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Malachim

מלאכים

Angels (malachim) · also: שרפים חיות ואופנים

Created spiritual beings: messengers and vessels through which the divine flow passes into the worlds. Drawn from G‑d’s speech and the externality of Chochmah, each stays at one fixed level. Seraphim, chayos, ofanim.

The word מלאך also means a messenger in general (וישלח יעקב מלאכים), and Malchus is sometimes called “the angel.” חיות (the chayos, holy beasts) is spelled like חיות (chayus, life-force), and אופן also means “manner”; the angels are meant in חיות הקדש, חיות ואופנים, שרפים, אופנים שבמרכבה, or where they rise “with a great noise.”

Where it’s explained

  1. Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 24, ¶6The angels are the messengers of the flow: since Or Ein Sof comes down only through many contractions, level below level, the angels of each world are vessels in which it contracts and clothes itself, and through them the flow reaches Israel and the whole world, spiritual and physical (“no blade of grass below without its angel above”). Their life is from the breath of His mouth, while Israel arose in thought; souls receive love and fear through them, and the angels are raised through Israel.הנה המלאכים הם השלוחים שהם שלוחי ההשפעה
  2. Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶13An angel is the messenger of a flow, a vessel through which it passes, so one angel cannot carry two missions: the angels are of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, where each thing is separate. Yaakov, who is the body of the Torah, in which all is one, prevailed over the angel.כי המלאך הוא שליח ההשפעה שהוא בחי׳ כלי שבו ועל ידו עוברת ההשפעה
  3. Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 31, ¶2The angels are born of the spiritual union (zivug neshikin) of Z”A and Nukva, which follows the order of hishtalshelus, so they come only from the externality of Chochmah; souls, from the physical union, come from its inwardness. So souls can beget, while angels do not: angels of Yetzirah only branch off as a glimmer from those of Beriah.שרש הנשמות הוא מבחי׳ פנימיות החכמה ושרש נשמות מלאכי׳ הוא מבחי׳ חיצוניות
  4. Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶2Angels and souls are called “standing” because they come from letters: the angels from the letters of speech (“by the breath of His mouth all their host”), Israel from the letters of thought; letters are like the inanimate, without movement of their own.והטעם שהמלאכים ונשמות נק׳ עומדים כי שרש התהוותם הוא מבחי׳ אותיות והמלאכים הם מאותיות הדבור
  5. Likkutei Torah, Shelach 3, ¶1Angels are called standing because each stays all its days at one level, Michael in love and Gavriel in fear, according to its grasp of the light that fills each world by its level; the soul in a body can go from level to level through the mitzvos.שהמלאכים נק׳ עומדים כמ״ש שרפים עומדים לפי שעומדים כל ימיהם במדרגה אחת מיכאל באהבה גבריאל ביראה

Stated differently

Whether the ofanim are in Yetzirah or in Asiyah

Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar 5, ¶19אבל החיות והאופנים שהם ביצירה ואין משיגים האור

The seraphim are in Beriah, where Or Ein Sof shines openly, so they grasp it and say “Holy”; the chayos and ofanim are in Yetzirah, do not grasp the light, and rise with a great noise.

Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 5, ¶14והאופנים מיצירה. יוצר אור משפיעים למטה ואומרים ברוך כבוד

The seraphim are from Beriah (“creates darkness”) and say “Holy”; the ofanim are from Yetzirah (“forms light”), give influence downward and say “Blessed”; all this is named from below upward.

Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 3, ¶41וכמ״ש האריז״ל שהאופנים הם בעשייה

The ofanim are in Asiyah, as the Arizal wrote (“one ofan on the earth”); Asiyah is the root from which evil can branch out, and from this their noise is greater and reaches above the seraphim.

Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 27, ¶2והנה בבריאה הם שרפים וביצירה חיות ובעשיי׳ אופנים

In Beriah are the seraphim, in Yetzirah the chayos, in Asiyah the ofanim; the animal soul is taken from the dregs of the ofanim.

Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 29, ¶16חב״ד מתגלים בבריאה ושם בחי׳ שרפים וחג״ת ביצירה וזהו בחי׳ חיות ונה״י בעשייה וזהו בחי׳ אופנים

As head, body and legs: Chochmah, Binah and Daas are revealed in Beriah (the seraphim), Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferes in Yetzirah (the chayos), Netzach, Hod and Yesod in Asiyah (the ofanim).

Likkutei Torah, Shemini Atzeres 8, ¶12שלפי שהאופנים וחיות הם בעשיי׳ ויצירה תגדל הרעש שלהם יותר מהשרפים שבבריאה

Because the ofanim and chayos are in Asiyah and Yetzirah, their noise is greater than that of the seraphim in Beriah.

Whether the chayos are in Yetzirah or in Beriah

Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 3, ¶43אבל האופנים שהם בעשייה ואפילו החיות שהם ביצירה

The ofanim in Asiyah, and even the chayos in Yetzirah, receive from Beriah only something from something, so they are further from grasping G‑dliness and rise with a great noise.

Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar 5, ¶19אבל החיות והאופנים שהם ביצירה ואין משיגים האור

The chayos and the ofanim are in Yetzirah.

Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶19מזיעתן של חיות שהם בבריא׳ ומשם יורד ליצירה ועשיה

The river of fire comes from the sweat of the chayos, who are in Beriah, and descends from there to Yetzirah and Asiyah.

Which worlds the angels belong to: Yetzirah, as speech, or Beriah as well, or (as one reading) even Atzilus

Torah Ohr, Mishpatim 1, ¶5משא״כ המלאכים נמשכים מבחי׳ דבר ה׳ ורוח פיו וכו׳ שהיא בחי׳ יצירה

Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah are thought, speech and action; souls, even those called “seed of beast,” are from thought, the world of Beriah, while the angels are drawn from G‑d’s speech, which is Yetzirah; so they cannot say “Holy” until Israel says it first.

Torah Ohr, Mikeitz 10, ¶6ומל׳ דבריאה הוא מקור וחיות המלאכים דבריאה. ומל׳ דיצירה וכו׳

The angels are drawn from Malchus alone: Malchus of Beriah is the source and life of the angels of Beriah, and Malchus of Yetzirah of those of Yetzirah.

Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 31, ¶2והגם שממלאכים דבריאה מסתעפים מלאכים ביצירה

There are angels of Beriah, from whom angels in Yetzirah branch off as a glimmer only.

Likkutei Torah, Tzav 2, ¶4או יש לומר דקאי על מלאכים דאצילות שנקראים גם כן נוני ימא

Offered as a possible reading (“or one may say”): “rule over the fish of the sea” refers to the angels of Atzilus, who are also called nunei yama, “fish of the sea”; so the Zohar’s “even the nunei yama” means even the upper ones, the angels.

Whether the angels are from the externality of the worlds, or are, with the souls, their inwardness

Torah Ohr, Bereishis 8, ¶3משא״כ המלאכים הם מחיצוניות העולמות שעליהם נאמר ומשם יפרד

The souls of Israel are from the inwardness of the worlds and so are in bittul; the angels are from the externality of the worlds, of which it says “from there it divides” into four heads, the four camps of the Shechinah.

Likkutei Torah, Matos 2, ¶7ובין דרך כלל הפנימיות דבי״ע הן הנשמות והמלאכים שיש בהן בחי׳ הביטול

In general the inwardness of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah is the souls and the angels, which have bittul because they came from Tikkun; the externality is the chambers of nogah, from the sparks of the shattering not yet rectified.

Whether the angels are rooted in Tohu or came into being from Tikkun

Torah Ohr, Noach 3, ¶5משא״כ המלאכים שרשם מבחי׳ עולם התהו

The soul is from Atzilus, the world of Tikkun, so it includes all the middos; the angels are rooted in the world of Tohu, each a single line: the camp of Michael only love, the camp of Gavriel only fear.

Likkutei Torah, Matos 2, ¶7הפנימיות דבי״ע הן הנשמות והמלאכים שיש בהן בחי׳ הביטול לפי שנתהוו מבחי׳ התיקון

The inwardness of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah is the souls and the angels, which have bittul because they came into being from Tikkun, where Ban was already rectified by Mah; the externality, the chambers of nogah, comes from the sparks of the shattering not yet rectified.

Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 2, ¶8אך המלאכים הם אשר כבר נתקנו בבחי׳ עולם התקון

The division into the many angels of the camps of Michael and Gavriel, and further in Yetzirah and Asiyah, is all from the shattering of the vessels; but the angels are those already rectified in the world of Tikkun.

Main sources

Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 24, ¶6Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 31, ¶2Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶13Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 3, ¶41Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 3, ¶43Likkutei Torah, Shelach 3, ¶1Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶2Torah Ohr, Bereishis 8, ¶3

Where it appears

In 543 paragraphs of 225 maamarim.

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.

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