Glossary · Torah Ohr · Likkutei Torah
Omdim and mehalchim
עומדים ומהלכים
Those who stand and those who walk (omdim and mehalchim)
Zechariah’s “walkers among those who stand”: angels (and souls before descent) “stand” at one fixed level of love and awe; souls in bodies “walk,” rising without limit through service and mitzvos in this world.
Where it’s explained
- Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶1“I will give you walkers among these who stand” (Zechariah 3:7): the angels are called standing (“seraphim standing”), and so are the souls before they come into this world (“before whom I stood”). Only after the souls descend into this world, clothed in a body and an animal soul, are they called walkers.
רק אחרי ירידת הנשמות לעוה״ז בהתלבשותן בגוף ונפש הבהמית נק׳ מהלכים
- Likkutei Torah, Shelach 3, ¶1Standing is “with all your soul”: love and awe limited by the measure of the soul’s grasp. The angels stand all their days at one level, Michael in love and Gavriel in awe, according to their grasp of the light that fills all worlds, each world by its rank. The soul gains walking through doing the mitzvos in this world.
לפי שעומדים כל ימיהם במדרגה אחת מיכאל באהבה גבריאל ביראה
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 1, ¶3The ones who stand are the angels and the walkers are the souls of all Israel. Angels are called standing because the source from which they were hewn and created is G‑d’s speech: “by the breath of His mouth all their host.”
והנה העומדים הן המלאכים ומהלכים הם נשמות כללות ישראל
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 1, ¶6Souls are called walkers because a soul can widen its love and awe from day to day, until it reaches the source from which it was hewn; and even there it does not rest, but goes on growing in light.
וע״כ הנשמות נקראו מהלכים כי יכול להתהלך בהרחבה להרחיב אהבתו ויראתו לה׳ ית׳ מיום ליום יותר ויותר
- Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶14The angels’ flow comes from Israel both from below upward and from above downward. So “walkers” are two kinds of walking, and “among those who stand” means within the inwardness of the angels: Israel brings walking into them.
וזהו ונתתי לך מהלכים ב׳ מיני הילוך ממטה למעלה וממעלה למטה
Stated differently
What standing and walking are in the soul’s service: awe and love, or love within measure and love beyond measure
הרי שבחינת עמידה הוא אימה ויראהStanding is dread and awe: standing silent, nullifying one’s own will (the standing boards of the Mishkan); walking comes after it and is love, kelos hanefesh (the curtains over the boards).
הנה ענין בכל נפשך ובכל מאדך שהוא בחי׳ עומדים ומהלכיםStanding is “with all your soul,” lights clothed in the vessels of each world, received from Malchus, memalei kol almin; walking is “with all your might,” from sovev kol almin above vessels, which shines in this world and lets darkness be turned to light.
Whether the souls’ root in the letters of thought makes them standing, like the angels from the letters of speech
וישראל עלו במחשבה הם מאותיות המחשבה והאותיות הם בחי׳ דומםAngels and souls are both called standing because their root is letters: the angels from the letters of speech, Israel from the letters of thought; letters are like the inanimate, nullified to the intellect that directs them, and have no walking.
אבל נשמות ישראל עליהם אמרו ישראל עלו במחשבה תחלה אשר מקור חוצבן מאותיות המחשבה הנקראת מחשבה עילאה אשר הם כמעין הנובע תמידThe letters of speech are separate, each standing alone, so the angels stand at one level; but the souls are hewn from the letters of Machshavah Ila’ah, which are like an ever-flowing spring that widens more and more, and so the souls are walkers (Bechukotai 1:6).
Main sources
Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶1Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶14Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5, ¶21Likkutei Torah, Shelach 3, ¶1Likkutei Torah, Shelach 4, ¶2Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 1, ¶3Likkutei Torah, Nasso 2, ¶22Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 1, ¶4
Where it appears
In 49 paragraphs of 35 maamarim.
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 1 ¶2 ¶3 ¶4 ¶6 ¶12
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 6 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Chukas 9 ¶25 ¶27
- Likkutei Torah, Emor 3 ¶1
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei 3 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Masei 4 ¶13
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 3 ¶1 ¶8 ¶16 ¶25
- Likkutei Torah, Shelach 4 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 20 ¶16
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 22 ¶22
- Likkutei Torah, Tzav 10 ¶1
- Torah Ohr, Vayeishev 5 ¶1 ¶2 ¶14 ¶21
- Likkutei Torah, Balak 5 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 2 ¶22 ¶23 ¶25
- Likkutei Torah, Shemini 2 ¶14 ¶15
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 1 ¶16
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 31 ¶2
- Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 2 ¶21
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 7 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei 1 ¶11
- Likkutei Torah, Vayikra 2 ¶3
- Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai 2 ¶31
- Likkutei Torah, Sukkos 3 ¶17
- Likkutei Torah, Vayikra 5 ¶67
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 24 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Masei 8 ¶23
- Likkutei Torah, Haazinu 4 ¶6
- Likkutei Torah, Vayikra 3 ¶5
- Likkutei Torah, Re’eh 7 ¶26
- Likkutei Torah, Balak 1 ¶15
- Likkutei Torah, Shelach 3 ¶1
- Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 12 ¶9
- Likkutei Torah, Nasso 5 ¶3
- Torah Ohr, Bereishis 1 ¶7
- Likkutei Torah, Balak 3 ¶22
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.