Daily Tanya Wednesday 28th Shevat: Chapter 29 Part 1: A Remedy for a heart of stone & spiritual Insensitivity

Chapter 29: A Remedy for a heart of stone & spiritual Insensitivity

28^th Shevat/(LY) 9th Adar 1

1.      Dealing with apathy-Timtum Halev and Moach:

• Heart of stone-Unable to feel emotion during prayer: There is another issue for which we must give advice for the Beinoni, and that is regarding the occasional, and at times frequent, experience of heart of stone, in which the heart is not capable of having any emotion or feeling for G-d. In this state, one is unable to open his heart at all in any way to serve G-d during prayer using his heart and with emotion.
• Unable to control his lust for the permitted: Likewise, on occasion the Beinoni is unable to battle his evil inclination, to sanctify himself with that which is permitted, due to the heaviness of his heart.

3.      The advice-To break the heart and spirit of evil:

• The teaching of the Zohar to break the body: The advice to be followed for one who is experiencing such a state of apathy and lack of emotion, is based on the following teaching of the Zohar. The Zohar states that the head of the Yeshiva in Gan Eden taught that one who is unable to light a log on fire is to break the log to small pieces, and accordingly if a body is unable to light the soul then it is to be broken.
• The soul’s intellect does not shine: What this means is as follows: The light of the soul refers to its revelation and intellect. When the soul is not shining it means that its intellect is not able to shine and control the coarseness of the body.
• The comprehension of G-d’s greatness does not penetrate the heart: This applies even if the person understands and comprehends in his mind the greatness of G-d, nonetheless, these ideas do not grasp and stick to his mind to the point that it is able to control the coarseness of the heart, and make movements within his emotions and feelings.

(LY) 10^th Adar 1

• The coarseness of the heart and arrogance of the Kelipa: This inability to affect the emotions of the heart is due to the coarseness and thickness of the heart, which results from the coarseness of the Kelipa which elevates itself over the light of holiness of the G-dly soul and conceals and darkens its light.
• Crushing the heart: It is for this reason, in order to cure this state of apathy, that one needs to break and humble the heart, and the side of Kelipa, to dust. For the sake of doing so, one is to set times for belittling himself and make himself feel shameful and repulsive in his eyes.
• Crushing the heart crushes the evil spirit: Upon breaking one’s heart one also consequently breaks the spirit of the side of evil being that this is the actual natural state of the Beinoni and is his instinctive personality.

4.      The animal soul is a person’s conscious and natural state:

• The soul which enlivens the body retains its strength within the heart of the Beinoni just as it was when it was first born, and hence it is found that [the animal soul and side of evil from which it derives] is the person himself.
• The G-dly soul is an addition to the natural conscious state of the person: Regarding the G-dly soul that is found within the person, the verse states “the soul that you have given to me is pure.” This implies that the person himself is not the pure and G-dly soul [and it is just that is found within him].

5.      By Tzadikim, the G-dly soul is the person himself:

• The above is with exception to Tzadikim in which to the contrary, the pure and holy G-dly soul is the conscious state of the person himself, while their body is referred to as the flesh of man, which is so to say external from them.

(LY) 11th Adar 1

• The sage Hillel went to perform kindness with his body: Upon going to eat a meal, the sage Hillel told his students that he was going to do kindness with a poor and ashamed entity which is his body.
• By a Tzadik the body is felt as a separate entity: The reason for this is based on what we said above, that by a Tzadik, the body is felt as if it is a foreign entity and therefore he said that he is doing kindness with it by giving his body to eat.
• There is no evil in the body of the Tzadik: He himself is only the G-dly soul alone, as it is the only soul which enlivens his body and flesh, as the evil that was once found within his animal soul which is invested in his blood and flesh, has been transformed into good and has literally become incorporated within the holiness of the G-dly soul by a Tzadik.