In the previous section we drew the distinction between a "tzaddik for whom it is good" and a "tzaddik for whom it is bad." Now we need to clarify: what test does a person have at his disposal to know whether the evil in him has actually been transformed into good, or whether it still exists in him in a tiny measure, subdued beneath the good but without being felt at all?
The test of transformation: on what level does a person love his Creator?
The test is not the question of how much evil he feels in himself. It is the examination of his love for Hashem, and on which level that love stands. If he has arrived at ahavah betaanugim, a love of delight, a love that is utterly natural and present at every single moment, that is a sign that even his nefesh habahamis, his animal soul, already loves Hashem. But if his love still requires work and hisbonenus (contemplation), that is a sign that the animal soul has not yet been transformed. And within this itself there are endless levels and gradations, as we shall see further on.
Let us return to the words of the Tanya:
The tzaddik who is not complete is also called "צדיק ורע לו" ("a tzaddik for whom it is bad"), and why are two titles needed? "דהיינו שיש בו עדיין מעט מזעיר רע בחלל השמאלי" ("that is, there still remains in him a minute trace of evil in the left chamber of the heart"). Such a person does not sense evil in himself at all: if you were to ask him when he last had a craving for something negative, he would answer that he simply cannot remember. And nevertheless there exists in him a "minute trace" of evil.
And why does he not feel it? "אלא שכפוף ובטל לטוב מחמת מיעוטו" ("but it is subdued and nullified before the good because of its minuteness"). The evil is so slight, and so subdued before the good, that "נדמה לו שכבר גירשו והלך לו לגמרי" ("it appears to him that he has already banished it and it has departed entirely"). But it only appears so. "אבל באמת אילו חלף והלך לו לגמרי כל הרע שבו, היה נהפך לטוב ממש" ("but in truth, had all the evil in him passed away and departed completely, it would have been transformed into actual good"). And how can a person check whether it has indeed been transformed into actual good? By examining the level of his love for the Creator of the world.
How can love be measured?
We noted at the beginning of our study that the levels of tzaddikim are far removed from us and it is difficult for us to speak of them. But we can learn from love in ordinary worldly matters, which every person is able to measure. A person loves himself with utter simplicity: he needs no contemplation, no persuasion, and no class in order to love himself. From the day he is born until the day he dies, at every hour of the day and night, this love exists in him naturally. Everyone outside his own circle, even those closest to him, stands in a second, third or fourth circle. From here we see that love can be measured: on what level does a person love someone else, is it like the love he has for his child, or like the love he has for himself?
A person's love for himself is an animal love of utter simplicity, a love of instinct: when something harmful comes near his body he recoils of his own accord, without even needing to think about it, because his body is part of him. And this is precisely the question regarding the level of the tzaddik: has his love for G-dliness reached such a level? If it has, he has arrived at the highest rung. And if not yet, there are countless stages and gradations within that, but the determination itself is sharp: either he has reached it or he has not. This is the difference between a complete tzaddik and a tzaddik who is not complete.
Bitter water: sweetening or transformation?
A person holding bitter water who wishes to sweeten it adds sugar to it. The bitterness itself has not ceased to exist; it is simply no longer felt. And the more sugar he adds, the less it will be felt at all, until, if someone were to tell him that there is a bitter drop in there, he would deny it. And yet it is still there.
At Marah, by contrast, there was bitter water and the Jewish people wanted to drink. The Holy One told Moshe Rabbeinu to take a piece of wood and cast it into the water, "וימתקו המים" ("and the waters became sweet"). There no sugar was added; the very essence itself was turned over from bitter to sweet. So it is in the soul: the tzaddik who is not complete sweetens the evil with an abundance of good, whereas the complete tzaddik transforms it into good entirely.
And now the explanation in the words of the Tanya:
"כי הנה צדיק גמור" ("for behold, the complete tzaddik") is one whose evil has been transformed into good, and in whom there exists no animal engine at all pulling him toward the negative side, "ולכן נקרא צדיק וטוב לו" ("and therefore he is called a tzaddik for whom it is good"). The two titles correspond to the two souls:
"צדיק גמור" ("a complete tzaddik"): perfection in the G-dly side of him.
"וטוב לו" ("and it is good for him"): the animal side of him has become entirely good.
Removing the soiled garments:
And how does he arrive at this? "על ידי הסרת הבגדים הצואים לגמרי מהרע" ("by completely removing the soiled garments of the evil"). The soiled garments are the levushim, the garments we have spoken about, the craving for this or that negative thing, and the complete tzaddik removes them entirely. "דהיינו למאוס מאוד בתענוגי עולם הזה להתענג בהם בתענוגות בני אדם" ("that is, to utterly loathe the pleasures of this world, to derive pleasure from them in the manner of human pleasure-seeking"). This does not mean self-affliction; it means exactly what he writes: to enjoy them the way people generally enjoy things simply for the gratification of their bodies. In the worldly pleasures themselves he may take delight when they are for the sake of holiness, like a person who eats a finer dish on Shabbos than all week long and spends a great deal of money on it, since the Shulchan Aruch rules that it is a mitzvah to honor Shabbos with meat and wine. For him the pleasure is not for the sake of pleasure but for the sake of the mitzvah, and not merely to satisfy his bodily cravings in a way that has nothing to do with serving Hashem.
And the reason for his loathing: in serving Hashem there is no such thing as "parve," as we learned at length in chapter 6. With food there is meat, dairy and parve, but here a thing is either holiness or it is sitra achra. It follows that whatever is not for the service of Hashem belongs, automatically, to the negative side, "מפני היותם נמשכים ונשפעים מהקליפה וסטרא אחרא" ("because they are drawn and flow from the kelipah and sitra achra"). Sitra achra means "the other side," the side that is not holy. And within the evil itself there are levels, as we mentioned regarding kelipas nogah and the three impure kelipos.
"וכל מה שהוא מהסטרא אחרא" ("and everything that comes from the sitra achra") the complete tzaddik "שונאו בתכלית השנאה" ("he hates with an absolute hatred"). For him there is nothing left to nullify and nothing left to change, since the thing is already utterly nullified in him, and he hates the very concept of sitra achra. It is comparable to a person placed in a room full of filth whose stench is unbearable, who simply cannot remain anywhere in that vicinity. So too the complete tzaddik cannot bear to look at something that is not holiness, or even to think about it.
It is worth emphasizing that this entire discussion is on the inner level alone, the level of soul and feeling. As for the practical observance of mitzvos, one who is lacking in mitzvos that he does not fulfill is called a rasha, and he is called neither a beinoni nor a tzaddik. When we say "tzaddik," it is self-understood that on the side of the positive commandments he fulfills everything, and on the side of the prohibitions he fails in nothing; that level is complete in him and it is not what we are dealing with now. And it is understood that love of Hashem leads to everything, and everything leads to love of Hashem.
"מחמת גודל אהבתו לה' וקדושתו" ("because of the greatness of his love for Hashem and His holiness"):
His hatred of the sitra achra flows from the greatness of his love for the Creator and from his love of holiness. There are several ways to understand the word "וקדושתו" ("and His holiness"), whether it refers to the tzaddik or to the Holy One, and in the simple reading it refers to the Holy One. This love is "באהבה רבה בתענוגים" ("with an abundant love of delight"), the love we spoke about in the previous lesson, a love like water, which indicates that his entire nefesh habahamis is already on the G-dly side, "וחיבה יתרה נודעת לו" ("and an extra measure of affection is made known to him"), as we learned in chapter 9.
There is no vacuum in the soul:
The faculties of the soul operate in such a way that no empty space is left in them. If a person is lacking even one percent of the maximum love for G-dliness, that one percent gets filled with love for evil. And when this love is exceedingly slight, it is not felt at all, as though it did not exist.
An illustration of this, which the Alter Rebbe will bring later on: a drop of milk that fell into a large pot of meat soup. Meat and milk together are forbidden, but if the soup contains sixty times the volume of the drop that fell in, the drop is nullified in sixty and the dish is permitted, provided that the drop is not discernible (and if it is discernible, obviously it must be removed). Now, the milk is in fact still there; it is only that its taste has been utterly nullified and is no longer felt. So too with the slight evil in the tzaddik who is not complete: it exists, but it is not felt at all.
In summary: In this section we learned that the test of whether the evil has been transformed into good is not a person's own feeling, but the level of his love for Hashem. If it is entirely natural, like a person's love for himself, needing no hisbonenus, that is a sign that even the animal soul has been transformed. We examined the analogy of the bitter water: sweetening with sugar conceals the bitterness, whereas the wood cast into the waters of Marah transformed the very essence of the water, and this is the difference between the tzaddik who is not complete and the complete tzaddik. We saw that the complete tzaddik removes the soiled garments entirely, loathes the pleasures of this world that are not for the service of Hashem, and hates the sitra achra absolutely because of the greatness of his love for Hashem and His holiness. And we also learned that there is no vacuum in the soul: any deficiency in love for G-dliness gets filled with love for evil, and when that love is slight it is nullified like a drop of milk in sixty: present, yet not felt.
In the next section we will deal with the myriad levels that exist between one tzaddik and another, and with the explanation of the gradations in the nullification of evil.