Chapter 9: Two Kings, One Small City

Chapters 2–8 described what each soul is made of. Now we learn where each one lives, how it works, and why the two cannot leave each other alone.

“Dwelling place” means where the soul is mainly felt, not a box it sits in. The animal soul is the life of the body, so it lives where the blood lives: in the heart, on its left side. The verse is the reason the Torah forbids eating blood: blood carries the creature’s life.

From this comes its character. Desire, pride and anger begin in the heart. From there they fill the body and then climb to the mind, which works out how to get what the heart already wants. The animal soul has a mind too, but its mind serves its feelings. First comes “I want”, and only then the reasons.

The G‑dly soul is, at its core, a soul of understanding, so its home is the mind. From there it reaches every limb. It is also in the heart, but on the right side, “in which there is no blood”: the side of something finer than the raw life of the body. The verse ends “and the heart of a fool on his left”. The “fool” is the animal soul’s evil inclination, which is described (Koheles 4:13) as “an old and foolish king”.

Why mention the heart, if the G‑dly soul already reaches every limb? Because in the heart its own feelings come alive. Burning love of G‑d flares up in someone who uses all three powers of the mind on what awakens it: he grasps it (chochmah), understands it in detail (binah) and stays deeply connected to it (daas). Joy comes when the “eyes” of the mind look at G‑d’s greatness: not only understanding it, but a kind of seeing. Every other holy feeling, awe included, is likewise born of these three.

So the two souls are mirror images. In the animal soul the heart leads and the mind follows. In the G‑dly soul the mind leads and the heart follows.

If each soul kept to its own place, there would be no struggle. But they share one body, one brain, one mouth and one pair of hands, and each wants to run the whole person. The verse is what Rivkah was told when the twins struggled inside her. In a Jew’s inner life the verse is read as pointing to the G‑dly soul and the animal soul, always at war. The body is the city; its limbs are the citizens.

Now the G‑dly soul’s plan. The limbs should obey her, then be completely given over to her, and finally become a merkavah, a “chariot” with no will of its own. That is more than obeying, because one who obeys still has a will he is giving up. And no stranger may “pass through”: the animal soul should have no influence at all. She does not want to be in charge most of the time. She wants all of it.

It starts in the mind. Thinking about G‑d’s greatness gives birth to awe and to a burning love. The love should fill the right side of the heart so fully that it overflows into the left, the animal soul’s side. The text uses three words: “inlaid”, “full” and “overflowing”. A way to picture them: water can coat the inside of a cup, fill the cup, or overflow it. The overflow is the point. It reaches the animal soul’s “evil waters”, its desire for pleasure.

And the goal is not only to hold that desire down (iskafya, “subduing”). It is to change it, so that the same desire that wanted this world’s pleasures now wants G‑d. That is “with all your heart”: serve G‑d with both inclinations, the evil one too.

What kind of love can transform the animal soul, and not only hold it down? Not the burning love of the last section, but a higher one: ahavah rabbah, “great love”, also called “love of delights”. (Later chapters contrast the two: the first is like a flame, the second a calm love of fulfillment.) It is the mind’s own delight in knowing G‑d, a taste of the World to Come, and each person feels it as far as his own understanding reaches.

Here is the logic. The animal soul’s craving comes from its element of water (chapter 1, the four elements). This love of delights is the G‑dly soul’s own element of water, so it can reach that craving at its root and turn it around. The same ability to enjoy, which once ran after this world, now delights in G‑d.

The “soiled garments” show how. At bottom the evil inclination is a powerful appetite. Clothed in a body, it reaches for physical pleasure. Take those garments off, and the same appetite can become “completely good, just like the good inclination”.

The plan reaches every part of a person. All the other feelings grow from love and awe (chapter 3), and each should be “for G‑d alone”. Then the three garments: thought and speech filled with G‑d and His Torah, and every limb busy with mitzvos.

The key word is “alone”. Both souls use the same brain, mouth and hands. The only question is what fills them, and the G‑dly soul will not share.

This describes what the G‑dly soul wants, not how most people live; how much comes true depends on the person. Chapters 10–12 describe the outcomes: the tzaddik, the rasha and the beinoni.

The animal soul’s plan gets one line: the exact opposite. It too wants the whole person.

Then a surprise: this is “for the person’s good”. The parable explains why. A king wishes to put his only son’s strength to the test, so he brings a charming, clever woman, tells her the purpose, and orders her to try with all her skill to seduce the prince, without revealing who sent her. A weak attempt would be no test, and holding back would be disobeying the king. Yet inside she hopes the prince will refuse her, because that is what the king really wants.

So too the animal soul. It is G‑d’s creation, sent to make the test real, so its pull must be real. But its source and purpose are good, and in the end it can be transformed. (See also the end of chapter 29.)