Tanya: Chapter 13

The Beinoni has evil in his heart, he just never lets it out.

Going back to the second part of the Chapter 9 post:
When our Animal Soul wants something, we feel a drive towards that thing, be it food, money, people, anything. On the other hand, our Godly Soul or our Yetzer Tov is rooted in the intellect. When our Godly Soul wants something, we know it is the right thing to do, but we don't feel driven to do it.
This point is important to remember moving forwards. Only the Tzaddik is able to make any permanent progress in bringing his Godly Soul down to the level of the heart. The Beinoni gets to test-drive being a Tzaddik during Tefillah and Torah learning, but that's basically it.

The main strategy of the Beinoni and his/her major advantage is the presence of the Godly soul in one's intellect. The source of the Animal soul's influence is in the intellect of Binah/Understanding. By using this capability of ours, Binah, to contemplate the greatness of God in all its intricacies and subtlety, we subvert the source of the Animal soul's power and direct it towards holiness and relating to Godliness. In short, we can appropriate this power for use by our Godly soul.

By means of this strategy we can avoid the conflict with the Animal soul for the most part, and on this idea hinges the saying (quoted in this chapter) of Chazal: "It would be fitting for one to pray the entire day." The labor of contemplating God's greatness in order to awaken our love for God is the foundation of prayer.

That's what the entire conflict boils down to: Whoever snoozes loses. When we don't actively sieze control from the Yetzer Hara, we are sleeping. When we wake up, he is resigned to hibernate.

It's daunting somewhat to always have to be in action, which is why it's so vital to put yourself in good surroundings and accustom yourself to good habits, so that whenever the Yetzer Hara does wake up, you can nip it in the bud.

Were you expecting to take it easy here? This is only the anteroom, the throne room is on the other side of Olam HaZeh.

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