Can a Monk Be a Jew?
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Unwanted thoughts barging in all day can make a good person feel like a fraud. The Tanya, a 200-year-old classic of Jewish wisdom, says that inner battle means something very different.
You're a grown man with a respectable career. People come to you for advice, you take your responsibilities seriously, and you try hard to live the way a good Jew should. And yet, all through the day, thoughts barge into your mind uninvited. Improper ones. The kind you would be mortified for anyone to know you'd had.
They show up at your desk, in the middle of a meeting, walking down the street. Sometimes, of all places, even in the middle of davening (prayer). You don't act on them. You don't say a word. You don't entertain them for a second. You push them away and get back to what you were doing. And then they come back.
You don't feel proud. You feel like a fraud. You tell yourself “I'm a grown, serious, religious professional. A truly good person wouldn't even have these thoughts. Maybe, deep down, I'm just not a very good person.”
I want to tell you about a 200-year-old book that says you have it exactly backwards.
The Tanya was written more than two centuries ago by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, a Chassidic master. People traveled from all over to ask him for personal advice about their inner lives, and the lines grew so long that he couldn't see everyone. So he wrote one book that would answer their questions. It became one of the most studied works of Jewish thought in the world.
The Tanya has another name: "The Book of the Beinonim." Beinoni (bay-NOH-nee) is Hebrew for "the in-between person." The whole book is built around this one figure, and once you understand who he is, it may change how you see yourself.
The Tanya talks about the tzaddik, a truly righteous person, and the rasha, someone who lets his bad impulses win. And then the person in between.
You might assume the in-between person is the average guy: some good days, some bad ones. That isn't what the Tanya means.
In the Tanya's language, a righteous person is extraordinarily rare. He has changed so completely on the inside that he doesn't even want to do wrong. Temptation doesn't tempt him. Anger has nothing to grab onto.
The Beinoni is different. He still feels everything: the craving, the flash of anger, the improper thought that barges in uninvited, again and again throughout the day. The difference is that he doesn't act on it. In what he does, what he says and what he lets his mind dwell on, he chooses right. Inside, the battle is still very much on.
In other words, the in-between person is that serious professional who had those thoughts all day long and pushed them away every time. Nothing has gone wrong with him. That is exactly what a Beinoni is.
How can someone do the right thing and still want the wrong thing? The Tanya's answer is simple: you are not one person. You are two.
Every Jew has two souls sharing one body – an “animal soul” and a “Godly soul”.
Every Jew has two souls sharing one body. The first is called the "animal soul." Don't let the name fool you; it isn't a beast. It's the part of you that runs your physical life. It's hungry, it wants comfort, it's focused on itself, and it badly wants to come out on top.
The second is the "Godly soul," a real spark of God inside you, whose only desire is to do good and stay connected to its Source.
It's the ultimate internal roommate situation and they do not get along.
That pull you feel toward the wrong thing doesn't prove you're a fraud. It proves you have an animal soul, like every other human being. The question is never "Do I feel it?" The question is "Who gets the final say?"
The Tanya points to something built into all of us: the mind has the natural power to rule over the heart. You can't always choose what you feel. You can almost always choose what you do with it.
The Tanya paints it as a courtroom. In your mind, two judges are arguing. One says, "Go ahead, just think about it for a minute. Who would ever know?" The other says, "Not for you. Turn away." But you're not left alone to break the tie. God is the third judge, quietly lending His strength to the good side.
The bad thought showing up isn't the failure. Letting it run the show is.
It's easier than it sounds. The Tanya teaches that a little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness, just as one small candle lights up a whole dark room. Holiness is light, and God helps it along. So when you bring in even a little light, a single good thought, one small choice to turn away, it has the power to drive out all the darkness and give you the strength to win. The struggle may still be there, but you have what it takes to win it.
The ideal life is not free from inner conflict and temptation. When you feel the pull and push it away, you're doing exactly what you were created to do. Every one of those small victories gives God a special kind of joy, one that even a perfectly righteous person who never has to fight cannot give Him. You're not a tzaddik-in-training who keeps falling short. You're a Beinoni doing your job.
That's why the Tanya warns against beating yourself up when a bad thought shows up. Feeling crushed by it is really a quiet kind of ego: deep down we believe we're supposed to be above all that. We're not. Almost none of us are. The bad thought showing up isn't the failure. Letting it run the show is.
Regretting what you did wrong and firmly deciding to choose better is not a mystical superpower reserved for the spiritual elite. It is a decision that everyone can make. The strength to make it is already inside you.
The next time a thought you're ashamed of barges in, at work, on the street, even in the middle of prayer, or you're about to snap, or reach for the thing you know isn't good for you, and you push it away, don't walk away feeling like a fraud because the thought showed up at all.
That isn't proof you're a bad person. That is the very battle you were created for, and you just won a round.
You don't have to be a saint. You just have to keep showing up for the fight, one choice at a time.
Adapted from Tanya for the Everyman, a new book that makes that classic easy to read. It's a clear, friendly walk through the Tanya, chapter by chapter, showing how the ideas flow and fit together, from the two souls inside every person to the Beinoni, the "in-between" person who struggles and still wins. You don't need any background, just a couch and a little curiosity.
Available on Amazon at an introductory price:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJZL4LMV
