The Jewish History has very few stages where some very unique individuals where able to combine the width, depth and length of the Jewish thought in to a verbal or written form. These stages featured the ability of those individuals to stand the challenge of human though and to drew clearly one thought system that can make sense and explain reality.
As one of those important stages we can point the life work of Rabbi Shineor Zalman, also known as the ‘Baal Tanya’ from the town of Ladi around Poland. One of Rabbi Shineor contribution to the world is ‘The Tanya’ which was written throughout 20 years, where he gave extra attention to the smallest detail. In the book which is based on the though of Kabbalah, The ‘Baal Tanya’ analyze the components of the soul, the different forces which are working on us and he is giving us tools to be able to withstand different situations that our soul may encounter during our life time.

One of the most important motives in the Tanya, is that with the tools and observation, and the use of the power of the mind we can achieve a much better and more complete lives. Achieving theses kind of life is depending on the work we do on our Ego on the “I” that according to Freud terms leads to recognition of the G-dliness in this world.

As a basic role the Tanya points out one major cause of ‘sickness’ that we are all suffering from, and it is us, ourselves. While other books are dealing with different symptoms and issues to human suffering, The Tanya explains that a constant straggle with the ‘Ego’ by focusing and distracting the mind from the human tendency to put ourself in the center is the key to achieve release and growth.

While the Jewish ethical literature pointed out two major characters, one of the ‘righteous’ and one of the ‘wicked’, and draws a clear line between them, recognizing that we humans are in an ongoing struggle between them, led the Baal Tanya to draw the third character, ‘The Middle (Medium)’ which is the book of the Tanya hero. The Baal Tanya has recognized that the average person can not get rid of itself which means of his ‘Ego’. Even one who constantly works on the development of his spirituality , could find himself in stormy or angry moods, or fall from his spiritual level. We humans where created ‘corrupted’ and we must acknowledge it and accept it without judging ourselves and bitting on our heads. At the same time we need to keep moving on an endless path of gradually and intellectually dealing with that ‘defect’(Ego) we have.

Dealing with this human ‘defect’ is the essence of the life of every individual. This essence is being reflected by the way we build our small peace of heaven, from our complicated paths and the everyday events in our lives.

The essence is realized by overcoming daily challenges like anger, avoiding sadness, and real giving.

The Tanya is not a simple book to read, that after reading it you can put it back on the shelve. It’s a guide to life that studying it thoroughly gives us a key to wide understanding of the Torah, Kabbalah, and Jewish wisdom.

I happens to be born on the same day as ‘Baal Tanya’ which is Chay (18) of Elul and spreading his wisdom and the tools he gave us is my mission.

I want to thank my friend Dr. Yehiel Harari for sharing his wisdom.