Glossary · Torah Ohr · Likkutei Torah
Mayim chaim
מים חיים
Living water (mayim chaim) · also: מעין ונהר
Spring water, welling up from a hidden source. Above, Chochmah welling from its hidden source, Keser (“the source of living water”), or that source itself; in a person, Torah and an unceasing love.
The word In halachah mayim chaim is plain spring water, as required for the red heifer’s purifying water; Jeremiah’s “source of living water” names G‑d. The maamarim start from the physical spring and read it as Chochmah, Torah or love; context shows which.
Where it’s explained
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 1, ¶15As living water wells up from a source hidden in the earth, G‑d, hidden of all hidden, is called the source of living water, and from Him flows the Torah, Chochmah Ila’ah. In the red heifer it is the “return” after the “run” (the ashes), and it must go “into a vessel”: the mitzvos and the letters of the Torah.
כך הנה הוא ית׳ נק׳ מקור מים חיים כי הוא סתימו דכל סתימין וטמירו דכל טמירין
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶14From the dug well comes living water: a love that does not stop, Avraham’s love like water, more lasting than the fiery love of prayer that passes afterward; it is living because it receives from Chochmah, which is called life, the bittul of koach mah.
והיינו לפי שהם מים חיים שמקבלים מחכמה שנק׳ חיים
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶1The well is Knesses Yisrael, the source of the souls. A well’s water comes down from the rivers through the veins of the earth and then wells up from below; so the soul comes down through the upper and lower Gan Eden (“a fountain of gardens”), and in the body it becomes a well of living water that rises from below upward.
וכשבאה בהתלבשות הגוף נעשית בחי׳ באר מים חיים שחוזרים ועולים ונובעים ממטה למעלה
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 9, ¶24The “fountain of gardens” that flows by itself is like “a river goes out from Eden,” the constant union of Chochmah and Binah that keeps the worlds alive; a truly new light from Or Ein Sof is drawn only by digging the well of living water.
אבל להיות המשכת אור חדש ממש מאור א״ס זהו ע״י חפירת וכריית באר מים חיים
- Torah Ohr, Toldos 4, ¶3Well water comes from a river, which is not called living, yet once it has pressed through the thick earth it is called living water, refined by its passage. So a mitzvah done amid a worldly day, with a broken heart, brings out the G‑dliness of prayer that had been hidden under the body’s desires.
שאע״פ שהנהר אינו נק׳ מ״ח אבל המים היוצאים ממנו ונוקב והולך עובי עפר הקרקע נק׳ מים חיים
Stated differently
Whether living water is Chochmah itself as it flows from Keser, or the hidden source of Chochmah
אך מים חיים שהם הנובעי׳ מתחת לארץ היינו המשכת ונביעת החכמה שנמשך ונובע מבחי׳ הכתר שנק׳ מקור מים חייםWater is Chochmah; living water is the flowing of Chochmah as it wells from Keser, which is called the source of living water. It is the Chochmah in the Torah, and must go into the vessels of the Torah’s letters.
מים הוא בחינת חכמה ומים חיים הוא מקור החכמה שנק׳ מים חיים בחינת מעיןWater is Chochmah; living water is the source of Chochmah, a spring, as in “wisdom comes from nothing”; it is from tala debedulcha, the hidden source of Chochmah.
What makes spring or well water “living”
וכמו ההפרש בין מעיין הנובע שנקרא מים חיים שקרוב להמקור מוצא המים חייםA flowing spring is called living water because it is near its source; plain water, far from the source, is not living. So one who grasps wisdom to its depth, where its source in Keser shines, can impart it to others.
נק׳ מים חיים מפני שמתברר ומתלבן ע״י דחקם לצאת בעפר החומריThe river the water comes from is not called living; the water is called living because it is refined and purified by pressing out through the coarse earth.
והנה למטה מים חיים הן הנובעים מתחת לארץ והיינו לפי שנעוץ תחלתן בסופןBelow, living water wells from under the earth because “their beginning is wedged in their end”: what is above Chochmah, “from nothing to something,” is revealed below in the earth, which grows again and again without end.
Main sources
Likkutei Torah, Chukas 1, ¶15Likkutei Torah, Chukas 2, ¶23Likkutei Torah, Chukas 3, ¶9Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶1Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8, ¶14Likkutei Torah, Chukas 9, ¶24Torah Ohr, Toldos 4, ¶3
Where it appears
In 73 paragraphs of 37 maamarim.
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 8 ¶1 ¶10 ¶13 ¶14 ¶15 ¶16 ¶17
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 9 ¶2 ¶3 ¶5 ¶6 ¶16 ¶17 ¶18 ¶19 ¶21 ¶23 ¶24 ¶27
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 20 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Sukkos 2 ¶1 ¶2 ¶7
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 6 ¶8
- Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 8 ¶20
- Likkutei Torah, Shemini Atzeres 1 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei 1 ¶13
- Likkutei Torah, Sukkos 1 ¶13
- Likkutei Torah, Beshalach 1 ¶36
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 2 ¶4 ¶11 ¶13 ¶22 ¶23 ¶40 ¶41 ¶45
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 3 ¶3 ¶9 ¶10 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Masei 5 ¶16 ¶23
- Likkutei Torah, Matos 3 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 4 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Savo 3 ¶9
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 2 ¶17
- Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 1 ¶7
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 39 ¶9
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 3 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Va’eschanan 10 ¶14
- Likkutei Torah, Masei 3 ¶20
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 1 ¶4 ¶7 ¶15 ¶20 ¶21
- Likkutei Torah, Shemini Atzeres 4 ¶9
- Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 3 ¶41
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 41 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 4 ¶7
- Torah Ohr, Toldos 4 ¶1 ¶2 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Shemini 2 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 5 ¶33
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 1 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Rosh Hashanah 7 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Shelach 6 ¶8
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 5 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 6 ¶4
- Likkutei Torah, Vayikra 5 ¶48
- Torah Ohr, Toldos 2 ¶23
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.