Sunday, July 27, 2014

Chapter 3- tell me about me

In Tanya,
Chapter 3,
We explore,
Who is it,
Me.

We said I have,
2 souls,
Elokit,
Behamit.

We said
What their goals were,
But we left out,
Details galore.

The Nefeh Elokit
And Behamit,
Have 10 qualities,
Divided into 2,
Emotive,
Intelligent.

If you know Kabbala,
The intellect is Chabad,
The emotive is Za,
We leave out Malchut for now.

Chabad begins with the initial seed,
The drop of inspiration,
Yet undeveloped,
Unformed.

Bina is like,
The gestation of a seed,
It cracks out all the details,
It makes it real indeed.

Then there's Daat
It's when you like hit home,
It's like mating your intellect,
With your heart's and deeds' throne.

I'll give you an example,
Let's take,
Thinking of you father.

Chochma is,
My dad is cool.
Bina is,
He took me to school.

Daat is,
I sure should help him,
Pay his bills,
I shouldn't disturb him,
When he's doing his work drills.

Emotions, Za:
They go like this,
Kindness, severity,
Compassion, endurance,
Acknowledgement
And bonding- six together.

What they all mean,
We'll say by explaining the 1st 3,
Because all the rest,
Are an extension of these.

Chesed kindness,
Is the wish to draw close,
It's when you love someone,
And you give them a rose.

Guevara is the desire to pull away,
It's when you see a spider,
And move,
To a new space.

Tiferet is compassion,
It's feeling someone may have been bad,
He threw ice on me,
And it hurts all around.

When I exercise my compassion,
I'll give ice to him,
Make him well,
Although he doesn't deserve it,
He's been bad to me after all.

Thank you for reading,
Please keep you emotions and intellect,
Close to heart,
Because they will save you,
When you are near,
And far.

Amen. Tehi baruch.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Chapter 2- connecting through the head

In the Tanya,
We have learnt,
In us are 2 souls,
Good and animalistic.

We talked about the bad
So let's move on  to the good
In what way is it configured?
What does it tell us to do?

The second soul,
The Alter Rebbe says,
Is a piece of G-d,
It is selfless.

Its entire goal,
Is to cleave to G-d,
Is to do the things,
That the Tora says we should.

But, we come to the question,
If it is G-d, one and alone,
How come some of us are so connected,
And others are more distant?

The answer to this,
Relates to the riddle of a man,
Who is born,
From the seed of a father.

We know in the seed,
Is the infrastructure for all,
The head and the nail,
It’s all found in it.

So my dear friends,
It's the same as the Jew,
Who leads all the people,
Or leads just a few.

The heads of the people,
Are analogous to the mind,
And the simpletons,
Are like the nail.

Of course none are more,
Or less part of Divine,
Yet some feel it more,
And others feel it less.

The same thing we know,
Explains the terms “heads of Jews”,
The head is someone ,
Who feels a connection to Hashem more than others.

So for the average man,
The trick is connect to the head,
And then we too can feel it,

Our connection with Hashem.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

chapter 1- soul number 1

The question is asked,
Who am I,
What is my soul,
I know its inside.

In our soul we have 2 souls,
G-dly and plain selfish,
These will be revealed,
Starting with the selfish in chapter 1.

It is true we have 2 souls,
Because if not,
There would be no conflict,
We would know what's what.

So now we know who we are,
A bit selfish, a bit from G-d,
But let us talk about,
The selfish pot.

The animalistic soul,
As is its name,
Has in it selfish good,
And selfish benign.

The good goes like this: compassion, bashful,
Kind.
The mean is like this
Indulgent, boastful, angry,
Lazy- this is from the mind.

The bad is also summarized,
In this way,
Fire, earth, air and water,
These are the things that make us,
All astray.

Let's move on
We're up to chapter 2
Amen Ve'Amen
May Moshiach come today!!!!



purpose

I am someone who loves the Tanya.
Once in seminary I was quizzed on all 53 chapters of book one- likutei amarim.
Since then the concepts remain clear, but the order of concepts is a fuzz.
To order it in my mind, I have decided to blog poems about each chapter, chapter by chapter.
I hope you also get to know the Tanya and enjoy it through my poems.
May Moshiach come now.
Moussia