The fifty-second "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Monday, 12 Shevat 5703.
Lessons: Chumash, Beshalach, Sheni, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 12th of the month, from chapter 66 through chapter 68 inclusive.
Tanya, we are in chapter 19, from the words "ki his'aves" until page 26, at the words "u'dragos yoser".
Today's saying is a short one, whose source is a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz wrote on 16 Sivan 5694. It is a letter of encouragement to a chassid who had brought complaints before the Rebbe Rayatz about his financial and material situation. The Rebbe rouses him strongly to strengthen his avodas Hashem, and that this will be the cause for arousing abundant mercy so that everything will be well. At the opening of the letter the Rebbe writes him a sentence, and from it today's saying is taken.
What does he write there? This: "Intellect and hispaalus" - hispaalus in the sense of emotional excitement - "are two worlds". In a person's soul there is the world of intellect and the world of emotion, the heart - two worlds. And when we say "two worlds", the intent is two worlds that are entirely opposite and contrary to one another. And how would each of these two worlds react if it were left on its own?
The world of intellect - "a cold and settled world". Intellect takes everything with composure, with coolness and calm: it examines the matter and is not alarmed by anything. It also has an advantage, in that intellect is generally objective - I have no personal interest, it is not emotionally involved, and it sees the matter as it truly is. That is the advantage of intellect. It has an advantage and it has a drawback: the coldness is its drawback, and the settledness and the examining of a matter properly is its advantage.
And what happens with the second world, the world of emotional excitement, which he calls "hispaalus"? "And a boiling and panicked world". The world of emotion is boiling and hot, it is in a storm, and it is also panicked. If we allow emotion to act on its own - without the oversight of the intellect, as he will say further on - then it acts in a panicked manner.
What is "panicked"? Emotion without a destination and without oversight. This can express itself in extreme moods in both directions, and can even lead to incorrect conclusions - like the concept that appears in chassidus, "ratzo without shov". "Ratzo without shov" is when a person is in a state of excitement alone: he runs and does not think a step ahead, because he is guided by nothing but what he feels. These, then, are two very opposite worlds - very close to one another, and at the same time extreme and different from each other.
In the original letter there is another sentence further on, at the word "immediately", and after it another passage that the Rebbe did not quote but whose idea is: "And this is the avodah of a person, to join them so that they become one". A person's avodah is to join the world of intellect with the world of emotion. And what is meant by "to join"? The Rebbe Rayatz adds in his letter: "that the cold world be warmed by the fire of the boiling one, and the boiling world be settled by the settledness of the cold one" - meaning, that each of them receive a bit of the qualities of its fellow.
And then what will be? We do not want to sever the emotion and turn it cold, nor do we want to lose the settledness of the mind; we want only a merging between them. And if there will be a proper merging between them, "then the panic turns into aspiration". That same panic - which we heard earlier described as "boiling and panicked" - is indeed present, but together with aspiration: it has goals and destinations, and the person knows where he wants to arrive and does not stray from them, because he has intellect leading him. He is indeed with excitement and warmth, but he is goal focused, and he does not jump from one matter to another, because the intellect directs him where to go.
And the intellect does not remain cold intellect; for cold intellect can study and understand, but that has no bearing on a person who remains in the world of theory. But if the intellect connects with the emotion, and the emotion asks "how do I connect to this matter?", then "and the intellect - into a guide in a life of avodah and action", in a life of avodah in actual practice. The person does something, because the emotion is present - he has a matter to which he wants to connect - but he does it in the manner of a guide, in a settled and orderly way. This is the point: that there be the proper merging between the two extreme worlds within the soul.
This point is connected to the Rambam. True, in yesterday's saying we already saw the connection to Hilchos Megillah and Chanukah and we concluded, and we are only waiting to begin the next book - Sefer Nashim - which will actually happen only in another ten days, on 26 Shevat; but there is in this saying a hint to the conclusion of Hilchos Chanukah, for Hilchos Chanukah concludes with the statement that "the entire Torah was given to make peace in the world". The entire purpose of the Torah is to make peace - peace between the extremes.
And in the teaching of chassidus there is also peace within the soul, in the upper part and in the lower part - "peace in the pamalya of above and peace in the pamalya of below". The theme of this saying is to make peace between the extremes within a person's soul. The Torah aims to make the peace, so that each one receives the advantage of its fellow, and then we will arrive at a successful and proper manner in working on ourselves.