Tanya
yod, yod, yod ...
To whom it may concern,
please pardon my ignorance, one feelt moved by this song and wanted to share it. Knowing nothing, on the conscious level of its significance, one sought to find the lyrics of the song only. not finding the lyrics one found instead the information listed below. One does not know whether the song and that which is listed below are related, my feeling is that they are. May it be that one awakens to the true presence of the divine and all false concepts and beliefs fall away, yo grace.
Salutation to immortal bliss.
Om Amritesvaryai Namaha
Kah Sa Bennu
OOOO
MMMM;
Tanya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya
-Although many view the Tanya as a work of explanation on Kabbalah or Jewish mysticism, its approbations make clear that Tanya is first and foremost a book of advice in the practical service of God.
Levels of divine service
The Tanya describes five levels:
The complete tzaddik ("righteous person") has transformed his animal soul completely, to the point that it is able to reach intense Godly delight in its connection to Godliness, and is disgusted by all worldly pleasures.
The incomplete tzaddik no longer desires evil in a way that will be externally expressed, even on the level of thought; however, a minute amount of desire for very subtle evil remains.
The beinoni (lit. "intermediate one") possesses an animal soul that still desires evil, but he succeeds at constantly restraining himself from sin in action, speech, and even thought; this, however, requires ongoing tension and struggle. This struggle is not simply the confrontation between good and evil, but rather the ongoing encounter between one's two souls - the animal and the divine - the soul that draws downward toward the earth, and the soul that aspires upward toward Hashem.
The incomplete rasha ("evil person") has committed sin without doing teshuva, but does good deeds as well.
The total rasha has sinned so frequently that none of his thought, speech, or action are controlled by the divine soul (though it remains within him), and he is exclusively controlled by his animal soul.
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Lessons in Tanya
http://www.lessonsintanya.com/
A brief introduction to the Tanya.
(Extract from intro. to Tanya By RabbiNissan Mindel M.A. PH.D.)
The author of the Tanya made no claim to originality for his work. On the contrary, he emphasized his dependence on his predecessors. Among the “books and sages” which influenced his thinking, the Scriptures, Talmud and Lurianic Kabbalah must be given foremost place. The author draws abundantly from the Zohar and the Tikunei Zohar.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s interpretations and doctrines are based upon the teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of general Chassidut, and his own “master,” Rabbi Dov Ber of Miezrich, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s successor, and Rabbi Dov Ber’s son Rabbi Abraham, the “angel.”
Rabbi Schneur Zalman worked on the Tanya for twenty years, elaborating its style and form so punctiliously that it came to be regarded by his followers as the “Written Torah” of Chabad, where every word and letter was meaningful.
To Rabbi Schneur Zalman, as to Kabbalists in general, the Torah, The Jewish Written and Oral Law embodied in the Bible and Talmud (the latter including both the Halachah and Aggadah), was more then a Divinely inspired guide to the summum bonum.It constituted the essential law and order of the created universe. The Kabbalah, in its interpretation, was nothing but inner, esoteric dimension of Torah, its very “soul”. Without this dimension the Torah could not be fully understood. Consequently, when he looked for the “inner,” or esoteric, meaning of Biblical and Talmudic texts it was not for the purpose of adding homiletic poignancy to this exposition, but rather to reveal their inner dimension. In his system the esoteric and exoteric, the Kabbalah and Talmud, are thoroughly blended and unified, just as the physical and metaphysical, the body and soul, emerge under his treatment as two aspects of the same thing. The polarity of things is but external; the underlying reality of everything is unity, reflecting the unity of the Creator. To bring out this unity of microcosm and macrocosm, as they merge within the mystic unity of the En So (the Infinite) – that is the ultimate aim of his system.
It has been wisely said that the proper approach to a problem is in itself half a solution. Quite often it is the approach to the problem, and the method of treating it, that displays the greatest degree of ingenuity and originality, and in themselves constitute the main contribution of the thinker. This is true of R. Schneur Zalman and of the Chabad system which he created. For, while his basic concepts have been gleaned from various sources, his doctrines nevertheless present a complete and unified system, and there is much refreshing originality in its presentation and consistency.
But R. Schneur Zalman did more then that. Very often he has so modified, reinterpreted or remolded the ideas which he had
assimilated, as to give them an originality of their own.
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