ענין ראש השנה ויום הכפורים

The maamar sets out to explain the inner meaning of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, and it opens with the verses on the making of the first woman: G‑d cast a deep sleep on Adam and “built” the rib into a woman. The Talmud (Niddah 45b) reads the word “built” (vayiven) as a hint of binah, understanding: the woman was given an extra measure of it.

In Kabbalistic terms, Nukva, the feminine configuration that corresponds to Malchus, normally receives her intellect (mochin) by way of Z’eir Anpin, the configuration of the emotive attributes. On Rosh HaShanah, the Alter Rebbe says, she receives it directly from Binah, and this is the “extra binah” given to the woman. He calls it a tzimtzum because a light as great as Binah must contract itself to enter Malchus.

Psalm 93, “Havayah reigns; He is clothed in majesty,” describes kingship as a garment; the Rebbe’s note, drawing on the parallel discourse in Likkutei Torah, explains that G‑d clothed and contracted Himself in many garments and contractions until He could be called “King.” Rosh HaShanah is the festival on which “the new moon is covered” (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 8a–b), and that concealment matches the service of the day: the nullification (bittul) of one’s own will before the King.

This bittul is the self-effacement that comes from awe, in which a person’s very being is set aside, and in that state there is no room for love, since love needs someone who feels himself as the one who loves. The Ten Days of Teshuvah are different: they are described by Jeremiah’s words “From afar Havayah appeared to me,” which continue, “with an everlasting love I have loved you.”

In the Ten Days, love is aroused precisely by distance: the Divine light is not openly revealed then, and longing for what is hidden brings love out. The Rebbe’s note compares this to a son who is at home with his father, yet the father hides his face from him. These days are not festivals, for on a festival (Yom Tov) the mochin of Abba and Imma, the intellectual configurations, are revealed in Nukva, as Pri Etz Chaim explains.

On a festival the mochin reach Nukva by way of Z’eir Anpin, whereas on Rosh HaShanah they come to her directly from Binah; the parenthesis refers to an explanation on Isaiah’s verse “from new moon to new moon” for more on this. Yet what makes a festival is not the illumination of the mochin as such, for the Sifrei, cited in the Pardes Rimmonim, reads “whenever we call to Him” as to Him and not to His attributes; it is the Infinite Light, blessed be He, revealed through them.

Because the illumination of the mochin is the higher revelation, the days that carry it are festivals. The Ten Days carry instead an illumination of the emotive attributes (middos), whose light shines through distance even more than that of the mochin, because its whole purpose is to repair the attributes and bring them back face to face.

This repair is called the nesirah, the “sawing”: in the Arizal’s teaching, Z’eir Anpin and Nukva first stand joined back to back and are “sawn” apart so that they can turn face to face, and Pri Etz Chaim says this happens over the ten days from Rosh HaShanah to Yom Kippur, one attribute each day. The parentheses point to two discourses in Torah Ohr: the one on “For Avraham does not know us,” which says that in a person the vital soul desires worldly things, back to back, while in the intellect the will turns toward G‑d, face to face; and the one on “Remember what Amalek did to you,” on back to back and face to face.

The same happens below, in the Jewish people as a whole: the Ten Days are a time of teshuvah, of which Isaiah says “Call upon Him while He is near,” and the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 18a) applies the verse to these days. Malachi’s “Return to Me, and I will return to you” describes the face-to-face turning: Israel turns toward G‑d, and G‑d turns toward Israel.

Yet this closeness is not an illumination of the mochin; it lives in the emotions. That is why this love is called “something” (yesh), a felt thing: love means that there is someone who loves, a self that feels it.

The Alter Rebbe now distinguishes two kinds of love, which correspond to the Kabbalistic “revealed Chasadim” and “concealed Chasadim” (kindnesses). The concealed Chasadim are still enclosed within the Yesod of Imma: love still held within understanding, before it comes out as felt emotion.

There, still within Binah, the Chasadim are bound up with the world of delight, because Binah is where Atik, the inner dimension of Keser that is associated with delight, is revealed. The parenthesis refers to two other explanations that discuss the concealed and revealed Chasadim, on “These are the journeys” and on “And the number of the children of Israel shall be.”

Yom Kippur, the day of “before Havayah you shall be purified,” belongs to the concealed Chasadim: on it Nukva receives the five Gevuros, and all the ascents of the day pass through Imma, up to the “Beard” (dikna), the source of the thirteen attributes of mercy. This is “the heart’s desire” (re’usa d’liba), a longing hidden in the heart’s depths. The revealed Chasadim, by contrast, are love after it has come out into the open.

Above, at the level of Z’eir Anpin’s “chest” (chazeh), there is also a union (zivug), because that place too has an aspect of Yesod, the Sefirah through which union takes place. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “The eyes of all look to You” for more on this.

In a person this corresponds to the inner point of the heart and its bond with G‑d, its wish “to cleave to Him.” As that point descends and is clothed in a person’s outward self, a covering settles over it, which the Torah calls “the foreskin of your heart.”

This is why the Ten Days of Teshuvah come before Yom Kippur: through self-examination, “Let us search our ways” (Lamentations 3:40), the covering is removed. Then the inner dimension of the heart can be revealed, as it is on Yom Kippur.

The Alter Rebbe returns to the verse “Let us make man in Our image (tzelem), after Our likeness (demus).” The tzelem of Z’eir Anpin comes from the concealed and revealed Chasadim described above, whose source is Abba and Imma, and tzelem itself has a hidden and a revealed side. The Rebbe’s note suggests that “for the tzelem, etc.” should perhaps read “for the tzelem is the level of.”

The same pairing of hidden and revealed repeats at every level, without end: even above the parsa, the partition between the World of Atzilus and the worlds below it, and even in Adam Kadmon, the first and highest configuration of all.

“After Our likeness” refers to Leah and Rachel, the two feminine configurations of Z’eir Anpin. Leah is called the “intellectual soul,” drawn from the back (achorayim) of Imma, and Rachel the “vital soul,” the one that gives life to the worlds.

These two “souls” are likeness and form, the letters that clothe Z’eir Anpin; the Rebbe’s notes add that the letters of thought are in the intellectual soul and the letters of speech in the vital soul, and that the letters clothe both intellect and emotions. So “with all your heart” corresponds to the tzelem, which the notes call the very essence and being, and “with all your soul” to the two souls of the likeness.

Speech, the level of Nukva, is also the Oral Torah, and this explains the verse “You have caused Havayah to say this day.” When the world was first created “there was no man” to serve G‑d, so creation came from G‑d’s own will alone, “when it arose in His will.”

Now, however, the renewal each year depends on the deeds of those below. According to the “feminine waters” (mayin nukvin), the arousal that our deeds, Torah study and prayer raise through the whole year, “spirit brings spirit and draws down spirit”: an arousal from below draws down a matching arousal from above, out of concealment.

This drawing-down brings the utterance “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” from concealment into revelation, so that on Rosh HaShanah G‑d is again King over man; this is the Talmud’s “so that you make Me King over you.” It is possible because the souls of Israel “arose in the Supreme Thought”: they were first in G‑d’s intent.

As people bring their thoughts from potential into actual speech when they study Torah and pray, so on Rosh HaShanah Israel “causes Havayah to say”: their speech below draws the Divine utterance out of concealment into revelation.

Israel causes G‑d to say again the utterance “Let us make man.” The Oral Torah and Rosh HaShanah are one matter, because both are the level of speech, Nukva; and the next verse, “And Havayah has caused you to say,” is explained in what follows.

This raising of “feminine waters” is particular to Israel, as Psalm 147 says of G‑d’s statutes and ordinances, “He has not done so for any nation.” The souls of Israel “arose in thought,” and the next words give the reason.

The power of Israel’s speech in Torah and prayer is given by G‑d Himself, who, in the words of Sefer Yetzirah, “set the letters in the mouth”; this is “Havayah has caused you to say.” “For praise, for a name and for glory” are Chochmah, Binah and Daas: through their speech Israel forms the mochin of Nukva.