ביאור ע״פ על כן יאמרו המושלים באו חשבון

This heading opens a Biur, a supplementary explanation, on Numbers 21:27, a verse about Cheshbon, the capital of Sichon king of the Emorites. The Talmud (Bava Basra 78b) reads it homiletically: the moshlim are “those who rule over their inclination,” and “Come to Cheshbon” means “Come, let us calculate the reckoning of the world,” since cheshbon means a reckoning.

The Alter Rebbe grounds “the reckoning of the world” in the Zohar on Parshas Pekudei, which, explaining why Israel, like the sand of the sea, are not subject to counting, describes a hidden “measuring” and a hidden “reckoning.” The Zohar calls them “the mystery and foundation of everything, above and below.”

The hidden reckoning is identified with the kav hamidah, the “measuring line,” the Kabbalistic term for what sets the measure of divine light for each level. The Arizal’s Likkutei Torah likewise identifies cheshbon with Abba, the configuration of Chochmah, as “supernal thought” (machshavah shares the root of cheshbon), and specifically with the five Gevuros of Abba.

Pointing to Me’orei Or, a Kabbalistic work arranged by the letters of the alphabet, the Alter Rebbe gives the reason: the Gevuros, the powers of restraint and limitation, give every world its allotted measure, so that the G‑dliness revealed in it matches its rank and nature. “Reckoning,” then, is the measured allotment of divine light down the whole chain of worlds.

The Infinite Light can be revealed only in what is “nothing” before it, and Chochmah is the level of ayin, complete self-nullification. Whatever feels itself to be a yesh, an existence in its own right, cannot hold that revelation.

The Talmud says that of an arrogant person G‑d declares, “I and he cannot dwell together in the world.” Therefore the “reckoning” of each world, how much G‑dliness it receives, depends on how much Chochmah is revealed in it, for, as the verse says, everything was made with Chochmah.

Chochmah is present in everything, but not in equal measure: where it is abundant the level is higher, and where it is diminished and contracted the level descends further and further.

The measuring line is what “weighs” how much Chochmah each level receives; the Raaya Mehemna calls it “a stone to weigh with” and identifies it with the yud, the letter of Chochmah. This weighing out of Chochmah is “the reckoning of the world.”

This physical world stands at the very end of the chain of worlds: it is the point of greatest concealment, a “doubled and redoubled darkness,” where in the ordinary order the revelation of Chochmah and the comprehension of G‑dliness are at their faintest.

Yet this very world is “the world of action,” where deeds can draw down a revelation of the Infinite Light that transcends the whole chain of worlds and surpasses what the higher worlds receive.

This comes through the Torah given at Sinai, whose root is the supernal Chochmah itself, so that “the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one”; the higher worlds receive only a radiance of Chochmah. “In the holy mountains” echoes Psalms 87:1, “Its foundation is in the holy mountains.”

Therefore Torah study brings down to this world a revelation from beyond the whole chain of worlds. This is the deeper sense of the Talmud’s “let us calculate the reckoning of the world”: to draw blessing from the very source of reckoning, the supernal thought at the root of the measuring line.

A second reading: moshlim in its plain sense, from mashal, a parable. The Torah is called “the parable of the Ancient One” (meshal hakadmoni), after the phrase in I Samuel 24:14.

A parable clothes a deep idea in a form the listener can grasp; so the Torah is the “garment” through which “the Ancient One of the world,” the Infinite Light itself, is revealed, for the Torah is the supernal Chochmah. The Alter Rebbe develops this in his discourse on Purim in Torah Ohr.

So through the Torah, the “parable,” one accomplishes “Come, let us calculate the reckoning of the world.” The same holds for fulfilling the mitzvos, which the next paragraph explains.

The mitzvos make the “reckoning” too. Of the prohibitions it was explained above that when the sitra achra is subdued, G‑d’s glory rises in all the worlds; of the positive commandments, the Talmud says of charity that “every perutah joins into a great reckoning,” small coins adding up to a great sum.

Charity’s sum is called a “reckoning” because Malchus of Atzilus is called cheshbon. The Zohar, on Ecclesiastes 9:10 (“there is no deed or reckoning”), explains cheshbon as “the world that depends on speech,” for reckoning depends on speech; and Malchus is the divine speech that creates the worlds.

The life-force from the Infinite Light divides into countless distinct levels and creatures, “Is there any number to His legions?” (Job 25:3), and no two creatures are alike. This differentiation comes from the supernal speech, whose letters combine in endlessly varied ways.

The Alter Rebbe points to his discourse on “And Elokim spoke to Moshe” in Torah Ohr, Parshas Va’eira, and to his treatment of “And David made a name” (II Samuel 8:13) in Iggeres HaKodesh, the letters that form a part of Tanya, where this subject is discussed.

Because Malchus is the supernal speech, the “reckoning” is found there: as Isaiah 40:26 says, G‑d “brings out their host by number” and “calls them all by name,” joining number to calling by name, that is, to speech. The Zohar’s introduction (I, 2a) expounds this verse.

Likewise “He counts the number of the stars” (Psalms 147:4): the life-force spreads, as the light that fills all worlds, to each creature in its own measure, suited to its makeup and nature. The verse “Your eyes are pools in Cheshbon” (Song of Songs 7:5) is read as alluding to this measured flow from the level called cheshbon.

Two more discourses treat this theme: one on counting the Omer (“And you shall count for yourselves,” Leviticus 23:15), which reads se’orah, the barley of the Omer offering, as shiur hei, “the measure of hei”; and one on “And Elokim spoke all these words, saying” (Exodus 20:1), the opening of the Ten Commandments.

The Zohar on Pekudei says that the supreme Kodesh (Holy) rises above all, but has “outside, another Kodesh below, which stands beneath it and exists in reckoning” and number. The higher holiness is beyond counting; the lower one is subject to reckoning.

That lower Kodesh is Malchus of Atzilus, the source of the three lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. A later discourse, on “Who can count the dust of Yaakov, and the number of the fourth of Israel” (Numbers 23:10), develops this.

All the reckoning described so far is the division of the life-force into the multitude of creatures, of which Psalms 104:24 says, “How many are Your works!” The “great reckoning” is something else, alluded to in Psalms 150:2, “Praise Him according to the abundance of His greatness.”

“His greatness” is the Infinite Light itself, revealed from the level of sovev kol almin, the light that transcends the worlds. “The abundance of His greatness” means that even this transcendent light holds a multitude of levels.

These levels rise one above another. The known principle is that what is now an encompassing light will in the Time to Come be drawn inward as an inner light, and still higher encompassing lights will then be drawn above it.

This is explained in the discourse on “And it shall be on that day that a great shofar shall be sounded” (Isaiah 27:13). The “great reckoning” of the mitzvos is drawn from “His great Name,” the level of the transcendent light.

The “great reckoning” is the revelation of “the abundance of His greatness,” the many higher lights within the transcendent light, and it is drawn down through the mitzvos. The morning blessing before the Shema says, “He sows acts of charity, makes salvations sprout”: the “salvations” (yeshuos, a word that contains the letters shin-ayin, 370) are the level of the “370 lights” that come from the great reckoning.

The number 370 follows the structure of the Sefiros: each of the three intellectual Sefiros, Chochmah, Binah and Daas, includes a hundred, together 300, the value of the letter shin; and each of the seven emotive Sefiros includes ten, together 70.

Those seventy are the letter ayin, so that together they make shin-ayin, 370. The Alter Rebbe cites the Arizal’s Etz Chaim and the Ramaz (Rabbi Moshe Zacuto) on the Zohar, who explain the number as expressing a multitude of lights.

Etz Chaim cites the Idra (Zohar III, 128b) for “370 myriads” of lights. The theme of the great reckoning is also treated in the Biur on counting the Omer and in the discourse on tzitzis, both in Likkutei Torah.

This is the inner meaning of “Come to Cheshbon”: it refers to the mitzvos, as the Talmud reads it, “Come, let us calculate the reckoning of the world: the loss of a mitzvah against its reward.”

As with charity, where “every perutah joins into a great reckoning,” the word “great” is exact: the mitzvah draws down the transcendent Infinite Light, sovev kol almin, the level of “His great Name.”

The light of the great reckoning is drawn into Malchus, G‑d’s sovereignty, the source of the three lower worlds, which is called cheshbon; this is “Come to Cheshbon.” All the mitzvos do the same, and of this Hosea 2:1 says, “And the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea.”

The verse continues, “which shall not be measured and shall not be counted”: Israel, though numbered, are beyond number, because through the mitzvos they draw from the great reckoning, which transcends all measure. The Biur on “Who can count” develops this.

In a person’s own service of G‑d there are also two kinds of reckoning. The first is the nightly self-accounting that the Zohar on Parshas Korach describes, made each night before one lies down and falls asleep.

One reviews the deeds of the whole day, repents of what was wrong and asks for mercy. Tanya, chapter 29, treats this at length, urging even one free of grave sins to be among the “masters of reckoning.”

The second reckoning is contemplation of the greatness of the Infinite One and of His kingship, “above without end and below without limit,” and of the fact that He “has sanctified us with His commandments,” which draw down the Infinite Light itself. The Kehot note traces “above without end” to the Zohar Chadash on Parshas Yisro.

The end of the verse, “let the city of Sichon be built,” is now applied to prayer. Prayer is called tzelosa in Aramaic: Daniel “prayed (mtzalei) and gave thanks,” and Onkelos renders “And Yitzchak entreated” as “And Yitzchak prayed (vetzalei).”

The root of tzelosa means to incline or tilt, as in the Gemara’s “tilt and pound” (Beitzah, end of the first chapter), and as Onkelos renders “You shall not bend judgment” (Deuteronomy 16:19) as lo satzlei. Prayer, then, is an “inclining.”

Prayer is like saying “Yehi ratzon,” “May there be will”: it draws down and brings into being a divine will, and will is Keser, the Crown. Hence the teaching that the angel Sandalphon “ties crowns for his Maker” (Chagigah 13b) from the prayers of Israel: the prayers become Keser.

The Alter Rebbe points to his discourses on “How beautiful are your steps in sandals” (Song of Songs 7:2) and on the Chanukah lamp and the mezuzah. Drawing down Keser means that Malchus of Atzilus becomes Atik Yomin, the upper aspect of Keser, for the World of Beriah.

In the same way Malchus of the Infinite One, the lowest level of the Infinite, becomes Atik Yomin and Keser for Atzilus. The Arizal (Etz Chaim, Sha’ar 41, chapter 3) explains that Keser is the intermediary between the Emanator and what is emanated.

Prayer is called tzelosa, “inclining,” because it inclines, as it were, a radiance of the Infinite Light downward so that it becomes Keser for Atzilus. The name Atik Yomin carries the same sense: atik means “moved,” as in “who moves (hamaatik) mountains” (Job 9:5).

Ha’atakah also means copying, as “the men of Chizkiyahu copied” the proverbs (Proverbs 25:1), transferring them from one book to another. So too Malchus of the Infinite One is “transferred” downward to become “Yehi ratzon,” Atik and Keser for Atzilus.

This explains the Talmud (Berachos 5b): one who leaves his fellow praying alone in the synagogue “causes the Shechinah to depart from Israel,” as it says, “And the Rock is moved (vaye’etak) from its place” (Job 18:4). The verb vaye’etak is from the same root as Atik.

Prayer draws light down from above to below, the drawing down of Atik Yomin and Keser, and this is the indwelling of the Shechinah. As explained in the Biur on “I am black and comely,” Malchus of Atzilus is called Shechinah when it becomes the Atik Yomin of Beriah, “dwelling” (shochen) in the created worlds.

So the opposite is also true: one who disrupts his fellow’s prayer reverses that drawing down, and the same root, “the Rock is moved,” then means the withdrawal of the Shechinah.

Prayer is also called sichah, which the Alter Rebbe takes as a term of moving. So too “And Havayah turned (vayisha) to Hevel” (Genesis 4:4): vayisha means “turned,” the same idea as tzelosa, “inclining,” a turning of the divine light toward the one who prays.

In the same way one may understand the Talmud’s saying that when Israel answer “Amen, may His great Name be blessed,” the Holy One, blessed be He, nods His head. A discourse at the end of Parshas Shelach in Likkutei Torah explains this saying.

The nodding is G‑d’s “turning” toward Israel, like “Havayah turned to Hevel.” This is also the meaning of the Kedushah prayer’s “like the sweetness of the speech (si’ach) of the assembly of the holy seraphim.”

Si’ach, like sichah, refers to prayer, which is called sicho, “his speech.” Opposite this holy speech stands “the city of Sichon,” like the city that the Generation of the Dispersion set out to build: “Let us build ourselves a city” (Genesis 11:4).

The Zohar on Parshas Noach describes how they came to a valley that was a foreign dominion and said, “Let us establish in this place a city.” It continues the theme on the next page.

The “city” on the side of kelipah is the drawing of letters into unholy speech, such as evil speech. As explained on “This shall be the law of the metzora” (Leviticus 14:2), every combination of letters is called a “house,” and speech as a whole a “city.”

The Talmud reads ir, “city,” as ayir, a young donkey that “goes after pleasant talk (sichah),” an image of one who follows his inclination. The discourse on “Binding his foal (iroh) to the vine” (Genesis 49:11) explains the word further.

Two more references follow: the discourse on “To My mare among Pharaoh’s chariots” (Song of Songs 1:9), on the letters of the opposing side, and passages in the Zohar on Parshas Balak.

Etz Chaim reads “If you soar as high as the eagle, from there I will bring you down, says Havayah” (Obadiah 1:4) as alluding to the unholy side’s attempt to rise to its own Arich Anpin and draw from there. G‑d brings it down, for otherwise the world would be destroyed.

The Alter Rebbe adds that it is “says Havayah,” G‑d’s speech, that brings down and humbles the kelipos, the evil inclination and the sitra achra; and so too a person brings them down by occupying himself with the Torah. His discourse on “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion” (Zechariah 2:14) develops this.

So “He tells man what his speech is” (Amos 4:13): a person is shown whether he kept from being drawn into forbidden letters and words, and whether his speech was rather Torah. The Torah is the level of Mah, which is the word mah, “what,” in the verse.