We stopped in the middle of chapter 31, on page 40a (page 79), within the first three lines on the page, at the end of the line, at the words “ואחר כך יבוא לידי שמחה” (“and afterwards he will come to joy”). Let us begin with a brief review of what we learned in the previous installment, and from there we will understand what follows.
A summary of what we have learned so far:
In chapters 29 and 30 the Alter Rebbe went to great lengths to convince a person just how low his situation really is, both his potential situation and his actual one, and how humble he must be before every single person. One should take to heart that he has nothing to hold himself great by; on the contrary, his situation is as low as can be. The purpose of this contemplation is to crush and “grind down” the animal dimension in a person, which is what blocks him and makes him coarse and dull precisely when a divine stirring is called for, in prayer and the like.
At the beginning of chapter 31 a question arose: a contemplation that consists entirely of being broken over one’s situation would seem to lead a person straight into sadness, depression and collapse of spirit, which is precisely what must be ruled out, for the Tanya has already explained at length how a person must always be in a state of joy. How, then, are we leading him down such a long road of “how low you are and how far you are”?
The answer that was explained: a feeling of sadness for a short while does have its uses, and the first of them is to crush and break the animal dimension, along the lines of the principle “פגע בו כיוצא בו”, meeting it with something of its own kind, as in the expression “מיניה וביה אבא ליזיל ביה נרגא” (the handle of the axe that fells the forest comes from the forest itself). And the next stage he reaches is not sadness at all but bitterness: he feels his lowly state, yet he does not sink into depression; rather he concludes that something must be done, that he must get out of this situation, and he searches for every possible way to save himself. This movement of the soul is entirely positive, full of vitality and uplift on the side of holiness. That is where we stopped.
Once a person has passed through this process of bitterness, which includes a measure of sadness as well, he is meant to arrive, specifically out of the very contemplation of his lowly state, at true joy. What is that joy?
Think of a man who is told that his business is in terrible shape, that he has lost a fortune and everything has collapsed, and he sinks into gloom; but immediately he is also told that there is still a respectable sum held in reserve, and that if he puts it to work he can lift himself up and even double his profits, until he forgets entirely that he was ever in a bad state. Once a person knows what powers are inside him, he no longer sinks into his lowly situation alone; he rejoices in the good within him, with which he can break forward. So too in the nimshal: from this very contemplation a person arrives at true joy.
“דהיינו שזאת ישיב אל לבו לנחמו בכפליים אחר הדברים והאמת האלה הנזכרים לעיל” (“that is, he shall bring this back to his heart, to comfort him doubly after the above words of truth”). Why is comfort needed here? Because a person who has gone through the long and deep crushing of chapters 29 and 30, who has placed himself as low, as loathsome, as degraded and as distant, now needs comfort, and doubly so.
How is it possible to be joyful despite such a low state? On the face of it he has two options before him:
To ignore the evil and push it out of his awareness, not to think about it at all, and to be uplifted that way.
To tell himself that he exaggerated the darkness and the evil in him, and that his situation is really not so bad.
The Alter Rebbe rejects both approaches: not the way of ignoring, and not the way of saying it was exaggerated. We say to a person: “You did not exaggerate. The conclusions laid out in the two previous chapters are exact, and you may not look away from them either. Contemplate them, and nevertheless be joyful.” And how?
“לאמר ללבו: אמת הוא כן בלי ספק שאני רחוק מאד מה' בתכלית ומשוקץ ומתועב כו'” (“to say to his heart: it is true beyond any doubt that I am exceedingly far from G-d, utterly, and abominable and repulsive, and so on”). All the conclusions are true and exact: I am far, I am abominable, I am repulsive, a soul capable of sinning, that does not stand up to the things it must contend with and falls to them. If so, where is the joy?
“אך כל זה הוא אני לבדי, הוא הגוף עם נפש החיונית שבו” (“but all this is only ‘I myself,’ which is the body with the vital soul within it”). Who is it that is in such a low state? The body together with the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul that enlivens it. That is the “I.” And as was mentioned in the previous chapters, a person says in the morning prayer “נשמה שנתת בי”, “the soul You gave within me”: that is, the “I” is not the neshamah; the neshamah was given “within me.” And the “I,” the body and the vital soul, is in the lowest possible state.
“אבל מכל מקום יש בקרבי חלק ה' ממש שישנו אפילו בקל שבקלים” (“but nevertheless there is within me an actual part of G-d, which is present even in the lightest of the light”). Along with all that, there is within me a literally divine part, and this is not the privilege of complete tzaddikim alone but is present even in the lightest of the light. Even if I am the lowest of men, I am a Jew, and every Jew has a neshamah, a literal part of G-d above: “שהיא נפש האלקית עם ניצוץ אלוקות ממש המלובש בה להחיותה” (“which is the divine soul with an actual spark of G-dliness clothed in it to give it life”). This neshamah was not damaged, was not stained, and nothing whatsoever has been subtracted from its power.
But a person does not have two separate “sets,” a low part and a divine part standing off on its own. The Holy One blessed be He wove the divine soul into the body and into the animal soul; they are bound up in one another and they influence one another. If so, when a person is in a low state, what has become of the divine spark within him, and in what condition is his neshamah? On this the Alter Rebbe says: “רק שהיא בבחינת גלות” (“except that it is in a state of exile”). The neshamah is now in galus, in exile.
This verse in Yeshayahu is brought in a great many maamarim of chassidus. In its plain meaning it speaks of Yerushalayim: “Tzion” is one of her names, and “her captives” are the people of Yerushalayim who were taken into captivity. In chassidus it is explained that the verse also carries a spiritual, inner meaning, which speaks of the soul of each and every person:
“Tzion” is the essence of the neshamah. “Tzion” is from the word siman, a sign, a sign pointing to something of the very highest order.
“The sons of Tzion” are the faculties of the neshamah: its intellect and its emotions, as well as thought, speech and deed.
When the nefesh habahamis takes over, what can it take over? “The sons of Tzion.” Those it is able to take captive, and a captive, after all, becomes a worker for the enemy: his energies are channeled into negative places. But “Tzion” itself it cannot take captive; it can only send it into exile. In exile it does not work for the enemy, but it is in a hidden state: the door was shut on it and it was not allowed out. Detention, not captivity. This is why it says “ציון במשפט תיפדה”, “Tzion shall be redeemed through justice”: Tzion needs to be redeemed, whereas “her captives” is a more severe condition. We have two states before us: exile and captivity.
Therefore, when a person makes that long accounting of his soul over his low state and over his body, he must ask: what has this state done to the divine soul within me, and to the divine spark inside me? To the essence of the neshamah it has caused exile, and to the faculties of the neshamah, captivity.
“ואם כן אדרבה, כל מה שאני בתכלית הריחוק מה' והתיעוב ושיקוץ - הרי נפש האלקית שבי בגלות גדול יותר” (“and if so, on the contrary: the more I am at the utmost distance from G-d, in abomination and repulsiveness, the greater is the exile of the divine soul within me”). Not only is one not to forget the soul-accounting of chapters 29 and 30; on the contrary, one must contemplate thoroughly everything said there about how low a person’s situation is. For the worse the state of the animal dimension, the deeper the exile in which the divine soul is held, and the harder its situation is for rising up.
In summary: in this installment we learned that after the bitterness a person arrives at true joy, not by ignoring his low state and not by deciding he overstated it, but out of the recognition that “I myself,” the body and the vital soul, really is far and abominable and repulsive, while within me there is an actual part of G-d, a divine soul whose power has not been diminished in the slightest, except that it is in a state of exile. We clarified the difference between exile and captivity in light of the verse “ציון במשפט תיפדה ושביה בצדקה” (“Tzion shall be redeemed through justice and her captives through charity”), and we saw that the lower the state of the animal dimension, the greater the exile of the divine soul.
In the next installment we will continue with the words of the Alter Rebbe and see how contemplating the exile of the divine soul gives birth specifically to true joy.