QUESTION:
How does a person serve Hashem at the level of a beinoni (the intermediate level between a rasha and tzaddik), the level which most of the world needs to strive for [as explained in sefer Tanya]? How does a person banish evil from his soul in his day-to-day living? Is it enough to think about Hashem’s greatness while learning Torah and davening without studying the depth of the soul and the evil that a person can sink to?
ANSWER:
The view of Chabad is to work with the mochin, the brain. CHaBa”D stands for Chochmah, Binah, Daas (wisdom, contemplation, and knowledge), the mental faculties. In the path of Chabad, the main avodah is hisbonenus, contemplation, by using the mind to gain control over the heart. However, in our generation, almost no one has the brain on a level to contemplate like this. That is why in our times , it is not enough to simply contemplate the spiritual, but to do actual hands-on work of understanding the evil that one can sink to and to learn the ways of fighting it.
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