m027 023 Teves 11 ~ 15
Questions for today:
How can I tell if somewhere within me, I am ok with another love?
You could love your health more than you like a cookie, or you could truly love your health.
What's the difference?
If you love your health more than you like a cookie, you might not even be tempted to cheat and eat the cookie, but it's a good cookie.
If you truly love your health, you look at the cookie and you say “I know what you do to people, you're revolting”
in the beginning of the Tanya it speaks about five different types of people.
In the middle is a type of person that's tempted by bad. They never do or even think about doing bad, but it's a daily struggle.
Above that is a [basic] ‘righteous person’: someone who's not even tempted to do bad because they love G-d so much, but in another situation the bad might be enticing.
Highest, is a ‘truly righteous person’: Someone that expresses their oneness with the Creator so much that even their animal soul - their yearning and desire - is ‘only’ for the Creator.
They look at anything that's a selfish deterrent to the Creator, and they feel “this is revolting”.
Study today’s Tanya in full:
https://www.chabadmed.com/dailystudy/tanya.asp?tdate=12/19/2021
See today’s video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T29gmT3ztPA&list=PLFZQPK6u-zSBls9Hwx3P5vKI_BRnjBvHe&index=23
Additional thoughts:
In the opening chapter of the Tanya we brought together several sources from the Talmud and the Zohar that spelled out five different states of living as a Jew; fully righteous, righteous, intermediate, wicked, fully wicked.
In the intervening eight chapters we described the soul in detail.
We described how there are two souls each of which have ten components, divided into intellect and emotion. we spoke about how each soul has three types of clothing; thought, speech, and action.
We then described where in the body each Soul is headquartered, and how they struggle with each other.
We now circle back with this information to continue to describe the various titles. Now that we know the anatomy of the soul we can understand what each level means in detail.