The Baal HaTanya is about to tell us how it is easy for every person to be able to tap into their love of Hashem. He is about to take us on a journey into understanding the presence of God in the world – and how this is going to be the thing to awaken us to realise that it is just as important to refrain from every sin, as it is to refrain from the biggest of sins, including idolatry, murder and sexual immorality.
It is the hidden love found within each Jew that awakens at certain times of urgency. When a Jew is confronted with the ultimate test of giving up his life under the duress of conversion or serving idols, this love awakens itself as the Jew refuses to be separated from God for even a moment.
In fact, if the Jew could only identify with this deep love to God always, he would never come to commit any sin at all. It is just that a spirit of folly enters into him, and he thinks that when committing a sin, he is not separating himself from God at all. But in truth, every sin tears one away from God.
The hidden love – found even in the most lowly of Jews – is a power that is so great, that it will not allow a Jew to commit a sin even if just overtly – though he does not actually believe in the action he is involved in.
In fact, within the hidden love is also an aspect of tremendous fear of God. It is the fear inherent within the love that prevents the Jew from that particularly serious sin.
We begin Chapter 20 which is a follow on from Chapter 19. Here we will see the concept of (the start) of how a Jew is able implement that hidden love in all matters of MItzvah observance and refraining from committing sins. By understanding more about the first two commandments of the Ten Commandments, the Jew will be able to see how God has manifested His entire Torah within these commandments and through this, the Jew will be able to understand how to refrain from breaking away from God in every single sin – just as he is able to refrain to breaking away from God at the time of such serious sins as idolatry.
While the Tzaddik may rule over his heart and even the Beinoni can tap into the love of God through the Tevunah (“understanding”) that exists within his mind, the Rasha (evil person) must have another way to come to love God.
Within every Jew there is a spark of love for God which is given over to him through the forefathers. It is a hidden love – to be sure. Though the Tzaddik may have a revealed love as he rules over his heart, and the Beinoni has an intellectual love which he can “tap into” to bring into a revealed love, for the remainder of Jews, it is not as easy to generate this revealed love. However, through the hidden love given to them through the forefathers, they are indeed able to connect with their love for God.
We conclude Chapter 18 discussing how the Torah is close to all. In fact, it is very close. The love that we can feel towards God is something that each of us has within ourselves. It is a gift that is given to us from our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
Continuing Chapter 17 the Alter Rebbe shares with us the manner in which the Beinoni can come to love God in the sense that through his intellect, he draws into his heart the excitement to actually perform the Mitzvot.
The essence of the Tanya is really based upon this famous verse in the Torah, “For this thing is very close to you in your mouth and in your heart to do it.” The problem with this verse, is that it has no real structure to it. Is it coming to teach us about the three garments of the soul – thought, speech and action? We could say that the mouth is speech, the heart is thought and doing it is action. But that makes no sense. Why does the verse indicate our connection with the Torah in a rather confused manner. It goes neither in order of thought, speech to action, nor in the order of action to speech and then thought. Rather, it seems somewhat jumbled up!
Chapter 16 focuses on the Beinoni who may have trouble loving God like the Tzaddik – who does so with the feelings of love already generated constantly within his heart.
Chapter 16 of the Tanya leads us further into the goal of the Beinoni. The Beinoni must put in the effort necessary to rule over the left side of his heart where the animalistic / material desires constantly awaken him in that direction.
Chapter 15 deals with two types of Beinonim. There is the Beinoni (the middle-man / average-man) who does not serve God and there is the Beinoni who does indeed serve God.
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