With God's help we have arrived at chapter 10 of Likutei Amarim. In the earlier chapters we studied at length the two souls, the divine soul and the nefesh habahamis (the animal soul), their respective desires and cravings and the whole world of concerns that each one brings along with it. Chapter 9 then described the war that rages between them, a war that "grows stronger from day to day," in which each side seeks to conquer this "small city," the body, completely. Now that the situation has been mapped out, chapter 10 comes to show how all of this plays itself out in actual practice. Until now we were shown the ideal state toward which the divine soul is striving, and, in a few words, that the animal soul wants precisely the opposite. From here on we will see how things actually unfold.
Chapter 10 deals with the highest levels of all, the levels of tzaddikim. Tzaddikim are those who have succeeded in this war not only on the outer level of thought, speech and action, where they have no failures at all, but on the inner level as well, within the soul itself and in the emotions of the heart. And within that success itself there are different levels.
The order of the coming chapters:
Chapter 10 - the upper extreme: the tzaddik, with all the levels contained within that.
Chapter 11 - the opposite extreme: one who falls into the category of a rasha, who has not succeeded on the inner level and has even failed on the outer level, in thought, speech and action. Here too there are levels.
Chapter 12 - which opens with the word "והבינוני," "and the intermediate person": what the state of the beinoni is and must be, and what the day to day struggle that belongs to it looks like. After all, the Tanya is called "a book for beinonim."
Why do we need to study the levels of tzaddikim?
At first glance this chapter has nothing to do with the ordinary student. It belongs as a shiur for tzaddikim, who should sit and study their own levels. We are speaking about rarities: the average person wrestles every day with thought, speech and action, and barely manages to hold his ground there, while here we are speaking about someone whose success is on the inner level, in transforming the animal within him. What, then, does an ordinary person have to gain from studying levels he has no connection to, where at best he will only manage to understand what is being discussed?
The Alter Rebbe himself was once asked why there is any place for simple people, beinonim and below, to study chapters and topics that pertain to the rare levels of tzaddikim. The Alter Rebbe answered that one of the promises of the Redemption is the prophecy of Yechezkel: "והסירותי את לב האבן מבשרכם," "I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh." The difficulty in changing the inner level comes from the dullness of the heart, from this "heart of stone," and from the partition between the mind and the heart called the "narrow of the throat," which seals things off and prevents what a person knows from penetrating and producing a genuine inner change in the heart. Even when a person understands intellectually and knows exactly how he ought to conduct himself, the barrier remains in place. In the time to come the Holy One will remove that heart of stone, and the soul on the inside will be just as it ought to be. But even then a mind that rules over the heart will still be needed: there will have to be things in a person's mind that can act upon his heart, for if there is nothing in the head, what is there to act upon the heart? That is why we study the concepts and the levels already today, including the very rarest levels of tzaddikim, so that when the time of "I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh" arrives, these things will seep in and act upon the heart.
And there is more. Even before that special state arrives, the study of this chapter will make clear that every single person has some connection to points within these levels, limited and small as that connection may be, even to matters that belong to the greatest tzaddikim. The difference is that tzaddikim, both the complete ones and those who are not complete, live in this state fully or to a very high degree, whereas the ordinary person may only sense it, or be connected to it, by a tiny percentage. This introduction is necessary so that the student will not be filled with frustration at the gap between himself and the subjects discussed here.
A further introduction: the engine and the frame
Let us review an important point we learned in the previous chapter, which is the foundation for understanding what lies ahead: the animal soul has an engine and it has a frame. The engine in and of itself is neither negative nor positive, it is an engine. The problem is that it usually comes clothed in a negative frame. The task of a Jew is to strip away the frame and leave the engine, and not only to leave it but to steer it toward the positive side. When a person does that, he reaches achievements and results that are more successful and better than anything he could accomplish working with the divine soul alone.
Here is an illustration. A sword is a frame that produces killing, and of the time to come it is said "וכיתתו חרבותם לאתים," "they shall beat their swords into plowshares." The instrument receives a different purpose: instead of a sword that kills, it becomes a digging tool with which a person brings food into his home. So too with the animal soul. Its engine is the power of craving, whose entire essence is desire and longing. Normally that engine sits inside a frame of forbidden cravings, and even of permitted cravings that are kelipas nogah, a frame of evil and negativity. The work of a Jew is first to remove the "soiled garments," in the language of the previous chapter, which are the outer frame; and if he merits a more advanced level, the level called tzaddik, even to turn the engine itself into an engine that drives him toward the positive and the good.
The words of the chapter:
The Alter Rebbe opens: "והנה כשהאדם מגביר נפשו האלוקית ונלחם כל כך עם הבהמית עד שמגרש ומבער הרע שבה" - "Now, when a person strengthens his divine soul and wages such a war against the animal soul that he drives out and eradicates the evil within it."
Who is this "person" ("האדם")? On one side stands the divine soul, on the other side the animal soul, and between them stands "the person," whose job it is to strengthen the divine soul and do battle with the animal soul. "The person" is the power of choice, given to every Jew as a divine gift: "ובחרת בחיים," "you shall choose life." This power resides in the level called "adam," which is a name for the intellectual faculty, and in the maamarim of chassidus it is called the nefesh hasichlis, the intellectual soul. Intellect by its nature is objective. It is not tainted toward this side or that side, and it takes things as they are. The divine soul, in its very essence, knows nothing but holiness and good, and has no other line of reasoning whatsoever. The animal soul, when it is clothed in the soiled garments, in a frame that is not good, wants only evil and has no other thoughts. The nefesh hasichlis is therefore the place where a Jew's power of choice comes to light, and it is there that he must decide how to conduct himself in a situation where two souls stand within him.
"מגביר" ("strengthens") - the first stage. As the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos puts it: "Who is mighty? One who conquers his inclination." The yetzer hara is present, it fights and it demands bad things, but the person overpowers it and conquers it. This is the avodah appropriate for the one called a beinoni, who is always at war and always conquering his inclination, and with God's help we will study it at length further on.
"ונלחם כל כך עם הבהמית" ("and wages such a war against the animal soul") - a further stage: not merely overpowering, but genuine warfare in all its stages. Warfare in general comes in two forms: a defensive war, in which a person has to protect himself against an attacker, and an offensive war, in which he takes the initiative and acts so as not to let the other side rise up at all. Here it is not enough to strip away the frame of evil, which goes without saying. The war now touches the engine itself: the power of craving in the animal soul, to turn it around and steer it so that it becomes an engine for the positive and the good.
"עד שמגרש ומבער הרע שבה" ("until he drives out and eradicates the evil within it") - first a person cools off his cravings, so that when negative things and the desires of the world stand before him he is not swept after them but meets them with coolness. And afterward, as we will see further on, he even comes to revulsion and disgust: he hates the evil and is repelled by it. This is inner work, the work of the soul, not a struggle with the technical side of thought, speech and action, and this work unfolds in stages.
To summarize: In this section we saw where chapter 10 fits into the order of the chapters: the upper extreme of the tzaddik, as against chapter 11 which deals with the rasha and chapter 12 which deals with the beinoni. We saw why we study rare levels at all: to prepare the mind and its knowledge for "I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh," and also because every person is connected to points within these levels, even if only to a small degree. We reviewed the foundation learned in the previous chapter regarding the engine and the frame of the animal soul. And we began the words of the chapter itself: "the person" who is the power of choice residing in the nefesh hasichlis, the stage of strengthening, the stage of war, and the beginning of eradicating the evil through cooling off the cravings.
In the next section we will continue with the words of the chapter, and examine the stages in driving out the evil and eradicating it, as well as the various levels among tzaddikim.