We have arrived at chapter 35 of the Tanya. This chapter opens a new subject, and although all the chapters of the Tanya form one continuous flow and a single unified structure, this chapter does not come as a direct continuation of the previous chapter or of those before it.
As is well known, the whole of the Tanya is built upon the verse «כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו» (For this thing is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it), and over the course of the chapters the Alter Rebbe explains every detail of that verse in a variety of ways. Here we come to a further explanation of the final word of the verse: «לעשותו», to do it. True, the Alter Rebbe already dealt with this word back in chapter 17, but there he connected «לעשותו» to what precedes it, «ובלבבך» (in your heart), and spoke of a love in the heart that will bring a person at the very least to «לעשותו», to actual fulfillment, and there is no need to repeat that discussion. In this chapter, and in its continuation in the chapter that follows, he will explain the unique quality of «לעשותו» itself.
This is also evident from the wording of the verse. The verse lists the ways in which a Jew serves Hashem: «כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד», the «thing» being Torah and mitzvos, and in what way is it near? «בפיך ובלבבך לעשותו», the three garments of thought, speech and action. Yet the phrasing itself shows that the essential point, the distinctive one, is precisely «לעשותו». Had the verse said «in your mouth, or in your heart, or to do it», it would have been listing three separate matters, each standing on its own, in a certain order. But the wording «in your mouth and in your heart to do it» leads a person toward a destination and a goal: that the service of Hashem should culminate in actual deed. And so this chapter begins the explanation of the primary importance of fulfilling mitzvos specifically in action, even more than in thought and speech.
The Alter Rebbe's words at the opening of the chapter:
«והנה לתוספת ביאור תיבת לעשותו» (Now, to add further explanation to the word «to do it») - to add an explanation of this word, which is the central and essential word of the entire verse.
«וגם להבין מעט מזעיר תכלית בריאת הבינונים» (and also to understand a little of the purpose of the creation of the beinonim) - to understand from this what the purpose is in the very way the beinonim were created. We already learned in chapter 14 that there are Jews who were created from the outset in such a way that they would be beinonim, as in the expression «You created tzaddikim, You created resha'im», and that «the quality of the beinoni is the measure of every man», this being the Jew's avodah. And we must understand what purpose there is in such a creation.
The question:
«וירידת נשמותיהם לעולם הזה להתלבש בנפש הבהמית שמהקליפה וסטרא אחרא» (and the descent of their souls to this world to be clothed in the animal soul that stems from kelipah and sitra achra) - why did the Holy One bring the soul of the beinoni down into this world, «מאחר שלא יוכלו לשלחה כל ימיהם ולדחותה ממקומה מחלל השמאלי שבלב, שלא יעלו ממנה הרהורים אל המוח» (since all their days they will be unable to banish it and to push it out of its place in the left chamber of the heart, so that no stray thoughts should rise up from it to the brain) - they are unable to send the sitra achra away on their own and to dislodge it from its place, and they cannot even bring it about that it should stop raising objections to the mind, «כי מהותה ועצמותה של נפש הבהמית שמהקליפה היא בתוקפה וגבורתה אצלם כתולדתה, רק שלבושיה אינם מתלבשים בגופה» (for the essence and being of the animal soul that comes from kelipah remains in them in all its strength and might just as it was from birth, only that its garments are not clothed in the body).
In other words: the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul, remains at full strength all the time; it simply does not succeed in taking control of the beinoni's thought, speech and action. For one whose thought, speech and deed are ruled by the yetzer hara, we have already learned, is called a rasha; and the very fact that a person is called a beinoni means that the animal soul has no control over the three garments. But the battle itself goes on within him constantly.
Hence the question: «אם כן למה זה ירדו נשמותיהם לעולם הזה ליגע לריק חס ושלום, להילחם כל ימיהם עם היצר ולא יכלו לו?» (If so, why did their souls descend to this world to labor in vain, G-d forbid, to battle all their days with the yetzer without overcoming it?)
On a superficial reading it seems the question is: why did the soul of the beinoni come down here to wage war at all, and what is the point of a war he will never win? But clearly that is not the question, for the Alter Rebbe has already answered that at length in chapters 27 and 28. There he explained that the Holy One derives pleasure from the battle itself, from the very fact that a Jew wrestles with the cravings of the yetzer and fights them, what is called «iskafya sitra achra», the subduing of the sitra achra, and from this a great nachas ruach arises Above.
Two kinds of nachas ruach (chapters 27-28):
The Alter Rebbe explained this through the verse «ועשה לי מטעמים» (and make me delicacies), «מטעמים» in the plural: there is food that is sweet and pleasant, and there is food that is sharp and tart, which, when it is well seasoned, revives the soul far more:
The avodah of tzaddikim: they have no struggle with evil, since they have no yetzer hara, either because they nullified it or because they were born that way. Their service is a delight to the Creator, but the delight of a sweet dish.
The avodah of the beinoni: he does have a yetzer hara, there is a struggle and there is difficulty, and he manages to prevail. The sweetness of his service comes out of the sharpness, out of the battle and the struggle, and from this the delight is far greater.
So the Alter Rebbe has already explained that the Divine delight comes from the battle itself. If so, what is he asking here all over again? The entire question hangs on one word, and if you do not pay attention to it you miss the whole force of the question: «להתלבש», to be clothed.
The precision in the word «להתלבש»:
If the goal were merely that one should fight the other, the situation would resemble two enemies standing opposite each other, each entrenched in his own position firing arrows at the other, sometimes this one gains the upper hand and sometimes that one. Had the Holy One set things up that way, there would still be a war, and there would still be nachas ruach Above from every single moment of distress caused to the sitra achra.
But the Holy One created the beinoni in such a way that his nefesh ha'elokis, his G-dly soul, is clothed within the animal soul: it enters into it, joins with it and unites with it, to the point that the grappling between them is at the closest possible range. A person does not have two completely separate systems of faculties with no connection between them, one fighting the other. Rather he has one faculty of action, one faculty of speech and one faculty of thought, and within that very same faculty the one is clothed in the other at every moment. When a Jew performs a mitzvah, it is not the G-dly soul alone that performs it; the animal, vital soul is a partner in it as well. And when, G-d forbid, he stumbles into a sin, it is the animal soul that does it, but the G-dly soul is dragged along with it. The one is clothed within the other, and they cannot be separated.
And this is the Alter Rebbe's question: if all the Holy One wants is the nachas ruach that comes from the battle, why does the neshamah have to be clothed inside the animal soul? And if it is clothed inside it, we would have assumed that the purpose of that clothing is that some benefit come of it, that the neshamah should influence the animal soul at least in some small measure; after all, when something is clothed within another, it ought to move it somehow. To this the Alter Rebbe says that it does not move it at all, as he continues: «מאחר שלא יוכלו לשלחה כל ימיהם ולדחותה ממקומה מחלל השמאלי שבלב» (since all their days they will be unable to banish it and to push it out of its place in the left chamber of the heart).
The proof that the neshamah does not move the animal soul:
It is well known in chassidus that thought has two stages, as cited in the name of the Previous Rebbe in one of his sichos, that thought is the mirror of the heart, and the heart keeps sending up stray thoughts to the mind all the time:
The initial thought: a thought that is not chosen. A person suddenly catches himself and asks: where is my head right now? Over this thought he has no control whatsoever, and if he has a large beast in his heart, his heart will keep tossing him animalistic thoughts without pause. Nor is anything demanded of him that this should not happen, since he cannot stop it.
Continuing willingly: the trouble begins the moment he registers that he is thinking a thought that does not belong. From that second onward: does he throw it off, or does he go on riding it willingly? Once he continues with it by choice, it is an act of his free will and it is his own, and it is here that he is required to stop, and here that he will have to give an accounting.
The very fact that a person cannot halt that initial thought is the proof: not only does the neshamah fail to work upon the animal soul to the point of making it disappear, it does not even succeed in influencing it to stop sending its «regards» to the front lines, that is, to stop raising its objections to the mind. To that extent a person does not manage to move it even slightly.
In summary: in this chapter the Alter Rebbe opens a further explanation of the word «לעשותו», which is the destination and goal toward which the verse leads, and through it he explains the superiority of action specifically, even over thought and speech. To this end he asks what the purpose is in the creation of the beinonim and in the descent of their souls to this world «להתלבש», to be clothed, in the animal soul. We clarified that the question is not about the battle as such, for chapters 27-28 already established that the Divine delight comes from the battle itself (iskafya sitra achra). The precision lies in the word «להתלבש»: why is a complete clothing of the neshamah within the animal soul required, if the neshamah does not budge it from its place at all, as is proven from the fact that a person has no control even over the stray thoughts that rise up in him of their own accord.
In the next installment we will take up the Alter Rebbe's answer to this question, and the continued explanation of the superiority of «לעשותו» in this chapter and the one that follows.