m016 012 Kislev 30 ~ Teves 4 (pt1)
Because of the difference in the calendar between a regular and a leap year, we have two thoughts for today’s Tanya
Questions for today:
Every act that I do can be; a way to behave in a G-dly way, and a connection to/relationship with G-d. How deeply can we connect?
Study today’s tanya in full:
https://www.chabadmed.com/dailystudy/tanya.asp?tdate=12/8/2021
See today’s video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NF2ypILbUQ&list=PLFZQPK6u -zSBls9Hwx3P5vKI_BRnjBvHe&index=12
Today’s Tanya Thought (pt 1):
Who would you give your social security number to?
You would become very vulnerable. Anyone with it would have access to your credit, they could take out a loan.
There are certain things that are much more intimate than that. There are certain things that if we share with somebody, they ‘have us’. We become so vulnerable, they could destroy us.
They can embarrass us with that information, make us cry – or, used differently it could be used to make us stop crying.
Elijah the prophet says “lais machashava tfisa bei” “we cannot grasp G-d”.
The Tanya teaches us that this is the case naturally, however, G-d did give us a method with which we could grasp G-d. When G-d gave the Torah, G-d wasn't only ‘teaching us ideas’, G-d put G-d's very self into the Torah, and handed it to us.
This means that when we are grappling with an idea in the Torah and it is surrounding our minds, we're being surrounded by G-d. When we get the idea and our mind ‘grasps it’ we are ‘grasping G-d’.
When we do this, we are completely enveloped by it, and we envelop it completely - and embrace such that there is nothing like this anywhere else in the world.