Room two hundred and eleven in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Shabbos Kodesh, 23 Sivan 5703.
This Shabbos is Shabbos Mevarchim of the month of Tammuz. Before the teaching and the study sessions, the Rebbe writes: "Mevarchim Rosh Chodesh Tammuz. Recital of the entire Tehillim early in the morning. A day of farbrengen" - these are the customs that the Rebbe repeats again and again on every Shabbos Mevarchim.
Study sessions: Chumash - on Shabbos we conclude the parshah of the week, Shlach, Shvi'i with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim - 23rd of the month, from chapter 108 to chapter 110 inclusive.
Tanya - we continue chapter 7 in "Shaar Yichud Vehaemunah". The daily study session begins with the words "Vehineh k'mo shekasuv" on page 164, and concludes on page 83 with the words "mehaRamak, zichrono livrachah".
The source of the daily teaching is a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on this date, 23 Sivan 5697, six years before 5703. In this letter, which is very long and interesting, there is a fascinating description where the Rebbe Rashab recounts an event from the life of his father, the Rebbe Maharash. He describes a certain year: it was on Tuesday, parshas Vayeshev, 19 Kislev. His father delivered a Maamar chassidus, beginning with the words "Padah B'Shalom Nafshi", and along with it, he told two very special stories.
Afterwards, on Shabbos parshas Vayeshev, his father, the Rebbe Maharash, delivered another Maamar chassidus, beginning with "Vayeshev Yaakov". He describes how there were chassidim whose entire review and contemplation of the matters was focused only on the Maamarim, whereas one chassid paid careful attention and delved deeply into the stories that the Rebbe Maharash told as well.
The Rebbe Rashab says about himself that he connected very deeply to what his father said on 19 Kislev - to the Maamar "Padah B'Shalom" and the two stories - and he thought about them again and again. He was so immersed in the Maamar and the stories that he could not find the time to contemplate the second Maamar of Shabbos, parshas Vayeshev.
Then he suddenly remembered something his father once told him - and this will be the daily teaching - and this caused him mental anguish: Who says that his being immersed in the Maamar "Padah B'Shalom" and the stories comes from the Nefesh Elokis? Perhaps since it causes him not to delve into the second Maamar of "Vayeshev Yaakov", it all comes from the Nefesh Habehamis? And what triggered this bothersome thought? It was because he remembered something his father once told him. And here comes the "bombshell", which is the daily teaching.
And so he says: "The response of my grandfather [the Rebbe Maharash] to my father [the Rebbe Rashab] in yechidus during the winter of 5635". The Rebbe Rashab was in yechidus with his father, and during that yechidus he told him: "The yetzer hara is called the Nefesh Habehamis". As is known, in Tanya and in chassidus in general, the yetzer hara is referred to as the "Nefesh Habehamis".
The Rebbe Maharash explains: "Not because it is necessarily an animal [behemah]" - when saying "Nefesh Habehamis" it implies a "behemah", and usually "behemah" is a term for someone who understands nothing, something very lowly; but the Nefesh Habehamis is not called "behamis" because it is an animal in the foolish sense. "For sometimes it is a fox, the cleverest of beasts, and one needs tremendous wisdom to figure out its schemes" - sometimes the Nefesh Habehamis acts towards the Jew with great wisdom and profound cleverness, like the fox, and its schemes are so sophisticated that the Jew must be very wise to recognize that it is the Nefesh Habehamis operating here, and not the Nefesh Elokis.
"And sometimes it clothes itself in the garb of an earnest tzaddik, humble and possessing fine character traits" - sometimes, in order to succeed in its missions, the Nefesh Habehamis presents its arguments to do this or that as if they come from lofty and holy places: from righteousness, from earnestness, from humility or from fine character traits.
"In every individual, his Nefesh Habehamis accords with his particular character" - the Nefesh Habehamis knows how to catch each person according to his character. If it is a person of a high caliber, a godly and elevated person, the Nefesh Habehamis will not approach him with a temptation for a gross sin, because that does not speak to him; it tries to catch such a person with things that appear to be righteousness, earnestness, and the like.
He brings an example: "Sometimes one is aroused with a great desire to study chassidus" - sometimes a desire awakens within a person to sit down and open a sefer of Maamarim to study chassidus, "or to meditate deeply on some intellectual concept" or on a deep matter in chassidus. And all this occurred to the Rebbe Rashab because he himself was engaged at that moment with the thought that perhaps this was happening to him. But in truth, the father tells his son, "But in truth this is just a bit of the yetzer" - the very fact that the yetzer hara is telling you now to open, study, and recite chassidus, or to meditate on a concept of chassidus, is the work of the yetzer hara "and it is one of the schemes of the Nefesh Habehamis to prevent one from the avodah of davening, and so on".
And what is the goal of the Nefesh Habehamis? What does it gain by giving you the urge to study chassidus or to meditate on a godly concept? The goal is to prevent you from the avodah of davening. It does not want you to daven now and be properly immersed in prayer, so it prefers that you study a deep matter in chassidus - as long as you do not daven. From its perspective, it is making a "sacrifice", as it were: it is willing to push you towards a godly pursuit, but it has an ulterior motive in doing so - to make you fail in what is required of you right now.
How, then, can a person truly know where this arousal comes from - whether from the holy side or from the animalistic side? To this, the father tells him: "Take this rule in your hand" - I will give you a rule, by which you will always be able to identify where the soul's movement comes from - "and remember it always". "For regarding any thing that is beneficial or leads to actual avodah", when you are faced with a task to accomplish something beneficial, or a task meant to move you towards actual, practical avodah - "any hindrance whatsoever to this thing", anything that interrupts you from the beneficial thing and the actual avodah, no matter what the interrupter's argument is, "even if the hindrance is by way of the most lofty thing" and from an apparently high source (as in the previous example, where you need to daven and you are filled with a desire to study chassidus, and it seems to you that it comes from a high place, but in practice it hinders you from what you must do right now) - "is nothing but the schemes of the Nefesh Habehamis". You should know that the Nefesh Habehamis is operating on you now, and these are its schemes; and once you know this rule, you will always be able to recognize where the soul's movement originates.
"And my father [the Rebbe Rashab], whose soul is in Eden, concluded" - after the Rebbe Rashab recalled the novel insight he heard from his father in the winter of 5635, he adds another sentence in the letter. He says: Until then, I knew that the yetzer hara and the Nefesh Habehamis only seek to incite a person to bad things; I always thought that the Nefesh Habehamis is all about sins. But now a new concept was revealed to me, which I did not know until my father told me - "Until then I did not know that there could be a 'religious' Nefesh Habehamis, let alone a 'chassidic' one"...
The Rebbe Rayatz continues, in writing about this topic, and adds a teaching in the name of the Alter Rebbe, expressing the exact same idea: It is known what the Alter Rebbe said, that the wicked Esav was dressed in a silk sirtuk. Esav was wicked, yet dressed in a silk sirtuk - the garment that chassidim wear on Shabbos. That is to say, the external appearance that looks like something chassidic does not in any way testify to the internal motives beneath the surface.
And the connection of the daily teaching to the continuing cycle in Rambam. We are currently in Sefer Taharah, and the daily teaching fits the topic of the laws of other primary sources of impurity. There it discusses at length that the animal defiles - the carcass of an animal defiles through contact and carrying, with all its details, akin to the "Nefesh Habehamis". The animal has all kinds of forms in which it comes to defile you; and once you know how to identify it, you will know to flee from it and not fall into its trap.