Likkutei Torah · Sefer Shemos · Shabbos 24. Oktober
פרשת שיר השירים
Parshas Shir HaShirim
42 Maamarim des Alter Rebbe zur Parsha, im Hebräischen der Kehot-Ausgabe, wobei sich jeder Marei Makom genau dort öffnen lässt, wo er erscheint. Jeder kurze Abschnitt mit einer getreuen deutschen Übersetzung und einer kurzen Erklärung.
Dein Fortschritt in Parshas Shir HaShirim
Die Maamarim 42
- שיר השירים אשר לשלמה ישקנו מנשיקות פיהו כי… The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s The Jewish people are G‑d’s bride in two ways, by self-sacrifice that consumes the self and by yearning love in which a self remains, and these draw down two “grooms”: G‑d’s great Name clothed in the Torah’s supernal wisdom, and the Torah and mitzvos brought into the lower worlds. G‑d’s love revealed through them reaches His very essence, and so it is “better than wine,” better than any revelation that comes out of concealment.
- שיר השירים אשר לשלמה The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s In true prayer the one who sings is not the individual but the Community of Israel and, above it, Malchus; the person’s mouth is only a vessel through which praise from above flows, which is why the verse says “be praised” (hishallelu) rather than “praise.”
- לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך For Fragrance, Your Oils Are Good Contemplation, the “wine” of the Torah, moves only a heart that can be moved; but the Torah itself, the “oil” drawn from G‑d’s supernal wisdom and higher still, reaches even a sealed heart, so that “the maidens,” too, come to love G‑d.
- לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך For the fragrance of your goodly oils All the rewards of the World to Come are only a single glimmer of G‑d’s light, while teshuvah from the depth of the heart, possible only for a soul in a body, reaches G‑d’s very being and essence. The souls above reach that same inclusion through the Torah they learned below, whose “fragrance” grows the further it descends.
- שחורה אני ונאוה בנות ירושלים וגו׳ “I am black and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem” The Torah’s black fire on white fire describes how the Infinite Light, too great to be grasped, is hidden and contracted into “letters” so that it can be revealed; the hiddenness is itself the source of beauty. In the soul, the “blackness” of a hidden love, concealed and covered by the animal soul, is rooted in that white fire and can be revealed and transformed.
- שחורה אני ונאוה בנות ירושלים כאהלי קדר כיריעות שלמה “I Am Black, yet Comely, O Daughters of Jerusalem” The soul that has descended into a body is “black”: it receives G‑d’s wisdom as the dark mass of halachic detail and the rabbinic fences around the prohibitions, and it lives among worldly business. Yet this very blackness makes it more beautiful than the souls that never came down: tzedakah given from hard-earned money exalts the whole animal soul and draws a revelation of the Infinite Light into it, and the prohibitions join it to the light that surrounds all worlds, which no positive deed can reach and which will be revealed in the future.
- ביאור ענין שחורה אני ונאוה An Explanation of “I Am Black, yet Comely” The Shechinah’s descent into the lower worlds makes her “black,” through the bitterness of distance and through being clothed in physical mitzvos, yet that very blackness makes her more “comely” than the souls that never left Atzilus. Through it she rises above the level of vessels to the lights, and to the essence of the Infinite One.
- ביאור הדברים ע״פ שחורה אני ונאוה An Explanation of the Matters on “I Am Black, Yet Comely” The soul’s descent into a limited, physical world makes it “black,” yet that very blackness is the source of its beauty: through mitzvos done with physical things, and above all through the prohibitive commandments, which reject what cannot be elevated, a light is revealed that is higher than anything the soul knew above, reaching even to G‑d’s essence.
- לסוסתי ברכבי פרעה דמיתיך רעיתי “To My Mare Among Pharaoh’s Chariots I Have Likened You, My Beloved” The “horse,” the letters that carry without understanding, brings the divine light down to the lowest places and also carries the supernal Man upward, beyond the level of Man, to G‑d who “is not a man”; its strength comes not from itself but from G‑d’s essence, and so Israel, through Torah and mitzvos, are likened to G‑d’s mare.
- לסוסתי ברכבי פרעה דמיתיך רעיתי To My Mare Among Pharaoh’s Chariots Israel “sustain” G‑d as food sustains a person: through Torah and mitzvos, which flow from G‑d’s own delight, they let His infinite light reach the worlds as kindness. Like a royal horse that serves its rider’s pleasure without grasping it, the soul does this through self-nullification before a delight beyond all understanding.
- נאוו לחייך בתורים צוארך בחרוזים “Your Cheeks Are Comely with Torim, Your Neck with Strings of Beads” The two Torahs are torim, triangular jewels on the cheeks: in burning love, prayer, kindness and Torah, three separate “points,” are joined by lines into one. The “strings of beads” on the neck are the separate things of the world, pierced by self-nullification and strung on the thread of Torah, so that G‑d is “the first and the last” equally, below as above.
- הנך יפה רעיתי יפה עיניך יונים כו׳ “Behold, You Are Fair, My Beloved; Your Eyes Are Doves” Israel’s love for G‑d is also how they “sustain” Him: a will awakened in mind and heart draws the Infinite Light into the one thought of creation and down to every soul, as food lets the soul live in the body. The verse says “fair” twice because there is a beauty Israel make through their own service, “we will do,” and a greater beauty that G‑d draws down from Above, “we will hear.”
- קול דודי הנה זה בא מדלג על ההרים… “The Voice of My Beloved! Behold, He Comes, Leaping over the Mountains” At the Exodus G‑d’s own essence, “He and His Name alone,” far above the chain of worlds that His Name sustains, was revealed to Israel by a “leap,” out of all proportion to their low state; only such a revelation could free them from Mitzrayim, the realm of limit. Israel’s own service (the guarded first matzah, reached through the bitterness of maror, and later the Counting of the Omer) prepares for this revelation and draws it down, and it will return openly in the future.
- ולהבין ענין מדלג על ההרים מקפץ על הגבעות… To Understand “Leaping over the Mountains, Skipping over the Hills” Mitzvos are “fruits”: like a seed sown in the earth, the physical deed below is the vessel through which the Infinite Light, which at creation came as a free gift, is now drawn down and revealed. The mitzvos bring both inner light, from the Gevuros, and encompassing light, from the Chasadim, and so they are the “hills” over which G‑d skips with both feet.
- יונתי בחגוי הסלע בסתר המדרגה My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hidden place of the step: show me your appearance A soul rises to G‑d in one of two ways: the orderly ascent of “Arise for yourself,” through prayer, Torah and mitzvos, which belonged to the Exodus; or, in exile, when love and awe are hidden, the cry of a soul that remembers it is a mirror, sent down only in order to return. That cry of teshuvah breaks through and draws down even more.
- ביאור ע״פ יונתי בחגוי הסלע וגו׳ An explanation of the verse “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” G‑d’s thought, unlike man’s, is the true “something,” and the souls of Israel are rooted in His primordial thought, Adam Kadmon, before which spiritual Atzilus and physical Asiyah are equal. That is why their Torah and mitzvos can make a dwelling for G‑d below; and in exile, when they cannot simply rise to that root, turning the concealment itself into love draws from a still higher level.
- עוד ביאור הדברים ע״פ יונתי בחגוי הסלע וגו׳ A further explanation of “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” The souls of Israel are rooted in the inner essence of G‑d’s wisdom, above the Torah, which is only its “unripe fruit.” Rising step by step (“Arise for yourself”) they reach only Chochmah; but in exile the concealment itself, turned into teshuvah and boundless love (“Show me your appearance”), produces a returning light that reaches Keser and draws down a new light from the Infinite.
- צאינה וראינה בנות ציון במלך שלמה בעטרה שעטרה… Go Out and Gaze, O Daughters of Zion Through the Shema, the Torah and self-nullification, Israel draw G‑d’s holiness down into the worlds and so become, as it were, the “mother” who crowns the King; but the crown itself, the Torah and mitzvos in their essence, is beyond all comprehension, and to gaze at it one must “go out” of the garments of understanding.
- להבין ענין הטעם למה שהאתדל״ע הבאה אחר האתעדל״ת… To Understand Why the Arousal from Above That Follows the Arousal from Below G‑d’s light reaches us in three ways: an unprompted arousal from above, rooted highest but revealed only outwardly; an arousal that answers our service, rooted lower but inward; and a third, both highest and inward, revealed only once our service is complete. Torah and mitzvos mirror the first two, as the hidden brain and the skull of Keser, and the joy of a mitzvah draws down the third, the inner Keser: the “crown” that the souls see without garments and that brings forth the great love even from the “barren one.”
- צאינה וראינה בנות ציון במלך שלמה בעטרה שעטרה… Go Out and Gaze, O Daughters of Zion The Torah, given on “the day of his wedding,” is bread, wine and oil. Bread strengthens even the weak soul, enosh, to master the animal soul, and joins the Infinite Light to the worlds; wine is contemplation, which reveals hidden G‑dliness and kindles a fiery joy; oil is the calm radiance of the essence of Chochmah. That radiance, the main goal, comes from the “crown,” the supernal will, reached in order: “make His will as your will” through wine, so that “He will make your will as His will.”
- ביאור הדברים An Explanation of the Matter: “Keser Is Above All the Ten Sefiros” The Torah’s “bread,” its letters and its laws broken down so that every person can receive them, is rooted higher than its “wine” of revealed delight, for the counsel of Netzach and Hod that adapts wisdom to a small recipient comes from Keser: “counsels from afar.” In the same way the “crown” of Keser can be seen only by going out of Atzilus into Beriah, through the speculum that does not shine, and from there the two loaves are raised to the crown.
- לבבתני אחותי כלה You Have Captured My Heart, My Sister, My Bride Israel’s service “sustains” G‑d: the offerings, and now prayer, lift the soul into the encompassing light, and the Torah and mitzvos draw that light down into the worlds, as bread binds the soul to the body. So the Congregation of Israel makes G‑d, as it were, a “heart” (libavtini) that sends the Infinite Light into all the worlds, through the soul’s two loves, the gazing of its “eyes,” and even one chapter of Torah.
- ביאור על פסוק לבבתני An Explanation of the Verse “You Have Captured My Heart” Israel’s service makes G‑d, as it were, a “heart”: the refinement of the animal soul in prayer, like the animal on the altar, arouses the higher Daas, which knows without being stirred and is the source of forgiveness (sovev kol almin), and draws it into the lower Daas that gives life to the worlds (memalei kol almin).
- באתי לגני אחותי כלה אריתי מורי עם בשמי… “I Have Come into My Garden, My Sister, [My] Bride” G‑d’s consolation at midnight for the destruction is the tzaddikim’s Torah study, which draws the Infinite Light into Chochmah and through it into the attributes, so that the Shechinah begins to rise from her exile. The power to draw down a light that is above Chochmah comes from iskafya, overcoming one’s nature, whose “fragrance” rises to the Infinite Light itself.
- ביאור ע״פ באתי לגני An Explanation of the Verse “I Have Come into My Garden” Torah study for its own sake, in depth and especially after midnight, draws into Z’eir Anpin not only the contracted radiance of Chochmah that conducts the world through the Name Elokim, but the essence of the intellect of Abba; and for that the source must be above Chochmah itself, the “fragrance” of Atik, which the verse’s myrrh and spice signify.
- אני ישנה ולבי ער קול דודי דופק פתחי לי כו׳ “I Am Asleep, but My Heart Is Awake” In exile Israel “sleeps”: the letters of Torah and prayer still carry the Infinite Light, but it is hidden. Yet G‑d, the “heart” of Israel, stays awake, and like a heart that gives out only what it first receives, His flow answers our arousal from below, while beyond it the “dew” of the supernal will is revealed in full once a person has done all he can.
- להבין ביאור הדברים ע״פ אני ישנה ולבי ער כו׳ To Understand the Explanation of “I Am Asleep, but My Heart Is Awake” Even in exile, when Israel “sleeps,” its heart is awake: the refinement of the animal soul, whose root in Tohu is higher than the order of Tikkun, rises to G‑d, the “heart,” and draws down His response. The highest levels of that response, Keser, the fiftieth gate and the dew of Mocha Stima’ah, come of themselves, but only after a person has done all that he can.
- הסבי עיניך וגו׳ “Turn Away Your Eyes” The burning love of prayer, the ratzo in which the soul longs to dissolve into G‑d, is a great level but not the goal: G‑d says “Turn away your eyes from Me,” because He wants a dwelling place below, and His truest greatness, His “humility,” shows in the shov, the return to Torah study, charity and kindness in the physical world. The Torah and mitzvos, coming from the level of “face,” have the power to remove the “hair” of worldliness that such engagement might bring.
- שניך כעדר הרחלים שעלו מן הרחצה שכולם מתאימות Your Teeth Are Like a Flock of Ewes That Have Come Up from the Washing The threefold “Holy” of the Kedushah is three kinds of raising mayin nukvin, through deeds, through love and awe, and through the makif of the soul above the body: three separate “flocks.” When they “come up from the washing,” receiving through Moshe from the supernal Kodesh that is above all division, they become one flock, “all of them twinned,” and together they reach a level that none of them reaches alone.
- ששים המה מלכות ושמונים פילגשים ועלמות אין מספר… There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and maidens without number The souls of Israel are G‑d’s light “sown” in bodies, so that through Torah and practical mitzvos the revelation of the Infinite will grow and multiply in the lower worlds; in this they surpass the Torah as halachah, which stays exactly as it was spoken. Because the souls are rooted in supernal Chochmah, the hidden “spring,” they bring about the time to come, when “a spring will go forth from the house of Havayah” and the lower world will be one with G‑d as the higher is: “my perfect one, my twin.”
- לבאר הדברים ע״פ ששים המה מלכות כו׳ ודרשו… “There Are Sixty Queens” The Torah, the “sixty queens,” comes down through the gradual chain of descent from the outer dimension of Chochmah, while the souls of Israel, “One is she, my dove,” are rooted in its inner dimension, which no gradual chain can carry. One whose “desire of the heart” reaches that root stands above the Torah; one who has not reached it is below the Torah and bound to it.
- ששים המה מלכות ושמונים פילגשים כו׳ There are sixty queens and eighty concubines Because there is no comparison at all between G‑d and the worlds, His transcendent light can reach them only by a “leap,” not by a chain of cause and effect, and Torah study is that leap: the words of Torah a Jew speaks are G‑d’s own speech, uniting the Holy One with His Shechinah. That is why the Ten Commandments were given “saying”: after the self-sacrifice of the Shema, every person’s learning renews the voice of Sinai, new each day.
- הנה ענין מדלג על ההרים הוא עד״מ שההפרש… “Leaping upon the Mountains” Torah study can draw sovev, the light beyond all worlds that comes only by a “leap” across the empty space of the tzimtzum, into memalei, the light that descends step by step through the worlds. It does so only after prayer has first raised the soul to self-sacrifice without limit: “One is she, my dove,” and then “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes.”
- מה יפו פעמיך בנעלים כו׳ How Beautiful Are Your Footsteps in Shoes The “shoe,” the lowest and outermost layer, holds the main beauty. Above, the angel Sandalphon is the shoe of Malchus that both limits creation and lifts prayer to the Crown; in the person, the animal soul, refined through the self-sacrifice of the Shema, through mitzvos, charity and joy, becomes the shoe that fulfils the purpose of creation.
- מי יתנך כאח לי יונק שדי אמי כו׳ “Who Will Make You as a Brother to Me” There are two ways of bringing G‑d’s presence into the world: the tzaddik, whose mitzvos draw G‑dliness down “from above to below,” and the baal teshuvah, whose return from a distance stirs a fervor that reaches the very level of G‑dliness that withdrew in exile. The verse asks for both at once, the tzaddik who also does teshuvah, and that joining brings the redemption.
- שימני כחותם על לבך כו׳ “Set Me as a Seal upon Your Heart” Israel’s service and G‑d’s response work like a signet and wax: an ascent that rises ‘raised’ from below is answered from above in a ‘sunken,’ hidden way, while the ‘sunken’ self-nullification of prayer draws an open, ‘raised’ revelation. Yet the truest answer to “Set me as a seal” is no seal at all: Israel are engraved in G‑d’s very essence, above Chochmah.
- ביאור על זה An Explanation of This [Discourse] Divine service has two shapes, like the two faces of a seal: ratzo, rising love that stands out, and shov, self-nullification that sinks inward, and each draws down its opposite from above. Love and the positive commandments bring G‑d’s light clothed in vessels, the tefillin of the hand; bittul and the prohibitions bring the unclothed Infinite Light, the tefillin of the head.
- כי על כל כבוד חופה “For Over All Glory, a Chuppah” “All glory” means two glories: the groom’s, light descending from above to below, and the bride’s, the soul’s longing rising from below to above. These opposites, like water and fire, unite only under a chuppah, an encompassing light from sovev kol almin above both; in a person the bride’s chuppah is the boundless love “with all your might,” and it arouses the groom’s chuppah above.
- ביאור הדברים ע״פ כי על כל כבוד חופה… An Explanation of “For Over All the Glory, a Canopy” Opposites are united by a canopy, a level higher than both of them: the Tiferes of Imma over Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, and the supernal will over Abba and Imma. Now the bride, Malchus, receives through a will whose reasons are hidden; when the mitzvos have refined the sparks of Tohu, the hidden reason and delight of the Mocha Stima’ah will be revealed and the bride will become the crown of her husband.
- תנו רבנן כיצד מרקדין לפני הכלה ב״ש אומרים… Our Rabbis Taught: How Does One Dance Before the Bride? Every Jew’s soul holds a constant but hidden love for G‑d, the “bride”; Beis Hillel teach that G‑d’s kindness is drawn down first, revealing that love even in the flawed so that evil falls away of itself, and the wedding dance draws down the encompassing light that unites giver and receiver.
- כי כאשר השמים החדשים כו׳ For just as the new heavens Through teshuvah and the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven, the soul in a body draws G‑d’s Essence into the worlds: its fiery “heaven,” the ratzo of “with all your might,” makes the heavens G‑d’s “throne,” and its humble “earth,” the shov, makes the earth His “footstool.” In the Time to Come G‑d Himself will make new heavens and earth that “stand before Me,” revealing His inner face, and the seed of our present mitzvos and the “name” of our acceptance of His yoke will be raised to that level.
- ביאור ע״פ כי כאשר השמים כו׳ An explanation of “For just as the heavens…” The present heavens and earth, “My throne” and “My footstool,” are drawn down through human service and reach only the outer dimension of the divine, its “back,” by way of a partition that lowers Atzilus to created beings; the new heavens and earth of the Time to Come will come by G‑d’s own initiative from the inner dimension of Atik, and will “stand before Me” above the partition.
In sieben Tagen lernen Sonntag bis Shabbos
Der Rebbe bat darum, alle Maamarim der Wochenparsha in derselben Woche zu lernen, verteilt auf ihre sieben Tage. Hier ist die Parsha in sieben ungefähr gleich lange Abschnitte eingeteilt.