Daily Tanya
Tanya for the 29th of Cheshvan כ''ט חשון
the beginning question of what we're doing today is looking at two different kabbalistic quotes that seemingly contradict each other. One which says that if you pray with that proper intent it goes into the lowest heaven which implies it goes a little and another quote from a different section of the ohar the most basic work of kabbalah saying that only if you're praying properly meaning only if you have some godly intent do the angels allow your prayer help your prayer to rise so that seems contradictory because the first quote I quoted to you said that even if it's not with proper intent it's going somewhere not going too high but it's going somewhere and the second quote is saying no unless prayer has proper intent it doesn't go anywhere so how do we reconcile this. So basically there's two points that are episodes here. The first point is we have to understand that when like one place in the zohar says lowest heaven and another place speaks about what seemingly is the lowest heaven and I said it's not meant the same thing they're actually talking about different things based on the context of our discussion so the first quote saying well if your prayer was really improper the only place is actually going to be is in the flow of heaven refers to sovereignty lowest dimension as we know of the lowest world of the world of sea of the world of action. The second quote talking about if you have intent then the angels will help your prayer send but wasn't the greatest intent and therefore didn't go too high was talking about there are the emotions the six emotional trait that we spoke about recently at length of six masculine emotional traits also here in the world of us the in the world of action lowest world meaning even in this second quote from the zohar your prayer wasn't so great but there was some intent there and therefore it went to that place and it could have sent further as we discussed yesterday depending on the intensity of the intent maybe to go up to the ten attributes of the world of the sea of the world of forming make it go even higher so the ten attributes of the world of brea the world of development but the point is if your prayer doesn't have proper intent it's going somewhere but not really going somewhere to and helpful to us because it's only going to sovereignty of this lowest world the world of action now why am I saying that's not really helpful it's going to someone well the idea of prayer generally when we pray we want something to happen this person should get healthy as you said this souls have an elevation there should be a bountiful finances there should be a better job there should be better relationships there should be a child we're asking for God to make a change to make a change we have to go higher than the energy of our world we have to transcend our world because stuck in our world these things are deficient and if we can transcend our world we can draw down change into our world now our world comes from sovereignty our world is a physical dimension of sovereignty of the lowest world of a sea of the world of action so therefore if improper prayer goes up to this lowest level sovereignty of the world of action it's not accomplishing anything because it's still stuck within the dynamics of this world and the whole idea prayer to transcend this world and make a difference so when the angel as we said in the other quote from the Zohar when the angels will help bring my prayer up even up it is a few not higher to the emotions of the world of action doesn't look like such a big difference but it is because they are it's already higher than the energy of this world is transcending this world which means we can make a difference we can draw down energy not in this world to make the person well to give the bounty to give the child once we've transcended this world we can bring new energies into this world so that's one basic answer to seemingly a contradiction between these two coupleistic passages again the basic foundation of the answer was just because both talk about ascending to some low level of godly energy it doesn't talk about the same level at all and actually they're not and actually it makes sense that this invalid prayer goes to this low level because it's not accomplishing anything but this somewhat valid prayer is going a few not just higher and actually making or potentially making a tremendous difference then there's another part of this coupleistic quote which really could confuse us because it says that prayer that's invalid because you had alien thoughts going on in your head when you were praying your lips were praying but your brain was elsewhere it implies that those prayers didn't go all the way up to the emotions those six emotions of the world of brea that's the second highest world that's the world of development so that's like wow what's going on here we're trying to invalid prayer and it's going so so high so the rabbit says don't get confused when we talk about ascending ascending means different things depending on what you're talking about meaning sin ascend minor sins ascend grave sins ascend and godly acts ascend so obviously when we're talking about the ascension of a sin and we're talking about the ascension of a godly act the only thing in common between those two situations is the word ascend but that's it it's doing something very different in other words elevating a good action means being uplifted to a higher degree of holiness to accomplish something elevating a sin to a higher world means bringing a blemish there so when we speak about invalid prayer when your lips were moving but your brain was elsewhere or your brain was really in not good places and we're saying it ascends all the way to the world of brea to the world of development we're not talking about something good happening there we're talking about negative effect of blemish happening on that high celestial plane because of the problem of the prayer similarly again a different concept bring up the same idea about how sometimes we can read one quote and get confused because it's hard to do something else we know but don't worry the the sources are not confused we're just confused so another example of this is speaking of commandments done that we know are in the lowest Garden of Eden which means the Garden of Eden of the world of a sea of action that's really the lowest one because we normally think of Garden of Eden is on two levels the higher ones in the world of brea the world of development and the lower one in the world below that and the world of it's the other world of forming so we're talking about it even lower Garden of Eden the world of a sea of the world of action so think about commandments down with just basic acceptance of the yoke of God's authority so it's not going to lie and yet we're told that the souls are achieving garment in the world of brea in the second highest world in the world of development so I'm confused wait are we in the world of brea in the world of development or are we in the world of the sea of the world of action and there is a don't get confused the sources aren't confused you don't get confused we're trying to do different things the commandment ascended to the Garden of Eden in the world of a sea of the world of action but the soul who did that commandment yes that's all for the merit of that commanded commandment ascended all the way to brea all the way to the world of development and because of the commandment done receives a garment something to encase the soul and godly energy because of the commandment so the commandment is truly in the world of action and yet the garment the soul is receiving because of the commandment is formed in the world of brea in the world of development so basically when you see different quotes that seem in the contradict but you know or different quotes that seem like contradict each other they're saying like don't worry the sources are correct we might not understand the sources we might understand contextually what they're referring to sometimes same words are used like offend and offend or low and low with heaven, but in different places they mean different things.