Daily Tanya Wednesday 9th Iyar Chapter 46 Part 1: A mirrored love- reciprocating the love that G-d has for you

Chapter 46: A mirrored love- reciprocating the love that G-d has for you

9th Iyar/(LY) 4^th Iyar

1. Another meditation which can arouse a most captivating love:

• Easy and conventional: There exists another conventional meditation which can help arouse one’s fiery love for G-d. This meditation is uncomplex and is equal for all people to follow.
• A fiery love: This love is very, very, near to the heart for it to be aroused, and to cause the light of love which is stuck and concealed in the heart to shine with an intense light likened to a fiery flame, within the consciousness of one’s heart and mind.
• A love of self-sacrifice: The love reaches such an intensity, that one is willing to give up his life, his body and money for the sake of G-d, with all of his heart and soul and might, from the very depths of his heart in absolute truth.
• During prayer: This passion and emotion is especially able to be aroused during Kerias Shema and prayer, as will be explained.
• What then is this great, uncomplex, and potent meditation-it is the meditation of G-d’s love for us, as explained next.

2. Let G-d’s love for you mirror back into your heart:

• Like water reflects the face of a man: The principal of arousing the above-mentioned love is through internalizing the verse^[1] “Like water reflects the face of a man, so too the heart of man reflects the heart of another man.”
• Man’s heart reflects the heart of his friend: This verse means to say that just as water has the instinctive natural capability to show the exact replica and features of a man’s face who is looking at the water, so too the heart of man has the instinctive nature to reflect the love that another person shares for him.
• Becoming loyal lovers: The true and faithful love that one individual shares in his heart towards another individual arouses a mirrored love in the heart of whom he loves, thus causing the two to become loyal lovers. This especially applies when one notices the love that his friend shares for him.

(LY) 5th Iyar

3. The intensity of the reflected love when the two lovers do not share the same social standings:

• The above natural ability for the love that another has for an individual to be reflected and reciprocated in that individuals heart applies by all people and all levels of relationship, even if the two people are of equal social standing. All the more so does it apply if the lover and the subject of the love are of disproportionate social standings.
• A parable of a king showing love for his most lowly subject: For example: A great and mighty king [or president] who shows his great and intense love to a simple and shameful individual who is the lowest of the low amongst people and debases himself in filth.
• The king personally removes the person from his filth: Now, imagine if this king descended from his house of glory with all his entourage of ministers to help this person out of his filth.
• The king unites with him in his inner chamber: The King then removes him from the filth and brings him to his inner chambers, the chamber of the king which is a room within rooms, an area that no servant or minister may enter.
• The king embraces and kisses him: The king brings this lowlife there and secludes himself with him in a true state of unity and closeness by hugging him and kissing him and attaching his soul to the other person’s soul with all his heart and soul.
• An intense reflective love in the lowlife: Certainly, and all the more so, would this encounter, naturally and instinctively arouse within this simple and lowly individual a redoubled and intensified love towards the soul of the king and he would desire to attach his soul to the king’s soul from the greatest and infinite depths of his heart.

4. Even one who has a heart of stone can reciprocate the love:

• Even if the subject of the love [i.e. the lowlife in the above parable] is a person with a heart of stone, it will melt like wax and water in the face of such intense love that he is being shown [from such a prestige individual-the king] and his soul will pour out like water in its love for the king and his great passion for him.

[1] Mishlei 27:19