Part 3 · Chapter 23

The Soul’s Core is Pleasure 0:03

ומזה נראה, from this we see, בעצם מהותה, this shows us on the the essential nature of the soul שהוא תענוג, that it is pleasure.

That's the nature of the life of the soul is that it is is the idea of pleasure. והעיקר, and the main proof, ממה שתברח ותתכווץ מן הצער, is the fact that the soul will run away and be withdrawn from pain. מזה ראיה יותר וכולי, this is more of a proof than the pleasure, because the fact that the soul is drawn after pleasure you could say, well, the soul is really something else, but pleasure is just like a add-on, it's a bonus.

But the the fact that the pain will take the soul away shows that that's that that's really what it is. ועל כן גזרו אומר מקובלים הראשונים שהתענוג נמשך מעצם הנפש. And therefore, the early Kabbalists declared that pleasure is the essence of the soul.

ואמרו, and they said, שאין לך למעלה מן העונג, there's nothing higher than pleasure. ואין האמת כן, and this is not true, it's not true that it's really the essence of the soul, and it's not true that it's the highest level.

And they didn't mean it totally literally, you know, but just they were there is that's the highest level that's expressed. And that's like the the deepest level of the soul that's expressed, and so they weren't, מיטעלער רבי is not saying that they they were wrong, I mean that that's not what they, just that that the statement isn't isn't totally a true statement, it's just being said like on a relative relatively speaking.

רק שהעצמיות דנפש תתמלא מן התענוג הרב ותמשך כל עצמותה, עד שתכלה ותמשך כמעט כולה, כמאמר כלתה נפשי וכולי. Rather, the essence of the נפש, the essence of the soul is really higher, but the essence of the soul is filled from great pleasure. In other words, that pleasure brings out the essence of the soul, and the more pleasure the more the essence is brought out, and it's drawn after something that's pleasurable, and it puts its whole essence into it, its whole self into it, to the point that it will almost completely lose itself in the thing, like it says כלתה נפשי, like the idea of כלות הנפש, where the soul sometimes from a great, like, godly pleasure, somebody will will die, because their soul has such a pleasure that it's totally drawn after the godly pleasure and it leaves the body, because it's so much so much pleasure in godliness, it it it it's just totally drawn after.

Pleasure Reveals the Soul’s True Essence 2:00

Now, this kind of a thing only only happens when a person from the גילויים of godliness, where they see, and not from the essence of godliness, because if they if the גילויים of godliness are more in the higher worlds, so if the soul gets a great pleasure from these גילויים, then it's drawn away from the body up to the spiritual worlds. But if you see the essence of godliness, which is is is found דווקא in the physical world, because השם chose to have a דירה בתחתונים, and so if the person recognizes that level, then it causes the idea of שוב, as opposed to רצוא, but that it draws the soul back down into the body, that the soul wants to be here.

And then it gets this pleasure here in the world, which is actually also greater, because in the physical world you can have השגת המהות of the godliness, the essence of godliness, of God Himself.

But when a person doesn't appreciate that, then so then they can have this idea of like כלות הנפש. ולהפך, and on the other hand, תכלה בגירעון אור לגמרי, the soul can also be completely exhausted, completely like burnt up, with the the diminishing of the light completely, מכל וכל, through and through, מעוצם הצער המופלג, from intense pain, כידוע.

So also a person can have כלות הנפש from a lot of pain. And this is why like some if somebody has like a a lot of pain, that the idea of like depression is that a person loses their pleasure in life and they their soul gets removed from their body, and it can even be so much to the point where they'll actually die.

Sometimes it happens with like spouses, with like a husband and wife, that since they're so connected to each other, that sometimes if one of them will die, God forbid, then they very shortly afterwards the other one will also die.

And the reason is because They have such a great pleasure in the person, and such so painful when they lose the person, that their soul is drawn out of their body.

Right, so there you see very strongly how it's like the the person's whole self is like connected to this pleasure, and the pain totally will take them away.

And you see this even with even with animals it's like this, that like

there's a story that that that somebody there was this boy that had a dog, and they was very close, they're very close, and then the the boy was killed in a car accident, and the dog they disappeared a little bit afterwards, and they found the dog lying on the boy's grave.

That he like went back there because that was the last place that he saw him, and he's just like lying there. So you see that like it could be like the the the dog's whole pleasure was his boy, and that like his whole life was like taken away from when he loses it.

And you also see the other side, if somebody has a great pleasure in something, that they'll like forget, drop everything else, and they'll just totally put themselves into this thing. וראיה ברורה יותר ממה שאנו רואים שגם בפרטי כחי של הנפש הנה בחינת העונג בזה הכח בפרטות הוא עיקר קיום מציאותו תמיד. And even

and even a clearer proof for this is this that we see that even with each of the individual powers of the soul, the pleasure in this power is the main thing that keeps this that keeps it going, that that that gives it its strength. כמו הכח של מדת החסד, for example, the attribute of kindness, גם שהוא עצמי וטבעי בטבע הטוב והמטיב, even though we say that it's an essential part of a person's nature that he's a nice person, nevertheless, if we examine this, what does it mean that he's a that his nature is that he's a nice person, עיקר קיומו הוא העונג, we see that the main thing that maintains this מדה, this this nature, is that he is the pleasure שמתענג בשפע הטוב, that he derives a big, a great pleasure from giving, bestowing goodness.

וזהו קיום האמיתי לטבעיות טובו, and this is really what maintains this nature. That's really what it means that he's an a nice person, is that he gets derives a lot of pleasure from doing nice things, and therefore he wants to do them all the time. שהוא מה שטבעו להתענג ביותר מההטבה, that his nature is to derive a lot of pleasure from bestowing goodness, עד שכל עיקר חיותו בנפשו בא על ידי עונג זה, to the point that his main vitality of his soul, his whole life comes through this pleasure שבטוב וחסד, of goodness and kindness.

That's his whole life. Now we're not saying that it's just like that he doesn't really want to do the kindness, that he just wants the pleasure.

His pleasure is really in doing the kindness, in helping the other person. He's not looking to help himself. His pleasure is when the other person is helped.

So we're not saying that it's just like he he's not thinking about the other person. What we're saying is that this idea that he's a nice person, that means that he associates himself with kindness, that that's who he is, and that's his whole vitality, his whole self, his whole ego, his whole not not in a negative sense of ego, but his whole being, his whole sense of self comes through kindness.

And so the more kindness that he does, that gives him pleasure, because that's what validates and and expresses his his self, because he associated himself with that.

He sees himself as being a nice person, and so the more kindness he does, the more he's seeing himself. And that's what gives him this pleasure.

But just I I stress again that that what so here, his sense of self is really that he's selfless. That is his that is his whole being. So it doesn't take away from the selflessness of his kindness.

But that is his whole being, his whole identity is that he's somebody that gives from himself to others. We're not talking about somebody that like really just wants that people should praise him and look at him as being great, and so he's doing kindness for that.

We mean that he really wants the kindness. ולהפך, and on the other side,

במי שהוא אכזרי בטבעו, somebody that's naturally cruel, אין זה רק שזהו כל חיותו בתענוג זה שאיז ער רע ואכזרי כידוע. What does it mean that he inflict pain on something, somebody, that that makes him feel great.

And he enjoys that and that's really makes him feel big. And so the more cruelty he can impose on people, the more, or animals or whatever, the happier he is. וכן במידת ניצוח, the same thing with the attribute of competitiveness, to conquering, that he wants to win. כל עיקר חיותו אינו רק העונג המופלג. What makes a person want to be competitive and to win is that he gets a great pleasure from winning.

Now somebody that doesn't see themselves as doesn't associate themselves so much with being a winner, so they're not going to get such a pleasure from it. But somebody that's very into into this thing of winning, into being competitive, he sees that that's his whole self.

That's what makes him significant, and that's what makes him, you know, who he is, the fact that he can win and beat other people in a competition.

And so he gets a great pleasure from this, and if he can't do it, then he's going to be very pained. עד שחיות נפשו נמשך כולה בזה, until his whole vitality of his soul is drawn into this. That means that this is his whole life. This is the way that he feels that he's special and everything is totally from this thing that he's able to win. בזה שינצח לזולתו, that this that he that he beats the other person.

ואם לא ינצח, and if he will not win, יחלה, then he'll get sick, וכולי. That he's so caught up in competition that he has to win, if he doesn't win, he'll be so disturbed that he'll get sick from it.

I think you see this with like a lot of world champions. Some of them are good sports, some of them, you know, they enjoy the game, but some of them, like apparently like Bobby Fischer was like that with winning chess.

That he was like totally, that was like his whole self, and his whole ego was to like win and like to crush the other person, and he would like, you know, viciously do that, and like if he would be, you know, he would get totally like even like

get like sick over it.