Episode 495 - 10 Nissan (Regular Year) - How to Fly

Hi, this is Sereed Sweatser and welcome to the It Is Tott podcast. A podcast devoted to the teachings of Rabbi Shnera Zalman of Liyadi, as recorded in his most famous work, The Tanya.

My hope for this show is to make these teachings accessible and relatable to the average person, regardless of prior Jewish education or affiliation.

The episodes follow the prescribed daily study portions on our meant to serve as practical lessons in how to live your life as your true self and develop an authentic and powerful relationship with your creator.

I have personally experienced the effects the study of this work has had on me and I'm excited to share what I can of this knowledge with you.

So please join me on this journey of learning, self-growth and connection with your source.

Hi, and welcome to the It Is Tott podcast. This is episode 495 for the 10th of Nissan in a regular year.

So we are still in the middle of chapter 39 and before we get into the text, I'd like to start off with a story of the Balshamtov, which I think will serve as a nice intro to the topic that we'll be discussing.

So the story goes that one time on Rosh Hashanah, the Balshamtov came to a shawl to a synagogue and he went into pray and he opened the door to the synagogue and he then quickly shut the door and he said, oh, it's way too crowded in there, I can't pray.

And the shawl attendants rushed over really quickly and they said, you know, master Balshamtov, what do you mean? There are so many seats available.

We'll get you the best seat in the house. We'll find you a really honorable seat. Come with us. There's lots of room.

And the Balshamtov said, no, no, it's very, it's too crowded in there. And they pressed him to really try to understand what he meant and what the Balshamtov, and then the Balshamtov replied.

This place is so crowded with prayer that I just it's there's no space. And what he meant by that is that all of the prayers that were going on in the synagogue, they were staying in the synagogue.

They were staying down here on earth. They weren't ascending. And this was because as we'll learn in today's chapter, the people who were praying in the synagogue weren't praying with intention.

They were praying in a way that was kind of very stale, very by road kind of thing.

So this is the essential theme of today's section. This idea that in order to have our service rise up to the various worlds that we've been talking about.

So if you've been following along, you notice we've been talking about different realms, different abodes for different souls who have residents there sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily, things like that.

So in order to have our service rise up to any of these worlds, and specifically, we've been discussing Rhea, any it's here, and we also briefly discussed at Solis, but as we'll see this, a lot super relevant to us.

So in order to have any kind of a sound for our service at all, there needs to be some level of intention.

So if you remember, we brought up the idea of intention back in chapter 38, which is what led us actually into this whole discussion about souls and soul levels and things like that.

Where we talked about mitzvahs, and we talked about how important is it really to have intention when you do a mitzvahs, it's okay to just do mitzvahs without intention, what's more important, the intention or the mitzvah.

And let's let us into a whole discussion about different types of intentions, which will again review today the two main types of intention and the various worlds that these types of intention correspond to.

So the focus today, again, is really on the idea that regardless of the type of intention, a person has, whether it is a more intellectually based intention or a more emotive based intention, which are the two basic categories, there needs to be something, you need one of those in order to have your service ascend.

Otherwise, your service will remain in a place called the world of separation, which the ultraviolet doesn't really elaborate too much on what that means, but that's what he says.

So let's get into the text and see how the ultraviolet explains all of this and maybe we can bring it all together again at the end. So here we go.

So the ultraviolet says that the reward of the mitzvah is the mitzvah itself. So we brought this idea up before this is this is a commonly taught idea and in the context of what we've been learning is that every time we do a mitzvah, it produces a certain type of effect.

And then that effect is what we experience and enjoy later on after our time here on earth is finished and we, you know, we were in Ghana, and when we're in the abode of the souls.

So here the ultraviolet says that what this means really is that the reward of the mitzvah itself is that by looking at the reward that a person is experiencing that a soul is experiencing, we can understand we can deduce from this, we can kind of work backwards.

And see what level what type of soul was this. So meaning to say that like let's say if you have a certain soul, somehow if we were able to investigate souls and souls experiences and see what is their experience right now, what are they experiencing what type of enjoyment are they experiencing to what degree are they experiencing godliness.

This will give us an idea of what level they were at in their life of how they served God. Now the ultraviolet says that it's not our business basically to be involved in things that are too esoteric, which are what are things that are too esoteric.

These are the really great tedikim that are in a way of chariot. So remember we talked about this a couple of episodes ago, how some souls are in such a high level like the forefather or forefathers, for example, who served God on the level of a chariot and the their souls have to do the reside in the world of it's illness.

So the ultraviolet says this is not our place to get into this, but rather we should really focus on those things that are revealed to us that and this is what we should all strive for like we want to remain practical what what is really something that we can strive for that we should try to attain.

So what we should know and what we should focus on and to know this with certainty is that when we talk about the level of serving God out of love and fear that is revealed in a person's heart that is drawn down from intellect from understanding and knowledge on the greatness of God.

The place of that is in the world of Bria. So this is a little bit of a reveal like we learned this already that people who serve God from a place where they they intellectually come to understand and comprehend God to the best of their ability.

This and this leads to them experiencing an emotional sensation of loving and fearing God the realm of this kind of service is in the world of Bria.

Whereas by contrast the type of service that comes out of love and fear that is more in need that's more natural which perhaps paradoxically it might seem actually resides in the mind because it's like what happens is that the person feels these feelings of God in neatly in their heart so they tap into that and then that makes them intellectually understand.

Oh yeah, I really should serve God and they are swayed to serve God like they're convinced that they really should serve God this level of service is related to the 10 spheres of its era.

So that's the the lower level the level of formation.

However, what about service that does not have any arousal of love and fear at all not even in a way that that's intellectual that comes up in the mind after tapping into this more innate kind of love and fear.

So again, the whole trip is explaining how this works that a person taps into their innate love and fear of God that's hidden within the recesses of every heart and this comes out of hiding and it becomes revealed.

Even if it's just in their minds like it's just like this like intellectual kind of like revelation but it's not something a person feels with their the fullness of their heart like in a really emotional way and also like it kind of wakes up a little bit in the latency of the heart so.

That it's it's a little bit awakened but it's not like this passionate kind of love so so if a person doesn't even have this type of love like they haven't even been able to arouse this level of love but rather this let this love this innate love stays concealed in the heart as it was at birth.

Before any kind of service then this service that the person has stays down stays below in the world of separation which is called the externalities of the worlds.

So it's a little cryptic as to what this means I saw a brief footnote about this where the what this means is that basically it's the externalities of the world is not the internal aspects of the world is are the spheres and the externalities of the world is.

So I also saw that the the reba said that this might be referring to the world of Asia and maybe even the world of Yitzhira you know but maybe maybe like a lower level the world of Yitzhira I'm not sure but it's it's kind of cryptic if anybody has further information on this please let me know you can write it in the YouTube comments but what the text here says is that basically if a person does not have any arousal of any kind of love and fear on.

On any to any degree then there are service stays in this low realm of the world the separate the world of separation which is called the externalities of the world and it cannot be elevated at all it cannot ascend to become encompassed in the unity of God which are the tense fear us the ten Holy Spheras and as is written in the Tikkunim that without love and fear then it cannot fly out of the world.

It cannot fly upwards so meaning to say that the service without somebody arousing this level of love and fear it cannot actually fly up and it cannot stand before God.

So that's the end of the section and so again just in some basically the alterabite is giving us a little bit of a review of the two basic types of intention that a person could have in serving God intention number one is where a person has the intellectual capacity and develops a very strong intellectual appreciation of God through meditation and contemplation and learning and everything and understanding the greatness of God and this will lead to them having a very passionate feeling in their heart like this will seep into the heart.

And make them feel very passionate and this is service which is related to the world of Bria and so it ascends to the world of Bria then there's another type of service which is not on this higher intellectual level but rather it is coming from an innate love and fear that we all have in our hearts so every single Jew has an innate love and fear of God and so these kind of people tap into that innate love and fear and then that leads them to intellectually decide oh yes you know serving God is a good thing for me.

It is a good thing for me to do and so they'll do that even though while they're tapping into this innate love and fear it might sound like it's more emotional than the first one but it's not it doesn't it's not like this passionate feeling it's just like kind of an acknowledgement of the fact that they have this love and fear and this level of service is related more to the world of Bria but it does ascend so it is still ascending and however what we learn today is that if a person has neither of these of a person does not arouse

any kind of love and fear in their heart at all there is no ascension and it actually remains in the world of separation and in them more externalities of the world it doesn't actually enter into the world and it isn't able to unify with the world which is the ultimate purpose of our service is to have it unify with these higher worlds.

So that's the end of this section today so the takeaway really is really just emphasizing how important it is to have intention and to try as best as we can in whatever way possible

to arouse love and fear of God which will learn more about how we do this as we get further into the Tanya and yeah and it's a process so we will be in this journey together and I'll speak to you more and we'll continue tomorrow.

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