In the previous section we studied the roots of evil in the soul, and how the negative middos are grounded in the four elements of the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul. Here we go deeper: how each particular middah grows out of one particular element, and what the inner connection is between an element and the trait that emerges from it.
Boasting versus arrogance:
There is a fine point here that calls for explanation. When the Alter Rebbe spoke of the element of fire, he gave arrogance as an example of a trait born from it; when he speaks of the element of air, he gives boasting as the example. At first glance the two belong to the same family. Why, then, is arrogance assigned to fire and boasting to air?
The difference is really quite simple:
Arrogance: a person is proud of something real that he actually possesses: fine qualities, considerable wealth, a genuine talent. The thing itself exists; it is his pride in it that is the bad middah.
Boasting: a person makes much of nothing at all. "I have this and I have that", and in the end it turns out he has nothing. It is pure air, with no substance in it whatsoever.
The element of earth: laziness and sadness:
That leaves the last of the four elements, the element of earth. The Alter Rebbe writes: "ועצלות ועצבות - מיסוד העפר" ("and laziness and sadness come from the element of earth"). The connection is easy to grasp: a sad person is in a state of falling and descent, and the lazy person likewise does not move from his place. Both traits are bound up with the downward pull of earth.
Here an interesting point emerges. In Iggeres HaKodesh, near the very end of the Tanya, we learned that of the four elements the primary one is earth. Everything came from the earth to begin with, and when you separate out the combination of elements in any object, the element that remains is earth. Burn something and what is finally left is ash, which is of the element of earth, in a very small quantity, after the air, water and fire have separated from it. Earth is the substantial, primary element.
The element of earth in spiritual terms:
The substantiality of the element of earth shows itself in the spiritual realm as well, and first of all on the side of kedushah, holiness, for the four elements that exist on the negative side exist on the side of holiness too. In davening we say: "ונפשי כעפר לכל תהיה" ("and let my soul be like dust to all"). Earth is bittul, self-nullification, humility and modesty, and it turns out that the foundation and defining quality of holiness is bittul. This is precisely the difference between kedushah and klipah: klipah is self-existence, a sense of "I am"; kedushah is bittul. That is why in holiness there is unity, inclusion of one thing within another, a merging together: bittul is what makes it possible for things to blend with one another. Every good middah and every branch of holiness, when you trace it to its root, comes from bittul, so that the foundation of all the good middos of holiness is earth.
And the same holds on the negative side. Medical research tells us that depression and sadness stand today at the top of the ladder of this generation's problems, after heart disease and the other illnesses that rank high. And why should that be? As the Tanya explains, when the yetzer hara and the nefesh habahamis set out to bring a person down, and especially at the end of the time of exile, when the klipah is approaching its end and fighting with all its strength, their ability to topple him in every bad middah, in every desire, in every fall, comes from sadness. A person sunk in sadness has the door open before him to every descent and every fall; a person filled with simchah, joy, can overcome anything at all. Sadness is the root of evil, and everything else follows from it. So, just as in the physical world earth is the most basic element from which all the rest come, so too in the spiritual world: the sadness that comes from the element of earth is the most basic point of all.
Two defining features of the soul that comes from klipah:
Let us sum up what is being taught here. The Alter Rebbe is describing what characterizes the soul that comes from the side of klipah:
The first feature (which we learned in the previous section): it clothes itself in the person's blood.
The second feature: the bad middos come from it, for the entire drive of this soul is to produce bad middos.
This soul is found in every person, but it need not be active in everyone in the same way. There are stages: it is possible that a person will have bad middos, possible that he will have some of them, and possible that he will work on himself and have none of them at all. But the nefesh habahamis in and of itself, if it is left to bear its natural fruit, produces bad middos, because that is what it is capable of growing.
"And also the good middos that are in the nature of every Jew from birth":
Since we are speaking of a Jew, and as the Alter Rebbe opens by quoting Rabbi Chaim Vital, we are speaking of every single Jew, this soul that comes from the side of klipah does not give birth only to bad middos, but to good ones as well. As will be explained in the lines that follow, the source of this soul in a Jew is klipas nogah, which contains both good and evil: from its evil side come bad middos, and from its good side come good middos.
The Alter Rebbe writes: "וגם מידות טובות שבטבע כל ישראל בתולדותם" ("and also the good middos that are in the nature of every Jew from birth"), and immediately gives an example: "כמו רחמנות וגמילות חסדים" ("such as compassion and acts of kindness"). These good traits too, the ones found in a Jew's very nature, come from it, from the nefesh habahamis. When you see a Jew who is compassionate and does kindness, you cannot conclude that his nefesh haElokis is what is at work in him. It is entirely possible that the nefesh haElokis has not yet begun to operate at all, and only the animal soul is functioning. The animal soul of a Jew, just as it can produce bad middos, produces good middos as well, because its nature yields good too.
And why is that? Because in a Jew "נפש זו דקליפה" ("this soul of klipah"), the soul that comes from klipah, is from klipas nogah. This will be explained at much greater length in chapters six and seven, where we will study the three impure klipos and klipas nogah. The difference between them: the three impure klipos are impure and evil with no good in them at all, absolute evil; klipas nogah, by contrast, has nogah in it, that is, light. It is a klipah, but a klipah that has a glow within it.
You can see this physically as well, in the peel of a fruit. Some peels are edible, and with the right preparation and processing can be eaten, and some peels are not to be eaten at all and are meant to be thrown away. It is the same spiritually: the klipah that conceals holiness is, in a Jew, from klipas nogah, which contains good as well, "והיא מסוד עץ הדעת טוב ורע" ("and it is from the secret of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil"). The Jew's klipah has good in it and has evil in it.
One further point on this. In Adam HaRishon, before the sin, there was no klipah at all. He was pure, and nevertheless he sinned; something brought him to sin even though there was no klipah in him. The Holy One created klipah in the world in a fixed measure and wanted it to remain that way, and every sin a person commits gives it added strength and intensifies it.
The source for the good middos in the nature of a Jew:
Where do we learn that a Jew has good middos by nature? The Gemara relates the story of King David and the Givonim, whom David refused to accept. The Givonim demanded that seven men of the family of Shaul be handed over to them, to avenge the death of their people whom he had killed. King David tried for a long time to soften the matter, and they refused under any circumstances to be appeased. Said King David: the Givonim are not fit to be joined to the Jewish people.
Why? Because there are three signs that mark this nation: "רחמנים, ביישנים וגומלי חסדים" ("merciful, bashful and doers of kindness"), the well known acronym gimmel, beis, reish: gimmel for gomlei chassadim, beis for bayshanim, reish for rachmanim. The Gemara brings a verse as a source for each of the three signs, and concludes that whoever has these three signs is fit to be joined to this nation; and since no compassion was to be seen in the Givonim, they are therefore not fit to be joined to Israel.
To sum up: in this section we learned how each middah flows from a particular element. Boasting comes from the element of air, as against arrogance which comes from fire, the difference being that arrogance is over something real while boasting is over something empty. Laziness and sadness come from the element of earth, which is the most basic and most substantial element, corresponding in kedushah to bittul and in klipah to the root of every fall. We also saw that the nefesh habahamis gives birth to bad middos, but in a Jew, because it is from klipas nogah which contains good and evil, it gives birth as well to natural good middos such as compassion and acts of kindness, and we brought a source for this from the story of King David and the Givonim.
In the next section we will turn to the souls of the chassidei umos haolam, the righteous among the nations: how the soul of a non Jew differs from the soul of a Jew, and how good middos can be found among the nations of the world as well, but from an entirely different source.