The body is likened to a small city. Like two kings who wage war over a city, each desiring to capture it and rule over it—that is, to govern its inhabitants according to his will, so that they obey him in all that he decrees for them—so do the two souls, the G‑dly and the animal, wage war against each other over the body and all its organs and limbs. The desire and will of the G‑dly soul is that it alone should rule over the person and direct him, and that all his limbs should obey it and surrender themselves completely to it and become a vehicle for it, and serve as a vehicle for its ten faculties [of intellect and emotion] and three “garments” [thought, speech and action] . . . and the entire body should be permeated with them alone, to the exclusion of any alien influence, G‑d forbid. . . . While the animal soul desires the very opposite . . . (Tanya)
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 16:01:08 +0000
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