Chapter Thirty: Now, the sixth method in crippling the ego to un-obstruct the critical flow channel from the mind to the heart. This one, more of a perspective: Usually, comparing yourself to others is a bad trait - especially if it's a spontaneous thought that breeds jealousy or self- misery. There is a time, though, when it could be an asset. To break your ego, you must come to a raw and honest realization that you are the worst person you know - lower than the lowest person you are familiar with! This isn't just humility - not boasting or gloating. Because, although that is commendable, it presupposes that you do recognize your own qualities, and that they are better than those around you, but you just righteously choose to keep those facts and thoughts to yourself - or better, you don't think of it at all. This, though, will not break your spirit. You must take it to the next level and bring your mind to realize that you have nothing at all to be proud about! The idea is to engage in a mental pursuit that is otherwise very detrimental, but healthy in this context: compare yourself to the least redeemable person you know. This, in an exercise in three steps: Them. Recognize that no matter how low, annoying, sinful, and distasteful that person is - you can never, ever really judge them until you have experienced their position; their history, their tendencies, their knowledge, their nature and nurture. It is impossible, so you must realize that you cannot honestly brand him with any label. Yourself. Yourself, on the other hand, you can and must judge. Recognize that you are far, far from perfect. On a normal day you excuse yourself ceaselessly. But, in this exercise, be brutally honest. You have a long way to go until the ideal. So, in reality, at the very least you stand on equal keel as the other in this comparison game - them: you can never judge; you: every mistake must be critically judged and owned. The Fallout. If all the above is true and honest, then the logical conclusion is that you - a person who is in the space of Torah knowledge, Mitzvah observance, good manners and good person - must automatically be lower because as a rule: the better you are as a person the more is expected of you. Ironically, the more you think better of yourself, the more, in this mental exercise, you must be critical of yourself. So, as a fact, you are literally the worst person you know! If you go through this exercise in an honest way, you are certain to break your spirit, and therefore your ego. Mission accomplished! - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 30

Chapter Twenty-six: Ok, now we start a new era in this journey: the “When”. A key challenge of mental health is that we don't approach from a “third-party” objective stance. We don't naturally analyze, negotiate and heal our own consciousness because our consciousness is us. The key idea is to start working on ourselves as “third-party”. Happiness is fundamental for two reasons. 1. From natural law, for in the struggle of life one must be happy in order to win. Without it, no factor will help your victory. 2. From Torah law, for doing Mitzvos with simcha, happiness is fundamental to serving Hashem. So let's talk about the threat to happiness from everyday life: the normal worries of human experience. Worrying about your material circumstance (largely not in your hands): We all worry about what we perceive as challenges: mentally, physically, medically and financially; relationships, family and status. We have the bad things that happen to us. The way to put yourself in another state of mind when those thoughts drag you down, is to always reflect on the fact that even the bad things of life come from Hashem. G-d is good so G-d does good. The thing is, that certain elements are spiritually sourced so high that we cannot perceive its goodness. Worrying about your spiritual circumstance (largely in your hands): We are all critical of our spiritual stature. Everyone wants to be a better person, more sensitive, more receptive, more moral, more connected, more engaged in Torah and Mitzvos. These thoughts are commendable, for sure, but they are the enemy of happiness. If those thoughts come to you when you are engaged in Judaism, then know that it is a pure distraction; a clever ploy to detract from the actual good of the moment. But even in a regular moment of the day, remember this rule: If your thoughts of remorse are spontaneous, it is detrimental. If they are planned, by you, at designated times, they are redemptive. Make sure it's on your terms, with brains and not reactionary with instinct. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 26

Chapter Sixteen: We start a new phase in our journey of Tanya. Chapters 1-9 was about the What: What is you? What composites your spiritual make-up? Chapters 10-15 was about the Who: Who you are not, who you are, and who you could be. In this chapter (until Chapter 25) we begin the How: How you can attain - and retain - the Beinoni status. Tanya presents two major rules in the "How" of the Beinoni: 1. Contemplation, 2. Reflection. To begin, we understand the Jewish method of meditation, which we can safely be synonymized with contemplation, known in chassidus as hisbonenus. Whereas all other disciplines, ancient and contemporary, train the mind to void itself from all thoughts, the chassidus method is quite the opposite: train your mind to complete deeply, but something specific. In other disciplines meditation is an end unto itself, a method to attain inner-peace. Hisbonenus is but a means to a completely different end: to breed emotions that will drive action. So, rule No.1: Utilize the natural say the mind holds over the heart and concentrate your mind deeply on G-dly concepts which will breed emotions of love and awe to Hashem. This will keep you on the straight path of the Beinoni, where every thought, speech, or action is on par. But for most of us, the art of deep contemplation up until breed real emotions for Hashem, is completely lost and unattainable. So introducing the next big rule: Rule No. 2: If contemplation doesn't work out for you, based on the fact that every one of us has an inherent connection with Hashem, a mere reflection can be enough to arouse the bare minimum emotion - or even just a mental sense - enough to motivate you to do mitzvos and refrain from aveiros. It wont transform you like contemplation does, but it will keep you motivated enough for what you need to get done. What is this inherent connection? How does the reflection work? This we will unpack in the coming chapters! - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 16

Chapter Twenty: Embarking on the basic logical build to create a mental exercise that can reveal the dormant love to Hashem, anytime, anywhere. As a first step, we need to have an understanding (at least a basic idea) of Achdus Hashem, chassidus's take on the oneness of Hashem. It's not simple at all, because the bar is very high. As is evident in various sources, no less than the very morning prayers that we recite everyday, true oneness of Hashem which we we are instructed (in Torah) to understand (not just believe) is where we come to the conclusion that Hashem is - not only the only G-d, obviously - but the only existence. That runs directly contrary to our empirical experience. That fact and our corporeal reality cannot be squared! So, in order to do this we must rely on the gift of analogy. The analogy is: the spoken word and its source, the speaker. Recognize the total, absolute insignificance one casual word is in comparison to a person's entire vocabulary utilized throughout their entire life, or even better, to the entirely of the potential of speech, when the idea is still in thought form. Similarly, Hashem created the world with "speech" (the Ten Utterances) denoting the insignificance of creation (like a singular word) to the essence of Hashem (the speaker themselves). Truly, He is the only existence. Yet, analogies have a downside, that the comparisons are never exactly perfect. And here too: at the end of the day, the spoken word still has an exsistance, even if the most insignificant, while, in the analogue we are to understand creation as having no existence outside Hashem- none at all!? Answer to come in the next chapter. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 20

Chapter Nineteen: Continuing the analysis of the inherent, dormant love for Hashem embedded in the Jewish soul. Now we discover: Its nature: what does it do, what does it feel like? Understanding how the element of Yirah, relationship of awe, is embedded in it  The best description of the nature of this love - what it feels like and how it “act” - is by way of metaphor: fire. Fire’s unique characteristic is that it seeks to rise, to detach from its fuel, and if not tethered by the wick, it would let loose and disappear (as it does when the fuel is expended). Where does the fire go? No physical element just disappears into nothingness!? Fire rises to its source in the firmament at the edge of the atmosphere, the highest possible space in the world. In its source, the independent flame now gets subsumed into its source and ceases to be independent, it loses its form. The novelty here is that unlike any other physical creation, which all carry the primal instinct to exist and not lose it at any cost, fire constantly seeks to be a not, to lose its existence in exchange for rejoining its source. The soul largely and the dormant love specifically act the same way. If not tethered by the body (as Hashem wants it to be) it would expire to its source, it rises and seeks to elevate - to lose its independent existence in exchange to be part of Hashem again. It doesn't make sense but that’s just its nature. Also, the dormant love has within it a dormant awe as well. Having an inherent relationship with Hashem means that you love Him to the extent that you want to do what He wants from you and at the same time, you refrain from things that he you to refrain from. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 19

Chapter Eighteen: Now onto the second phase of “How”. Beginning in chapter 16, Tanya is setting out a plan on how to attain - and retain - the status of Beinoni. The first way was deep meditation and compilation. Now onto the path of reflection - the path accessible to every average person who doesn't have the mental capacity to contemplate deeping of G-d. We base this reflective exercise (of which we will actually unpack in chapters 20-25) on the fundamental idea that every person with a Jewish soul - the actual definition of Jew - has embedded within it a dormant, immutable love for Hashem. They cannot rid themselves of that love, but it can remain buried for a lifetime. Historically, this inherent love answers an anomaly: the tendency, in all generations before us, of Jews who have lived their lives completely disassociated from Judaism or Hashem, up to the point of utter contempt for it and for Him, yet would sacrifice their live, time and again, when faced with the choice to convert out to another religion. It is that hidden love that dominates their thinking at the moment of truth. The key is to wield that hidden power and find a way to access it at any moment. But beforehand, we need to analyze it a bit. So in chapter 18, we discover: Its inheritance. How is bequeathed; how is it inherent? Its spiritual biology. Where it can be found in your spiritual makeup. Being that our forefathers reached such elevated spiritual status, devoting their lives to Hashem in the greatest fashion, they were given a gift. Genetically, their descendants (and those who convert into the Jewish faith) will be born with an inherent connection to Hashem or which they do not have to attain. It will be there no matter how disassociated they may be, laying in wait to flair up at the right moment. It resides in the highest levels of the G-dly soul, in the level of Chochmah, in the space were we are most open and receptive to our source. In the next chapter, we will analyze this further. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 18

Chapter Seventeen: Getting relevant. Within the "how", we need to get to a place where even the regular Jew, with mainstream struggles, can attain a status of Beinoni. Seemingly, that level of perfection is just counter-instinctive and unattainable. So we throwback to a statement of Moshe Rabbeinu in his farewell address to the nation in the dessert at the end of 40 years. One motivational element of that speech, as recorded in Torah, is the famous statement that: "It is near to you, very much [so], in your mouth and in your heart to fulfil it". Meaning, its very accessible, very easy, to be a Jew and keep the Torah. But really, is it?! In this chapter we delve into the soul-interpretation of this verse, which sheds some light onto this bold statement. The key is in the last word, la'asoso, to do, which serves as a qualifier: What is the verse claiming is very accessible that ? According to the soul-interpretation, arousing a love for Hashem. Why is that so? Because the love for Hashem in this context is the minimal amount and type that simply drives action, la'asoso. Why is this minimalist love so easily accessible? Because every person with a Jewish soul inherently has a connection to Hashem - something that they need not attain but just reveal. Revelation of that connection is so much more easily accessible than creating it from scratch. How is that done? That is what we will unpack in to coming chapters. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 17

Chapter Fifteen: Now that we understand "who you could be", the soul-interpretation of the term Beinoni, we can discuss categories. Just like the Tzadik and Rasha (discussed in chapters 10 and 11, respectively) each have two general categories within their general definitions, so does the Beinoni. The definition of Tzadik is one who has no desire for sin. The two categories within that definition is the difference of revulsion; one category of Tzadik who is utterly repulsed from sin, and one category of Tzadik who is not utterly repulsed (with varying degrees therein). The definition of Rasha is one who commits sins. The two categories within that definition is the difference in remorse; one category of Rasha never regrets his deeds, and one category of Rasha constantly does (with varying degrees of how often and to what degree). The Beinoni as well has a definition and two general categories. The definition is one who desires sin yet never commits it. The two categories within that definition is the difference in effort. The first category, known as "he who serves", is one who by nature is constantly and heavily impulsed to commit the sin. The restraint, although successful, is difficult. The second category, known ad "he who doesn't serve", is one who either by nature or by second-nature is more tame. The restraint not to sin comes as easy as just keeping focus. Both are fulfilling their purpose. But one is fighting his nature, and that is considered "serving Hashem" because the litmus test for serving Hashem and not just oneself is going beyond one's comfort zone. Its the effort you put in that is key. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 15

Chapter Fourteen: The basic statement of Tanya: The state of Beinoni is the ideal of the common person. But now, to flip it on its head. What we emerge with is the mental framework of clear parameters: who we could be and who we cannot; the possible. That is important for expectations sake. But doesn't Judaism believe in striving for the impossible? Aren't there numerous example of this throughout our history? Should we be focused only on the possible? In truth, the golden path is to incorporate both. Having both ends is healthy: recognize your limits and strive for beyond. Know - and know well - that Beinoni is within possibility and is your goal. But strive for Tzadik, even though it isn't possible. Push your limits. It won't be for naught. Firstly, Hashem wants the strive for the impossible itself, regardless of the actual accomplishment. Further, it will rub off on you and elements of Tzadik feeling will effect you know doubt. And finally, there are always expectations to the rule: maybe you can become a Tzadik, despite your predetermined state. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 14

Chapter Twelve: Finally, we have arrived. Based on our exploration of what we are (chapters 1-9), we set out to explore who we are. First, we defined who we are definitely not (chapter 10). Then we defined who we are by default (chapter 11). Now, lets understand who we ought to be; our potential. The golden term is: Beinoni. What that means, is other story: The Nigleh (body) interpretation of the term Beinoni takes into consideration only one metric, a behavioral one (associated with the body, of course); thought speech and deed. Beinoni translates as "medium", one who has done exactly half good and half bad deed. A true interpretation, but a surface-level one. In the inner, soul (chassidus) interpretation of our spiritual biology, we've come to understand that there are two metrics by which we are defined: our inner, immutable soul personalities (two souls constantly at war within) in addition to our behavioral metric. Both the Tzadik and the Rasha constitute alignment between the metrics. A Tzadik is impeccable in behavior and does not even desire sin, the Rasha desires sin and asks upon it (some more, some less). The Beinoni though, is misaligned: On the inner, personality metric he is exactly like a Rasha, i.e. he desires, and is inclined to, sin. On the Behavioral metric, he is impeccable like the Tzadik! So, the Chassidus (soul) interpretation of the term Beinoni takes into consideration the inner soul of the person (of course), thus introducing two metrics into the equation. Here, Beinoni translates as "in-between", defined by both metrics simultaneously: on one he is like a Rasha and the other he is like a Tzadik. - - - - Source Sheet: Chapter 12