mix your metaphors comparable to or relative to the relationship between the superiority of the Soul over the body okay so now we have another metaphor that kavana is to the physical act of the mitzvah as the soul is to the body not hard right okay just like the soul is clearly a loftier entity than the body more rarified more Sublime so too the kavana the intent the thoughts and the feelings that go into a Mitzvah are qualitatively greater than the physical performance of the Mitzvah itself the body is a vessel or a garment for the soul just like the physical performance of a Mitzvah is the vessel and the Garment to contain the cavana okay how we doing we're okay yeah all right yes there's no inherent superiority over nipsville without covering so with cabana Hashem just appreciate there's no inherent superiority of kavana over mitzvahs there's no inherent Superior superiority of the kavana of the Mitzvah over the performance of the mitzvah I'm just correcting what what you're saying but there's a greater Vegas and attachment afforded through kavana than through the performance of the mitzvah well that's a wonderful question isn't that the goal I don't know in chapters 35 36 and 37 Vegas wasn't the goal Perfection of the universe was the goal eggs well now we're going to the other side but on the other hand let's not neglect cavana because it also is important so like I like I've told you guys many times everything depends on context it always depends on what chapter we're in and uh what the point of that chapter is so yeah in chapters 35 36 37 we wouldn't have cared about the superiority of kavana just bringing that superiority piece like that one line okay so why why is he mentioning it why is I mean the disclaimer bit yeah okay so before I try to explain it I want to continue to the next line because there's another little disclaimer yeah we'll just add that to our yeah okay and although in both of them both the Mitzvah and it's cavana there is invested one single simple will that is absolutely simple that cannot be changed or multiplied and is entirely United with the essence of God right both the Mitzvah and the kavana the kavana and the Mitzvah have invested within it the exact same simple wrote sign of Hashem PK nevertheless the emanation is not equal in terms of symptoms condensation and his passion that's the opposite spreading forth you follow it's another disclaimer the Revelation is not the same very good so it's the same light meaning this is my own metaphor it's not what the out there to be saying here but the same sun shining outside but you could have two different windows that let in two different amounts of light the peephole or the big opening yeah okay more like yeah yeah very good okay all right we're we're doing okay and like it says in eight times he uses another set of terms he says that the kavana the intent and also when you learn Torah which is also an intellectual Enterprise he calls that our light and physical performance of mitsubs he calls that Caleb vassals it's similar to what we've said before with soul and body so he calls it or you know or in calim which is light and Vestal light and vessels or energy and containers same thing soul and body basically it's the same idea the Ireland Caleb that's Heim vital that's from Atrium okay Simpson the kalim are Simpson their condensation foreign ah that through the condensation of the light the vessels are formed as is known to those who are proficient in Kabbalah are you proficient in Kabbalah okay all right so then you don't know about this don't worry about it then don't worry about it all right and this is broken down into four levels foreign the physical performance of the mitzvah can be broken down into two categories Shaheen which are namely mitzvismicious literally physical mitzvahs um and Mitzvahs that are verbal or even mental kame for instance what would be an example of that talmatar study of Torah or Krishna recite recitation of the Shema foreign so we have remember I said before that the two categories are going to break down in into two further categories so we're going to have total four and remember we set it up already that this whole thing is going to correspond to the four levels of human animal vegetative inanimate okay and remember so we have those four categories and those correspond to up to four letters of the name of Hashem very good and those correspond to kavana is the top two categories and the performance of them it's this is the bottom two categories now he's subdividing that further he's subdividing that further that in those bottom two um meaning the performance part of the Mitzvah there are two levels there are Mitzvahs that are performed through speech that's a higher level because it's more abstract it's more spiritual it's less tangible less physical so that would figure it out that would correspond to what what um Samaya very good and then you have physical physical Mitzvahs that you do through physical action that would correspond to Diamond very good inanimate the lower two what about the mix for that action is um activate like you make a roughly or just like sudaka which is just an active is not a Mitzvah itself yeah don't don't yeah but that's not it's not the Mitzvah itself let's not get confused here that's not why luluv is a physical mix for you shaking the love it's not it's not speech yeah but that's not the mitzvah then why don't you make a broken mitzvah it's like my pet peeve I go crazy when people you guys probably don't know this because you you don't make them a zoom in but my biggest pet peeve in Judaism is when people say who wants to make him a zoo and who's ready to bench well you just made him a zoom in oh hold on who wants to say robosai what do you talk means let's bench if you say who wants to bench you already did it it's my biggest pet peeve in Judaism yes physical performance of the midst was divided into the levels yes namely Mitzvahs that are Mitzvahs that are either verbal or mental yeah like loving God fearing God yeah and then those that are pure actions yes and they they correspond to what category within creation the vegetative Samaya and the real physical Mitzvahs that are physical action pure physical action correspond to what level category within creation inanimate very good okay doing very very well all right all right moving right along let's let's not slow down because I'm terrified it's almost going to ask a good question I just don't have the ability to deal with your brilliant questions I just cannot deal with your brilliant questions right now just got to keep moving gotta keep moving all right all right so we said um The Havana okay let's continue here we have one is now let's talk about the kavana part the kavana is like we said akin to a soul to a body right yep okay because that's also divided into two subcategories foreign that correspond two types of animating energies or life forces namely High animal and madab or human so now we got it now we have our our map we have four categories let's go through it first of all it all corresponds to the four letters of hashem's name the yod and the hey and the vov and the hey then we have in creation we have human animal vegetative inanimate great and then in Mitzvahs we have the highest level is the higher level of kuvana which we don't know what that means yet we're about to explain but it it's called The Human level then the next level of kavana the lower level of kavana we don't know what it is yet but of course what we call we're calling it the animal level or corresponds to the animal level then you jump to the Mitzvah performance so then that's verbal and mental Mitzvahs which corresponds to vegetative and then you have the physical physical Mitzvahs which correspond to inanimate okay all right so now what what do we need to find out sorry the Cabana levels we want to find out yeah okay yeah what's the difference we know that there are two we know that um by way of analogy the relationship between these two levels of kavana is similar to the difference between human and animal but we don't really know what that means okay all right you guys are doing great um very good question very astute question what about Mitzvah say um yeah presumably we're talking about Mitzvahs assay we're talking about positive Commandments because we're talking about something that has a physical performance as opposed to the lack thereof okay all right so let's find out what are these two levels of uh cavana all right yeah metaphorically they correspond to the levels of human and animals but we don't know what that means we don't know what that means okay okay so we said it's divided in two levels somebody whose mind is has the ability the capacity to know Hashem and to meditate in the greatness of Hashem and he's able to give birth to the higher level of awe in his mind and love of Hashem in the right ventricle of his heart I'm not going back into these terms about right ventricle left ventricle you can go look back in uh chapter 3 if you want okay liaison Hashem ladafka Bay and through this meditation it induces a feeling of thirst for Hashem that he he yearns to cling to Hashem specifically how does he yearn to cling to Hashem through performing hashems when he does the Mitzvah he's drawing down the infinite light upon himself so that he can attach himself to Hashem and with this intent with what intent the desire to attach himself to Hashem and where did that desire come from he was meditating originally he remember who said a person me shadas yaffa he has a good enough brain to be able to be missing so I'm talking about somebody who meditated himself into a state of emotional excitement both in the sense of awe as well as love of Hashem and then that awe and love of Hashem pushes him to want to attach himself to Hashem and then with this intent with this emotional drive with this drive he learned and he does and he uses this kavana to fuel his davening and his making brothers metaphorically speaking this level of kavana is called human he's an intellectual being he's a balbrigiro he has real Choice moral choice and he speaks intelligently so this first level highest level of kavana which is called human why is it called human because kavana is a motion but this emotion specifically comes from where Das intellect and from what process he's blinding us he meditated so being that he engaged his intellect in order to arouse these feelings yeah their feelings it is emotional but the origin of those emotions is cognitive and that the capacity to think abstractly is uniquely human so that level of kavana is called human we're good okay okay God which is another reason right correct yeah okay okay so you're asking a wonderful question you're saying hold on a second did they just change the rules on me do I have to do his blindness because earlier it was sort of like an optional thing you can do it'll help yeah of course it's good but now you're making it sound like you have to do it all right well let's stick around and find out what the other level of kavana is you have to be capable because well yeah he just said that you have to be capable of it that is he that is absolutely correct he says you have to be capable he said me should die to you if a person who has the intellectual prowess to do that which implies okay not everyone is going to be able to do that to open such a big window well we're not labeling the person as human or animal we're we're we're describing metaphorically the level of kavana as human or animal yeah well only humans can do all of this we're only talking about humans here even when we talk about the vegetable and the inanimate we're describing levels of human spirituality this is all going on within a human being these are metaphors they're we're using these levels as as relative terms they're not we're not talking about an actual carrot um or Pebble okay right so do you we can be at the level of vegetative or inanimate in their level of yeah yes that's what we're saying okay right okay all right wonderful let's continue here um [Music] a person whose mind is short mind you know what a short mind is a narrow one yeah he doesn't have as much doesn't have as much capacity to know Elizabeth to be able to meditate mcdullah says on the greatness of the infinite he's not capable of meditating himself into giving birth to love in a revealed way in his heart he can't muster either any awe in his mind or dread of Hashem in his heart right these are different levels Ava and yira and I'm not going to get into the specifics here the point is he's not capable of intellectually stimulating himself to a point where he will become emotionally enthused Rock but rather instead all he can do um he can remember and arouse sort of Shake loose the natural latent love in his heart do you remember we all have that well that's why it's called Tevis yes Tevis natural means it's native it's inborn we all have that do you remember vaguely where not not a terrible guess do you remember 18 through 25 the whole point over there was arousing this latent power that we have that even if you can't meditate yourself into love and awe of God there's a certain latent law and love of God that is the part of the DNA of all of the spiritual descendants of the others and it just needs to be triggered and we learn tricks for triggering it right we said that in the case of God forbid of Messiah Snapfish but Paul mamish where somebody has to give their life that that triggers it and we were talking about how to trigger in day-to-day experiences so we we're we're familiar with this concept of the Ava mesuteris the latent inherited natural Baseline love that is already factory installed in the nishama in anyone everyone is also Jewish yeah [Music] [Laughter] is you need both yeah in order to have a genetic makeup yeah and we're only Jewish because of our mothers so yeah yeah that's a great question I don't know I don't know I don't have a good answer to every great question fantastic maybe it's all inclusive yeah yeah one great step for mankind well what about the women well okay I don't know well that Ava Mr Terrace by definition is inherent that's what it means it means inherent okay it's a wonderful question okay is there I think somebody's stuck in the closet hold on is there a knock on the closet door hold on okay all right so ladies do you understand the two different types of cavana okay yeah we do yeah yeah so I'm gonna ask you some questions okay okay so Cavanagh well we just said that we just said so let's review here kavana is intent intent to cleave to a chef another way of describing that is to say it's an emotional drive and emotional drive's name are mainly divided into love and awe okay so we're going to say kavana is love and awe there are two general obviously could get more granular here but there are two general ways to arrive at this love and awe that motivates you to do the mitzvah the the the love and awe you're an Ava right there are two general ways to get this love and awe one way to get the love and awe is to meditate on Hashem until you start to feel love and awe of and then you take that love and all and you do mitzvahs okay and if you if that's the scenario we call that experience the human level of kavana the highest level just like a human is a cognitive being so that love and awe came from a cognitive process namely meditation however there's another way that you could get the love and awe that you use to fuel your Mitzvah performance where could you get the love and all from from the the latent love the Hava Mr Terrace which is the default of every Jewish soul and it just needs to be brought out it's not automatically manifest but it's automatically there and you have to go get it you have to do something to shake it Loose okay thanking Hashem for every little thing okay so that's thinking if you're thinking it's human it's human level that's it so this other one corresponds to the animal I'm going to talk a little bit more about why okay all right um so he remembers and he arouses the latent love well mates and he brings it out from its concealed state in the heart and at least he gets it revealed in the brain meaning even if it can't be a full-fledged emotion in the heart but at least he can bring it into a conscious level in the brain is he can get his mind and his heart to agree and to Desire with full with full agreement to sacrifice himself in actuality for the Oneness of God we spoke about that in chapter 19 mostly in order to cleave to Hashem and um of course his Godly soul and its garments to Cliff to Hashem and to be absorbed within hashem's Oneness so we spoke about this that the album is a Terrace is powerful enough to serve as a sufficient motivation to give it all up to God so it's a pretty powerful motivation why is it lower why is it considered the lower level because it wasn't born from an intellectual process rather it was um it was it's innate and it was brought out from your from your from your uh native spiritual capacities what like an auto uh yeah it protects you yeah yeah yeah with the intellectual levels like what makes you so smart you think you're so smart how about just trust your gut yeah you got a point there and there are there are other places to say this it says look I've told you this before everything is context so for every rule that we State you will find some other context where the rule is reversed so you make a valid point okay yeah all right let's yeah I mean I understood that if you're not going to have cavana while you're dominating then it's a week that's what I understand and then I've heard very different opinions okay let's let's get to that question about the value because we're going to talk about that in the next chapter the value of a Mitzvah without any kavana because right now right now we're just establishing two levels of kavana we didn't even speak about what if you have no cavan we will talk about that so so let's wait to address that let's continue here I think we're going to actually finish about the fact that you know if you're bothered during okay so we yeah yeah we we did speak about that sort of you're right yeah in chapter 28 yeah we said even if you can't concentrate during diving don't feel bad it means that you're actually doing a good job that's true okay chapter 28 very good all right let's but let's we're going to come back to this idea about Mitzvahs that have no cavana or even a negative kavana let's say you do a Mitzi for an ulterior motive yeah by the mitz was still being done so what's that I don't want to get into it but it's an interesting question we will get into it God willing okay let's find out but I don't know yet let's let's stay let's stay focused but let's let's find out we don't know we're not going to find out today we'll find out later okay let's stay focused let's stay focused okay basically what are we saying that he we're in the middle of a sentence I kind of got knocked off here yeah so he uses that Ava Mr Terrace to drive him to want to connect to Hashem not to give up his life because God forbid that's not the that's only when he's being threatened you know bow down to the idol or else but he could use that same energy he could channel that into um doing Mitzvahs living for Hashem and doing Mitzvahs and also he mentions you should know that even though it's called ahava misuteris latent love well what about the awe where's the Oasis there's all included in it we don't mention the awe but the awe is there by definition it's the level of awe that's the motivation to receive hashem's kingship and not to rebel against him there are levels of awe and this is a very basic level but it's the level of I don't want to rebel I don't want to rebel Uber Havana zoo and then with this with this kavana who are who Su are made of he goes away from bad and he does good the label them is and he learns or he learns any davins but he only does when he davins he only thinks about the translations of the words nothing deep he doesn't have full-fledged awe and love revealed in his heart and mind that would be the higher level but this is more of a mellow level it's enough motivation to serve as the the more than no it's not autopilot no no it's very important to not call that autopilot because even though it's latent if you don't do anything to activate it it's not going to be there to serve as the motor to do the Mitzvah so if it's serving to be the motor of doing a Mitzvah that means you actively did something to arouse it and get it moving get it flowing so it's not autopilot at all which is why it's considered a level of kavana it is intent it is intent okay but it's just the lower level of intent okay you can use that metaphor maybe there's better metaphors the point is if if you don't do anything then all the Ava Mr Terrace in the world isn't going to do anything it's just going to sit there so clearly he did remind himself oh yeah I'm a Jew I don't want to be separate from God I want to connect to God how how do you connect to God you do a Mitzvah and then he with that with that basic level of intent he goes and he does the Mitzvah okay no no vegetative and inanimate are levels of the Mitzvah the actual mitzvah animal and human are two levels of kavana so what we're describing here is the lower level of kavana called the animal level and like an animal all of an animal's motives are instinctive an animal is driven by instinct so this too this is the holy Instinct the hard wiring of the nashama okay let's continue just have a couple of lines left here is this level of kavana is metaphorically called Animal because an animal doesn't have cognitive thinking and it doesn't have moral free choice of in all of its middays all of the emotional traits of an animal say it fears that which harms it and it loves that which feels good to it Hangar TV met slavery maybe not it's all natural to it it doesn't come from thinking an animal doesn't sit down and rethink its life and say you know is this really something Worthy is it really the raccoons that tear my trash bags never sit is this really what life's all about ripping trash bags eating chicken bones is that what life is about no they don't do that they don't they just do whatever comes natural okay so too metaphorically are the all in love of God that are natural to the Jewish heart no they're inherited they're bequeath to us from our office okay you're not hung up on it it's like the nature of our souls it's inherited literally it's like I mean literally metaphorically which is a term that tiny uses so it's literally metaphorically um like a trait that you're just born with um somebody is born with musical Talent just runs in the family okay fine I obviously you have to learn in order to manifest that talent and express it but the talent itself you just born that way some people were born that way some people weren't so he says so he said what do you mean where's free choice because instinctive you ever you were never told in school you have so much potential why don't you ever apply yourself was that did they ever tell you that oh they told me that every day so just because so if just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean you're doing it at any rate this capacity for love and awe of God is a is a yerusha it's like it's like in the DNA it's in the spiritual DNA it's in the genetics and the genome okay uh it's an inheritance from our forefathers it's like the nature of our soul like mentioned above like we said mentioned above means chapters 18 19 and those chapters okay and that is chapter 38 we finished 30 at