After we learned about a tzadik and a rasha, the Alter Rebbe teaches us what a beinoni is! In the last perek we learned that a beinoni should also be an OVED, who does more than what he is used to!

In this perek, the Alter Rebbe tells us important rules (Klal Gadol) that the beinoni should know:

1) A beinoni needs to set things up so that the Yetzer Hara can’t start a fight with him all the time.

The Yetzer Hara inside of us is always coming up with ideas. It can make us want things that aren’t good for the neshama, can get angry, can feel lazy and just want to go to sleep, can get us to feel sad for no reason, makes us want to show off to others, and so on.

But a beinoni can stop the ideas from coming, or at least he can stop himself from following them!

By working hard on davening while thinking about his connection to Hashem (hisbonenus), he will bring out feelings of Yirah and Ahava. These feelings make him want to be connected to Hashem through Torah and mitzvos. That will keep the Yetzer Hara from even being able to tell him about these ideas! And even when the Yetzer Hara DOES give him ideas to do the wrong thing, the beinoni will be able to be in control of the feelings from the Yetzer Hara and only do what Hashem wants.

2) Being inspired to do mitzvos with a chayus is enough.

In the first rule we saw that we need to feel an Ahava, a love for Hashem.

We know what it feels like to really love someone, like the way we love our parents or baby. We love them so much that we want to do nice things for them, to hug them and kiss them and give them presents.

But what if we don’t feel our love for Hashem that much?

The Alter Rebbe tells us that it’s not possible for everyone to FEEL their love for Hashem that much, but everyone can THINK about it! Many neshamos aren’t able to really love Hashem that strongly. But everyone can think about how Hashem is the true existence of everything, and that Hashem created us to keep Torah and mitzvos.Then we will know that this is what we should be busy with, and will be happy to do our shlichus in the world!

We might still not feel a love for Hashem like we do for a person, but it’s a kind of Ahavas Hashem too! This kind of love is called “tevunah” — a kind of love that we have in our mind, even though we don’t have it in our heart.

This is the second “Klal Gadol,” important rule, that a beinoni needs to remember. What’s most important is not to have a strong feeling of love for Hashem and the mitzvos. All that we need is to be inspired enough by what we are thinking to want to do what Hashem wants from us.

But is this really enough?

The Alter Rebbe will explain later that for a mitzvah to fly up to Hashem, it needs to have “wings” — Yiras Shomayim (being afraid to do something that Hashem doesn’t want from us) and Ahavas Hashem (loving Hashem). These “wings” are the FEELINGS we have when we do the mitzvah, and they make our mitzvos full of Ruchnius chayus and bring them up to a more Ruchnius world, which the neshama will be able to enjoy later in Gan Eden.

We might worry that if we only have the tevunah kind of love, the kind that makes us WANT to do the right thing, but that we don’t really feel in our heart, then our mitzvos won’t have the right Ruchnius chayus!

The Alter Rebbe tells us that the Tevunah kind of love IS enough for this too!

The Chachomim teach us: “Machshava Tova, Hakadosh Baruch Hu Metzarfeh Lemaaseh.” The simple meaning is, “when we plan to do a good thing, Hashem considers it as if we did (even if weren’t actually able to do it).”

The Alter Rebbe says that this also hints to us that Hashem takes our good thought — our tevunah, that we want to do what Hashem wants — and connects it (metzarfeh) to the mitzvah we did, so it can have this Ruchnius chayus in it and go all the way up to the Ruchnius world of Beriyah. So even though the tevunah is not a feeling in our heart, which is usually needed for the mitzvos to go up this high, Hashem makes it like it really is!

We see from here how important it is for a beinoni to create this Tevunah kind of love.

There are many ways we can do this today! For example, we can watch a video of the Rebbe at a farbrengen, and be inspired by the Rebbe’s words to make a good hachlata. We can learn a sicha or a maamar that is meaningful, and look for what it will teach us in our Avodas Hashem. We can go to a farbrengen where an inyan is discussed, and make hachlatos of how we are going to change how we act. We can learn a perek of Tanya and find a lesson in it, and daven with kavana!

In the second half of Likutei Amarim, and throughout Toras HaChassidus, we learn many different things we can think about to make us inspired to do the Ratzon of Hashem.