Chapter thirty-three of the Tanya prescribes an exercise for generating joy. And it is available to every person, regardless of spiritual level.
Concentrate your mind and consider: God permeates all worlds, upper and lower. This physical world, right here, is filled with His glory. Everything you see, every object, every person, every particle of matter, has no independent reality. In God's presence, all things are nullified the way sunlight is nullified within the sun itself. The light exists within the sun, but you cannot see it because it is absorbed by its source.
That, says Rabbi Schneur Zalman, is the relationship between the universe and God. The universe exists within God the way light exists within the sun, real, but invisible against the infinite radiance of its source. Before creation, God alone filled the space where the universe now exists. After creation, nothing changed from God's perspective. He is still alone, still singular, still infinite. The universe adds nothing to Him.
When a person truly contemplates this, not intellectually but with the full weight of conviction, joy arises spontaneously. Why? Because this contemplation is the experience of closeness to God. And closeness to the Infinite King is the greatest possible joy.
The Tanya offers a parable. A common person, lowly, insignificant, dressed in rags, is brought before a king. The king accepts his hospitality, enters his home, stays with him. The joy of that commoner would be beyond description. How much more so, the Tanya says, should a person rejoice when the King of all Kings, the Ein Sof (אין סוף), whose glory fills the entire universe, chooses to dwell in the soul of every person who studies Torah and performs mitzvot (commandments).
This joy is not emotional ecstasy. It is the steady, deep gladness of someone who knows where they stand, in the presence of the Infinite, invited to host God in the small city of their body. That knowledge, fully absorbed, is enough to generate joy even in the darkest circumstances.
This, also, will be the true joy of the soul, especially when one recognizes, at appropriate times, that one needs to purify and illuminate one’s soul with gladness of the heart. Let him then concentrate his mind and envisage in his intelligence and understanding the subject of His true Unity, blessed be He: how He permeates all worlds, both upper and lower, and even this world is filled with His glory, and how everything is of no reality whatsoever in His presence, and He is One Alone in the upper and lower realms, as He was One Alone before the six days of Creation and also in the space wherein this world was created, the heavens and earth, and all their host—He alone filled this space; and now also this is so, being One Alone without any change whatsoever. For all things created are nullified besides Him in their very existence, as are nullified the letters of speech and thought within their source and root, namely, the essence and substance of the soul, which are its ten faculties, chochmah, binah, daat, and so on, wherein the element of letters is not yet found prior to their embodiment in the garment of thought [as has been explained at length in chs. 20 and 21, note there], and as is explained elsewhere by means of an illustration from nature, namely, the nullification of the sun’s radiation and light at their source, the orb of the sun in the sky. For surely its radiance and light glow and spread forth there, too, and even more strongly than in the space of the universe, but there [in the sun] the light is nullified within its source, as though it were nonextant at all. Exactly so, figuratively speaking, is the world and all that fills it dissolved out of existence in relation to its source, which is the light of the En Sof, blessed is He, as is there explained at length. When one will deeply contemplate this, his heart will be gladdened and his soul will rejoice even with joy and singing, with all heart and soul and might, in [the intensity of] this faith which is tremendous, since this is the [experience of the] very proximity of G–d, and it is the whole [purpose] of man and the goal of his creation, as well as of the creation of all the worlds, both upper and lower, that He may have an abode here below, as will later be explained at length.1 Ch. 36. Behold, how great is the joy of a common and lowly man when he is brought near to a king of flesh and blood, who accepts his hospitality and lodges under his roof! How infinitely more so is the [joy in the] abiding nearness of the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed is He. And so it is written, “For who is this that engaged his heart to approach Me? says the L–rd.”2 Jeremiah 30:21. For this reason it was instituted to offer praise and thanks to His Name, blessed be He, each morning, and to say, “Fortunate are we! How good is our portion, how pleasant our lot, and how beautiful our heritage!”3 Liturgy, Morning Prayer; introduction to first Shema. In other words, just as a person rejoices and is happy when an inheritance of an immense fortune, for which he had not toiled, falls to him, how infinitely more should we rejoice over our heritage that our fathers have bequeathed to us, namely, the true Unity of G–d: that even down here on earth there is naught else besides Him alone, and this is His abode in the lower worlds. This is what our rabbis, of blessed memory said,4 Makkot 24a. “Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Israel…. Came Habakkuk and based them [all] on a single one, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by his faith,’ ”5 Habakkuk 2:4. that is to say, as if there had been no more than one commandment, namely, faith alone. For by faith alone will he come to fulfill all the 613 commandments. In other words, when his heart will exult and rejoice in his faith in G–d’s Unity, in perfect joy, as though he had but this one commandment, and it alone were the ultimate purpose of his creation and that of all the worlds—then with the force and vitality of his soul which are generated by this great joy, his soul will ascend ever higher above all internal and external obstacles which hinder his fulfillment of all the 613 commandments. This is the meaning of the words “shall live by his faith,” with the emphasis on shall live, as at the Resurrection of the Dead, by way of example; so will his soul revive with this great joy. This is a doubled and redoubled joy, for apart from the joy of the soul apprehending the nearness of G–d and His dwelling with him, he will doubly rejoice with the joy of G–d and the tremendous gratification rendered to Him by virtue of his faith, whereby the sitra achara is verily subdued and darkness is changed into light, i.e., the darkness of the kelipot of this corporeal world, which obscure and conceal His light, blessed be He, until the End, as is written, “He sets an end to darkness”6 Job 28:3. [which refers to the end of days, when the spirit of impurity will be banished from the earth,7 Zechariah 13:2. and the glory of the L–rd will be revealed, and together all flesh will see;8 Isaiah 40:5. as will be explained later9 End ch. 36.]. This is particularly so in the Diaspora, where the atmosphere is unclean and filled with kelipot and sitra achara. For there is no joy before Him, blessed be He, like the light and joy of the particular excellence of light that comes out of darkness. This is the meaning of the verse, “Let Israel rejoice in its Maker,”10 Psalms 149:2. that is to say that everyone who is of the seed of Israel should rejoice and be happy in the joy of G–d, Who is pleased and glad to dwell in the lower spheres, which are of the order of physical Asiyah. That is why the Psalmist uses the plural osav [“its makers”], referring to the corporeal world which is full of kelipot and the sitra achara and is called “public domain”11 רשות הרבים in the sense of “multiverse.” and “mountains of separation.” And these are transmuted to light and become a “private domain”12 רשות היחיד in the sense of “universe.” for His Unity, blessed be He, by means of this faith.
