Glossary · Torah Ohr · Likkutei Torah
Dilug
דילוג
The leap (dilug)
A leap: a drawing-down or ascent that skips the chain of cause and effect (hishtalshelus) across a gap with no proportion: from Or Ein Sof to Atzilus, at the Exodus and Sinai, in teshuvah.
Where it’s explained
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 13, ¶18Hishtalshelus is cause and effect, where each level bears a proportion to the next, as speech comes from thought and thought from the middos. The great revelation of the Exodus, from “He and His Name alone,” could not come that way, only by a leap, like one who leaps from a mountain to a distant mountain he cannot walk to.
בא עליהם דרך דילוג ולא כסדר השתלשלות שהוא דרך עילה ועלול שיש ערך ושייכות זה לזה
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 33, ¶3The drawing from Or Ein Sof to Chochmah is a leap: first the light is withdrawn entirely, leaving a void, and only then a kav is drawn, as a leaper leaves air between his feet and the ground. Drawings from Atzilus to Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah are not called a leap, even through the parsa, since there the light itself shines through the screen.
היה צריך להיות תחלה הסתלקות האור לגמרי והגבהתו למעלה ואח״כ בא ההתגלות לחכמה דרך קו וחוט זהו בחי׳ הדילוג
- Likkutei Torah, Vezos Haberachah 3, ¶8Chochmah of Atzilus comes from the hidden Chochmah (Chochmah Stima’ah) not as effect from cause but by a “leap in proportion” (dilug ha’erech), like hair, which grows from the brain yet bears no proportion to it; in cause and effect the essence of the cause is clothed in the effect.
המשכת והתהוות החכמה דאצילות מחכמה סתימאה נמשל לבחי׳ שערות שזהו דילוג הערך ולא כמו עילה ועלול
- Likkutei Torah, Shabbos Shuvah 1, ¶7Teshuvah does not climb level by level; it is a leap above hishtalshelus, because sin has weakened the soul for the orderly service of iskafya and is’hapcha. That service, level by level, is the purpose of man; teshuvah is for the time the soul needs it.
סדר התשובה הוא שלא כסדר והשתלשלות המדרגה ממטה למעלה כנ״ל רק הוא בבחינת דילוג למעלה מבחי׳ השתלשלות
- Torah Ohr, Beshalach 5, ¶4At the Giving of the Torah, “leaping over the mountains” is a leap from place to place: a drawing-down from sovev, so that it is revealed below, as “Havayah descended upon Mount Sinai” and “all the people saw the voices.”
שהוא בבחי׳ דילוג ממקום למקום והיינו המשכה מלמעלה מבחי׳ סובב שיומשך ויתגלה למטה
Stated differently
The image of the leap: whether dilug is with one foot (as against kefitzah with two), or lifts the whole body and both feet off the ground
ההפרש בין דילוג לקפיצה הוא כי דילוג ברגל א׳ וקפיצה בב׳ רגליםLeaping (dilug, “over the mountains”) is with one foot, skipping (kefitzah, “over the hills”) with two feet, citing the Mishnah in Ohalos 8; the two feet are the right and left lines, love and awe.
הדילוג הוא שמגביה כל גופו ושני רגליו מן הארץ ונעשה חלל ומקום פנויIn walking and even running one foot stays on the ground; leaping is lifting the whole body and both feet off the ground, so that a void and empty space is made between the feet and the ground.
How “leaping over the mountains” is read: as a revelation that bypasses hishtalshelus, or as the voice descending level by level, the order of hishtalshelus
והארה כזו אינה יכולה לבא בדרך השתלשלות רק דרך דילוגThe leaping over the mountains is the Exodus revelation, which is above hishtalshelus and could come only by a leap.
כביכול שמדלג ממדרגה למדרגה ומעילה לעילה כו׳ לבחי׳ הרים ולבחי׳ גבעות שהן למטה מבחי׳ הרים והיינו דרך וסדר ההשתלשלות“The voice of my Beloved” drawn below leaps, as it were, from level to level and from cause to cause, to mountains and then to hills: this is the way and order of hishtalshelus. In the Time to Come “the mountains shall move,” when great mercy above hishtalshelus is revealed.
Whether the kav drawn after the void is itself the leap above hishtalshelus, or the root of hishtalshelus, with the leap being the light from above the void and the kav
צריך להיות מקודם חלל ומקום פנוי ואח״כ נמשך הקו ה״ז בחי׳ דילוגFirst there is a void, and afterwards the kav is drawn: this is the leap, and it is what is called above the order of hishtalshelus.
אך אור הנמשך מעצמות אא״ס שלמעלה מהחלל והקו נק׳ אור חדשThe root of all hishtalshelus of the four worlds is the kav, drawn after the tzimtzum and void, so what comes from the kav is not truly new light; light drawn from the essence of Or Ein Sof, above the void and the kav, is new light, “leaping over the mountains,” a leap from above hishtalshelus.
Whether the coming into being of the worlds below Atzilus is a leap, or the order of hishtalshelus (the leap being only from Or Ein Sof to Atzilus)
אבל כל המשכות בעולמות אבי״ע אפילו מאצי׳ לבי״ע לא נק׳ בחי׳ דילוג כי הוא דרך השתלשלותAll drawings in the worlds, even from Atzilus to Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, are not called a leap but hishtalshelus; even the parsa is not called a leap, since the light itself shines through the screen. Only the drawing from Or Ein Sof to Atzilus is called a leap.
אבל בבריאת העולמות אינו דרך השתלשלות והמשכהThe creation of the worlds is not by way of hishtalshelus: no number of tzimtzumim, level by level, could produce even the matter of the firmament; it is created something from nothing by the power of Or Ein Sof, not in the order of hishtalshelus but as a leap, and so all creatures. What the books call hishtalshelus of cause and effect does not refer to the creatures coming from the Creator.
כי מאחר שלא היה כדרך השתלשלות דרך עו״ע אלא דרך דלוגCreation (beriah) is called something from nothing because it was not by way of hishtalshelus, cause and effect, but by way of a leap, so that the light is not truly clothed within the worlds, only a mere glow.
Main sources
Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 13, ¶18Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 33, ¶1Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 33, ¶3Likkutei Torah, Korach 1, ¶14Likkutei Torah, Shabbos Shuvah 1, ¶7Likkutei Torah, Vezos Haberachah 3, ¶8Likkutei Torah, Tzav 10, ¶2Torah Ohr, Bereishis 10, ¶16
Where it appears
In 77 paragraphs of 47 maamarim.
- Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar 15 ¶24
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 5 ¶2 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Korach 1 ¶14 ¶20 ¶25
- Likkutei Torah, Rosh Hashanah 4 ¶7 ¶10 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 1 ¶5 ¶8
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 8 ¶24
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 32 ¶2 ¶3 ¶7 ¶34 ¶35 ¶42
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 33 ¶1 ¶2 ¶3 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 40 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 7 ¶24 ¶38 ¶39
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 10 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, V’Zos HaBerachah 3 ¶6 ¶8 ¶9 ¶19
- Torah Ohr, Beshalach 5 ¶4
- Torah Ohr, Megillas Esther 1 ¶6 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Emor 4 ¶21
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 14 ¶1 ¶4 ¶12
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 11 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei 1 ¶13
- Likkutei Torah, Pekudei 1 ¶53
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 13 ¶1 ¶17 ¶18 ¶19 ¶20 ¶21 ¶22
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 19 ¶32
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 27 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 36 ¶2
- Torah Ohr, Shemos 2 ¶1 ¶26
- Likkutei Torah, Shabbos Shuvah 1 ¶7
- Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar 17 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Behaaloscha 6 ¶33
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei 7 ¶15
- Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 9 ¶15
- Torah Ohr, Shemos 9 ¶2 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 42 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 1 ¶21
- Torah Ohr, Bereishis 10 ¶16
- Torah Ohr, Mikeitz 6 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Nitzavim 3 ¶14
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 3 ¶7
- Likkutei Torah, Pinchas 4 ¶14
- Likkutei Torah, Vayikra 2 ¶26
- Likkutei Torah, Yom Kippur 2 ¶21
- Torah Ohr, Yisro 3 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 6 ¶20
- Likkutei Torah, Kedoshim 1 ¶18
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 9 ¶3
- Torah Ohr, Bereishis 5 ¶4
- Torah Ohr, Bereishis 4 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Tazria 4 ¶29
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 6 ¶31
Written with AI from the paragraphs of Torah Ohr and Likkutei Torah, each entry checked by a second AI reader and every Hebrew quote checked by code; not yet reviewed by a person. Our English: CC BY-NC 4.0.