You’ll never look at an orange the same way again
Ella Waisman // CTeen Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City
Why are we here? What is our purpose in life? And how does that purpose relate to our creator?
If you’re like me, and the answers to these questions keep you up at night, then the Tanya is for you.
The answers to such complex life questions lie in the Tanya. It’s a text that revolutionizes the way we think about life. It’s part of the secrets of the Torah.
There are many deeper layers to the Torah than just the Chumash. The Tanya’s author is Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812), the OG Chabad rebbe. In 1797, the Alter Rebbe sent charity to Jews living in the Ottoman occupied Israel; for this act he was imprisoned. He spent 53 days sitting in jail, corresponding to the 53 chapters of Tanya. He was freed today, on Yud Tes Kislev.
What is Chabad? In the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe identified its three underlying factors: Chochma (“Wisdom”) Bina (“Understanding”) and Da’at (“Knowledge”). Get it? Chabad!
Chochma is the initial flash of insight like a spark in the brain. Bina is the refinement and the comprehension of the idea. Finally, Da’at is when you are so well informed on your idea that you can confidently explain it to someone else. While most people see religion as a blind leap of faith, the Tanya proves that Judaism is heavily a rational and intellectual pursuit.
The Tanya teaches us that each person has a G-dly and an animal soul. The animal soul is not inherently bad. It merely represents the physical world we live in. The Tanya compares the animal soul to a “kelipah” or a “peel.” If you think of an orange, the rough outer peel shields the fruit inside. In this way, our animal soul is like a peel because it shields us from seeing G-d. Just as we have to first do the messy work of unpeeling the orange to access the delicious fruit inside, we have to first “unpeel” this animalistic soul to allow us to be truly in touch with G-d.
The Tanya recognizes how effortless it is to not believe in a G-d when we do not see Him with our five senses. But this analogy with the orange proves that there are things beyond our five senses. Think about it: an orange is intentionally hidden behind a peel. On a surface glance, you could say that the orange doesn’t exist. We can not see, smell, hear, touch, or taste it. There’s only a peel.
Similarly, G-d is intentionally hidden behind the world, and on a surface glance, you might think there is no G-d. However, just because something cannot be seen with five senses doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. This is also the concept of free choice. Instead of being able to unpeel the world like we unpeel an orange, we have a free choice as to whether to ignore the existence of a G-d or whether to work hard to find Him in every moment of every day.
In referencing the animal soul, the Tanya describes a young child: “Because emotions are relative to the intellect, a child desires and loves small, trivial things, since his intellect is too small and immature to appreciate anything more valuable.” A toddler would rather have a pile of shiny pennies than a boring old paper with “$100” on it. Our animal soul likes anything bright and shiny too. Flashy designer items, the latest Apple products. Of course our wiser soul steers us toward everlasting happiness—things like friendship, meaning, purpose.
The animal soul’s emotions are natural and elemental, requiring little or no thought. It is a state of consciousness into which you will naturally regress unless you make a conscious effort otherwise. As a quick trip down the block on a sunny day proves, it is easy for a small child to be tempted by the delicious ice cream in a store window.
In the same way, it is easy for a person to be tempted by the materialistic pleasures of this world—money, fame, drugs. The Tanya challenges us to ask ourselves: if all that materialism faded, then what would be the meaning of life? Where would our self-worth come from?
The Tanya points out that it requires more intellect and more energy to actively pursue G-d, instead of sinking down to a lower level. The Tanya explains that, “the brain rules over the heart. Any person can, with the will-power of his brain, restrain himself and take control of his heart’s urges so as to divert his attention to something completely different.”
Think about fasting on Yom Kippur. All that an animal thinks about is survival, so there is no higher order thinking. This is why your non G-dly soul is animalistic; your emotions tell you not to fast, and to feed your body. But your willpower to fast, and consequently your willpower to connect to G-d, is much stronger than your animal soul.
A religion that is based on a lie seeks out conversions. But a religion that is based on the truth stays true no matter who believes in it. In this way, Judaism is the only religion in history that never had any mass conversions. The purpose of Judaism is not to seek conversions, like Christianity or Islam, but to be a “light onto other nations.” As Jewish people, we have a moral obligation to set a positive example for the rest of the world, and that is the reason we do mitzvot.
There is a misconception that we do mitzvot because G-d needs them. But if G-d is perfect and doesn’t need anything, the mitzvot must be more for our, and the world’s benefit, as opposed to only His. Bringing forward such an invigorating and thought provoking analysis, learning the Tanya helps us understand our place in the world and how we can continue to better ourselves.
So you got a crash course on the Tanya, but now you still might lie awake at night. Because the way it works with philosophy is that one question is replaced with three more. So keep questioning, keep learning, and we’ll see you next time!
Stay tuned for Part II of the Tanya Crash Course.
Commentaires