“Lubavitcher bochurim don't know Tanya.” “It’s embarrassing how Poilishers know Tanya way better than we do.”

So often this is the premise that is taken for granted within circles of bochurim (myself unfortunately included), deep in hours-long discussions in which all of the world’s problems are identified, diagnosed, prescribed, and solved.

“Teaching bochurim Tanya in mesivta really doesn't do the job. A typical 15-year-old is simply not interested in learning, so the material enters one ear and promptly floats out the other. It’s really sad that so many bochurim just don’t know the foundation of Chassidus Chabad.”

To an extent, this is true. We’ve all sat through those classes, and we’ve all come out with a subpar knowledge of this subject. Then we meet (or have a friend who met) someone who found Chassidus later in life, and he just can’t get over how incredible Tanya is and how it changed his life, while we stand there praying that he doesn't begin testing our proficiency in it.

However, this perspective misses a crucial point.

Since Yud-Tes Kislev, I have been learning Tanya with a chavrusa daily (albeit not from a Tanya Hasholeim) for the first time. When he initially offered to begin the chavrusa, I thought that it would completely shift my perception of Hashem, Torah, a Yid, and the world in general.

We began learning nightly, and I awaited the perek that would shift my paradigm. Since I already had a passing familiarity of the first perek, I didn’t expect it to happen for the first few days. But then the conversation turned from the נפש הבהמית to the נפש אלקית, and then a bit about how the nefesh operates, from there to the connection we forge with Hashem through learning Torah, and so on. 

We are currently in the middle of Perek Chof-Zayin. I have yet to find something that I didn’t see coming. I can’t repeat to you the order in which these topics appear by heart, or anything of the sort — I’m not proficient in Tanya. But, as it turns out, I was intimately familiar with all of the ideas that are discussed.

Honestly, this surprised me, because after so many years of hearing and assuming that neither I nor most of my friends had much more than glanced at the inside of the book, I thought that it would be a game changer for me. But it wasn’t.

And, come to think of it, obviously it wasn’t. As Lubavitchers, we have been raised with these foundations. The way we view a Mitzvah, a Yid, and everything else has already been baked into our education. In the words of the former vice-president: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Our brains are already wired to think in a fashion that is aligned with these values. And if you grew up on Shlichus, these principles were stated even more explicitly over the course of basic functions in your day-to-day life.

(This is obviously not an attempt to diminish the importance of learning Tanya. I learn it with a chavrusa every night. Be like me.)

None of this is really news. It is all just to say to all those serial pessimists — doomtelling, half-cup-empty, sky-is-always-falling calamity-proclaimers: Relax, take a deep breath. Lubavitcher bochurim all know Tanya. Maybe we can’t quote chapter and verse off the tops of our heads, but that’s fine, because we aren’t debating anyone. We know it in our bones — not perfectly, but much more than we give ourselves credit for.