In the previous section we worked through the Alter Rebbe's mashal, the parable. Now we come to the nimshal, the thing being compared. Here he goes into great detail, from this point almost to the end of the chapter, describing what the nefesh haElokis wants: what its goals are and how it sets out to achieve them. The nefesh habahamis, by contrast, gets a few words and no more: it wants "the very opposite".
Why doesn't he spell out the animal side? First, when you elaborate, elaborate on the positive. Second, once you know one side thoroughly you can describe the opposing side precisely. Someone once asked how the Alter Rebbe knows how to describe in Tanya the feelings and desires of a rasha. The answer is that it is enough that he knows the yetzer tov intimately, and from there he knows exactly what the other side wants, since its will is the very opposite. And although it is the yetzer hara that rules first, so that one might have expected him to open with the stronger of the two, the Alter Rebbe wants to hand us a practical recipe: the student should have a clear direction and know what is being asked of him. The animal side will do its part on its own; it needs no instruction from us.
The two nefashos fighting over the body:
The Alter Rebbe writes: "שתי הנפשות הללו נלחמות זו עם זו על הגוף וכל איבריו", "these two nefashos wage war with one another over the body and all its limbs." On one side, the nefesh haElokis; on the other, the nefesh hachiyunis habahamis that comes from kelipah. Notice the labels: the first is called simply by its name, while the second gets a string of descriptions, the vitalizing one, the animal one, the one from kelipah.
First the Alter Rebbe sets out the goals, and only afterwards the plan of action. The goals of the nefesh haElokis are listed in seven stages, each one higher than the one before, since you cannot jump straight to the final station:
"שתהיה היא לבדה המושלת עליו", "that it alone should rule over it." This is rule against the body's will. At the start the body is not willing at all, and it has to be forced like an ox refusing the yoke: even when a person neither understands nor feels anything, he gets up for Krias Shema, puts on tefillin and gives tzedakah because that is what is demanded of him. This is the conquest we spoke about earlier.
"ומנהיגתו", "and lead it." Like a guide leading a traveler: the traveler is not dragged along blindly, he follows instructions that make sense to him. So too the limbs listen to the nefesh haElokis in those mitzvos whose reason is understood and reasonable to the mind.
"וכל האיברים סרים למשמעתה", "and all the limbs obey its command." Discipline means obedience even where there is no understanding, and not only in matters that are grasped and sit well on the heart.
"ובטלים אליה לגמרי", "and are utterly batel to it." Until now a person set aside his own will before Hashem's will by forcing himself. At this stage he trains himself to want it on his own, and he gets up in the morning not only because he must, but because he also wants to.
"ונעשים לה מרכבה", "and become a chariot for it." This is the difference between riding a horse and driving a car. A horse has a will of its own, and its owner has to steer it with the reins or tempt it with food to get it going in the desired direction. A car has no will at all; wherever the driver wants to go, that is where it goes. This is a lofty level of bittul, and it is generally said of the Avos, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
"ויהיו לבוש לעשר בחינותיה וג' לבושיה", "and they will be a garment for its ten faculties and three garments." The vitality and the inner powers flowing through the limbs become a garment for the intellect and the emotions of the nefesh haElokis. This is a far more inward bittul.
"שיתלבשו כולם באיברי הגוף ויהא הגוף כולו מלא מהם לבדם ולא יעבור זר בתוכם חס ושלום", "that they should all be clothed in the limbs of the body, and the entire body be filled with them alone, and no stranger pass through them, G-d forbid." It should not be partial but in the whole body and at every moment, and no "stranger", meaning the nefesh habahamis and the yetzer hara, should pass through it even for a single moment.
In chapters 21 to 23 we will learn, with Hashem's help, the distinction between the limbs themselves and the vitality within them: the limb itself, which is a mere technical instrument, becomes a chariot. A precise example of this is well known from the verses of the Akeidah: "וישלח אברהם את ידו ויקח את המאכלת לשחוט את בנו", "and Avraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son." On the face of it, the three words "and Avraham stretched out his hand" are unnecessary, since obviously he took the knife with his hand and not with his mouth or his feet. But Avraham's physical body was batel, a chariot for the Divine will, and the true will of the Holy One was that he not slaughter his son. That is why his hand did not move on its own, and Avraham, who for his part passed the test, had to struggle with his own body, as it were, and stretch out his hand by force. That is the level of merkavah, chariot, and it is said about the physical limb.
One might ask who actually reached these levels. But we are not studying about other people, we are studying about ourselves, and we need to know what the goal is. In daily life a person may be at the first stage one moment and at a higher stage the next, and the reverse as well. The war is being fought every single moment, every second, and a person rises and falls in his levels. Still, this is the direction and this is the objective: the conquest of the entire body by the nefesh haElokis, fully, at the highest level, with no concessions and with no interruption.
From here to the plan of action:
How do you get to the goal? The Alter Rebbe opens: "דהיינו שתלת מוחין שבראש יהיו ממולאים מחב"ד שבנפש האלוקית", "that the three mochin in the head should be filled with the ChaBaD of the nefesh haElokis." The road begins in the head: the three mochin, chochmah, binah and daas, should be filled with the chochmah, the binah and the daas of the nefesh haElokis. In practice this means learning chassidus and the inner dimension of Torah, so that the head is filled with the Torah of Hashem and the nefesh haElokis is active in it.
There is a well known saying that an empty place breeds vermin, and Chazal say the same on the verse "and the pit was empty, there was no water in it": water there was not, but snakes and scorpions there were. There is no vacuum. When the head empties out of the chochmah, binah and daas of the nefesh haElokis, nonsense moves straight in. So whoever does not want empty things filling his head has to keep filling it, constantly, with the ChaBaD of the nefesh haElokis.
"To contemplate His greatness, which is unfathomable and infinite":
The Alter Rebbe is not satisfied with a general directive. He specifies that the chochmah and binah with which one is to fill the mind are "חכמת ה' ובינתו, להתבונן בגדולתו אשר עד אין חקר ואין סוף", "the chochmah of Hashem and His binah, to contemplate His greatness, which is unfathomable and infinite." How does one contemplate the greatness of Hashem? Through learning: the maamarim of chassidus deal precisely with the levels and the themes of the Creator's greatness. Davening is built the same way. Pesukei DeZimrah is all hisbonenus, contemplation, serving as the introduction that brings a person to "v'ahavta". The trouble is that you cannot understand what is being said there without learning the explanations on those very verses.
The contemplation is meant to produce a result: "להוליד מהן על ידי הדעת", "to give birth from them, by means of daas." As we learned in chapter 3, daas means connection. A person is not learning the way someone sits in a university and studies interesting material for one piece of research or another. He is learning as one who understands that this is about his own soul, he exerts himself over it and binds himself to it. Learning like that gives birth to feeling.
And what feeling is born? "יראה במוחו ופחד ה' בליבו", "yirah in his mind and fear of Hashem in his heart." First yirah in the mind, then fear in the heart. We dwelt on this at length in chapter 3 as well: yirah is said about something distant, while pachad, fear, is said about something tangible and close. A person who knows about something coming in the distant future has yirah in his mind; when he sees it drawing near, the feeling becomes a far more tangible fear. It is with the feeling of yirah that one begins.
And afterwards, "ואהבת ה' כאש בוערה בליבו", "and love of Hashem like a fire burning in his heart." Why start with yirah and only then come to love? As we have discussed, love is an expression of closeness, while yirah is an expression of distance and of honor. A person cannot leap straight into love and feel close. First he has to feel how small and how distant he is, how infinite the Creator is and how he himself is nothing at all, and out of that yirah is aroused. Afterwards, when he grasps that the Divine Infinite has given him an opportunity to connect to Him through Torah and mitzvos, a feeling of closeness and love awakens in him. This is the standard order in avodah, and the same is brought regarding the education of women and children, that one first teaches them out of yirah and moves from there to love. The foundation of all this is stated explicitly in chapter 41, that yirah is "the beginning of avodah, its essence and its root", and that is where one starts.
Two levels in love:
Love like fire: fire rises from below upward. This is a love that a person arouses within himself, lifting himself up in longing, yearning and anticipation for Elokus.
Love like water: water seeps from above downward. This is a higher level, in which the Creator in His mercy shines upon a person a revelation of closeness from Above. Both levels are explained in the lines that follow.
Here we are dealing with the first level: "ואהבת ה' כאש בוערה בליבו כרשפי שלהבת, להיות נכספה וגם כלתה נפשו... וחשיקה וחפיצה לדבקה בו באין סוף ברוך הוא", "and love of Hashem like a fire burning in his heart, like flashes of flame, so that his soul yearns and even pines... desiring and craving to cleave to Him, to the Infinite One, blessed be He." A flame with its sparks, longing and yearning to the point of the soul expiring. Every expression here is another level upon a level, and the peak of it belongs to rare madreigos. But since the Alter Rebbe wrote it in Tanya, it falls to every single person to arouse in his heart some point of it, at whatever level he can.
The mashpia Rabbi Sholom Chaim Kesselman used to speak to the bochurim with great feeling about the obligation to awaken a love for Elokus. He would say to them: is love for Elokus reserved for tzaddikim alone? The Alter Rebbe speaks in many maamarim in Torah Or and Likkutei Torah about love for Elokus, and those sefarim were printed for chassidim, not for tzaddikim. And he added: a person who gets up in the morning and puts on tefillin with no feeling at all, not out of love but only because that is what one has to do, is like someone who puts on tefillin every morning in order to measure whether his head grew overnight, and every morning he measures and discovers that the size has stayed the same. For putting on tefillin not to be a matter of head measuring, it has to be done with feeling, with love and with closeness. Everyone has a share in this at his own level: let him awaken in himself some anticipation, some desire, some yearning.
The Alter Rebbe continues: "בכל ליבו ונפשו ומאודו", "with all his heart, his soul and his might," echoing the words of Krias Shema, "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." And he stresses that the love should come "מעומקא דליבא", from the depth of the heart, the right chamber, which is the dwelling place of the nefesh haElokis. In what manner? "תוכו רצוף אהבה", "its interior inlaid with love," the phrase from Shir HaShirim, related to the word for a floor: first the whole floor fills up with love, then it is full, and finally it is overflowing. And once the right chamber is overflowing, the love naturally spills outward, spreading into the left chamber as well and acting upon it too.
To sum up: in this section we learned the nimshal of chapter 9. The two nefashos are at war over the body and all its limbs, and the Alter Rebbe details the goals of the nefesh haElokis in seven stages: from rule against the body's will, through leading it, obedience, bittul and willingness, up to the limbs becoming a chariot and a garment, so that the entire body is filled with them alone and no stranger passes through it. Then we looked at the plan of action: filling the three mochin with the chochmah, binah and daas of the nefesh haElokis, contemplating the unfathomable greatness of Hashem, giving birth through daas to yirah in the mind and fear in the heart, and from them to a love like flashes of fire from the depth of the heart, until it overflows and spreads even into the left chamber.
In the next section we will pick up from this point in the Alter Rebbe's words, and look at how the love spreads from the right chamber into the left chamber, and at the continuation of the nimshal.