Tanya lesson 5

2 types of love

• There are 2 types of loves we could have for ‘ה. The first love is a love that comes naturally to every jew. It is the love that the נפש האלקית naturally has for Hashem. The נפש האלקית is a part of ‘ה, so naturally it wants to cling to ‘ה. This type of love we dont have to create, its already there, we just need to revel it.
• How do we revel it? Good question! and for a question you need an answerr...... (quoted from my sister Sheina)
• The physical body is drawn to materialism. When the נפש האלקית enclothes itself to contemplate on G-dliness, the נפש השכלית begins to understand אלקות, and subdues it to the will of the נפש האלקית.
• When the desires of the body are subdued then you feel the natural love of the נפש האלקית.

Who could reveal this love?

• צדיקים. Taddikims souls have intellectually overpowered the material coarseness of the body and subdued it so it doesn’t cover up the light of the נפש האלקית, so they are able to feel this great love of ‘ה. When the light of the נפש האלקית shines in the body, it arouses the great natural love in their body, and then even if the נשמה is in the physical body, they can still rejoice with ‘ה, which is also what says in the posuk, ‘שמחו צדיקים בה.
• This love is present in every jews soul, yet not everyone merits to be able to reveal it. This is because revealing the love takes a lot of refinement in one’s physical coarseness. It also needs a lot of תורה and מצות to merit the level of נשמה.

Slide 3

• The level of נפש, is to have קבלת עול, the level of רוח is through emotions, and נשמה is through overpowering the intellect and spirituality over materialism of the body. It is explained (in a sefer called ראשית חכמה) that one who merits to reveal the great love of ‘ה comes to the level of נשמה.
• It is not possible to create this type of love, and could only be revealed through refinement. From this we know that this is not the type of love that we the Alter Rebbe asks about how could we do love, from the פסוק, the פסוק is talking about love that can be created through action.