Don’t care about Gemini’s opinion, for it is man-ufactured. It is not from G-d.
Perhaps it is an outspring of democracy and freedom of speech, that we have to take any idiot’s pronouncements as valid.

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R’ Elazar concludes that “all my heart/soul” represents two “manners IN LOVE” from which he concludes that there must be a manner IN LOVE regarding the soul too?

1. It is agreed that love is aroused in the heart alone, as R’ Yitzchak says. Thus it is not love that arises in the soul. Which, in its way, is an interesting line to explore, especially in the time of “soul mates”, and “love forever”. I would tend towards the assertion that true love is aroused in your heart when there is a soul connection, i.e., a harmony, or recognition, of two souls. It is a far cry from the garden of Eden the lovers are meant to attain through their union.
2. If I look at the heart as the one that stands between the soul and the body, similar to Ruach, which lives as the bridge between Nefesh and Neshamah, then, without the heart, the two – the soul and the body – are disconnected. Taking R’ Elazar’s conclusion in this passage, which I resonate with, and find it interesting that he uses the term “money”, instead of body, “heart and soul and money all unite together.” But my question is whether the heart is… the connector of the two, provideing the glue between the two, which we refer to as the place of love.
3. Perhaps the heart that we refer to relates to the one we discover in our selves, but the heart that connects the body and the soul is a different one? Perhaps it is the heart of the soul?
4. In the previous passage (66), it speaks of the love of G-d, which, can only come through the heart. The soul does not “love” G-d in the way that we love. One could say that the soul is the connection between G-d and me, the human; that the heart is the connection between my soul and my body; and that my soul is thus my connection to Creation.
5. And connecting two things, especially if they are (spiritually) different, resulting in a union, is an expression of Love. That is the love of the Creator that we need to aspire to, for just as G-d loves us who are "separate” from Him, as He has deemed it to be.
6. These connections are reflected in the world of soul through the 3 lower souls. Which makes me ask whether there are 3 (not just 2 - the good and the evil heart) hearts? The good heart is the one that loves G-d, the evil heart is the one that loves the body. What is the other heart? Is it the union of the two, the heart that loves the body as an expression of G-d? Is that overcoming the evil heart that he speaks about in this passage: “[when] the person breaks the evil inclination, he is showing love for G-d” (66)?
7. And are there 3 bodies? The inner, the outer and the garment between?

“the other side of life becomes strengthened when people do good, the other side… becomes strengthened when the evil ones listen to him.”

• I take note of the asymmetry of: “the other side of life becomes strengthened when people do good, the other side… becomes strengthened when the evil ones listen to him.” Though I would say that they become evil because they listen to him. He (Satan) is not the perpetrator, we are! Another subtlety here is not that we either do good deeds, or we do bad deeds, but it introduces the subtlety of a middle way, in that it is possible to do a deed that is not good, but is not necessarily bad, for it is not done due to Satan’s prompting. Not all deeds are either good or bad, but just the doing that needs to be done—which is, yes, good, but might be done, not in service to G-d, but to your community, or family—that is the Benoni.
• Included middle: That is the greatness of the Tanya. It does not speak only of the polarity of the Righteous and the Evil, but also of the Benoni, the one that is in the middle, thus it is a tome that speaks of the included middle, where most of us live.

“Happy is the one whose strength is in You; and in whose heart are Your (path)ways,” Amen.

How to differentiate between Your ways, and my ways for “*He has convinced us
that our enemy is some other rather than our own untamed, uncertain nature?

• ”Could the smoking of a cigarette be an “evil deed?” Or the indulgence in a sweet dessert? Or to not pray, but take a walk in the forest instead? Or meditate for an hour in the morning? Have I abandoned “Your ways?” Yet all my “strength is in You.” But where and how do my actions express that? Is that not the existential question facing the unorthodox Jew—as opposed to the non-religious, or secular?That is the question that needs to be faced in our Chavura! Yet we might not be able to gaze into its panim, but only to see its back from behind a shelf.

To continue the discussion

• it seems that the Satan only entices. It is we, in the realm, of Assiyah, that entrapment occurs. Enticement is a form of seduction. Here the question for what enters into the discussion. What am I enticing you to do? Or is enticement, by its very nature, evil? What of entrapment? Can an action by its very nature be evil? Or is it dependent on the circumstances? This is the element at the basis of the discussion, I believe.