In the previous installment we stopped in the middle of chapter 9 (folio 14a), so let us open with a brief review. The first part of the chapter described where each of the two souls is located in a person's body: the heart has two chambers, a left chamber filled with blood and a right chamber that contains no blood. The right chamber is the dwelling place of the nefesh ha'elokis (the divine soul), and the left chamber is the dwelling place of the nefesh habahamis (the animal soul). We also learned that the divine soul has an additional place of residence: the brain in the head.
"Ul'om mil'om ye'ematz":
From here the Alter Rebbe moves to the main body of the chapter, which opens with the phrase "ul'om mil'om ye'ematz," "and one nation will overpower the other." This describes the war being waged between the two souls at every moment, every second, throughout a person's entire life: who will rule the "small city," which is the body (in the language of the verse and the way our Sages expound it). Each of the two souls seeks total control. The entire chapter, until its conclusion, presents the case of the divine soul: what it desires, and what it would want to happen in the soul and in the body of the Jew.
Chefetz and ratzon:
The divine soul has a "chefetz veratzon," a desire and a will, and both terms are precise: chefetz is the inner will, while ratzon is the outer, external will. At the end of the chapter, when the Alter Rebbe speaks about the animal soul, he will say that it has only a ratzon, only an external will, because its inner chefetz is actually that its own request not be fulfilled. We will explain that, please G-d, further on.
The desire and will of the divine soul is to be the sole ruler of the entire system. In general terms we have already learned the stages by which it wants the body to follow it: at first against the body's will and not willingly, until the body reaches the level of a chariot, completely subordinated to it in total bittul. Now the Alter Rebbe goes on to spell out the details.
The system of the soul is built on two planes:
The inner faculties: mind and heart.
The faculties of expression: thought, speech and action.
The divine soul wants to rule over all of them: first to fill the mind, then to act upon the heart and its emotional attributes, fear and love, primarily love of G-d, and finally to penetrate into the executive faculties of thought, speech and deed. Let us follow the process in order.
The three brains in the head:
"Telas mochin sheba'rosh," the three brains in the head. Just as the physical brain has three layers, so too the soul has three faculties: chochmah, binah and daas. The desire of the divine soul is that all three mochin be filled with its own chochmah, binah and daas, that is, that all the powers of the intellect function at full capacity in matters of G-dliness:
Chochmah: "chochmas Hashem," the wisdom of G-d. The flashing power of insight, the sparks that glimmer in a person's mind (as was explained at length in chapter 3), should be occupied with G-dly matters alone.
Binah: "lehisbonen bigdulaso asher ad ein cheker ve'ein sof," to contemplate His greatness, which is unfathomable and infinite. The faculty of contemplation, which enters into the length, breadth and depth of a subject, should be occupied with the greatness of the Creator. And since His greatness is unfathomable and without end, the contemplation of it is likewise without end.
But the goal is not confined to the mind, for the role of the mind is to influence the heart. Chochmah and binah were already compared in earlier chapters to a father and a mother, and from them offspring are born, by way of daas. A person who understands something is not always moved by it or aroused with the appropriate emotion; that arousal depends on the moach hadaas, the faculty of connection and attachment to the subject, a person's caring about it, as we discussed at length in earlier chapters. The offspring born of daas are the middos, the emotions of the heart.
From the mind to the heart: yirah and pachad:
In the Tanya the emotions of the heart are included in the two central middos that are the root of them all, chesed and gevurah, called here in this chapter love and fear. Both of them are born out of the contemplation that preceded them in the mind.
First, fear: "yirah bemocho ufachad Hashem belibo," awe in his mind and dread of G-d in his heart. The difference between yirah and pachad is stated explicitly in Rashi on the Torah: yirah is felt toward something distant, pachad toward something close. Pachad is a tangible sensation, a trembling before something that is right there next to the person; yirah is an apprehension in the mind, regarding something that is still far away and exists only in one's awareness. Therefore, at the first stage, when the approach to the greatness of the Creator is still an approach to something distant, the contemplation produces yirah in the mind. Later, when it penetrates more deeply, that very same fear descends into the heart and becomes "pachad Hashem belibo" - the same line, but at a far greater depth.
Ahavas Hashem: like fire and like water:
Now to the other side, which we will dwell on at greater length. The divine soul wants the contemplation to give birth in the Jew to ahavas Hashem, love of G-d: that he love the Creator, the Torah, the mitzvos and holiness. This love has levels, and here the Alter Rebbe mentions two: love like fire and love like water. Love like fire is the lower level and love like water is the higher one; further on we will explain the difference between them and why they are given these names.
The ultimate purpose of this love is that it penetrate not only the divine side of the person, but also the nefesh habahamis, the animal side of him. One arrives at that completeness in stages: from love like fire to love like water.
"Nichsefah vegam kalsah nafshi":
The Alter Rebbe first describes the lower level: love of G-d "ke'esh bo'arah belibo," like a fire blazing in his heart, "kirishpei shalheves," like flashes of flame - like a flame throwing off sparks and embers, in the language of the verse. And what does this love seek? "Lihiyos nichsefah vegam kalsah nafsho," that his soul yearn and even be consumed. Kisufin means longing and love, as in the verse "ki nichsof nichsafti," "for I longed intensely": a powerful desire, a deep and strong inner love to be joined with G-dliness. And higher than that: "vegam kalsah nafsho," "and his soul is even consumed." This theme is discussed at length in the Alter Rebbe's first maamar on Shir Hashirim.
To sum up: in this installment we reviewed where the two souls are located in the body and the constant war between them over the "small city," and then moved on to the details of the divine soul's desire and will to rule the entire system: first the three mochin - chochmah occupied with chochmas Hashem, binah contemplating His greatness which is unfathomable and infinite, and daas which brings forth offspring from them; from there to the heart - "yirah bemocho ufachad Hashem belibo" and ahavas Hashem on its two levels, love like fire and love like water; and finally to thought, speech and action. We began to explain the love that is "like a blazing fire" and "like flashes of flame," whose aim is "nichsefah vegam kalsah nafsho."
In the next installment we will go deeper into the meaning of "vegam kalsah nafshi," into the difference between love like fire and love like water, and into the way each of them works within a person.