In the previous part we studied the Alter Rebbe's counsel in chapter 28 to a person who finds foreign thoughts falling into his mind during davening, together with his warning, "and let him also not be a fool, busying himself with elevating the middos." Now we turn to the root of the war being waged inside a person, and to how one is meant to deal with it.
The Battle for the Mind:
A person has two souls, and in the Alter Rebbe's words: "כל אחת חפצה ורצונה למשול בו ולהיות המוח ממולא ממנה לבדה" - "each one desires and wills to rule over him, and that the mind be filled with it alone." The entire war revolves around a single 'screen': the mind. A person has one mind and not two, while the inner forces pushing their energy into it are two. Each of the souls therefore fights over who will control the mind and who will push its own thoughts into it: "כל הרהורי תורה ויראת שמים מנפש האלוקית, וכל מילי דעלמא מנפש הבהמית" - all thoughts of Torah and fear of Heaven come from the nefesh ha'elokis, and all worldly matters from the nefesh habahamis.
But here the Alter Rebbe adds a decisive point: "רק שהאלוקית מלובשת בה" - "except that the divine soul is clothed within it." If these were two separate souls, each one taking its turn at the screen while the other waits off to the side until it comes down, the situation would not be nearly so grave, because while the nefesh habahamis is thinking its foreign thoughts, the nefesh ha'elokis would be standing quietly on the side. But that is not how it works. A person is one integrated being, and when the nefesh habahamis goes up to the screen it drags along with it the nefesh ha'elokis that is clothed inside it. The divine soul is itself disturbed by those thoughts and cannot simply sit off to the side. This is not a split screen, where you see one picture and then the other; the nefesh ha'elokis is caught up inside the distraction itself, and that is precisely why a person cannot daven at such a moment.
The Parable of the Gentile Standing Opposite Him:
The Alter Rebbe brings a parable: a person is davening with kavanah, and opposite him stands an idol worshipper, a wicked gentile, chattering and talking to him in order to confuse him, "for this is surely his counsel." And what is the right counsel in such a situation? "שלא להשיב לו מטוב ועד רע, ולעשות עצמו כחרש לא ישמע" - not to answer him at all, neither good nor bad, and to make himself as a deaf man who does not hear. He should fulfill the verse "אל תען כסיל באיוולתו פן תשווה לו גם אתה" - "do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you too become like him." For the moment you respond to the fool, you have come down to his level and become like him: he says this, you say that. The very fact that he asks and you answer puts the two of you on the same plane. Therefore do not answer him at all.
And so too in the nimshal: the moment a thought falls into a person's mind whose entire purpose is to confuse him, he should not answer it a word and should not try to analyze it. No claim, no response, no contemplation; rather he should take his mind off it entirely. In the Alter Rebbe's words: "אל ישיב מאומה ושום טענה ומענה נגד המחשבה הזרה, כי המתאבק עם מנוול מתנוול גם כן, רק יעשה עצמו כלא יודע ולא שומע ההרהורים שנפלו לו, ויסירם מדעתו ויוסיף אומץ וכוח כוונתו" - he should answer nothing and offer no argument or counterargument against the foreign thought, for one who wrestles with a filthy person becomes filthy himself. Rather he should act as though he neither knows nor hears the thoughts that have fallen into his mind, remove them from his awareness, and add still more strength and force to his kavanah. That is the bottom line: when a confusing thought falls in, a person should know how to identify where it comes from, and then simply pay it no attention.
Only "Like a Parable": a Physical Gentile or 'the Gentile Within You':
It is worth noting that the Alter Rebbe uses here the language of parable only: "like the parable of a person davening with kavanah while a wicked gentile stands opposite him." The Rebbe explains this chapter at length in the maamar "Basi LeGani" 5730, printed in Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat vol. 4, and there he raises what appears to be a contradiction within the Tanya itself, from one place to another:
In our chapter: when a wicked gentile stands opposite him, the counsel is to ignore him completely, with no contemplation whatsoever.
In Igeres HaKodesh, letter 25 (page 141): there the Alter Rebbe writes something entirely different. When it is not in his power to protest, "such as a gentile who speaks and confuses him in his davening," he should stop and contemplate.
And this is how it is explained there: when a gentile stands and confuses him in his davening, a person should contemplate "what is this that Hashem has done to him" - why has the Holy One sent him this particular gentile. For the gentile has no free choice in the matter; he arrived through hashgachah pratis as a divine messenger. And for what purpose would Hashem send him a messenger in the middle of davening in order to confuse him? "It can only be in order that he strengthen himself and exert himself more in his davening, from the depths of his heart and with such great kavanah that he will not hear the gentile's words." And how is it possible not to pay attention? On this the Alter Rebbe continues: "but for such a level one needs a great and mighty arousal," and he offers a piece of counsel for achieving that arousal: let him take to heart and contemplate at length how the Holy One, as it were, contracted Himself and clothed Himself within the body of that very gentile in order to rouse him.
On the face of it there is a contradiction here: in Igeres HaKodesh the Alter Rebbe instructs a person to contemplate, and it is that very contemplation which gives him the strength to ignore, since ignoring is no simple matter at all. Yet in our chapter, when a confusing thought falls in, he makes no mention of contemplation at all, only of taking one's mind off it.
The Rebbe explains in that maamar that one must distinguish between two different situations:
A flesh and blood gentile actually standing opposite him: he is a divine messenger from Above. In such a case a person should stop and contemplate what has happened here and why Hashem sent him a gentile in the middle of his davening, and contemplating that hislabshus, that clothing of Hashem within him, is what will help him.
A foreign thought that arises from within himself: evil thoughts that confuse him do not come as a messenger from Above; they come from the yetzer hara inside him itself. Here there is nothing to stop for and nothing to contemplate at all, only to take one's mind off it.
This is the Rebbe's distinction between the physical gentile and 'the gentile within you', and they are two completely different matters. Whoever wishes to study this at length, about a page and a half, should look in Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat vol. 4, from page 149 onward.
Counsel for One Who Finds It Hard to Remove the Thought:
"ואם יקשה לו להסירה מדעתו, מפני שטורדים דעתו מאוד בחוזקה" - "and if it is difficult for him to remove it from his mind, because they disturb his mind very forcefully." What is a person to do when it is hard for him? Contemplation is not an option here, as explained, but the thoughts will not let go: he strains with all his strength to concentrate on the words of the davening and does not succeed, again and again, and when he finally attains some calm it starts all over again. Everyone knows this experience. In such a state the Alter Rebbe instructs: "אז ישפיל נפשו לה' ויתחנן לו יתברך" - "then let him humble his soul before Hashem and plead with Him." He should pause and plead before the Holy One in his thought (and in places where one may not pause in the middle of the words, in thought alone), that He have mercy on him in His abundant mercy, "כרחם אב על בנים הנמשכים ממוחו" - "as a father has mercy on the children who are drawn from his brain." As we learned in chapter 2 of Tanya, a son is drawn from the father's brain; so too a Jew is drawn, as it were, from the Holy One's own mind and thought. The Jew says before Hashem: I am Your child, and it says "as a father has mercy on children" - have mercy on me and give me the strength to stop these thoughts. "וככה ירחם ה' על נפשו הנמשכת מאתו יתברך להצילה ממים הזידונים" - and so will Hashem have mercy on his soul, which is drawn from Him, to save it from the raging waters.
"The Raging Waters":
"The raging waters" are a metaphor for the disturbances of the mind, along the lines of the verse in Shir HaShirim, "many waters cannot extinguish the love, nor can rivers wash it away." It is explained in chassidus that "many waters" are the troubling thoughts that fall into a person in the middle of davening and confuse him, and they are like the waters of the flood. And when do the waters of the flood begin? Precisely when Noach enters the teivah, the ark. "Teivah" also means a word of prayer: the moment a person enters the words of davening, "many waters" immediately begin to assail him. And what is he to do? Enter deep inside the teivah and pay no attention, and then all the waters remain outside and he is protected, for the Holy One shuts the door over him and all the disturbances are gone. When is he not protected? When he steps outside the teivah, even for a moment; then the waters sweep him away.
The closing words of the chapter, "ולמענו יעשה כי חלק ה' ממש עמו" - "and He will act for His own sake, for the portion of Hashem is literally with him" - can be understood in two ways:
As the continuation of the Jew's prayer and request: act for my sake, for every Jew is literally a part of the Holy One. I am a part of You, act for my sake and help me.
As a promise from the Alter Rebbe: if you daven properly, you are assured that "He will act for His own sake" - the Holy One will act on your behalf and help you, because the portion of Hashem is literally with him.
So there is also a promise here: one who cannot cope with those disturbances on his own, and who pauses and asks for Heaven's mercy, will find that Heaven's mercy helps him break free of them. He will have a moment of grace until the next thought comes, and then he will again have to find the way to deal with it and push it aside.
With this, chapters 26, 27 and 28 are complete, all three of which the Alter Rebbe devoted to a single goal: how to deal with sadness.
And to close, regarding the phrase at the beginning of the chapter, "and let him also not be a fool, busying himself with elevating the middos," which we discussed at length in the previous lesson: there is a story told about a Jew from the Polish chassidim, a talmid chacham who had many students in the United States, and who inspired them greatly to study Tanya and chassidus. One of the ways he inspired them was by telling them that he knew the entire Tanya by heart, not in order to boast, but in order to stir up their enthusiasm. From time to time he would say to them: "Open the Tanya wherever you like, start a sentence and ask me where it is written, and I will tell you exactly which chapter and which page." And so they would do, and he always knew. Once one of the students opened up and asked, "Where does the Tanya say 'let him not be a fool'?" He answered: "That is written in every single line of the Tanya." The words themselves appear in chapter 28, but every single line of the Tanya is telling a person not to be a fool.
In summary: in this part we learned that the two souls are fighting over a single 'screen', the mind, and that because the nefesh ha'elokis is clothed within the nefesh habahamis it gets dragged along with its disturbances and cannot stand aside. We examined the parable of the gentile who confuses a person at prayer, where the counsel is not to answer him at all but to make oneself as a deaf man, and the same applies to the foreign thought: "one who wrestles with a filthy person becomes filthy himself." We saw the Rebbe's distinction between a flesh and blood gentile, who is a messenger from Above and therefore calls for contemplation (as explained in Igeres HaKodesh 25), and a foreign thought coming from the yetzer hara within, toward which the only response is to take one's mind off it. And finally we learned the counsel of humbling one's soul and pleading before Hashem, that He have mercy on his soul "as a father has mercy on children" and save it from the "raging waters," the disturbing thoughts that swirl around the teivah of davening.
In the next part we will take up the other problems that interfere with a person's avodas Hashem, and the solution the Alter Rebbe gives for each one of them.