Daily Tanya

There is yet another means by which an individual may awaken within himself the fear of G-d—by being able to “see” the King. For by observing heaven and earth and all the created beings that inhabit them and realizing that they all derive their life from G-d, he will have fear of Him.

All Jews possess a “hidden treasure of fear of heaven” in their hearts. Through the faculty of daat , this fear of heaven is revealed and felt in one’s thought and also affects his speech and actions.

While it is true that the soul has this capacity by dint of its being nurtured from the soul of Moses (for were the soul lacking this capacity, then even the greatest effort would be of no avail, for how can a created being possibly comprehend and feel its Creator? How can a soul enclothed in a body feel and be bound to G-dliness?), nevertheless, even after possessing this capacity, it requires a...

In order to “serve Him with all your heart and with a longing soul,” it is necessary to “know the G-d of your father”—to know and comprehend His greatness. This is taught to the Jewish people by the scholars of each generation, within whom sparks of Moses are enclothed.

Speaking of the form of service that was earlier deemed surrender of the soul, the Alter Rebbe will now go on to say that it should be undertaken not for the sake of returning the soul to its original source but only to cause G-d pleasure.

A person should begin each Mitzvah, prayer or Torah study session with the intent of unifying the G-dly energy source of his soul with the collective life force of all Jewish souls with G-d.

Even if one loves G-d but lacks a fear of Him, his spiritual labors will not be of the kind that the Torah calls avodah , divine service. And should he fail in his attempts at awakening a fear of G-d in his heart, he should at least arouse a feeling of fear and awe in his mind. But what of one who finds it impossible to arouse even a feeling of intellectual awe of G-d? The Alter Rebbe will now go...

Complete Service of G-d which is prompted by contemplation can be accomplished by arousing—even if only in his mind—at least a minimal level of fear and utilizing it in the study of Torah and the performance of the commandments.

The individual’s intent, then, is that the aforementioned study and performance have an effect on his soul

G-d not only bestows His Kingship upon him in a general manner but that He also does so in a (so to speak) personal manner.

A Jew should remind himself that the whole purpose and intent of creation, viz., G-d’s Sovereignty, relates to himself specifically, that G-d become King over him . The realization that G-d bestows His Kingship upon each individual in particular touches a responsive chord within one; he is then more apt to demand of himself that he accept the heavenly yoke.

Love and fear of G-d are themselves enumerated among the 613 mitzvot ; why, then, are they assigned a secondary status?

The Alter Rebbe elaborates on the correspondence of “wings” to fear and love. He quotes Tikkunei Zohar, where the subject is treated extensively. According to what has been said concerning the role of love and fear in elevating one’s Torah and mitzvot , the analogy is clearly understood,

With the revelation of Divine will, the middot fuse, and the attributes of severity are “sweetened,” or tempered, with kindness. This, in turn, results in an increased flow of Divine kindness into our world.

Torah studied out of habit, without personal motive yet lacking any intention of lishmah , cannot ascend on high to be absorbed into the sefirot . The Alter Rebbe now proceeds to explain why this is so. The difficulty: The Torah and G-d are altogether one, for the Torah is G-d’s will. Thus, the Torah is higher even than the sefirot , just as G-d’s will transcends the sefirot . Why then does the To...

Divine “service” connotes the relationship of a servant to his master, whom he serves chiefly out of fear, unlike a child, who carries out his father’s wishes mainly because he loves him. When one performs a mitzvah out of the love of G-d alone without fear of Him, he is indeed acting for G-d’s sake—but he is not serving Him.

If one cannot arouse his natural love of G-d to the point where it is actually felt in the heart, he must try, as discussed above, to arouse it at least so that it be felt in the conscious mind and in the substratum of the heart. Even this low-level arousal can produce a will and resolve to study the Torah and fulfill the mitzvot .

In the merit of Yaakov Aryeh Ben Avraham, who's yahrtzeit is today. May his Neshama have an Aliya. Unlike wages paid to a laborer, for example, which are no index of the nature of the work performed, the reward for a mitzvah—i.e., the revelation of G-dliness experienced by the soul that performed the mitzvah—is actually the fruit of the mitzvah itself; the revelation consists of a ray of the G-dly...

Hence, the Alter Rebbe will now continue, it is only the G-dliness in a “contracted” ChaBaD that creatures of Beriah can grasp and absorb (and even then only to the extent of their limited capacity); the light of ChaBaD in its pristine state, as in Atzilut , is beyond them.

the Alter Rebbe will now discuss the divine service of those souls whose abode is the World of Atzilut . The quality of their divine service, he explains, surpasses even that of intellectual love and fear. This is the level of those tzaddikim who become veritable “chariots” for G-d: they have no will save His will, and their every act testifies to their utter self-nullification before Him.

The lower level of kavanah is that which stems from an arousal of the soul’s natural, instinctive love and fear of G-d. Such kavanah is comparable to the soul of an animal, which is ruled by its natural instincts. The Alter Rebbe now opens ch. 39 by stating that for this reason, the angels, who fear and love G-d by their very nature, are metaphorically called “animals.”

The Alter Rebbe now goes on to discuss two levels in kavanah , the higher one of which is comparable to the soul of man and the lower to the soul of animals.

The Alter Rebbe now goes on to say that, like the actual mitzvot themselves, man’s kavanah in performing them expresses G-d’s will. It is the illumination of Divine will contained in kavanah that is superior.

While the revelation of G-dly life energy force varies within different forms of life and existence, in essence, the life force is all the same, from a single source of life.

the Alter Rebbe explains that every existing being would instantly revert to absolute nothingness were it not for the G-dly life-force constantly creating it and keeping it in existence. the physical is incomparable to the spiritual (so much so that philosophers agree that the evolution of the material from the spiritual is the most radical form of creation ex nihilo ). The body, being physical, i...