M017 014 Teves 2 ~ Teves 5
Questions for Today:
Where does my selfish drive come from?
How do I define good and bad?
Study today’s Tanya in full:
https://www.chabadmed.com/dailystudy/tanya.asp?tdate=12/9/2021
See Today’s video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKEqDVIf-p0&list=PLFZQPK6u-zSBls9Hwx3P5vKI_BRnjBvHe&index=14
Today’s Tanya Thought:
Today the Tanya introduces balance.
Everything that we learned before about the intelligence and emotions of the soul pulling us towards the Creator has an equal and opposite power pulling us selfishly for ourselves.
It’s interesting because you can see that every single person, rich or poor, always has a balance when they wake up between an opportunity to do good, or bad.
This concept of good or bad, how do we define it?
A comedian says that when you have children, it’s very easy to go on a luxurious vacation - all you need to do is anything at all without your kids.
It sounds funny regarding kids, but regarding a relationship, it’s very true.
What is a romantic part of relationship? Anything you do with your spouse. What is harmful in a relationship? Anything that you do that ignores your spouse.
With regards to the Creator; ‘good’ is anything that we do that is humbly appreciative of the fact that we are created. And ‘bad’ is anything that we do ignoring the privilege and responsibility that was given to us with Creation.
Additional thoughts:
When we described how the G-dly soul has intellect which then gives birth to emotion, we first mention the intellect and then emotion.
Over here where we describe the animal soul, we first mention the emotion and then we say that it comes from the intellect of the animal soul.
This change in order is because even though the G-dly and the animal soul are equal and parallel, their core focus is different.
The G-dly soul is primarily intellectual, and the intellect then gives birth to emotion. The animal soul is primarily emotional, and the intellect is then discussed as the source.
When studying the G-dly soul we discussed the 'clothing' of the soul, the thought, speech, and action. We learned then that while less 'spiritual', these are actually closer to G-d than the soul's components on their own.
The same is true here. A person 'thinking' a negative thought is pulled lower than the animalistic element of the soul where the thought is coming from.