Daily Tanya Tuesday 22nd Iyar Chapter 50 Part 2: The Shuv in Kohen-silver Love

22nd Iyar/(LY) 23rd Iyar

1. Serving Hashem using the gold quality love-The service of Shuv:

• [An interesting query that results from the above explanation in the difference between the silver versus gold quality love is that while the silver quality love clearly leads to service of G-d in fulfillment of His Torah and Mitzvos, what service does gold quality love lead to if its entire aspiration is to expire due to its love for G-d. The Alter Rebbe now addresses this point here.]
• The order of serving Hashem and following His Torah and Mitzvos as a result of the above powerful [gold quality] love is only in the level of Shuv/return, as it states in Sefer Yetzirah “If your heart runs, return to the One.”
• Stopping expiry of the soul through contemplating that one lives against his will: This means that if the right chamber of your heart fills with uncontrollable burning passion for G-d to the point of expiry of the soul, to leave the physical and corporeal body and unite and attach to G-d who is one’s father and life, then one must return and contemplate the saying of the sages “that man lives against his will.” This means that the soul of man lives within his body in order to enliven it for a certain purpose [even though it contradicts the will of the soul to attach to G-d above].
• Contemplating the purpose of one’s bodily existence: One is to contemplate that the purpose of his bodily existence is to draw down the Divine light and supernal life of G-d here below through the service of Torah which is life. This itself is done in order to make for G-d a dwelling place here below for His unity to be manifested in a revealed manner, as explained above, and as it states in the Zohar, “So that He be one with one.” This Zoharic teaching means to say that the concealed unity of G-d should become revealed, [and that this is the purpose of man’s work below within his physical body].
• You live and die against your will: Based on the above, one can understand the seemingly contradictory statements of the Sages that “You live against your will, and you die against your will,” as explained elsewhere in length. [Meaning, that the gold quality love makes a person desire to leave the body and not live and hence he must tell himself that he lives against his will because that is the purpose of his existence to serve Hashem down here in the physical realm. On the other hand, the desire to invite G-d to this world through serving Him in the physical realm makes one not want to die, and thus we have both statements of Chazal fulfilled. From all the above, it is understood that the gold quality love is distinct in the fact that it itself does not directly lead to service of G-d, and it is only the later contemplation of “Shuv” that grants one the motivation to remain below and serve G-d. This is contrary to the silver quality love in which the love itself motivates one to cleave to Hashem through Torah and Mitzvos.]