Core Concepts Tanya: Chapter 4

Brief Recap of Chapter 4:

Chapter Four continues with the breakdown of our makeup. The first chapter introduced two souls. The second chapter described the source and nature of the G-dly soul. The third chapter went through the ten soul powers, three cognitive and seven emotive. As we work on ourselves, we learn about how to use our intellect to control, channel, create emotion. Ideally, we should use this to develop our love and awe of G-d, creating so real and deep an emotion it propels us to fulfill His will and keep away from things He prohibits. This fourth chapter speaks about the three "garments" through which the soul expresses itself in this world.

1. Garments are separate from a person, and can be changed or modified at will. In this sense, Tanya teaches that we can control our thought, speech, and action to better ourselves and the world around us.
In the G-dly soul, our thought focuses on G-d and Torah, our speech focuses on study and prayer, and our action focuses on performing mitzvot.

Tanya does not believe that we are powerless when it comes to the instincts of our natural tendencies; rather, the Alter Rebbe insists that we can control, mold, change ourselves, beginning with these three garments.
It isn't easy, and for most it will be a lifelong battle, but this is part of our purpose in this world.

2. All 248 positive mitzvot stem from love of G-d, and all 365 prohibitive commandments stem from fear or awe of Him.
Simply, we do or don't do something because of a deep feeling of love/ fear of G-d.
And if we're not exactly feeling it, that's all right, better to do the mitzvah in a less ideal way than to not do it at all.
However, if we do want to increase our love/ fear of G-d, then we revisit the techniques outlined in chapter three in regard to taking the time to think and meditate about how awesome G-d is, all the good He has done and continues to do for us, how incredible it is that such a powerful entity continues to sustain and delight in creation, and that will draw forth or deepen our emotions toward Him.
True success in this regard creates a love/fear of Hashem that is so deep it almost doesn’t even matter what He is asking from us. Because our love is so deep, we will do what He wants, because we want to connect with Him. Because our fear/awe/respect is so deep, we will keep away from anything He doesn’t like, because we don’t want anything to interfere with our connection to Him.

3. G-d and His wisdom, aka G-d and the Torah, are one, united.
The Torah is a guidebook for fulfilling G-d's will. Like water that flows from a high place to a low place, like water that is the same water no matter how far it flows or from how high, the Torah, Hashem’s actual wisdom, was given to us in this physical world. It takes on the form of words and ink on parchment in this world, so we have something physical to study.
Though learning His Torah and fulfilling His mitzvot, we unite with infinity and connect with
G-d’s essence.

4. This is why the sages teach that even one hour of Torah and good deeds in this world is greater than all the life in the World to Come.
In the World to Come, souls bask and delight in the Divine presence.
In this world, we can grasp G-d's essence.
i.e. an esrog isn’t just an esrog, but an embodiment of His will.
Even though the Torah had to be "compacted" to descend into this world, it doesn't change our connection. Just as there is no difference if you hug a king when he's wearing one layer of clothing or ten.

The more we delve into these chapters and break down our makeup, the more we'll realize what a tremendous goal Tanya has set in telling us that we can all be a "Beinoni."
Most of us aren't looking for more challenges in our lives, and daily vigilance over our every thought, speech, and action can be exhausting.
We're happy enough to be a good enough person, a good friend, spouse, parent, etc.
But remember, "Chassidus is Divine intelligence, an understanding which shows man how small he is, and how great he can become."
On a very basic level, if we don't challenge ourselves to be more, than we're like a smart phone that's only ever used to make phone calls.
Think of how much more a phone can do, think of how powerful it really is.
We are not bound by our natures; we can overcome and better them.

We truly do not know just what we are capable of…