Today’s Tanya Summary #12

 

 

Chapter 6

 

Here the Alter Rebbe introduces a fascinating Kabbalistic principle that the world of the profane / mundane, is an inverted copy of the holy and spiritual.

 

So just as the Divine soul has ten traits (3 intellectual and seven emotional) so too does the animal.

 

The fundamental difference is that the animal soul is primarily emotions.

 

So whereas the emotional feeling of the Divine soul (for example love of God etc.) are born from the intellectual appreciation, contemplation and cogitation on his greatness etc. the animal simply lusts, gets angered (when feeling demeaned) etc.

 

However, we do see an intellectual component to the expression of the animal’s souls desire in that the animal soul will vary greatly (most readily seen in children, whose intellect is not fully developed, hence whereas an adult’s lust may be for a big car, a child for a play car; and whereas an adult’s anger might be over smashing his big car, a child over his toy etc.)

 

Another important point mentioned by the Alter Rebbe is that just as the garments of the Divine soul (thoughts speech and actions of Torah) elevate the person into a Divine energy field, similarly and conversely, the thinking, speaking and acting on the impulses of the animal, drag man down to the depths of depravity and the evil demons (which are the source of these emotions) attach themselves and are exceptionally difficult to remove.