Chapter Nine
Words and Concepts You Will Need for this Chapter
Chochmah, Binah, and Da’at: The three forms of intelligence which every soul possesses. Chochmah conceives ideas, binah processes and integrates them, and da’at makes them real.
Clothes for the Soul: Intellect and emotions comprise the inner psyche of a soul, but they express themselves through the clothes of articulate thought, speech, and action.
Yetzer Hara and Yetzer Tov: The yetzer hara (literally, “bad impulse”) is your instinctive impulse for self-gratification. It’s opposed by your yetzer tov (literally, “good impulse”), a counter-force to do what is right just because it is right.
Yetzer hara is simply another name for the emotions of your animalistic soul, and yetzer tov for the emotions of your divine soul.
Sitra Achra: The “other side.” The realm of anything that is not holy and divine.
Kelipah: Literally a husk, shell, or peel. Just as a shell obstructs access to a fruit, so the forces of kelipah prevent created beings from sensing the divine energy that sustains and enlivens them. The result is that these creations perceive themselves as autonomous beings, separate and independent of their Maker.
Introduction
There’s one element still missing in this story. And it’s the one that explains the most about your life.
You learned the origin and the anatomy of both your souls. You learned their respective wardrobes and where those wardrobes can take you.
But these souls reside inside a body. Two of them in one body. That would seem significant. And it is. Not only because they are two opposite characters each filling the entire body, but because they’re at war with one another in there.
Everything you learned until now was setting the stage for this war. And everything you will learn from this point on will tell you how to come out on top in this war.
Because this is the experience of life. To understand this war is to understand why your life is the way it is, and what you need to do about it.
The first thing you need to know is that it’s not a war of spirit versus flesh, as some have described it. Quite the contrary, your physical body is the prize over which these two souls spar. Whose decisions will direct its footsteps? Whose emotions will course through its blood? Who will be in charge? Whose life is this?
And then you must know that your divine soul is a warrior. As much as she desires to reach upward, yet more she is driven to plunge downward into a visceral, full-earth experience, to conquer that experience, vanquish the beast from its throne, and hold over this body absolute rule and dominion.
To conventional thinking, this is counterintuitive: That yearning spirit we met in Chapter Three, swooning to be held once again in the arms of her Beloved – she, too, fights a war? How did a delicate child of G‑d transform into a warrior-king?
And a war over a body? What interest does a divine being have in meat and bones? Isn’t it good enough for her that these limbs keep quiet so she can continue her meditations?
In general, what are words such as “war” doing in a book about spirituality?
But before entering this body, your soul took an oath, the one mentioned at the very opening of this book: “Be a tzadik, and do not be a rasha.”
With that oath, the heavenly court charged your soul with a higher goal, empowered her to carry out a mission, and gave her a meaning beyond her own self and needs. They made her swear she would enter this body to fight this battle until its every cell would be filled with her light.
Not by seeking compromise. Not by steering clear of resistance. But by running into battle head on, taking a side, and striving for the only thing that really counts: To win. Totally.
Because there is no other way to peace for your body and soul.
Animal Headquarters
Each soul has her principal place of residence in your body from which she extends throughout, a kind of headquarters and activity hub for her agenda.
Divine Headquarters
The Battle: Two Kings and One City
Two very different forms of life with separate headquarters sharing a single body clearly makes for a volatile situation. Ordinarily, some negotiation would be called for to reach a compromise.
The Divine Soul’s Agenda
That is the general desire: To establish herself as sole ruler over every limb of the body to the point that it becomes hers from every angle.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman now hones in on how this love unfolds, first conquering the entire heart with its fire, and then ascending to a much higher, transformative stage.
After this, he will return to the general conquest of the entire body.
Inner Agenda
Outer Agenda
Having described in detail the battle of love in the heart, Rabbi Schneur Zalman returns to the divine soul’s general desire to capture the entire person.
Just as your divine soul desires your inner self – your intellect and emotions – so too she desires absolute dominion over your outer, embodied persona:
The Animalistic Soul’s Agenda
What We Have Discovered
- An impulsive beast reacts from her headquarters in the left ventricle of your heart, powering your body and hijacking your brain, while a divine being speaks to you from her headquarters in your brain and your heart’s right ventricle.
- These are two kings at war over every emotion in your heart, every word on your lips, every thought in your mind, and every flex of every muscle in your body. It’s a conflict that leaves no room for negotiation or compromise.
- Don’t be fooled. Beneath your animalistic soul’s aggressive tactics lie a primal, suppressed fear that she might actually win.
Notes
- This translation follows Mareh Mekomot Hagahot V’Ha’arot Ketzarot L’Sefer Shel Beinonim, p. 78. See below, footnote 5.
- Deuteronomy 12:23.
- See Talmud, Pesachim 16b.
- See Chapter One.
- The original Hebrew expression (a quote from Reishit Chochmah, Sha’ar HaYirah, ch. 3) translates simply as “no blood.” It is to be understood, however, not literally, but conceptually, as translated here. See Mareh Mekomot Hagahot V’Ha’arot Ketzarot L’Sefer Shel Beinonim, p. 77; correspondence of the Rebbe dated 24 Tevet, 5724 (editors’ collection); Igrot Kodesh, vol. 22, p. 310.
- Ecclesiastes 10:2.
- In describing this intellectual process, Rabbi Schneur Zalman alludes to the three intellectual modalities of the soul that we learned about in Chapter Three: “Thinking” – chochmah, “contemplative” – binah, and “engage the power of da’at.”
- Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes 2:14. See Chapter 35 below.
- See Torah Ohr, Vayechi 47b; Igrot Kodesh – Admur Hazaken, p. 40.
- Genesis 25:23.
- Talmud, Nedarim 32b, commenting on Ecclesiastes 9:14.
- See Likutei Biurim B’Sefer HaTanya, vol. 1, p. 87; R. Shmuel Gronem Esterman, Biur Al HaTanya, p. 89.
- Chapters 3–4.
- Deuteronomy 6:5.
- Mishnah, Berachot 9:5, as understood in Etz Chaim and Zohar, cited below.
- See Kitzurim V’Haorot L’Sefer Likutei Amarim, p. 116.
- Song of Songs 7:7.
- See Chapter Three.
- See Chapter One.
- Zohar III, 277a.
- Borrowed from Zechariah 3:3–4.
- Zohar II, 163a.