The fight you DON'T KNOW you're having | Ten Minutes of Meaning | Tanya #28

Morning. Good morning. Good morning. Booker double. Welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning. As always, a big thank you to our series sponsors, our dear friends Marilyn and Michael Fedak. Thank you for their generosity sponsoring our learning of Tanya and so much more. Please help yourself. Coffee, slushies, pastries, soon soup in our riba corner. Couple of announcements as we dive into the sixth perk of Tanya together. First a reminder this coming Monday night you are invited to the biggest kabad in boke in bokeh biggest kabad in Florida which is Bokeron synagogue. A very big special utes kiss fabran and sashas and cmas include incredible guest speakers live music. This Monday night 7:15 p.m. catered hot food will be served it says on this amazing flyer. So don't miss it this Monday night. Be there or be litfish. Okay. The um also I want to share with you as we begin the sixth per of Tanya. We're making our way over from having spoken a lot about the mameish, the godly soul, the godly spirit, the godly peace of us. Not as if the god is in us, but the peace of hashem that is in us. We've shared many times that there are so many who doubt and who question, does hashem exist? Is he out there? Does he care? Can I find him? And they look all over. They look in universe and they look for evidence and they look for proofs when the truth is the only place they need to look is in the mirror. If a person looks in the mirror, if a person looks into themselves, if a person looks at their own life, if you look at your own biology, if you look at your own anatomy, if you look at the unfolding of your own life, if you look at your own faculties, you don't need to look elsewhere to find evidence of Hashem's existence that there's a piece of literally inside each and every one of us. You can find them in ourselves. And we spoke all about the ten spheros and the three different lavush the three garments that expresses itself and misa speech thought and in action and the balan walked us through in the last several praim the highest level the greatest is learning hashem's learning hashem's Torah the intellect and thought is higher than any other realm of emotion now we make our way over to the sixth per in the sixth per the returns to the nephah the animal soul that we began Tanya with that were made up and comprised of two competing souls. There's a god piece of God inside us, but there's also an animal impulse, an animal instinct. We have so much in common anatomically in our faculties. We eat, we eliminate what we ate, we reproduce. Say those three things we have in common with an animal. We are an animal endowed also with a godly soul. And one can't and shouldn't deny either of those. And unlike other unlike other ashkafas unlike other philosophies the introduced a very novel and powerful idea which we'll unpack right now that our mission and goal is not to slaughter the animal soul. It's not to eliminate the animal soul. It is to train the animal soul, elevate the animal soul. We don't kill every animal around us. In the old days certainly the farmer needed an ox in order to plow. A person needs a dog in order to protect them. A person needs a a lizard to eat the the insects. Uh that's about my knowledge of the animal kingdom. You just heard all of it right there. So we need the animals, but we train them to work for us. We train them to serve us. The animals serve a purpose. We're not looking to purge or eliminate. And that's what we're going to get into in the sixth par. But I want to share with you, my dear friend shared with me this morning a letter from the Rebal the 24th of Shvat 5713. And here's a letter from the Rebba. And the Reb wrote, "As to your complaint that you have found nothing to take out from the Tanya." Certainly somebody wrote the Reb saying, "I'm learning Tanya. Not getting anything out of it. 10 minutes of meeting Wednesday mornings with go learning Tanya. Maybe it's him. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. But maybe it's me. I'm not getting anything out of the Tanya." That's what the author wrote the Reb. So the Reb wrote back, "I'll point out some lines which are obviously full of meaning. For example, in chapter 6, page 20, the 10 lines from the 7th to the 17th, you'll find enough material to occupy your mind for hours and days. Likewise, the first four lines, page 19, page 14, from the end of the fifth line. In the same way, you'll find some lines on each page which will inspire you to. And the more you'll think about these meaningful teachings, the higher you'll rise spiritually. In the course of a letter, it's impossible to say more, but the senior will surely help if you will ask them. The important thing is not to be discouraged for to learn Tanya is like learning any other profound subject. In the same way as when you began, you cannot expect to delve deeply as you will years later. So too with Tanya, you'll gain depth as the time goes on. Your mind will grasp more and more. I'm giving that as a preview as the ultimate endorsement for what we're about to start, the sixth per of Tanya. Because if the Reb is response is Tanya's not speaking to you, oh you got to check out the sixth per look at these lines and those lines and the other lines. the sixth per you got to check out perv that's what we're about to do we're checking out perakv so with that let's let's dive in so the begins perv in the four previous chapters we talked about as I said the divine soul the mental and emotional powers the garments and so on and now that we have defined now that we have seen the architecture of the divine soul theus so now know that equal and opposite. Where did theb get that line from? It's a cohal in the seventh paralisim. Hashem has made one opposite the other. In other words, one of the axioms of our faith is to know that Hashem created a universe. He set up the world where in order to preserve our our free will, which is the essence and purpose of creation, there have to be equal alternatives that present themselves. If it was obvious that if you do what's right and what's good, you'll be rewarded and you'll live a beautiful, long, and healthy and happy life. And if you do what's bad and what's wrong and you neglect and you're disobedient to Hashem, then you'll be sick and poor and miserable. Then would one have free will which to do? Of course not. Free will doesn't mean physically the capacity to do it. Free will means that the options and alternatives present themselves to me equally. And now it's my free will which is choosing what to do. Whenever I speak about this I always give the mush persons on the highway. They're driving. Some people are known not meal but some people have a heavy foot as they say. The speed limit's a suggestion. You can go a little bit above it. Not me. And I'm not endorsing this, but some people go a little fast. Even the person who speeds and goes fast. If there's a policeman, a police person, I guess you have to say now, a policeman on the highway in front of them, will they zip around them and fly past them? Do they have free will to go so fast to press the accelerator and to fly around the policeman? Well, if you define free will as the ability to push on the gas pedal, of course they do. Of course they do. Gas pedal works. You can push on it. You can go 20 miles over the speed limit. You can fly around the cop. But I would argue that they don't have free will. Any healthy normal person would not go around a policeman to speed. In that moment, your free will is essentially suspended. Which is why, who's not a policeman, far from it. He's a loving father, but doesn't reveal himself explicitly to us in this world. Because if he were to reveal himself explicitly to us, then we wouldn't have free will. The whole purpose and essence of life is to have free will. It's through the choices that we make that we either come close or further away from Hashem. But we wouldn't be making a choice if one saw undeniably Hashem. So Hashem lives with a certain hiddenness. He conceals himself. There is the option, invitation, opportunity to deny his existence. And it's only through free will. It's choosing and opting into a relationship with him that life in itself has meaning. Free will is the essence and purpose of life. There is only free will when he allows himself to be hidden and there's only free will when we have equal alternatives presenting themselves. All of that is in this p in coalis. So far the alterb hasn't said one word. All he's done is quoted in cohelis. But what he's setting up this paric to teach us and tell us is therefore if we understand the architecture of the godly divine soul of who naturally we are drawn to the above drawn to the good to Hashem then we need to know that it must be in this world and in life to have free will there must be an equal and opposite architecture of an animal soul. There must be an impulse and an instinct and a drive not to do the right thing but the wrong thing. There must be an impulse and a drive not to connect to what is above us but to be drawn to what is below us. Just as the divine soul is comprised of 10 holy spheros or energies we saw three of the intellect seven of emotion. These 10 energies are dressed in three holy garments. Namely the garments are the external manifestation of our internal selves. What are the three garments again and thought, speech and action? And again, I don't want to go backwards, but we saw it. This was to me a huge of the bal of the I would have put thought in the world of my inner world, not my outer world. I would have placed and categorized thought action external speech external. What's happening inside here? My thought I would have put in my inner world. I wouldn't have said is lavush. I wouldn't have said it's a garment. I would have put in my inner world. We unpacked that a couple prago why he said that. >> But no, it's external. It's external and separate still and apart and apart. It's a lavush. So too the soul the animal soul of the sitra. The architecture of the animal soul also has 10 energies and three garments. The sitra, the animal impulse, the animal instinct, the animal soul, that animal drive also manifests. It wears the garments of speech, thought and action. And the architecture of it is equal and opposite. Also the 10 not spheros, but here I'll categorize it as the based on a zohor, a kaser. What does kaser mean? >> A crown. The spheros are internal. They're essential. A crown is not who you are. A crown is what you wear. A crown is placed on your head. And in this way, the animal soul is different. The godly soul are spheros. The animal soul is a crown. The crown is placed on the head. The crown can be placed and the crown can be removed. So the soul of and here the uses the term sitra. What is sitra? >> The dark side, the other side, the side of self-serving ego energy. It's like what we spoke about in if you could remember that far back Shabbasha. Shabbasha we spoke about ego versus elocus. There's ego ego my name my honor my glory ego ego ego versus elocus right we we pose that and developed it over a long time that we should analyze everything through the prism of why why do I want this? Why do I feel this? Why do I want to do this? Is that my ego or is that elocus? Is ego the nephesh elocus is elocus? What in what am I making contact with inside me? Which impulse do I want to listen to? What am I trying to elevate? My ego or my elocusra the other side? Why is it called the other side? Why is it called the other side? Reb just saidim there's two sides and the sides present themselves equally in order to have free will in order to have choice we have two options and the options are this side and the other side the godly soul is this side and the animal soul is the other side or the dark side noa specifically its power is from the force known as kipas noa kipas noa we'll get much more into in the next peric and in the next peric he talks about The the kipos noa how do you define kipos noa the bright kipa whose negativity is not irredeemable kipos noa can be transformed it's malleable it can be molded it's unlike the kipa of the other side it's more can potentially be shaped as neutral while the animal soul is spiritual cannot be confined to a particular place where is it in the blood the animal soul just like the godly soul is not you can't dissect the body and find where it is. There's no hard drive to take out. Can't plug in a USB drive and download it. Neither the godly soul nor the animal soul. But yet, if you had to associate the animal soul with any part of your biology or anatomy of who you are, where would the animal soul be placed? In the in the blood, it's in the blood. It's the source of our physical vitality. Right? Person says, "My blood is flowing." You know somebody who's energized maybe somebody who's energized towards the animal impulsed soul their blood is flowing their blood is boiling their blood we use it in our vernacular when we talk about when we describe the word blood because the blood is that animal soul the 10 powers within the animal soul are referred to as by the zor as the 10 crowns of impurity again not spir But when it comes to the animal soul, the crowns because crowns can be put on and taken off and the animal soul is not intrinsic and essential to who we are. These powers of the animal soul are made up of seven negative emotional powers that come from negative elements. What are the four negative elements that we spoke about before? What are the four elements of earth of the world? Fire, water, air, and earth. Those are the four elements. And those four elements are associated with four behaviors all negative namely anger, indulgence, shallowess and laziness. The divine soul has the same architecture three intellectual, seven and seven emotional and seven emotional. Okay. The intellect of the animal soul which produces negative emotions mirrors the divine soul and is divided into three. So just like just like the godly soul is has an intellect that's the driver that's the engine and the intellect is the higher part and the intellect is made up of three parts and das the animal soul also has an intellect and is made up of three parts which are the makor of the emotions in other words in other words even the animal soul which is much more base and lowly and shallow and is an animal impulse and animal instinct but has a level of intellect because how does the animal know what to crave? How does the animal know what to want, what to be drawn to? There is an intellect. Miller in his commentary writes, for example, you know ice cream tastes good and therefore you crave it and want it. But first you have to know that ice cream tastes good. If you didn't know the flavor and the taste, you wouldn't be drawn. So there is there is an intellect to the animal soul. Years ago when I first learned tried to learn I wrote a note here on the side that the neph is midoshel whereas the nephus is to midos. Which one is the leader or driver of the other? Does the intellect lead to the behavior or does the behavior lead to the lead to the intellect? Lead to the intellect. The emotions are relative to the intellect. A child desires and loves small trivial things. Right? The adult who's more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, more intellectually intellectually developed craves bigger things and more dangerous things. And the child just wants a chachka, just wants a little toy. His intellect is too small and immature to appreciate anything more valuable. child is angered and infuriated by small things. Okay. All that is section one of peric vavv pericv that we read the reb's own endorsement that if you're not connecting to tanya wait for perk vv that's the per all of this was the introduction and the summary of the introduction is that that the essential meaning of life is to have free will to have free will there have to be equal and opposite alternatives and if there's a godly soul with an architecture of three of intellect seven of emotion 10 spheros in total dressed in the three garments of speech, thought and action. So equal and opposite it creating our alternatives that drive our free will and choice is the architecture of the animal soul. The animal soul also has an intellect and the animal soul also has the equivalent of 10 spheros only their crown that's put on and be taken off like the 10 three and seven. And the animal soul is equal and opposite. And the animal soul has an intellect knowledge that then drives us. That is our impulse. And then he gets into the heart of it, which is section two, which we'll pick up with next week. But I'll just give you the one word introduction because this is a big an amazing contribution of the inven beforehand. Most people saw the world as divided into three categories. Three categories. Oser mut and user sorry mitzvah and rus oser means it's forbidden can't eat non-cosher food can't do a mahik on chabaser mitzvah means there's an inherent intrinsic value it's a mitzvah and it's a mitzvah it's a mitzvah and breakfast this morning is that is that an aa or a mitzvah neither you going to go to the mall and go shopping you're going to go buy a new suit or so there was a whole category others have called means neither it's a third category it's called neutral it's called neutral it's like a kitchen you have you have and you have the eliminated happens to be I hold in the world of kash it's easier to not have paruses things but I don't want to confuse you so that's not for now but the alterb said there's no par there's no par he came along and said in this paradigm in this model there's this side and the sitra the other side there's only two sides not three you can't have three there's this side and the other side which means there is no neutral there is no power of you're going to buy a suit where you buying it why you buying it how you buying it how do you behave while you buy it what are you gonna wear it for what's your intention your kvana as you buy it where you earn the money for while you buy it you're buying it is either adding and contributing to your holiness to your godly soul It's an expression of your elocus or it's an expression of your ego. The world and your life is divided into ego and elocus. This side and the other side there is no neutral. There is no par >> and there is no par. There is no neutral. There is no in between. That's what he's going to get to. That's what we're going to pick up with. We're off next week. I'm traveling the week after. Have a wonderful day. Stay happy. Stay healthy. Stay holy. It's a very lofty