We have reached chapter 46, which begins on page 65a (page 129). We are in the middle of a series of chapters that all share one theme: how a Jew arrives at ahavas Hashem, love of G-d. This is anything but simple, because we are dealing with an emotion, and by nature a person is drawn to the things of this world, to the material and the physical. Here he is being asked to awaken in his heart a love for G-dliness, the very opposite of his natural pull.
In the previous chapters we learned a number of different forms of hisbonenus, contemplation, each one giving birth to the emotion that corresponds to it. Chapter 46 also comes to offer another mode of avodah, except that one could say this is not another contemplation at all, but simply another act of paying attention.
The difference between contemplation and paying attention:
Hisbonenus, contemplation: something weighty and deep, which demands tools and abilities - how to contemplate, and what to contemplate.
Paying attention: something far simpler, accessible, within reach of every single person. It is enough that a person take note of what is actually happening, and love for the Almighty will awaken in his heart of itself.
The language of the chapter: “ויש דרך ישר לפני איש, שוה לכל נפש וקרוב הדבר מאד מאד” - «There is a straight path before a man, equally suited to every soul, and the matter is exceedingly, exceedingly near.» A straight path, accessible, close, belonging to each and every one. It is worth noticing the wording. The whole of the Tanya is built on the verse «For the matter is very near to you» - that everything involved in keeping Torah and mitzvos, and the service of the heart, is near. Here the Alter Rebbe adds that it is «equally suited to every soul,» and not merely near but «exceedingly, exceedingly near,» a doubled expression added onto the language of the verse. The precision of each of these phrases will become clear as the chapter unfolds, since before we learn what follows it is hard to appreciate what each one is adding.
And what is this thing that is so close to every single person? “לעורר ולהאיר אור האהבה התקועה ומסותרת בלבו” - «to arouse and to illuminate the light of the love that is embedded and hidden in his heart.» Every Jew already possesses a hidden love, as we learned in chapter 18: every Jew, a child of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, has within him an ahavah mesuteres, a concealed love for the Almighty. It is «embedded in his heart» and present within him; it is simply not awake and not shining. A person's whole search is how to awaken it and reach it, and here the Alter Rebbe teaches a path through which this becomes exceedingly, exceedingly near.
And how is that love to shine? “להיות מאירה בתוקף אורה כאש בוערה” - «that it shine with the full force of its light, like a blazing fire.» The light of love should shine in a Jew's heart with the greatest intensity, in all its strength, like a burning flame. “בהתגלות לבו ומוחו” - «revealed in his heart and in his mind»: that his heart feel it openly, and that in his mind and his awareness the matter be entirely clear. And where does this lead? “למסור נפשו לה' וגופו ומאודו” - «to give over his soul to G-d, and his body and his means.» Out of this love he will have both the will and the ability to give himself over to the Almighty: to hand over his body, his soul and his possessions, everything he has, for the sake of G-d's will, “בכל לב ובכל נפש ומאד” - «with all his heart, all his soul and all his might,» echoing the familiar words of Krias Shema, «with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might,» and all of it “מעומקא דלבא באמת לאמיתו” - «from the depths of the heart, in absolute truth.»
So it emerges that every single person can reach such a level of love for G-dliness, and that it is exceedingly, exceedingly near to him. The obvious question arises: how does one actually do it? Where is the button that, once pressed, immediately awakens all this?
“ובפרט בשעת קריאת שמע וברכותיה” - «and particularly during Krias Shema and its blessings.» This is close at every hour of the day: at any point in the day when a person pays attention to the points about to be explained here, he will succeed in awakening that love in his heart. And particularly at the time of davening, during Shema and its blessings, «Yotzer Or» and «Ahavas Olam» - for if he thinks about these points there, then both the time and the very words he is saying are specifically designed to awaken it, “כמו שיתבאר”, «as will be explained» further on.
How does one get there? Says the Alter Rebbe: “והוא כאשר ישים אל לבו מה שאמר הכתוב 'כמים הפנים לפנים כן לב האדם אל האדם'” - «and this is when he takes to heart what the verse says: as water reflects a face back to a face, so does the heart of man to man.» It is enough that he pay attention to this one point stated by Shlomo HaMelech in Mishlei: just as water reflects back the face that looks into it, so is the heart of one person toward another, a reflection.
[A point of precision worth noting: the verse in Mishlei reads «כן לב האדם לאדם», while here the Alter Rebbe adds a word, «אל האדם». There are places in chassidus where the Alter Rebbe adds this word and places where he does not, each according to its context, and we will not go into the reason for it here.]
Another thing to notice: we have already seen many times in Tanya that when the Alter Rebbe brings a verse and follows it with the word “פירוש”, «meaning,» as he does here, it is a sign that he is about to give the verse an emphasis different from the usual reading. So let us first see how the verse is understood on its simple level, and then the new insight the Alter Rebbe adds in understanding it.
The plain meaning of the verse: it appears in the book of Mishlei (chapter 27), written by Shlomo HaMelech, a book that is a collection of verses of wisdom. Its purpose is stated explicitly at its opening: «The proverbs of Shlomo son of David, king of Israel, to know wisdom and instruction, to comprehend words of understanding.» Every verse in Mishlei gives a Jew direction in how to conduct himself.
Accordingly, the moral lesson of the verse is this: just as the face a person shows the water is reflected back to him as in a mirror, so too «the heart of man to man.» If someone did you a favor, repay him in kind and do not be ungrateful. Smile at another, and he will smile back at you. And if you treated someone improperly, do not be surprised when it is reflected back to you. That is the instruction: treat the other with the same measure with which he treats you.
[And of course the intent is not to repay evil with evil, but an instruction in ethics and in doing good: that a person not be ungrateful, but give his fellow what is coming to him.]
Here the Alter Rebbe adds a further and deeper point, an inner interpretation of the verse. First an introduction: Shlomo HaMelech is giving us a mashal, a parable. «As water reflects a face back to a face» is a physical analogy, and every mashal has a nimshal, the thing it is coming to illustrate. Two points to bear in mind about a mashal:
A mashal is meant to add a detail, a piece of knowledge, that we did not have without it. If the nimshal were simple and clear in its own right, there would be no need to give a parable at all.
When human beings give a parable, not every detail of the mashal must correspond to the nimshal; sometimes the point is only the general sense, or one single element, and the incidental details that come along with the mashal need not exist in the nimshal. But in Torah, where everything is exact, whatever the mashal contains is found in the nimshal as well, for it is the Torah of truth that gave the parable.
To summarize: in this portion we opened chapter 46, which adds to the forms of contemplation we have learned a path consisting of nothing more than paying attention, a path that is simple and accessible to every person. We learned the opening of the chapter: «There is a straight path before a man, equally suited to every soul, and the matter is exceedingly, exceedingly near» - to arouse and illuminate the love that lies hidden and embedded in the heart of every Jew, until it shines with full force like a blazing fire, revealed in heart and mind, to the point of giving over soul, body and means from the depths of the heart, and particularly during Krias Shema and its blessings. The way to do this is by paying attention to the verse «As water reflects a face back to a face, so does the heart of man to man,» and we examined the plain meaning of the verse in Mishlei as an instruction in ethics, as well as the two principles governing the relationship between a mashal and its nimshal.
In the next portion we will look, with this approach in hand, at the mashal itself: what exactly the analogy of the water is saying, and what nimshal emerges from it.