Before we turn to chapter 16, let us review the main points of chapter 15. There we dealt with two levels within the beinoni: the beinoni called "lo avado," who is not called one who serves G-d, and the beinoni called "oved Elokim," one who does serve G-d.
"Lo avado" does not mean that the man fails to keep Torah and mitzvos. Someone who transgresses even the lightest prohibition is called a rasha, so the very fact that we are calling him a beinoni tells us that he keeps the entire Torah and does not violate a thing. Why, then, is he called "lo avado"? Because nothing in it costs him anything. Either he was born with the nature of a masmid, so he sits and learns a whole day simply because that is his character and his temperament, or he trained himself again and again until "habit became second nature." And it makes no difference how he arrived there: as long as the thing simply flows out of him, and even though it is good that he does it and does not, G-d forbid, commit a sin, this is not "avodah," service. Avodah means effort and investment, and the Holy One demands of a Jew that there be avodah in his life.
It is worth stressing that this is measured point by point, in each area separately. It is quite possible that in one area things flow naturally for a person and never amount to avodah for him, while in another area he is called upon to exert himself and break his habit. As we learned in the previous lessons, this is the "hundred and one": the "hundred" is nature and habit, while the whole point is the breaking of the routine and the habit, that in every single act a person introduce some change from what he is used to.
And how does one arrive at that? In the previous chapter the Alter Rebbe explained that in order for a Jew to be capable of changing his habits, he must have a felt love for Hashem. If his service is "dry," with no feeling at all, where would the drive come from to invest and to do more than he is used to? But when there is vitality in him, a living feeling of love, he is able to exert himself and to change his habits.
In the previous lesson we noted two levels in this avodah. The higher level is "avodah tamah," complete service, where the love is openly felt in a person's heart. The level below it is where a person arouses the hidden love that already exists within him, and it does not come to him as a revealed, felt love.
Chapter 16: Love as the Means, Not the Goal
In the first part of the chapter the Alter Rebbe comes to emphasize a point: love is indeed a great thing, and ahavas Hashem is something wondrous that a person ought to have, but one must remember that love is only a means, not the goal. The goal is mastery over one's nature, that is, the breaking of habits, the "hundred and one." Love of Hashem is the road that brings a person to that goal.
And why can love itself not be the main thing? Because if all the Holy One wanted was that a Jew should have a feeling of love, He would have done better to leave us as angels, who have that love constantly. But angels do not fulfill mitzvos and do not change their nature and habit. They were created in a fixed state, which is why they are called "omdim," standers, even though they too have their ascents. A Jew in this world is called a "mehalech," a walker, because he is dynamic, and he is asked to change his nature, to exert himself and to serve: something that only a Jew in this world can do, and that an angel above can never do. If the goal were love alone, the angels would be fulfilling it far better than we do. The goal, rather, is mastery over one's nature.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "וזה כלל גדול בעבודת ה' לבינונים, העיקר הוא למשול ולשלוט על הטבע שבחלל השמאלי, על ידי אור ה' המאיר לנפש האלקית שבמוחו לשלוט על הלב" ("This is a great rule in the service of Hashem for beinonim: the main thing is to rule and have dominion over the nature in the left chamber of the heart, by means of the light of Hashem that illuminates the divine soul in his brain, so that it rules over the heart").
He is not speaking specifically of total mastery, which is the level of the tzaddik, but of mastery in a given moment, of prevailing in small steps. Every change of nature, every person's "hundred and one" according to his own situation, is the main thing and is what is being asked of him. "The nature in the left chamber": the "left chamber" of the heart is a name for the yetzer hara, as we learned in earlier chapters, and "nature" means a person's natural makeup and temperament, that is, his habits. And how is this mastery accomplished? Through intellectual contemplation that filters down from the mind into the heart.
Let us dwell on this point, because it bears on understanding the rest of the chapter. A person can live a hundred and twenty years and never once have genuine love or fear, even while he is convinced that he has them. Not every sensation of pleasure and attraction is love, and not every recoil or worry is fear. A real feeling is something tangible that can be measured: the heart beats differently, there is an active love within it, and that is what is called a feeling. A person can live many years and never taste it.
The way to arrive at feeling is hinted at in the verse, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." Besides the plain meaning of the verse, the Torah is also speaking on deeper levels, and this verse teaches how a Jew can come to love of Hashem.
It is known that man is called by four names:
Enosh - the lowest of them all.
Gever - one who overcomes himself in order to reach the level of "ish" and "adam."
Ish - a name for one who has feeling, for the avodah of the middos of the heart.
Adam - a name for one who has mochin, who is capable of contemplating.
"His father and his mother": as we learned at length in chapter 3, chochmah and binah are called father and mother, and the offspring born of father and mother are the middos. A person can understand an idea one hundred percent and explain it beautifully, and still no feeling whatsoever will be born of that understanding. Why? Because he never detached himself from the understanding; he remained inside the world of intellect. (Understanding in itself is pleasant and delightful, and in the Rebbe Rashab's maamar "Kuntres HaMaayan MiBeis Hashem" it is explained that one of the highest forms of pleasure in the world is the pleasure of the intellect: to enjoy a beautiful piece of reasoning is a wondrous pleasure.) So it is not automatic that every understanding will also filter down into feeling.
What, then, must a person do so that his contemplation should also yield feeling? There is an illustration of this in the siddur. On Shabbos we say the prayer "Nishmas kol chai," a long and wondrous prayer that is entirely praise and glory to the Holy One for His wonders, and it concludes, "Yishtabach shimcha la'ad malkeinu, ha'Kel haMelech hagadol vehakadosh" ("May Your name be praised forever, our King, the G-d, the great and holy King"). But on Shabbos one word is added before "Yishtabach" that is not said on a weekday: "u'vchen," "and therefore."
Chassidim are accustomed to say that this is the way to arrive at feeling: you have to stop and say "u'vchen." I have understood it and absorbed it in my mind; and therefore, what is the bottom line? What comes out of all this, and where is it supposed to lead me? A person has to detach himself from the world of intellect and turn to the heart: and therefore, what is being asked of me? To begin to praise and glorify the Holy One, to begin to feel. This is "a man shall leave his father and his mother": leaving behind the pleasure of the intellect and descending into the world of the heart's feeling.
It is not automatic that love will be born out of every contemplation. One can contemplate and have nothing come of it, when a person has not reached the stage of "shall leave." In chapter 15 we learned that this beinoni has succeeded in moving from the contemplation to the conclusion and the result in his heart, and then he has feeling. And the moment he has feeling, chapter 16 arrives and tells him: here is a "great rule," do not get confused, know what is the main thing and what is the means. Do not think that the feeling is the main thing; the main thing is mastery over the heart, the "hundred and one." The feeling is extremely important, and without it the whole enterprise does not run, and when a person does what he does out of genuine feeling, "all my bones shall declare" is fulfilled in him and he is not doing it dryly. But one must not confuse the main thing with the means.
And how does a person arrive at that feeling, which is so important and yet is a means? In a few words the Alter Rebbe sums up what has been explained: "כשמתבונן במוחו בגדולת אין סוף ברוך הוא" ("when he contemplates in his mind the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof"), and the purpose is not to get stuck in the contemplation itself, for it is certainly interesting to hear beautiful ideas and to contemplate them, but "להוליד מבינתו רוח דעת ויראת ה' במוחו" ("to give birth, out of his understanding, to a spirit of knowledge and fear of Hashem in his mind"). The understanding has to produce offspring: chochmah and binah are father and mother, and the child that must be born from them is the feeling in the heart. "Ruach" is a term for feeling, as is known from the names of the soul: nefesh is bound up with the realm of action, ruach with the realm of feeling, and neshamah with the realm of intellect. "To give birth to a spirit of knowledge" means that a person should have a feeling that is born out of his understanding.
And what will that fear accomplish? "להיות סור מרע דאורייתא ודרבנן ואפילו איסור קל של דבריהם חס ושלום" ("to turn away from evil, both of the Torah and of the Rabbis, and not to stumble even in a light prohibition of their words, G-d forbid"): that he be careful to keep away from all the evil things the Torah forbade and from the things the Sages kept from us, and that he not stumble even in a light prohibition of their words. And corresponding to it, the love: "ואהבת ה' בלבו בחלל הימני בחשיקה וחפיצה לדבקה בו בקיום המצוות דאורייתא ודרבנן ותלמוד תורה שכנגד כולן" ("and love of Hashem in his heart, in the right chamber, with desire and longing to cleave to Him through the fulfillment of the mitzvos of the Torah and of the Rabbis, and the study of Torah, which is equal to them all").
And as we already learned at the beginning of the Tanya: love is the engine of the positive commandments, and fear is the engine of the prohibitions. Therefore a person must awaken within himself fear of Hashem and love of Hashem, and then he will be careful not to stumble in a prohibition, and he will fulfill all the positive commandments.
Regarding fear the Alter Rebbe writes "fear of Hashem in his mind," and regarding love, "and love of Hashem in his heart": seemingly both of them are emotions. (True, it is sometimes explained that the difference between yirah and pachad is that pachad is in the heart, whereas yirah is still at a distance.) Why, then, is fear tied to the mind and love to the heart? The answer lies in the difference in their movement:
Yirah - a movement of contraction: one who fears contracts, closes up, withdraws into himself.
Ahavah - the opposite movement, one of openness, release and giving.
And this is also one of the differences between intellect and emotion. The nature of the intellect is closedness: in order to contemplate and to understand, a person has to be alone with himself and not be disturbed. Emotion, by contrast, is by its very essence directed outward, toward another. You cannot be excited by yourself; on the contrary, when a person is joyful and someone else joins him, the joy multiplies, and love is always directed toward someone. Therefore yirah, which is a movement of contraction, is more closely bound up with the mind and the intellect, whose movement is also contraction; while ahavah, which is a movement of giving and expansion, is more closely bound up with the heart, whose movement is expansion. His wording is thus precise: "fear of Hashem in his mind," and "love of Hashem in his heart."
In summary: we reviewed the two levels in the beinoni that we learned in chapter 15, "lo avado" and "oved Elokim," and that "avodah" means effort and the breaking of habit, the "hundred and one," and that the road to it is a feeling of love of Hashem on its two levels. In chapter 16 the Alter Rebbe teaches us "a great rule in the service of Hashem for beinonim": love and fear are necessary, but they are only a means, and the main thing is to rule and have dominion over the nature in the left chamber of the heart, something only a Jew in this world, who is called a "mehalech," is capable of. We dwelt on the way feeling is born out of contemplation, "a man shall leave his father and his mother," leaving the pleasure of the intellect and descending into the heart, as hinted at in the "u'vchen" of the siddur, and on the precision of "in his mind" with regard to fear (a movement of contraction, like the nature of the intellect) and "in his heart" with regard to love (a movement of expansion and giving).
In the next installment we will continue our study of chapter 16 and the explanation of the Alter Rebbe's further words.