We have reached chapter 28 of Tanya, on page 35a (page 69). This chapter is the third stage of the subject we have been working through since chapter 26, and here the topic reaches its conclusion: how to uproot, dissolve and drive sadness out of a person's heart. After learning at the beginning of chapter 26 that atzvus (sadness, depression) is an extremely negative thing, that one cannot serve Hashem in any way and cannot move forward at all while sunk in such a low state, the Alter Rebbe goes on to detail several distinct kinds of sadness, explaining for each one how a person is to deal with it.
A summary of what we have learned so far:
In chapter 26: Sadness that comes from a lack in physical matters, there is no reason whatsoever to be sad about it. Sadness that comes from one's spiritual condition depends on when it arises. If it falls upon him in the middle of his work and his business affairs, let him tell himself that this is not the time, and that the very timing is a sign that it is not coming from the good side. But if it falls upon him during Torah study or prayer, such sadness is positive, only that he should set a fixed time for it, an appropriate hour, and then sit down and make a genuine cheshbon nefesh (soul accounting), rather than letting it simply overtake him with no preparation at all.
In chapter 27: A person whose sadness does not stem from his general spiritual state, but from the fact that evil thoughts, desires and machshavos zaros (foreign, distracting thoughts) keep falling upon him and harassing him, until the constant battle becomes hard to bear and he says, "How long can a person live like this?" To him the Alter Rebbe says: Desires and foreign thoughts fall upon you in the middle of your work and your business? Do not become sad. On the contrary, rejoice that you have been given an opportunity to fulfill the positive commandment of "kedoshim tihyu," that a person sanctify himself, and the prohibition of "velo sasuru acharei levavchem," do not stray after your heart. (Regarding the positive commandment, the discussion there dealt mainly with matters of eating.)
In chapter 28, which lies before us now and is relatively short, the Alter Rebbe deals with a person whose sadness comes from foreign thoughts falling upon him specifically during prayer. Invariably, the moment he begins to daven, all his problems, all his business dealings, all his memories and all his stray thoughts rise up and flood him, and from this he falls into sadness. Why does this happen to him, and how should he relate to the thoughts that disturb and harass him in the middle of davening or Torah study? That is what the chapter will address.
[And what about sadness that comes from something that happened to him or to one of his relatives? As was explained in chapter 26, regarding what happened to him personally, he must know that everything that comes from Above is good. And certainly when something has happened to another person, it is fitting to have mercy on him and share in his pain, and that is a positive thing. One only has to know when to think about it, and not during prayer and in the middle of serving Hashem.]
Let us turn to the words of the chapter:
"ואפילו אם נופלים לו הרהורי תאוות ושאר מחשבות זרות בשעת העבודה בתורה או בתפלה בכוונה" - "And even if thoughts of desire and other foreign thoughts fall upon him during his service, during Torah study or during prayer with kavanah." A person stands up to daven with kavanah, and precisely then, during prayer, all the foreign thoughts begin to surface. (We will yet consider what the word "foreign" is telling us.)
There is the well known expression of the Zohar: "sha'as tzelosa, sha'as krava," the time of prayer is a time of war. We find something similar in Yaakov Avinu's words about the incident at Shechem: "asher lakachti miyad ha'Emori becharbi uvkashti," "which I took from the hand of the Emorite with my sword and with my bow." On the simple level, a sword and a bow are weapons of war, but Onkelos translates it "betzlosi uve'va'usi," with my prayer and with my supplication. Prayer is a war, and therefore it is precisely at that hour that those thoughts of desire and foreign thoughts come up.
There is the well known story of the Jew who did business with the poritz (the local landowner) and cheated him, and afterward came to his Rebbe deeply worried that the poritz would discover it and do such and such to him, and he did not know how to handle the matter. The Rebbe told him: "Your poritz, don't worry, he will never notice that you cheated him." And why not? Because he does not pray. A Jew who davens, at the time of davening he remembers all of his business affairs. But someone who does not daven has no hour in which all of his thoughts rise up before him, and therefore he will not notice.
But in the end, the thoughts do come up and they do confuse a person. What is he to do, standing right now with the siddur in his hand, in the middle of davening?
"אל ישית לב אליהן, אלא יסיח דעתו מהן" - "He should pay them no attention, but rather turn his mind away from them." This sentence is, one could say, the headline of the whole chapter. The moment the thought arises, he should not begin to grapple with it, to push it away in his mind, or to investigate why it fell upon him and where it came from. He should simply divert his attention from it and concentrate on the thought of the prayer. This is the rule a person needs to know: every time a confusing thought falls upon him during davening, do not pay attention to it, do not try to fight it off, and do not sink into the question of where it came from. Just keep going.
And the Alter Rebbe adds: "וגם אל יהא שוטה לעסוק בהעלאת המידות של המחשבה זרה" - "and let him also not be so foolish as to engage in elevating the middos of the foreign thought."
What is this "elevating the middos" of a foreign thought?
The concept appears in the works of tzaddikim: in the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, in the Maggid of Mezritch, in the sefer Me'or Einayim of the tzaddik of Chernobyl, and in many other places. A person upon whom a foreign thought has fallen works out for himself where it came from, since every thought is connected to one of the middos (the emotional attributes). A thought whose content is love has its root in the middah of chesed; a thought whose content is fear and dread has its root in the middah of gevurah. Accordingly he tells himself: a foreign thought belonging to the realm of chesed and love has just arrived, so let me arouse within myself ahavas Hashem, love of G-d, and channel this very drive of misplaced love into love of the Creator. The result is that he has elevated the foreign thought to holiness and has turned a negative direction into a positive one.
At first glance there is a contradiction here. The Alter Rebbe instructs a person to turn his mind away from the thought, while those seforim write that when a foreign thought falls upon you, you should not turn your mind away from it at all. On the contrary, you should work with it and see how to elevate it to the good.
This is how the Baal Shem Tov, for example, explains the well known mishnah in Pirkei Avos: "Eizehu gibor? Hakovesh es yitzro," "Who is mighty? He who conquers his yetzer." The Baal Shem Tov asks: it would seem more fitting to say "mihu gibor," "who is a mighty one." The word "eizehu," "which one," implies that there are several types of mighty people, and the question is which of them is the true gibor.
He explains that the mishnah is hinting at the following. There are tzaddikim who, when thoughts that are not good fall upon them, simply push them away and turn their attention elsewhere. But the gibor is "hakovesh es yitzro": he takes the yetzer that has come to him, conquers it, holds it under him, rides upon it and elevates it to the good. Not diversion of attention, but on the contrary, conquering the yetzer and raising it up. So says the Baal Shem Tov.
To summarize: In this portion we traced the order of the subject across chapters 26 through 28: from sadness over physical and spiritual matters, through sadness that comes from foreign thoughts during one's business affairs, and on to chapter 28, which deals with foreign thoughts that fall upon a person during Torah and prayer, an hour that is a "sha'as krava," a time of war. The Alter Rebbe's instruction is not to pay them any attention but to turn the mind away from them, and not even to engage in "elevating the middos" of the foreign thought, in the manner explained in the works of tzaddikim and in the Baal Shem Tov's teaching on "Who is mighty? He who conquers his yetzer."
How the Alter Rebbe's instruction fits together with that approach of conquering the yetzer and elevating it, and to whom each of these is addressed, we will see in the continuation of the chapter.