We stopped in the first part of chapter 25, on page 31b (page 62), at the line that begins with the words "ושליט ומושל עליו כנודע" ("and it rules and governs him, as is known"). Before we go on, let us review the central theme running through these chapters.
Chapter 25 is the last in a sequence of chapters that complete one whole subject, a subject that began back in chapter 18. There the Alter Rebbe began to explain that there is a short and easy path by which every single person can fulfill "כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאוד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו" ("for the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it"). This does not refer only to thought, speech and action, that is, how a Jew can fulfill everything in the three garments of the soul. It goes further: even "ובלבבך", "and in your heart," the emotional dimension, the Torah says "the matter is very close to you," meaning that every person has it in his power to arouse within himself the feeling that befits the service of G-d.
Just how difficult that is becomes clear from what the Alter Rebbe writes in chapter 17: working on the emotions is extremely hard. His expression there is that it is "נגד החוש", against what a person actually feels. The natural inclination a person senses from the side of his animal nature is not drawn on its own to the love of G-d, but to the desires of the world. And precisely about this, we are being told, the "ובלבבך", the matter of the heart and the emotions, is in fact very close to every single Jew.
From chapter 18 onward the foundation is built chapter upon chapter, and the general idea that runs through all of them and reaches its conclusion here in chapter 25 is this: in the innermost part of every Jew's heart there exists a love called "ahavah mesuteres", a hidden love. It is a love that does not have to be created, because it is already there of itself. The entire task is only to arouse it.
What is the difference between a love that has to be created and a love that only has to be aroused?
Creating a love: this is the hardest kind of work. To create a love one needs a great deal of understanding, since the mind rules over the heart. It demands broad knowledge, concentration, and knowing which matters to contemplate, and only after much toil may he perhaps succeed in arousing some feeling.
Arousing what is already there: far easier. We come and tell a Jew that the love for the Holy One, blessed be He, already exists within him. He did nothing to acquire it, and he also has no power to ruin it. It is an essential part of the soul of a Jew, a basic love that goes by the name "ahavah mesuteres".
Even so, this arousal too comes about through hisbonenus, contemplation, because the Holy One, blessed be He, formed man in such a way that everything in him works by way of understanding and intellect. Man was created from the world of Tikkun, where there is understanding and intellect, and therefore everything in him passes through the mind. The difference is that here the contemplation need not be deep, wide ranging and strenuous, as it must be when one is creating something new. It need only arouse what is already there: to wipe away the dust so that the beauty of the diamond shows itself. The diamond's value remains fully intact and is not spoiled at all even when heaps of dust and dirt lie upon it. All that is needed is to clear away the obstructions in the way.
The Alter Rebbe defined this love as a love that has no "taam vodaas", no reason and no reckoning. It does not rest on understanding and logic; it is like the nature of fire to rise upward. The flame of a candle is constantly straining to tear itself away from the wick and rise to its source, and even though in separating from the wick it will be extinguished and cease to exist, this is its inner nature. So it is with the love present in every Jew: a natural love for G-dliness, which is not built on explanation or logic.
And this is not some vague, abstract love. As chassidus brings out, it expresses itself in two general movements:
The positive movement: since he has a natural love for the Holy One, blessed be He, he searches with all his strength for ways to cleave to Him, to do one more mitzvah, to learn a few more lines of Torah, to daven, knowing that these are what connect him to G-dliness.
The negative movement: he flees from anything that severs the connection. When he is faced with a test in something that is against G-d's will, whatever the transgression may be, if he will remember and arouse his hidden love he will not want to transgress in any matter at all, because everything that goes against the Creator's will cuts him off, while the ahavah mesuteres demands, in his inner nature, to remain attached in constant devotion.
The hidden love that lies in the innermost part of a Jew's heart is called in chassidus "ahavah atzmis", essential love, and the term carries two meanings: a love of tremendous power, and a love of the kind with which a person loves his own self. A person needs no reasons in order to love himself, and there is nothing that will make him stop. As the well known phrase has it, "על כל פשעים תכסה אהבה" ("love covers over all transgressions"), and himself a person always loves, come what may. So too a Jew's natural love for G-dliness is literally a self-love, because the G-dliness is he himself, his very essence, as is already written at the beginning of Tanya, "חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש" ("literally a part of G-d above"). It follows that his love for G-dliness is nothing other than love of his own self.
And what does this ahavah atzmis mean in practice? A few points:
It requires no work to create it: just as a person needs no special labor to arrive at loving himself, he is born with it, and from the first moment the infant comes out into the air of the world he already loves himself, with no contemplation and no work at all. So too this love already exists, and all one has to do is look for ways to arouse it.
Nothing can weaken it: it is like flint, in which the power of fire lies in potential. Even if the stone is left in water and in ice for decades, it never loses its nature and its essence, and the moment it is taken out of the depths of the ice one can draw fire from it. So it is with the love within a Jew. The daily pressures of making a living, sinking into physical pleasures, even failing in the gravest sins, none of these ruin the essential love within him. And if he will arouse it, then in a single moment he stands on a complete and good G-dly level, even though a moment or a day or a month earlier he was in one lowly state or another.
Once revealed, an impression remains: a person who aroused his love for the Creator of the world during davening will be left with an impression of it even after davening, even when he goes out to his affairs. For this is nothing other than the revelation of the truth within him, and when a person arouses the truth within himself, it is present with him.
He does not get confused in essential matters: since this is a self-love, it is not possible for someone who has this love within him to become confused and transgress in matters that touch the essence.
Let us spell out this last point, working from the end back to the beginning. Even a person who is the lightest of the light and the most distant of the distant, when he is faced with a test in a matter of faith or denial of faith, at that very moment that natural ahavah atzmis awakens in him, the hidden love for the Holy One, blessed be He, and he says: "I am ready to die al kiddush Hashem." That is, he does not get confused, and the ruach shtus, the "spirit of folly" that ordinarily clouds a person's judgment, has no power to confuse him at such a moment, because at that hour it is as clear to him as the sun that he does not want to be severed from the Holy One, blessed be He.
To summarize: in this section we reviewed the general theme that runs from chapter 18 and concludes in chapter 25, that in the heart of every Jew there is a hidden love which need not be created but only aroused. We saw that it is a natural love with no reason and no reckoning, like the nature of fire to rise upward, and that it expresses itself in two movements, the positive and the negative. And we dwelt on its being an "ahavah atzmis": it needs no creating, nothing weakens it, an impression of it remains after it has been revealed, and it has the power to prevent any confusion in essential matters, as is revealed at the moment of truth, when a person is tested in his faith.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in the rest of the chapter and with the details of the subject.