In the previous section we learned the analogy the Alter Rebbe brings from the donkey drivers' market: for a journey of ten parsaos a man will rent you his donkey for a single zuz, but for eleven parsaos he charges two.
Why should one extra parsah double the price?
Rashi: "עשרה פרסי ישכיר לך אדם חמורו בזוז אחד, ואם תאמר לו לך עמי פרסה יתירה - ישאל שני זוזים" ("For ten parsaos a man will hire out his donkey for one zuz, but if you say to him, come with me one more parsah, he will ask for two zuzim"). Rashi ties the matter to fixed custom: this is how people do business and this is the accepted rate, and the moment you depart from the norm, the price doubles.
The Maharsha: an average person's day's journey is ten parsaos, that is the standard, average distance. The driver, who walks on foot leading his donkey, has signed on in advance for a reasonable day's walk. The moment you ask him for one additional parsah, his entire day is spent under pressure, since now he has to make it in time, and every step of the way is taken with heightened exertion. For that added exertion he demands a higher price.
So Rashi explains it as a matter of breaking with habit, while the Maharsha explains it as a matter of added exertion, and both reasons are true. In the nimshal, the lesson being drawn, both are certainly present: a person accustomed to reviewing something a hundred times who now reviews it a hundred and one times has both added exertion and a break in his habit, and that is why this one extra effort costs him double.
It is worth being precise about the numbers as well: the hundred corresponds to the ten powers of the soul (each of which is itself composed of ten, together a hundred), and the one above them corresponds to the level that is beyond the ten powers altogether, the level that is not grasped in thought.
The very choice of analogy is also exact. The donkey, chamor, alludes to the yetzer hara and to the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul, as the Baal Shem Tov says on the verse "כי תראה חמור שונאך רובץ תחת משאו" ("When you see the donkey of the one who hates you crouching under its burden"): who is this "donkey of the one who hates you" crouching under its load? It is the body, it is the yetzer hara; the nefesh habahamis is the donkey.
And once we are dealing with a donkey, there are two possible approaches:
Buying the donkey: turning the donkey into a human being. Once you have transformed it, it is no longer a donkey at all.
Renting the donkey: the donkey remains exactly the donkey it always was, and the person exerts himself and works with it through hard labor.
This is why the Alter Rebbe deliberately spoke of "שוק של חמרים שנשכרים", a market where donkeys are hired out, and not where they are bought: the service that is dearer before the Holy One is the avodah of iskafya, the work of difficulty and exertion, in which the donkey stays right where it is and the person subdues it through his own toil.
On the verse "יקר בעיני ה' המותה לחסידיו" ("Precious in the eyes of Hashem is the death of His pious ones") there are two interpretations. The plain reading: "yakar" in the sense of heavy and difficult (as the Targum renders "ויכבד לב פרעה" - "ואתיקר"). As it were, it is hard and painful before the Holy One that His chassidim, righteous people, reach the time when they must ascend above and cease to be in this world because their mission here is complete, for as long as they were here they accomplished wondrous things, yet by the Divine order the time comes for them to go up.
The chassidic reading: "yakar" in its simple sense, precious and beloved. And what is beloved in Hashem's eyes? "המותה לחסידיו", those chassidim who put themselves to death during their lifetime and exert themselves, in the language of Chazal about one who "kills himself in the tent of Torah", meaning that he works hard and acquires his Torah through toil.
A person who works hard and exerts himself is more precious than the tzaddik for whom everything flows and comes easily. The Holy One treasures the effort, and even the smallest effort is the most precious thing of all.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "ולכן זאת הפעם המאה ואחת היתרה על הרגילות שהורגל מנעוריו, שקולה כנגד כולן ועולה על גביהן ביתר שאת ויתר עז, להיות נקרא עובד אלקים" ("Therefore this hundred and first time, which is beyond the habit he has been accustomed to from his youth, is equal to all of them together and rises above them with far greater strength and intensity, so that he be called one who serves G-d").
A Jew once came to the Tzemach Tzedek and said: "Rebbe, I know how important and precious Torah study is, and I have no desire to learn. I don't even have the desire to open a sefer. What does one do?" The Tzemach Tzedek answered him: "And what am I supposed to do, that I do have the desire? I envy you. You have no desire, and now you can exert yourself. How precious that is!" When a person has no appetite for it and invests anyway, that is the most precious thing there is.
And there is the well known story about the Tzemach Tzedek himself in his youth: his grandfather, the author of the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe, wished to give him a gift, to open his heart in Torah and grant him knowledge of the matters of Torah as an outright present, and he refused, saying: "I don't want it. I want to toil." In later years he said that he regretted it: what they were ready to give me as a gift I should have taken, and then I could have toiled far beyond that, for there is no limit to toil. In any case, from both of these stories you can see how dearly the Tzemach Tzedek valued toil, exertion and investment. There is nothing more precious than straining and laboring, and that is why that one extra time outweighs all hundred.
Such a change does not happen on its own, for left to himself a person is prepared to do only what is comfortable for him, what is easy for him, and what flows naturally. To renew himself and actually change, he is required to reveal love for the Holy One, and this can happen in two ways: a revealed, active love, which is harder to bring out and is reached through hisbonenus, contemplation; or revealing the ahavah mesuteres, at the very least uncovering the hidden love already buried in his heart.
But remaining exactly as he has been until now will never produce effort. Effort demands avodah, work, as was explained in the previous section with the analogy of the processed hide: a hide that is transformed from an animal's skin into parchment for tefillin, and that is work and exertion. And this work and exertion come about through revealing the love.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "מפני שכדי לשנות טבע הרגילות צריך לעורר את האהבה לה'" ("because in order to change the nature of one's habit, one must arouse the love of Hashem").
This is true in physical matters as well: a person is not prepared to exert himself for someone else if he does not love him. "Why on earth should I put myself out for him?" But when he discovers that he loves him, he is ready to exert himself on his behalf. So too in avodas Hashem: when a love for G-dliness is revealed within a person, he is willing to exert himself even when it is hard for him, even when it is not convenient, and even when at this moment it seems unbearable, because he loves the One for whose sake and for whose command he is doing it.
And how does one reveal love for the Holy One? "על ידי שיתבונן בגדולת ה' במוחו" ("by contemplating the greatness of Hashem in his mind"). Love is a difficult thing and does not come of itself, since by nature a person loves only the world, himself and the desires right in front of his eyes. Love of G-dliness comes from the brain, as we learned at length in chapter 6: in an animal, the head and the heart are on the same level, so its love need not come by way of the head and can arise directly; in a human being, by contrast, the brain stands above and the heart below it. In the brain one thinks, contemplates and goes deep, and from there the matter filters down into the heart. This is why all the animalistic desires require no contemplation and come easily on their own, whereas every love of G-dliness comes specifically through hisbonenus.
A precise point: the Alter Rebbe writes "במוחו", in his brain, and not "במחשבתו", in his thought, and he repeats this many times. Machshavah, thought, is one of the garments that reside in the brain, while in the brain itself, as we learned at length in chapter 3, there are three parts: the brain of chochmah, the brain of binah and the brain of daas, each of them a matter in its own right. Thought is the instrument and garment through which one can make use of the wondrous brain that the Holy One created for us.
And what is this contemplation meant to achieve? "לשלוט על הטבע שבחלל השמאלי המלא דם הנפש הבהמית שמהקליפה, שממנה הוא הטבע" ("to rule over the nature that is in the left chamber of the heart, which is filled with the blood of the animal soul that stems from kelipah, from which that nature comes"). This is the beinoni's avodah in order to be called an "oved". "Oved" comes from the word avodah, work: to come and labor and toil, and that requires deep inner effort to contemplate the greatness of Hashem.
What should one contemplate? A number of themes, for example:
"מה רבו מעשיך ה'" ("how manifold are Your works, Hashem").
That the Holy One looks and sees and His ear hears: "הנה ה' ניצב עליו ומלוא כל הארץ כבודו, ומביט עליו ובוחן כליות ולב" ("behold, Hashem stands over him, and the whole earth is full of His glory, and He looks upon him and examines his innermost heart").
That the very existence of every single thing in the world is from Him, brought into being from nothing into something at every single moment.
Hashgachah pratis, Divine providence, which at this very moment extends to everything he does.
Each of these subjects, mentioned here in a single word, is rich with material: how to develop it, how to connect to it, how to understand it and absorb it inside. And when a person truly internalizes that there is hashgachah pratis on everything he does at this very moment, he begins to be moved by it and drawn to it, and he understands by himself that he has to exert himself: shall I go after the desires of my heart, or after the will of the Creator who stands before me, watches my deeds and gives me life at this very moment?
As the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos puts it: "עקביא בן מהללאל אומר, הסתכל בשלושה דברים... מאין באת ולאן אתה הולך" ("Akavya ben Mahalalel says: reflect on three things... from where you came and where you are going"). "Histakel" does not mean merely to glance; it means to contemplate and to go deep. There is something here worth looking into, and out of that study and depth a person is aroused and understands that he must act. That is precisely the hisbonenus called for here.
In summary: in this section we examined the reasons behind the analogy: according to Rashi, the break with habit, and according to the Maharsha, the added exertion, both of which are present in the nimshal of the hundred and first time. We saw why the Alter Rebbe specifically spoke of donkeys that are hired rather than bought, since the donkey, which is the body and the nefesh habahamis, stays right where it is while the person subdues it through toil. We explained "יקר בעיני ה' המותה לחסידיו" in two ways, and the preciousness of toil as it emerges from the stories of the Tzemach Tzedek. Finally we learned that changing the nature of one's habit is accomplished by arousing the love of Hashem, which comes through the mind's contemplation of Hashem's greatness, in order to rule over the nature that resides in the left chamber of the heart.
In the next section we will take up the methods of hisbonenus themselves, and how a person reveals the ahavah mesuteres, the hidden love within his heart.