Tanya Class 5- Chapter Three

How Our Soul Mirrors God's Image and the Cosmic Order Sarah, Hey, good to see you. So actually, you know, in a, in a, in the coming chapters, we are going to see, we're going to read about, learn about the power of our learning. We're going to learn about the merit of our learning. And so on that note, I, I had somebody reach out who wanted to sponsor a class. And she said she loved to start it as an initiative to, you know, encourage people to sponsor these classes, dedicate these classes that our learning should be in the merit of whatever it is that they choose. And so thank you so much, Hani Berkowitz for reaching out for sponsoring. And she just wanted it to be in the merit of a Gula Shalima, a complete, full redemption. So thank you so much, Hani. You know, ever since I actually started teaching or sharing stuff online, Hani Hani's been a cheerleader. And so I appreciate that she's, she's even, you know, built stages and handed me microphones so that I could share the things that I teach or, you know, with the passion that I, I'm teaching it. And so thank you so much, honey. I appreciate it. And may it indeed be a big slice for you and your family. So I, I want to start with a short little story. It's, it's actually a known Hasidic story. It's about the brother of the rebel Eshab once walked through his office and he walks into the rebel Eshab's room and he's shared with him something exciting that he heard about a new scientific discovery. He told the Reverend A Shot that scientists had found something fascinating about the human mind. And some of you may have heard about this, how when a person lowers their head and looks downward, it helps them think and it helps them analyze. Whereas when a person tilts their head upwards like this, that's what helps a person remember. And indeed, you realize that, you know, you look down to to think, you look up to remember. The Reverend A Shot listen to this. And then he got up and he went to his bookshelf and he showed him that this exact idea had already appeared in a mimer of the Mittel Rabba, which was written about 100 years earlier. And he explained that the Mittel Rabba didn't write this because he was a scientist or because he was a doctor, but because the Rabba had understood the root of everything, that human beings were created in the image of God and therefore what is true of God. And we this this idea, this knowing even just an as an analogy, it must also be reflected as something true for us. So this is how the rebel Rashad knew this information. Now my point ensuring the story is that, you know, when a child is born, we look at the baby, we say, oh, dude, does he look like the father? Does he look like the mother? Right. And what we already know from the story of boracious, we know that God made man in his image. And in this chapter, we are going to be taught how the map of our soul is in God's image. It mirrors the map of God. It mirrors the map of the structure of the universe. Understanding Seder Histalsalus and the Four Worlds of Descent So in in chapter 3, which is what we're up to here, we're talking about the Nephescheli kiss the the godly soul. Like we had said earlier, it's literally a piece of God. Gaelic Alakami Malamish. We talked about this in the last chapter, and now we're going to learn how. How is this soul that is literally a piece of God? How does it mirror God? So we're first going to revisit a point that we made in chapter 2 that I have kind of skimmed over, but it's repeated here again right in the beginning of chapter 3. The altar of is stated there that our soul comes into this world through the Seder histalsalos. The Seder Histalsalos is a very foundational idea in Kabbalah and Hassidis. It's about a chain of worlds. It's this long process of descent through spiritual realms, and I'm going to try to break this down in the simplest terms, OK? The Seder Ishthalzus is essentially how divine energy unfolds from the infinite source high up, how it arrives into this finite reality that we're experiencing. This process, this, the Seder Ishthalzus, this chain of descent is necessary because it allows something infinite. It allows God's infinite light to be experienced as a finite created reality. It allows for the world to exist, this world as we know it to exist in a way that feels independent of God, that we sometimes mistake it as being independent of God, even though at every single moment it is completely sustained by the divine energy that's flowing through it. Now I'm explaining all of this to help to so that we can get to talk about our soul. OK, this unfolding, this is Cedar Stashos. This unfolding happens in four stages. It's known as the four worlds. Again, these are are terms that some of you might be familiar with. The highest world being at Sealas where everything remains clear. And in the world about Sealas, it's still very unified with God, but it's called the world, even though it has no sense of independence. It's, it's really just an emanation. It's a pure expression of the divine. Then it flows into the next World of Bria. And that's the first level where something can be considered created Bria from the word Bria, meaning there's, there's like a a subtle awareness of their of its own existence, even though it's again deeply connected to its source. And again from Bria, Telus Bria, it continues into Yatsira. We're the existence again becoming more defined, more structured. And finally it enters this world of Asia, the world that we live in, where divine energy is so concealed that our reality appears physical, our reality appears separate from God. And again in this seder, in this, in this chain, every level emerges from the one above it. And it creates this unbrokenness flow from the highest revelation where there's the least concealment, to the lowest concealment to the world that we live in. Sorry, the the lowest concealment is there. We live in a place with the highest concealment and therefore the lowest revelation of God. When I say higher and lower, just important. It's not a movement through space, it's a progression through revelation and concealment. The term higher and lower means it's higher in our divine awareness or our divine consciousness. Every single stage of this process is made-up of the same structure, the 10 spheres. Every single one of these from Atilas Tabrieri Atirasiya has within a 10 sphere ice which we're going to learn all about today. The Chahma bina das the, the, the emotional attributes Hessegdura to Ferris, etcetera, till it comes to Malchus, which spills into Kesser of the next World. I, I'm, I'm stating this here briefly again because of the my goal is to use. We are going to have to then see how this is mirrored in our own soul. Why God's Presence is Hidden to Allow for Choice and Relationship Now the art in safe the divine Light, which again is just another name for Hashem's presence. It's present at every stage, but it becomes increasingly filtered and increasingly hidden, eventually allowing for the appearance of this independent existence. Without this process, the the intensity of divine reality would overwhelm everything. Nothing could exist as a separate reality. Imagine like a a candle, and this is an analogy that Jacidis uses. Like a candle inside of the sun or the ray of the sun inside the sun, it doesn't exist. When you walk into a dark room, you're able to see the candle. When you hold the same candle in inside of a bonfire, the candle doesn't exist. We could not possibly have a world as a separate entity if God's light was not filtered and it was not concealed. Again, a simple analogy. Imagine yourself putting on a layer of clothes. At first we could see clearly who you are, right? Then you add a layer and your shape gets hidden. Then you add another layer and you become less recognizable. Nothing about you change under each one of those layers, but how much of you is visible? That's what changes. So this is how Hashem's light gets concealed through these worlds. The further down in this Seder histosis, they're further down in this chain of descent, the more layers there are so to see. But again, the exact same presence is underneath just because we're coming from Pesach. Now this, this, this idea came into my mind. And so I'm sharing here again, an example of how this plays out in reality. In Pesach, we have the story of the splitting of the sea where the entire nature turns on its head, right? You have the typically roaring sea. It stands still and it's it opens up to dry land. How did this happen? To use this idea from Jacidis, how did this happen? The revelation of God's presence did not go through the typical Seder hishthalschalos. In that moment, in order for the nature to be as it is, God's revelation descends, descends, descends, filtered filter, filter until you have a sea. In that moment of Krius Yamsuf, God reveals himself. Without that entire chain of descent, God's light overpowers everything, so the entire natural order is completely suspended and the water splits and there's dry land. So that's just just giving you an example of of how this plays out on a very practical level. How does this affect us? The way that this, the way that this chain of descent affects us is that we sense ourselves as a loan. When we are in a crisis or when we are witnessing a challenge, we completely forget that this too is an expression of God, that this too is for the good, for our good. Why? How do we feel alone in this crisis? Because of the Seder salsos, because of God's concealment, because his presence is so filtered that we're in a situation that looks bad. We're in a situation that seems devoid of God. We're in a situation where we sense ourselves as alone, where we do not feel ourselves held by God's presence. And this is, this is the whole point though, but this is, this is a topic for another day. The whole point of the Seder salsos is so that we could exist as separate beings, so that we could choose to believe and to trust, so that we can have a relationship with God. We can only have a relationship with God if we sense ourselves as separate. There is when there's no relationship, when there is no other. And this is the entire idea. What I just explained is the entire idea of symptom, which again, where God contracts himself, pulls himself out of the way in order to create this world as we know it and in order for us to exist within it as seemingly independent beings. That again, is a topic of its own. We can, we can spend an entire class on that, a few classes on that. But again, these are foundational concepts and Placidus, foundational concepts in Kabbalah. And again, I'm bringing it in here to allow us to understand that the structure of our soul, because every single one of these worlds, like I just said, made-up of 10 spheres. The 10 spheres are the divine, the modalities, the, the channels, the capacities through which God creates and conducts the world. Every single one of these spheres sort serve as as a prison for, for, for infinite light. Every single one, every single thing in creation reflects one of them. For example, the sweetness of a fruit would be an expression of Cusset, the the awe that we that we sense when we look at a majestic mountain. This would be an expression of Gura the, the beauty, the, the, the, you know, the glory of a exotic bird. That's an expression of to Ferris. And again, we can spend an entire class on this. My goal here is so that we could look at the godly soul, because here in chapter 3, we're going to explore how this exact same structure exists in our soul. If the structure of reality, if everything that exists is built on this order and every level is defined by these 10 spheres, then the pattern does not just exist out there in the cosmos, it exists within us as well. The human being is not separate from this. We are a reflection of it. The divine soul is a microcosm of what is being experienced outside in the world, and that's what we are here to explore. We're going to, we're going to understand how these tensors express themselves through our our soul powers. Exploring Nephesh, Ruach, Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida Before we do that, one more important information that the beginning of the chapter starts with also mentioned right in the beginning, the soul is made-up of five levels. This is the first sentence in chapter 3, or it says the, the these 5 levels, think of them as five different layers. Nephesh Ruach again, I'm, I'm stating this, some of some of this is a lot, quite a bit of logistics in this chapter, but I feel like it's very important for us to bring in everything that's that's taught in Natanya Nephesh Ruach, Neshama haya Nehida. The nephesh being the most biological layer of our soul, it's the life force that animates our body. It's fully integrated in every single cell of our body. The layer of the Ruach, a little bit of a higher level of consciousness. This is the layer of our soul that's associated with our emotional energy. The neshama is the intellectual level of the soul. So all the powers of the mind that we're going to talk about right now, the power to know about God, the power of self-awareness, this is Kahma bin and dast is within this layer. And the last two layers, Khaya and Yahida, they are layers of our soul that actually exist outside of us. They're never fully embodied per SE. Our self perception completely dissolved in those layers. They are in a sense, they mirror the, the transcendent layer of Atzilos in the world. The Yahida is the most, the innermost core of our soul. This is, you know, this essentially is what gives the soul the indivisible connection with God. Now actually something I just read the other day, I was just reading this and I don't even remember. We're that when we learn it was something that Frida Greba wrote. When we learn a teaching of a rebbe, when we learn the teaching of a tadek, we are connecting to the soul, their soul level of nefesh, ruach neshama. When we sing a niggin of theirs, we are connecting to the level of high and nefido and actually another way to to help us understand how we relate to these different levels in the soul. On a more practical level. In this chapter, we are going to learn as we progress, we're going to learn about love and fear of God, the emotions that exist within us. When I do a mitzvah and I feel joy, I feel gratitude. I'm I'm I'm I'm grateful to be able to connect to God or I avoid in a Vera. I avoid something that's prohibited in this Tyra because I have a fear of being disloyal in this relationship. This is motivated by a level of the soul in the level of fear in the in the in nephesh, it's the most basic level of the soul. It's actually referred to the cotness of the neshama. It's it's a low level of divine consciousness or a lower level. Everything's relative. We're as if I do a mitzvah motivated by a deep love, there's profound joy in the experience of this mitzvah or there's profound awe of God that consequently is going to lead to full aversion of anything that's against God's will. This is experienced in the level of the ruach, the the Ruach level of Manishama, where is there's more emotional engagement in my connection to God. On a most practical level, when we talk about the godly soul, we are just simply just to summarize, we are referring simply to this life force within us that is a part of God. The fact that it's broken down into levels, we don't, I don't want that element to confuse us, but again, I didn't want to leave it out because it helps us understand how the soul structure mirrors the cosmic structure. Every single layer is corresponding to a deeper degree of our divine consciousness, our divine awareness. And again, now we're going to go in to see how they mimicking the structure of the world. Each soul is, each soul level within these 5 levels, each level has the 10 spirits. So these 10 soul powers, let's talk about them. Now, just just to be clear, the soul isn't made-up of these. It's not the soul is just it, it in its essence, these are its powers. These are at the capacity of expressing themselves. The Process of Chochmah, Binah, and Da'at in Our Soul It's divided into two categories. These 10 spheres are divided into two categories, the the Seiko and the Medeis, the intelligence and the emotions. So first we're going to talk. We'll spend a little bit of time talking about the intelligence. OK, some again, some of these terms are familiar to some of you. For some of us, it's new. I hope to break it down on the most practical level for all of us because honestly, I, I even just preparing for these classes has given me a, a more profound understanding and a clearer understanding. And I'm super grateful for this opportunity that allows me to delve so deeply into into these teachings. So the intelligence made-up of Hochmann, Bina and Das, which again for some of you, Hachmabin and DAS are the acronyms for HABAD. Because what we're about to find out is the mechanism of how Hachmabina and DAS, the mechanism how this HABAD functions within us is the foundation of the HABAD Hasidis approach to developing a relationship with God. It's the foundation of HABAD Hasidis approach of refining. This mechanism is the approach of how we refine our animal soul so that we could live as the best versions of ourselves. So how is that so? The intellectual spheres are called, they're known as the mother, and the emotions are the offsprings because our intelligence is going to guide our emotions. Our emotions do not appear out of nowhere. They come from our thoughts. How I think about something is going to shape how I feel about it. If my thoughts are fearful, I'm going to feel fear. If my thoughts are joyful, I'm going to feel joy. And love as well starts in our thoughts. You cannot. If you never think about someone or something, you can't feel love for them. This is absolutely true of God as well. Without thinking about Him, we cannot develop true attachment in our heart. So the author of it builds on this idea of how Chahma Bina Das effects our emotions. He builds on this idea using focused study, focused learning, focused meditation as a central practice. Like I said, this is what Khabar Hasidis offers us and how to develop a relationship with God. We direct our mind towards a a, a piece of divine wisdom and our heart is naturally going to follow. And that's how thinking becomes feeling and how feeling becomes connection. So we're going to break it down how this works. We'll start with Kahma, OK? Hachma is the faculty of our soul that enables us to conceive an idea. It's called hachma broken down into two words, kayak, ma, Kayak meaning the potential or the power. And ma means what? So it's like the power of what? It refers to something that's undefined, something that's beyond our knowing. Hachma is we're the the spark of wisdom comes because hachma is the ability, this potential of what? It's the ability to open up our mind fully, to be completely receptive to something new, to something that's unknown. It's the potential that's held in the question. When you genuinely ask, what is this? With curiosity, with openness, that's where we create the space to even receive insight that was never there before. You can think of Hochman as as the dark Chamber of a camera. Remember, Once Upon a time we have cameras. The dark Chamber of a camera. The black, the black pupil in our eye. It's that emptiness. It's free of any preconceptions. It's free of any pre loaded ideas. That's where light is able to enter in. In the power of Hochma, the mind becomes a vessel that could absorb wisdom from outside of it without any form of distortion. That is why the prerequisite for Hochma is humility. Bittel is an essential part of this stage. If your mind is full of yourself, if you're convinced that you already know everything, then there's not going to be any room for light. A very proud and a very rigid mind cannot receive true insight. And and this this makes me think of of Maisha Rabinu. Maisha was he merited the highest revelations of all time that was ever given to any human. Yet he was also the humblest of all people because humility and wisdom, Bittel and Hochma, they're they're in, in this sense at least, they're two sides of the same coin. The more empty and open a vessel is, the more like that it could hold. And the Fritak Raba actually explains and he uses kind of a play on words. He says how a geder of hakma, a geder is it's like a, a defining characteristic of hakma. He says a geder of hakma is bittle. And he uses that word. He says geder is also means a fence. A geder is a fence in Hebrew. As we see in we see in the Pircayevas, it says Siyoga hachmastika, that a a, a, a a fence, a a safeguard. A safeguard for hachma is silence. In other words, the vessel needed to have a Barack Kamavrek, a lightning flash of inspiration in order to receive new insight. The vessel needed is a quiet mind. It needs bittle, it needs humility. You know, I recently was in AI was in a training and it was a room of 20 women. And obviously when the instructor spoke up, everybody sits and listens. But you know, in a room of 20 women processing together for a full day, there's going to be side conversations and side chats and people speaking up. So when one woman might be speaking while she's speaking for three minutes, you know, a bunch of little groups start, you know, you start talking quietly and softly. And the, and the facilitator, the, the instructor kept going. Ladies refocus, ladies resend her ladies refocus. And she pointed out to us, she reminded us that there was so much being sheared in the room, but we can only learn from each other if we're sitting with, with curiosity. If we're sitting with humility, to recognize and realize that there's so much information available here, but only, again, if I'm sitting quietly because I came here to learn from the instructor, I'm going to learn. But if I'm not sitting with humility, also to recognize and realize that every single woman in this room has information to share. How many times do we walk into a room full of people with this, just like this, knowing of like, Nah, whatever, I'll I'll I'll sit down. I'll listen to the speaker, but not necessarily is is there is there other information here for me? But in the in the frita grab his words and I'm quoting directly here. He says the essence of Bittle is hearing and accepting what an other says. And again, this is still his words. A wise man, a Hakam listens to everyone, whoever can learn a little something from every situation and from everyone, from every man, whether great or small, is truly wise. And I, I mean you take that straight from Pirkyavas. It says aizuhu haham halaimeni Khaladam. A wise man is someone who simply has the humility to keep his mind open. Hachma therefore is the source of, of those aha moments that we have. We're, we grasp, we sense the truth, but in that space, in the space of hachma, we can't yet explain it. That's going to be the job of Bina. That's the next step, understanding, which takes that raw spark of insight that we got in hakama, in that space of hakama. And it develops it into something structured, into some something clear, into something communicable. So hakama's curiosity, its receptivity, its presence, it's the open empty space that allows the light to enter. Insight, wisdom, inspiration, and even the feeling of oneness with God happens in that space of hakama. That's where there's room for that feeling to enter. And again, the prerequisite for keeping that space open is humility is vital. It's a willingness to acknowledge that we don't already know. So Hochma, again, just summarizing. You know something, but you don't yet know what You know being as when we start to analyze, we ask questions, we contemplate on it. How can I explain this? We need a little breadth. We need a little depth. Hold on. I had a paper here. I thought I printed something. OK. I didn't it. Hochma is a spark, it's a flash of insight. Bina's the process of understanding it, of developing it, of expanding it. Bina is expressed on on the left side of our brain. It's our ability to think logically, analyse information, compare ideas, make calculations, grasp all the details of a concept. Bina takes the raw potential, like we said before, Kayakma, the potential of the right brain of Kahma, and it turns it into structure that's tangible and that's teachable. Hachma is called the father and Bina is called the mother because again, similar to the analogy we used earlier to the development of a child, the father gives her the seed. It's just not. It's a tiny little something. The potential of everything that's going to develop is in that seed, but it's nothing yet. All it is is a seed. The mother is the one who develops it inside her womb into a full-fledged being. Hachma is the seed, it's the spark and it's therefore it's represented by the letter yod. That's what I had printed out. I wanted to show how the tip of every single Hebrew letter is the small little tip of a yod. So hochma is represented by the, the, the little yod. It's a single point again with all the potential, but it has no dimension. Bina is the womb where that sea develops and and bina is the, is the letter hey. So I'm, I'm doing this with my fingers, but you have the tiny little yod and then it develops into a full hey with breadth, with depth, with width. There's full, full dimension there that before we just had a a, a tiny point and and something I again, something that just popped into my awareness was Isha and Isha. They both have it's the word, the same letters Olive and Shin Ish has a yod because again, the man gives the seed. Isha has the hay because she develops the concept. So Hochma is referred to as a the male, Bina the female. Again, another simple analogy. Take it for forget, don't forget, but put aside the the human form. Take take the the seed of an apple tree. Inside that tiny seed is the entire blueprint of the tree. Every branch, every leaf, every apple that's going to ever produce that it's going to ever produce is in that seed. Bina, though, is what allows it to grow. The trunks emerge, the branches spread, that leaves develop the leaves open, the fruit develops it. Bina gives the little spark of hachma, it's full, detailed form. It's where it manifests into the world. Now we're up to the step of das. If hachma is the spark of wisdom, and bina is the wound that develops it, das is what actually brings it into your life. It's what takes. Das is what transforms the knowledge from an idea into a lived reality. It's a truth that changes you. It changes how you see it changes how you feel. It changes how you act. How come? And beena give you insight. You could understand an idea, you could see it fully. You can even teach it well. But until you bring it into DAS, it does not affect you personally. DAS is about your connection. It's your mind and your heart saying this matters to me. I need to make this my own. It's where insight touches your life. And in that space and that touch, that's where it becomes real. This is your personal bond with a concept. This is where it shapes your way of being. You know, I was discussing this with my husband yesterday and he reminded me of a a Doctor Who lived here. He was a cancer specialist, incredibly intelligent guy. He even had a few books about the specific, you know, Cancer Research and, and methods that he was using. He knew everything about the body. He knew everything about prevention. He knew everything about healing. But this guy smoked for years in in all those years that we knew him, he smoked. Why? Because knowledge alone does not change you. He understood this perfectly intellectually, but it had not become real in his life. That's the difference that Das makes. When insight moves into das, it's going to shift your heart. It's going to shift your habits. I think someone said this Brachi, I don't know. Brachi is on. I didn't see my my full screen here, but she said this in the first class. She said das is is knowledge. It's knowledge. It's not only information. It becomes transformation. Somewhere I read I read this a while ago and so I wasn't able to find we're but Hochman's like seeing, Bina is like hearing and da as is touch. So you can hear from a distance, you could see from a different distance, but you cannot touch something without it, without being changed by it. And the change is what brings about the emotional energy in our soul. Das is where we draw our feelings towards the idea. That's where we're going to create attachment, compassion and commitment to whatever it, whatever it is that we know. It's. It's known as the midwife of the emotion because without it, the insight's going to stay very abstract. With it, the insight is going to become a force that is going to move our mind. It's going to move our heart. It's going to change our thoughts and our actions. Das is expressed in the central brain. It's the point of focus. It's the point of presence. It is not new knowledge. It is not something you can teach. It's the power to focus our attention fully to presence with an idea, with a person, with yourself. And it's this focused presence what allows it to integrate into our life. It's where self-awareness and conscious choice come from, from the space of Dos. The more Dos, the more clarity, the more capacity we're going to have to make good choices. I can tell you from my own personal experience, I've had awarenesses in my mind around different circumstances and the way I was showing up in different circumstances, but I could not seem to change the way I was reacting. I would still like like on autopilot, go down old pathways of reacting old thought patterns leading to the same exact emotional reactions, even though I already had brought, bought into a new story or bought into a new awareness. But then one day, and honestly, I call this a gift from God, DOS to me feels like a gift from God. And, and what actually I'll, we'll talk about that in a moment. One day the flip switches and it's literally like the awareness finally lands in DOS. It lands in an embodied way that that is what finally leads us to have a new emotional response. It's like once it lands inside of us, that's where we have the capacity to choose differently. You act with awareness instead of reacting on autopilot. You can make conscious choices that align your behaviour with your understanding. The point that the altar of is bringing in this idea of dossier is that it's it is something that we develop, that we could all develop, but it's developed through repetition. It's developed through engagement. We return to the same questions again and again. We struggle with them, we sit with them, we think them through over the time. Over time, the insight stops just being a concept and it becomes a part of us. You notice the change in your attitude. You notice the different responses in your life. The idea becomes actualized, not just understood. So again, just reviewing quickly. Hochman's the spark, it's the conception. Bina is the development, the understanding, the comprehension. Das is the connection, it's the consciousness, it's the knowing. It's the bridge that carries the insight into our heart, which then is going to create the emotion and the attachment and the outcome. Transforming Knowledge into Felt Connection and Authentic Love The Frieda Gorba talks about a time once when the rebel Rashad was in Vienna for some kind of some kind of medical treatment, and he writes how he met there with a one of the greatest professors of his time and other sources he speaks. It's it's known to me that this was Freud. The so the altar of I'm sorry. The Friedrich River writes how the rebel Rashad met with Freud and Freud asked him what the essence of Hasidis is and he told him that Tyrus Hasidis, the teachings of Hasidis, the Tyrus Hasidis is that the mind has to cause the heart to understand what it's meant to desire. The heart could go off on its own, but the whole point of Jacidis is that the mind teaches the heart what it should be desiring. And the heart is then meant to apply that to life, what the mind understands. So Freud asked the the rebel Asha, he said, how's that even possible? The heart and the mind are two different worlds and there are there's an ocean that separates them, as we're going to see in a moment. The heart, the the mind, according to Kabbalah is where is the seat is, is the source of water. Again, you know, we, we talk about the four elements where everything comes from the four elements. The mind is cold like water, the hardest passionate like fire. So Freud asks, how do you connect the two? And the rebel responded that this is the Avaida. This is our work to create a bridge between these two worlds or, and, and I'm quoting him directly or at least to create connection or communication between them through electricity or a telephone so that the light that is in the brain could arrive at the heart. These are these are the rubber hashab's words as quoted by the Frida Greba. You know, in the in the Tanya in the last few days we were learning Chapter 42. I'm here teaching you Chapter 3, Chapter 42, so many 39 chapters ahead. The idea the altar, but elaborates a lot on Das the altar, but talks about this idea of Das in in so many of his other teachings in the Myanmar. But in in chapter 42 that just today, in yesterday's time, he was saying that every single one of us has inherited this capacity for Das. We've inherited it from Maishurabinu because every single one of us has a spark of Maisha within us. But he also does state that while it's in our soul's capacity, the fact that we live in a body and the body and the animal soul, animal soul have been through rough times and the behaviors and the experiences in our life can and do affect the capacity of Dos. From a psychological perspective, trauma does affect this, this capacity. It's, it's the midbrain capacity for Dos. And I would say that the opposite of dos, and these are my own words, but it's, it's almost, it's like a form. The opposite of dos is like a form of dissociation. We are, we might have information in our mind, but there is a disconnect inside of our psyche. There's a place where we shut down due to past pain or due to past trauma. And this blocks the passage from the mind to entering the felt sense of knowing in our heart, which is going to lead to them to emotional connection. And I'm sure many of you can see this in yourself. You can see this in your loved ones where there's something so obvious in the mind. Or we see this in teachers and people, people who who, who teach and preach these ideas. But there's there's something blocking and the altar. But of course, goes on to state that this is the entire process of Chuva, the entire process of Chuva of spiritual and emotional healing can bring this part back online. So yes, we could see that there is a disconnect inside of us and there is there's something, there's, there's something that's blocking this, this process of dos, which then leads to emotional connection. But the goal. But the the point being in chapter 42, he speaks about how, how we can heal this. It's it's not a, a, a terminal problem. But that was a, a tangent. I, I just skipped ahead 39 chapters back to where we are here. The entire point of these intellectual powers of Kahma Bina Abdas in the divine soul is to give birth to emotions that feel God, not just to know about him, right. So we I can know about God and I can know about God, but do I feel a connection with God? Do I feel motivated to be in relationship with God? This is the entire point of kahma bin adas in the in the godly soul where our ideas, we we all have a muna, we believe in God. I'm, I'm imagining that all of us sitting here believe in God. But the goal of Hamad bin Adas is to then turn our amuna into Vitahan, into a absolute felt sense of trust. And, and again, it was in this week's Tanya, but the rabbit had elaborated this in a separate place in a commentary. How he gives the analogy, how we are so deeply attuned to our own needs, to my physical needs, to my breath, to my need for fresh ear. I know so well the things I desire that make my life better and more pleasant, right, Versus the lack of attunement to the needs of the person sitting right across from me. I know as well as I know about my own breath. I know about the other person, but I can't sense his, right? We have the same exact physical needs. He has the same exact physical needs as I do, but I don't have a felt sense of his needs and therefore I'm not as attuned to them. Das is the deep level of attunement to everything happening inside of us because I know it in my bones. And and so by way of that analogy, the rebel was explaining how we don't just want to have an intellectual knowing of God, we want to have a felt sense feeling of God. Imagine knowing in your bones about God's absolute presence in your life. Just like I feel the breath going in and out of my nose and my lungs, just as I have an absolute felt sense of that, I would have an absolute felt sense of trust that God is here with me, in me, guiding me, holding me through every single moment of my day. That's a whole brilliant mechanism of kahma, bina and das of our divine soul. A flash of insight about God, a developed understanding, and then finally to have a felt sense of this knowing, to give birth to this love and awe that we we have of God. And now I want to read a few lines directly from the Tanya. Quoting directly from the Tanya, It starts when your divine soul's mind engages in a very deep contemplation of God's greatness, how he pervades all worlds, how he transcends all worlds, and how everything might as well be nothing relative to him. Just to use the Hasidic terms, Mimali Kalalman Saitiv, Sorry, Saitiv Kalalman, Mimali Kalalman Mikula Kamaya Kalaishi. I'm sure you've seen those terms over and over on Hasidis and, and just again, going off on the commentary of the Rev on this when he says Mimali Kalaman, God fills all worlds. Imagine like you're living in a King's palace. Of course, you're never going to do anything that negates his will, which he explains. When we contemplate Rachma bina, then das how God fills our worlds. That's the motivation of every form of sourme RA. This keeps us away from anything that's not allowed. When we contemplate on on this idea of of site of kalam and how God transcends our worlds, then even more so, I would rush to fulfil his will. That becomes the motivation of ASI Taif. I want to have a relationship with such a great God and make this world a home for him. And then on an even greater level, when we can't contemplate how Kula Kamaya Kashyv, how everything is nothing relative to him in that space, our soul wants to merge with God. It's a space of unity that's above and beyond my human experience. But back, back into the Tanya's words again. I want to quote directly because Altera just spells it out quickly. When you do this, when you contemplate on God's greatness, a sense of reverence before something so much greater than you is born in your mind, and this new awareness awakens and it affects your thoughts and it fills you with a sense of awe of God's greatness, because it is greatness without end. Palpable fear of God begins to throb in your heart and then your heart ignites in love as fierce as a flaming fire yearning, desiring, longing, a soul longing for the greatness of the infinite, which can be experienced as a burning thirst for the Divine. And in truth, all forms of love imply some sort of yearning. The altar of again brings sukim that I'm sure you're familiar with Nyxifabagam Khalsa Nafshi, right? My soul yearns. It swoons to be in the courtyards of God. Me be sorry, Ranu kahai. My heart and my flesh begin to sing for God. Some of the khanapshi my soul thirsts for the living God. When will I be able to appear before him and and the altar of it tells us how this thirst where does thirst come from when there's there's parch when there's heat. This comes from the fire element in the divine soul, right? I had mentioned this a moment ago that the fire sourced in the heart water in the brain. Think on a most practical level, emotions are hot and passionate like the fire in the heart. Biologically, this fire in the heart is what creates the warmth in our blood. The mind, though the Sahel is much calm, calmer. It's cool like water and in in the 1st chapter we learned, I might mention this a moment ago, but we learned how all the treats in our animal soul are composed from those four elements also fire, water, ear, and earth. So the traits of our divine soul are also here just mentioned fire and water. I think in later chapters he brings in the others, but there's obviously going to be contrast in the way they appear in our two souls. The animal soul fire is this upward thrust of, of anger, of arrogance in the godly soul. This fire, it burns, it's a thirst, it's a yearning, a desire of, of closer connection with God. And again in the animal soul water represents this outward flow for all things, pleasurable distractions of pleasure in the divine soul. This is the downward flow of, of godly wisdom. So in short, the altar of is telling us that we all have this capacity to feel deep love and awe of God, and it stands in the power of our mind. When we contemplate on the greatness of God until it becomes a felt sense inside of us, the immediate consequence of DOS is that we're going to have authentic love. It's going to like the the terms of give birth to authentic love and awe of God. And that's why DOS, like I said earlier, is the midwife of emotions, because when you have this connection with an idea, you start to feel it in in the Tanya, the direct translation, I'm going back to there das is described using the language of intimate connection. We say that we know, we take this word from the Adam Yoda ES Khava and Adam knew Khava. He had an intimate connection with his wife. And that's the same word Yoda das because who lush in his skoshers for his Khavas Das is how not how you accumulate knowledge. It's how you connect and identify with that knowledge. Again, she Mikhash or Dante Mikhash or Amit's Kazakh, I'll just read the English. To achieve das, you need to fasten your mind in contemplation with a very firm and strong knot, intensely fixing your thoughts on the greatness of God. You don't let your mind wander. And again, the connection through intense focus is crucial. You could be wise in understanding, the author of a says, but if you don't fixate your mind and focus your thoughts persistently in your contemplation about wisdom and understanding, your soul will not give birth to genuine love and to genuine awe, he says. It will just be Demyina's shove. It's going to be just emotions that are it's it's fantasies, it's vain delusions. Many of us do experience love and awe, but their intellectual love and awe, their cognitive love and awe, their feelings in our brain. And so they don't last. You know, imagine you're standing in front of something incredibly beautiful. You're standing in front of a breathtaking view and, and it hits you right? You don't stop and think, should I appreciate this? You don't need to convince yourself it's beautiful. You are literally taken in by it. It's so real, it's so present. Your whole being responds automatically. You're drawn in. Now compare that to someone who shows you a picture of a beautiful place and tells you, I'm telling you it's amazing. You understand, you even agree, but you're not moved. You're not moved in the same way. It's not a lie for you, it's an idea. And again, even even if you're going to try to feel something for it, it's not real. It's more, again, it's like something you imagine rather than something you experience. That's the difference here. When something is truly present, it naturally creates a real response. But when it's distant, even if you don't, even if you you, you don't. Even if you understand it, when it's distant, whatever feeling you feel, it's not a fully grounded feeling. It's not one that lasts and it's not one that transforms you. And this is exactly what the Tanya is saying here. Without dos. Even if you understand God, even if you try to feel something, the emotions aren't fully real. They are closer to imagined feelings because the idea never became real for us and therefore Doss. Again, I'm reading back in the Tanya, but alkene hadas ukiyam hamintas kayusan. That is why Doss is considered the sustaining power of our emotions. Doss ensures that our thoughts will give birth to authentic love and all viable authentic love and awe. Chesed, Gevurah, and the Transformative Power of Tiferet (Compassion) And now we're on to our our Medes. It says within Dos itself is the medes of Hesed and Gvura, the emotions of love and all of its branches which come from Hesed and the emotion of awe and all of its offshoots that come from Gvura. Wow, it's already 10:15. I almost feel like we should stop here and continue next time. Maybe we should. OK, we're going to stop here because I don't want to. Well, let me make a mark here. We, we just talked about the safe health. We, we talked about the intellectual attributes of our godly soul, which are what give birth to the emotions. But now next week we will go into the, the emotions because it otherwise will take us at least another 15 minutes. And from there we will jump into chapter 4. So I will, I will conclude my thoughts here. If anyone has any questions, the floor is open. Hi, Brandy. I like the blue sky. Hi, Bina. Hi, Rifka. Hi, Rizzi. Any questions, ladies, If you don't have any questions, I could spend the next 10 minutes a little bit going on. Should I go on? But what's the raise of hands? Should I continue? Do we do we still have 10 minutes to go? Everybody still here can sit here for another 10 minutes. All right, I'm going to go on then. If you don't have any questions, we'll go on. Where was I? OK, I'll continue then. This is the the say hall, the intelligent powers of the brain, right? So we're going to go on to the Meda. Now. This chapter actually ends just by introducing us to Hassan Angura. Hassan Angura give birth to love and all, but there are 7 Medas. Like we said, the way the seven meters show up in the world, they're known as Shiva, Simaya Binyan, the seven powers through which the world was created within the human. These emotional energies can either be channelled. They're they're the they're they're known as a clueless double S. They could channel through the prism of our godly soul or through much more of through severity, through a more much more fragmented way through the animal soul. In the Tanya the altar, it talks about Hassan, Angura and Tiferas and the rest he describes as offshoots of these, khasid translates as kindness. You know, I'm actually glad we're talking about this cause here we are in Spirasai Amir, where we're gonna, you're engaging with these emotions every single day. We're here to refine these emotions. So I'm glad we, we're, we're getting to talk about it right in the beginning. Khasid translates as kindness or benevolence. It is the root of our love for God. Think of Khasid as abundance, as expansion, as limitless, as free and unbridled giving and generosity. Gvura is strength and restraint, and that is the root of Yura, of our fear and our of God. Think of bura as disciplined respect, of reverence at which creates boundaries has it is expansion. Bura is constriction. We actually talked a lot about this. I think it was in the second lesson. We talked about how these show up in different people with different souls rooted in either Hassid or Bura. But you need both to Ferris is the beauty that's created from this balance. It's the perfect balance of love and awe. It's the mix of boundless giving of hased and the assessing boundaries of bura. It's compassion. It's a a divine soul media that is spoken of so much in Hassidis. It's a very big ingredient in the healing process, as we're going to see in in the coming chapters of the Chuva process. And one of the key ingredients is the idea of of compassion of Teferis of Rachman. Khasid without Gvora could be very destructive. Avraham had the right measure of Khasid. His son Yischmal inherited it from him and it went very much offline. In this inheritance, his his unchecked Khasid showed up a sexual promiscuity. Gvora was the right measure for Gitzhak. Gitzhak represents the the media of Vora, but his son Isa inherited it from him and he was a ruthless warrior. Yakov represents the media of Teferis and his children were also Deacon because of this perfect blend of both. Actually, you know what? I, I'm, I'm going to go off a little bit on a tangent here because I do, I remember speaking about this once about how this need of compassion, it applies in a very practical level inside of us. And I'll, I'll give an example. We talk a lot about offering compassion, presenting with compassion to somebody's experience, to our own experience. What does it mean to to show up with compassion to your friend, to your child, to your neighbor who's struggling? Compassion does not mean that you're coming to fix their problem. So what exactly are we offering? Are we show up with this, to Ferris, with this compassion, with this Rachman? And similarly, when you notice in yourself, when I notice in myself, I'm I'm showing up as anxious or hurt or I'm feeling frustrated. How do I offer compassion? How do I presence with compassion to these parts of me? So compassion is the perfect blend of of chesed Angvura. Compassion is a blend of the two more black and white ways of engaging. It's not blind love. On one hand, chesed is where there's blind love. You only see the good in the person. You know, imagine like a a parent of a child who's been, you know, terrorizing his classmates, but the parent refuses to see it. The the parent maintains, my child would never do that. He's a sweetheart. Or we often do this in relationship to ourselves as well. Blind love it. It blinds us to our faults and even when we are offered constructive feedback, we have a hard time receiving it. What me, I would never see that. I would never do that. I get that doesn't make sense. This is unbridled classes. This is blind love. It's blind to the facts on the ground. On the flip side, you have Vora, which only sees what has to be corrected. It's very discerning, Vora, but it could be in a very judgmental way and that could lead to criticism and shaming and even hatred. I see what my Co worker's doing and I see that it's wrong and I can't stand her for it. This is when when we have unchecked guru, we use it on ourselves also. Sometimes I see how overwhelming my anxious feelings could be and I feel so much shame around it. I judge myself for it. And then there's the balance. There's Rachman, there's compassion. It's not blind. It sees exactly what's going on. It sees the dysfunction and the way that it's the effect that it's having on me. It sees the way that it the effect that it's having on others around me. It's like Gvura, it sees the facts for exactly what they are. But unlike Gvura, it doesn't pass judgement. And unlike Husset, it does notice and it does care about the very subjective details that have to be acknowledged. Compassion to Ferris recognizes the imperfection and it has awareness. There's Husset here with this awareness of how it formed. There's no judgement. I see in your behaviour as a coping mechanism. I see in my struggle as a survival tool, and so there's zero room for judgement and shame in that equation. Now, the energy of my engagement with that struggle is the energy of compassion. When I engage with that person, I'm able to see, I mix the class that I mix the war and my energy that I have is compassion. And compassion becomes again, it becomes the first step in healing. When my coworkers offered compassion, when my child is responded to his compassion rather than judged or shamed, they feel witness, they feel validated. When I respond to my own anxiousness with compassion rather than with judgement or shaming, this, these parts feel held. And the nature is that when our pain and our struggle is witnessed and processed, it softens back so that our our, our true voice could emerge. And, and this works therapeutically because this is exactly what was prescribed by the altar of it. We are meant to mimic God's compassion, which then arouses his compassion. And so not only am I bringing the energy of my compassion into the situation, but now I'm at this this this download of God's compassion here. And this brings a whole extra layer of healing to the process. Very briefly, the other Medeis Arnetzak persistence in the face of challenge, resilience, triumph, hide his humility, which reads gratitude. You cite his connection, communication and connection with others, Malchus, royalty and sovereignty and authority. This is the energy that's expressed in our when we have a conviction of the role that we play in the world. That's the idea of Malchus. Meditating on God's Wonders to Deepen Your Relationship Next week in chapter 4, we're going to continue learning about the divine soul and how love and fear of God are expressed. Chesed and Gura are this love and fear, this love and awe. I'd like, I'd rather call it. We'll learn how it's expressed. We know it, we sense it, we feel it. Next chapter we're going to learn how it's expressed in the world because when you're in a relationship with someone, it's not enough to love them in your heart. You have to show up and we're going to find out how we show up in this relationship with God. I do want to conclude with a a very key take away something that I've incorporated in my own life that has helped me embody what this chapter speaks of. What what is this about contemplating the awesomeness of God so that we can actually feel his presence in our lives so that we could feel motivated, so we could feel emotionally moved to be in a relationship with Him. I want to encourage you to look at the meaning of the davening, the parts leading up to the Shema. Shema is a declaration of Hashem's Juanes. And then we talk about our love for God. And so the prayers leading up to it are essentially meditations on God's greatness, this awesomeness of the world that He created, and then how He choose that to be in relationship with us. He chooses us to be in relationship with Him. When you can say these prayers with connection to the words and to their meaning, you will literally they will. These words will literally serve as a heart opener so that you can actually feel that trust in Hashem's Juanes along with the love and the awe that that comes with that. And honestly, you can meditate on the power of the wonder of anything, of any creation, and it will help you develop a love for God. Read up on the details of how your lungs work. Read up on the details of how your heart works. Read, read up on the trillions of cells in your body that are working in unison. You know, earlier I mentioned the black pupil of the eye. Go read up on the brilliance of how our eyes function and I'm telling you in that you're going through it it it will develop in awe and love and wonder of a, a, a connection with God. Stand at the edge of the ocean and watch how this mass of water knows exactly where to stop. Literally contemplating on the wonder of anything will lead to that felt sense of awe and that same God to recognize and realize that this same God who makes all these wonders wants relationship with you. And this has real literal implications on our life. You know, I'll, I'll share, we have a couple minutes here. I'll, I'll share something that happened with me a couple weeks ago because, and I'm very grateful because I do frequently do these meditation practices where I sit with these, with these things. And so I was able to use them as a reference point. I was in, we were in the airport and hold on one second. I would, we were in the airport just now, you know, the TSA lines were crazy. This was a couple days before Pisa and we were standing in the airport. We got there very early, but hours and hours and hours and TSA pre-check. And then the entire time I was very calm. You know, I was, I think I was able to dive and chakras. My husband was with me. So I had company, my son was with me. Like we were literally standing there for hours and everything was calm. But suddenly our boarding time was at 6:12 and it's now 6:30 and I'm still standing on the line. And so at this point I'm like, Oh my gosh, I was just away from home for 10 days. And, and on top of that, sorry, I'm like trying to see the door here at the same time as talking to I was just away from home for eight for, for 9 days, for 10 days. And it's peace in three days. And there's one flight a day to where I live. And I'm like, I cannot miss this flight. I haven't seen my kids in nine days. It's it's shop is tomorrow. Like I cannot miss this flight. It was literally 612 was said boarding time on our thing. It was I remember noticing this at 6:32, I'm still on the line. In other words, our flight is at 652 in 20 minutes. We're boarding and I start feeling this like heat of panic going up in my body. And then I was like, OK, wait a minute. I have this. I have this reference point of absolute calm knowing that God is holding me. And my reference point, my personal reference point that I have for this is I can I sit in silence and I meditate on the awesomeness of my heart and lungs working without me having to do anything. Life force breathing through me, my heart pumping blood into every single cell of my body and oxygen being being pumped through it because of my lungs. And this awareness, just, it brings me into an absolute state of calm. So standing there in the airport, 3 hours in on ATSA line, I just did this meditation where I just brought this calmness into my body. And from that moment, I was like, OK, God is on my team. If he thinks it's, it's I meant to get home tonight, I'm going to get home tonight. If he thinks it's better for me not to get home tonight, I won't get home tonight. And I swear I was calm and cool as a cucumber from that moment. It happens to be that in that moment, they also opened up another line. I got through. I ran like a madman. We got into our plane and actually my husband was a minute behind me because I like, you know, I broke into the different lane and I got there was like, my husband and son are behind me. They're like, well, ma'am, if you are willing to fly without them, you can get on. Otherwise, you should stay off. I was like, OK, I need to get home to my kids. My husband can get on the next flight. I got on 30 seconds later, he was behind me. We sat down on that in our seats and the plane took off. My, my entire point here being that we we all have we all have this capacity of dos. And the point of the dos is that we have this felt sense of knowing that God is with us. He's he's part of this, He's on our team. He wants what's best for us. And if we could bring that again, this is a small thing wouldn't have been a great crisis. Maybe I would have lost my flight, whatever would have been, but to be able to bring this to integrate this into every part of our lives that God is here holding us. He created this expansive sky. He makes the sunrise every day. He's making the my my heartbeat and my lungs expand and contract. There's no doubt that he's also sitting right here with us in every single moment of our day. And with that, we'll conclude today's class right on time, 10:30. Any questions ladies, before we get off before you all go back to to your regular day? Thanks for sitting with me through that was an extra 15 minutes. I appreciate it. I appreciate the company. See you here next week too.