Is it possible to write one book on psychology that can resolve all the pain felt by the soul? Can one develop a method that applies to all souls? Ostensibly, any such attempt is doomed to failure, for when speaking about people, and especially about souls, any attempt to formulate something comprehensive that would be true for everyone seems bound to fail. The sages have already said, "Just as their faces are different, so are their opinions different." Each person's personality is unique and different from their fellow's, so how can one establish something that is supposed to be true for everyone, or at least for almost everyone?
"A man in whom there is spirit"
When the Alter Rebbe approached the writing of the Tanya, he faced exactly this question: How can one write a book that presumes to be a guide for the rectified life of a Jew? For after all, a true tzaddik is expected to provide a personal and unique response to each soul and every particular situation in which it finds itself.
Despite this difficulty and complexity, the Alter Rebbe decided that it would be right to write the Tanya, and that his words could provide a comprehensive answer to (almost) all the difficulties encountered by each and every person. In his words: "Therefore, I have recorded all the answers to all the questions… for in them one will find rest for his soul, and correct counsel for every matter that is difficult for him in the service of God, and his heart will be firm, trusting in God who completes [what is lacking] for us."
How can one presume to write "all the answers to all the questions"?
To do this, one must touch the loftiest and the lowest: the loftiest – the deep root of all distress and problems; and the lowest – the broad and comprehensive common denominator of people, which causes them to suffer from difficulties – but also allows entry into a process of rectification and healing. The lofty root of everything is God, and the root of problems is distance and alienation from Him.
“For He has become distant from me"
At the deepest level, every state of distress, pain, and incompleteness stems from the soul's sorrow over not being in its true place – "embraced and cleaving to You." Even if it seems to us that the lower reality, interpersonal and intra-family relationships, or unsuccessful encounters with reality are what create our mental and physical pain and suffering, the eyes of a tzaddik can see how all these factors, and all the small mistakes we all make, are nothing but a reflection of a root, general problem – the distance of the soul from its Divine Source.
But what is the main cause of that distance from a life of completeness and goodness? Here comes the lower common denominator – the one that can be felt and seen, and also corrected: the self-importance of man, or in modern language – the "ego."
Problems of self-image
We don't always immediately and intuitively agree with this determination. Sometimes it seems that the problem is seemingly the opposite – a lack of self-esteem, a lack of love from the environment, parents, and self. However, deep and penetrating contemplation will teach us and bring us face to face with the place where self-importance is also the factor behind the feeling of weakness and imaginary lowliness. Often we harbor a need for appreciation and a sense that we are ‘something.’ When this external need, which requires an affirming environment is lacking, we suffer. But in essence, the need for external affirmation stems exactly from the same place in the soul from which pride and arrogance stem – from the point of self-importance that sees myself and my importance as the central point of my world. When we are free, even a little, from the need "to be something," to feel our value and importance through external affirmation, we are open to connect with our true value – the connection with our source, our Creator, and our root, and our mission in the world, which comes from His power.
In essence, the Alter Rebbe teaches us, when we know how to deal with this very central ego factor in our personality, we will already have the key to truly dealing with all the particular problems we encounter.
"All the answers," outlined by the Alter Rebbe in the Tanya, is the way to properly deal with self-importance, and properly manage the ego. When we learn to diminish our ego, it has less power to stand between us and the true solution to our problems.
