In the previous section we looked at the halacha that deals with acquiring a body and its fruits: the palm tree is the "body," while the fruits are something future, something that has not yet come into the world. Now let us define what "body" and "fruits" mean in the service of Hashem.
Defining the body and the fruits in avodas Hashem:
The body - a person's very essence: his faculties, his soul, his emotions. This is something that exists and stands on its own; this is he himself.
The fruits - the thoughts, words and deeds that are still to come. What will this person do an hour from now, a minute from now? When he does something good right now, a good fruit has grown out of the body; and sometimes what grows is unripe fruit.
From here emerges a distinction between two modes of a person's service:
The tzaddik - he sold the body: We learned at length that in the tzaddik the essence itself, the inner dimension, the emotion, the understanding - all ten of his faculties have passed over into the domain of holiness. The tzaddik has, as it were, sold his body to the Holy One, and so every fruit that grows out of such a body is a good deed. As Chazal say, "the offspring of the righteous are their good deeds."
The beinoni - he sells the fruits: His body still belongs to him, for he has not reached the level of the tzaddik, and desires, temptations, tests and battles are still alive within him. His avoda therefore revolves around the fruits: every thought, word and deed that comes out of his body - he makes sure it is bought and paid for, selling it to the Holy One at every moment.
But here a question arises. The definition of the beinoni that we learned at the beginning of chapter 12 is that he has never in his life transgressed and never will. "Never will" means that he is looking to sell today fruits that have not yet grown, while the halacha rules: "a person cannot transfer to another something that has not yet come into the world." How can a person know in advance that he is in a position that allows him to convey fruits that have not yet sprouted? Perhaps his yetzer will overpower him. He wants to put on tefillin tomorrow, to keep Shabbos, to eat kosher - but who guarantees him that he will succeed?
The Alter Rebbe's advice: selling the body to its fruits:
The body itself the beinoni cannot sell, since he is not a tzaddik. But he can sell the body to its fruits, and the way to do that is davening properly. During davening a person's very essence changes: his emotions fill with feelings of holiness and the animal side goes, as it were, to sleep. For the duration of the davening his body has been sold, as it were, even though this is not an absolute sale and the body is returned to him afterward. In this way he has placed himself in a state where the body is more elevated, where the mind rules over the heart, and it then becomes far easier for him to transfer to the domain of holiness all the fruits that will grow afterward, without having to fight over each individual fruit on its own.
It turns out that that entire halacha in the Rambam, in the laws of buying and selling, with all its details, is really a chapter in avodas Hashem. When you study it in the Rambam it looks like the laws of commerce, but in Gan Eden they study it the way it is studied here in Tanya: how a person can provide for his future and make sure that fruits which have not yet come into the world are already sold from now. And all of this on one condition - that he works on the body, that he makes sure to daven, and davening in its inner sense, where he works on his soul.
From here we continue in the Alter Rebbe's own words (page 17b): what is the status of the beinoni when, after davening, a desire stirs in his heart, or something comes up that disturbs him in his service of Hashem?
On this the Alter Rebbe writes: "רק שלזה מועיל הרשימו במוחין ויראת השם ואהבתו המסותרת בחלל הימני" - for this, what helps is the rishimu (the impression left) in the mochin, the brain, and the fear of Hashem and the hidden love for Him in the right chamber of the heart.
During davening the person was genuinely elevated; after davening he returns to reality, and the desires carry on as before - but the rishimu remains in his brain. It is like a paper that was written on and then erased: even after the erasure you can strain your eyes and make out what was written there, and it is not like a blank sheet just bought from the store.
This principle works both for better and for worse. The Mishnah in Pirkei Avos explains that a child who learns Torah, whose learning is like ink written on fresh paper, is not comparable to an older person, whose learning is like ink written on erased paper. And on the positive side it is all the more so: if during davening a person was aroused with love for the Divine, that gets inscribed in his brain; after davening he returns to the affairs of the day and the writing is, as it were, erased, but the rishimu remains, and that impression helps him overcome the tests of the day.
The Gemara tells of one of the Amoraim whom people saw smiling all day long. They asked him what he was so happy about, and he answered that on that day he had merited to join the geula to the tefilla, that is, to join the blessings of Shema directly to the Amida. Davening done properly - the blessings of Shema, Shema itself, and the Amida - leaves an impression on a person that accompanies him the whole day through.
Besides the rishimu, the Alter Rebbe mentions a person's hidden love. This love exists in every Jew, only that it is hidden and tucked away as if in an inner drawer, and not everyone feels it. In the beinoni who has davened properly it is more present, more active and more felt. The full definition of this ahava mesuteres, the hidden love, will be explained later on, in chapter 18, and there we will discuss it at length, with Hashem's help.
And what do the rishimu and the hidden love accomplish? The evil is present in the beinoni and even rages, since he has not sold his body, but it has no control and no dominion. The desires desire, but they lack the power "להוציא תאוותם מכוח אל הפועל להתלבש באיברי הגוף" - to bring their desire from potential into actuality, to clothe itself in the limbs of the body. The beinoni does not under any circumstances allow the desire to cross over into the operative side.
And not only that, but "ואפילו במוח לבדו להרהר ברע אין לו שליטה וממשלה להרהר ברצונו שבמוחו" - even in the brain alone, to dwell on evil, it has no control and no dominion to let him think about it willingly in his mind. The beinoni is master over his thoughts as well. This does not mean that involuntary thoughts from all sorts of desires never arise in him; it means that the moment he registers and notices that he is dwelling on something not good, he immediately pushes it away and refuses to accept it willingly.
Sometimes a person falls into such a thought and says to himself: I will keep thinking about it for just one more moment, and right after that I will get it out of my head. That single second of willingness is what turns him into a rasha, because he wants to be thinking about it. The beinoni is not prepared to have even a split second of desire for it.
The thought itself rises on its own from the heart to the brain, since the beinoni's heart functions, to a certain degree, like the heart of a rasha. The novelty of the beinoni lies in his reaction: "מיד בעלייתו לשם דוחה אותו בשתי ידיים" - the instant it rises there he pushes it away with both hands. Not in the manner of "the right hand draws close and the left pushes away," where a person pushes with one hand and pulls with the other, saying: I am getting rid of this, but just one more moment and I will still hold on to it. Pushing away with both hands means that under no circumstances is he willing for this to come up in his mind.
You can compare this to a person who hears a remark or a joke that is beneath his level. There are people in whose presence it would never even occur to anyone to say such things, because it simply does not suit them. There is someone who will listen, chuckle a bit, and say "this is not appropriate, let's move on" - that is pushing away with one hand only. And there is someone whose very essence rejects it with both hands, without needing to make any effort at all. With the beinoni it is like this even in his own private world: when an involuntary thought rises in him from the heart, he removes it with both hands.
And the Alter Rebbe adds: "ומסיח דעתו מיד שנזכר שהוא הרהור רע" - and he turns his attention away the moment he realizes that this is an evil thought. It is possible for a person to drift in his imagination for ten minutes without noticing it. As long as he has not registered what is happening to him, it is not willful and it is not his at all. But from the moment he registers it - from that second the test begins, and if he tells himself that he is willing to continue with it, from that moment on there is a problem.
In summary: In this section we learned that the "body" in avodas Hashem is a person's essence and his faculties, and the "fruits" are his future thoughts, words and deeds. The tzaddik has sold his body to the Holy One, and so his fruits are by definition good deeds. The beinoni, whose body is still his own, sells his fruits - and since a person cannot convey something that has not yet come into the world, the Alter Rebbe's advice is to sell the body to its fruits by means of davening properly. We saw that the rishimu left in the brain after davening, together with the ahava mesuteres, gives him the strength to ensure that the evil has no control and no dominion: not in deed, not in speech, and not even in a thought in the brain, which he pushes away with both hands the instant it arises.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 12 and delve further into the definition of the level of the beinoni.