Learning to control your heart is one of life’s greatest challenges. Imagine your heart pulling you one way while your mind suggests another. Sound familiar? This internal struggle holds a key secret of spiritual growth explained in the remarkable book “Tanya.”
Why Does Serving God Seem Difficult?
“For this thing is very close to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it,” the Torah tells us. But wait – doesn’t this clash with our daily experience?
Many wonder: “How can it be ‘very close’ when it’s so hard to control your heart? How can I turn away from earthly desires to truly love God?”
Even Talmudic sages were puzzled: “Is fear of God a small matter?” And love for Him is even harder! Tradition says only the righteous fully “control their hearts.”
So what’s the real meaning behind these Torah words about spiritual life being so accessible?
Hidden Love in the Chambers of the Heart
The answer is simple. When Torah speaks of love “in your heart,” it doesn’t mean intense passion like “burning coals.” Instead, it refers to what Tanya calls “the desire of the heart” (reuta deliba). This is an inner yearning that lives deep in our mind, even when we don’t feel it strongly.
This “hidden love” drives our spiritual growth. It helps us fulfill commandments and study sacred texts. And yes, this is indeed “very close and easy for anyone with a brain” who wants to control your heart!
The Mind’s Power Over the Heart
Here’s the key idea: your mind naturally has power to control your heart. Unlike the righteous who easily feel love for God, regular people use reason to guide their actions.
When we think about the greatness of Divine Light, our minds develop a kind of “intellectual love.” This creates a desire to connect with God through commandments and Torah study.
And that’s enough! The main goal is practical action, as it’s written: “today — to fulfill them.” “Today” means the world of action where we now live.
Three Types of Mind-Heart Relationships
Tanya describes three categories of people:
- The Righteous (tzadikim) — they fully control your heart at all times. They can feel love for God whenever they want without effort.
- The Intermediate (beinonim) — don’t have full heart control like the righteous. But their minds can still influence their feelings and direct their actions.
- The Wicked (reshaim) — are “controlled by their hearts.” Their minds are so ruled by passions that they’ve lost control.
The Torah mainly speaks to the first two groups. The wicked are “called dead while alive” and need a special path — deep repentance.
The Path of Return for the Sinner
For someone who has lost control of their heart, there’s only one way out. They must “break the klipot” (shells of evil) that form an “iron barrier” between them and God.
This happens through a “broken heart and bitter soul” — a state of deep regret where one feels the pain of past mistakes. As the Zohar explains about the verse: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken heart” — when the heart breaks, the “spirit of impurity” also breaks.
In Kabbalah, this is called “lower repentance” (teshuva tata’a). It raises the lower letter “hei” of God’s name from its fallen state. This connects to the “exile of the Shekhinah” — when Divine presence goes into exile with the fallen person.
Freeing the Divine Spark
Each sin pushes the Divine spark that gives life to our soul into captivity. The soul becomes “imprisoned” within animal passions in the left chamber of the heart.
But when the heart “breaks” in true repentance, evil forces scatter. The Divine spark then “rises from its fallen state.” The person breaks free from base desires and can serve God again.
Practical Conclusion: Bridging Mind and Heart
The Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe once told a Viennese professor that Hasidic teaching shows how “the mind must tell the heart what to desire, and the heart must follow what the mind understands.”
When the professor objected that mind and heart are “two worlds with an abyss between them,” the Rebbe replied: “Indeed, that’s exactly our task as humans. We must build a bridge between these parts of ourselves. Or at least stretch telephone wires between them — so the light of the mind can reach and light up the heart.”
This perfect metaphor sums up Chapter 17 of Tanya. Our spiritual work is about linking our understanding with our feelings. Learning to control your heart takes effort, but it truly is “very close” to each of us.
This article is based on Chapter 17 of “Likutei Amarim — Tanya” by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad and one of the greatest Hasidic thinkers.
Afterword: This text has not been approved by any sage, Torah scholar, or rabbi and is merely a simplified adaptation of the sacred text for general understanding. For comprehension of true wisdom and a deeper understanding of the original text, you should refer to the sources.
