ויקרא משה אל כל ישראל ויאמר אליהם אתם…

The maamar opens with Moshe’s address near the end of Parshas Ki Savo (Deuteronomy 29:1–3). He reminds Israel of the wonders they saw in Egypt and “the great trials” they witnessed with their own eyes, and then says that Havayah has not given them “a heart to know and eyes to see.”

The two statements seem to contradict each other: if they saw, how can Moshe say they were not given eyes to see? The answer comes at the end of the maamar (paragraph 11): what they saw came through their own effort, while the “pure heart” is a gift from above that they had not yet received.

To answer, the Alter Rebbe turns to Avraham, who planted an eshel in Beer Sheva and there proclaimed G‑d as “Kel Olam.” The Midrash explains the eshel as an orchard or as an inn where Avraham fed travellers; the parenthesis lists where the Midrash and the Zohar discuss the verse.

The nations, too, acknowledge a supreme G‑d: Psalms calls Him “high above all nations,” Jeremiah calls Him “King of the nations,” and the Talmud (Menachos 110a), on Malachi’s “My Name is great among the nations,” says that even idolaters call Him “the G‑d of gods.”

Yet their acknowledgment leaves a separation: in their view the world, and they themselves, are a yesh, a thing that exists in its own right, with G‑d above it as the highest power. Avraham proclaimed something else: he called G‑d “Kel Olam.”

The Alter Rebbe reads the words precisely. Not Kel HaOlam, “the G‑d of the world,” which would mean a world existing by itself that G‑d keeps alive from outside, but Kel Olam, G‑d and world joined in one phrase, all one.

An analogy shows how the world can be one with G‑d: a person’s name is not part of his essence, yet his life is present in its letters, for when he is called by name he responds and is roused.

So the Name Havayah is enclothed in all the worlds: the worlds are only its garments, secondary to Him and with no standing of their own, and so all is truly one. This is what Avraham taught by “Kel Olam.”

This is the meaning of “Kel Olam,” as Zechariah foretells: “On that day Havayah will be One and His Name One.” The word yihyeh (“will be”) is spelled yud-hei-yud-hei: the first two letters of the Name Havayah twice over, without its last two letters, vav-hei.

The vav, a line drawn downward, stands for drawing down: through it the light descends step by step until a world can exist that seems to be a thing by itself. In the future there will be no such separateness: everything below will be at the level of yud-hei, as it is above.

The Alter Rebbe sends the reader to three places: the Arizal’s Likkutei Torah on this verse in Zechariah; the explanation on “And the number of the children of Israel shall be” (the haftarah of Bamidbar); and the end of the discourse on “Sixty are the queens,” on the words “my perfect one.”

Against this oneness stands the verse “a grumbler separates the Chief.” The Midrash reads it of the serpent, who “separated the Chief of the world,” and the Zohar of sinners who separate the King from the Queen (the Shechinah), so that He is not called One.

Another verse in Proverbs shows how a person becomes “separate”: by seeking his own desires. One who invests his will in worldly delights, in winning, or in bad traits is separate, and cannot belong to the oneness of “Havayah is One and His Name One.”

Psalms 67:2 asks that G‑d “cause His face to shine with us.” The Alter Rebbe first explains what a “shining face” is through an analogy: a person giving a gift to someone he truly loves.

To a true friend one gives generously and gladly, one’s face glowing with light and joy; to an enemy one gives grudgingly, “like one who throws something behind his shoulders,” without even looking. The gift may be the same; the difference is in the face of the giver.

This is the meaning of the Priestly Blessing, “May Havayah cause His face to shine upon you” (Numbers 6:25): that G‑d grant life-force with a shining face, gladly, as to a beloved, and not as one gives to someone he dislikes.

Psalms, though, says “with us”: the shining comes specifically when we too turn a shining face toward G‑d. Proverbs says the same: “As in water face answers face, so the heart of man to man,” for the face one shows is the face reflected back.

The Alter Rebbe reads the two “men” of that verse. The lower “man” is the Community of Israel, whom Ezekiel calls adam and the Talmud says “are called adam”; the other is the Supernal Man that Ezekiel saw upon the likeness of the Throne. Israel’s heart toward G‑d calls forth His shining face toward Israel.

Israel’s “shining face” toward G‑d is joy in Him: “Let Israel rejoice in its Maker” (Psalms 149:2). It mirrors G‑d’s joy in Israel, which the morning prayers describe: “out of Your joy with which You rejoiced in him, You called” him by name.

This is joy in G‑d at His greatness, which no one can fathom (an echo of Psalms 145:3). The analogy: one who sees the beaming face of a true friend is so gladdened that he forgets all his own pain and sorrow.

So it is when a person remembers that G‑d is his true Friend, turning a shining face toward him, and contemplates His greatness: that He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and that before Him all is as nothing (a phrase of the Zohar).

In this joy a person forgets himself entirely; even pain from worldly troubles is forgotten because of his joy in G‑d.

Psalms 73:25 expresses this: “Whom have I in heaven? And with You I desire nothing on earth.” Such joy nullifies every desire and longing except the longing for G‑d alone.

The shining of the face is aroused on Rosh HaShanah, when G‑d “sits on the throne of mercy.” Then begins “His left hand is under my head” (Song of Songs 2:6), the first stage of drawing near, which reaches “and His right hand embraces me” on Yom Kippur and Simchas Torah.

In the Ten Days of Teshuvah, therefore, a person should feel ashamed before G‑d: He draws us near with a shining face, while we are far from Him.

What makes us far is sin, which separates, as Ezra said: “I am ashamed and humiliated to lift my face to You.” The Alter Rebbe then cites the Zohar on a verse of the Rebuke: even in their enemies’ land, G‑d will not reject Israel “to destroy them.”

The Zohar notes that lechalosam (“to destroy them”) is written without a vav, so it can be read lechalasam, “for their bride.” It compares this to a man whose beloved lives in the tanners’ market: because she is there, the foul-smelling market seems to him like the perfumers’ market.

So when we ask G‑d to “pardon us,” we ask that He not smell the stench of the “tannery,” our sins, and that He wash it away by sprinkling pure water upon us, as Ezekiel promised.

The “pure water” is the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which the Zohar calls “thirteen rivers of pure balsam.” They flow from a level called “the Most Hidden of all hidden” and “the Will of all wills,” like rivers from a spring whose source is never seen: only the rivers are visible.

So G‑d Himself, the unseen source from which the Thirteen Attributes flow, is called “the Most Hidden of all hidden.” That is why on Rosh HaShanah He is called “Who sits on the throne of mercy”: the mercy flows from Him as “the Will of all wills.”

This “Will of all wills” has a counterpart in every Jew: the “point of the heart,” deeper than Daas, a person’s conscious knowing and feeling. It is called yechidah, the innermost and highest level of the soul.

Psalms 22:21 prays that “my only one” (yechidasi) be saved “from the hand of the dog.” The Alter Rebbe reads it as the yechidah: to free a person’s desire and will from the matters of this world, and to bind this inmost will, the will of all wills, to G‑d alone in cleaving and ardent longing.

The shofar of Rosh HaShanah awakens the yechidah, the soul’s “will of all wills,” which had been dormant in every Jew. Through it, on each of the Ten Days of Teshuvah, the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy are drawn down.

These are the “rivers” from the hidden source described above, the “pure water” that washes away the odor of sin. The shofar “lengthens” (maarich) Arich Anpin, the “Long Countenance,” the outer configuration of Keser, in a general way; in particular, on each of the Ten Days one of the ten Sefiros in a person, his Chochmah, Binah, Daas and emotive attributes, is restored “face to face,” so that over the ten days all ten are restored.

The Sages apply Isaiah’s “Seek Havayah when He may be found, call upon Him when He is near” to the ten days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur (Rosh HaShanah 18a; Yevamos 49b and 105a).

“When He is near” means when G‑d turns a shining face toward us, an arousal from above, “His left hand is under my head”; then an arousal from below comes easily. The Talmud says the verse speaks of “the individual” in these days, and the Alter Rebbe reads “individual” (yachid) as the yechidah, the soul’s innermost point.

In these days every Jewish soul receives from above a very lofty awe and love, higher than anything a person could reach by his own effort. The Zohar cited here describes Rosh HaShanah as the time when the “left arm” is aroused and the world stands in awe.

Psalms 51:12 asks G‑d to “create” a pure heart: the level of “pure of heart” (bar levav, Psalms 24:4) cannot come from a created being’s own arousal. It can only be a gift from above, given at the time of the shining face.

The Alter Rebbe refers to two other discourses on this theme, and adds that receiving such a gift requires preparation through afflictions and self-denial.

That is why people fast during the Ten Days of Teshuvah without completing the fasts: the Rema, in his gloss to the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 581:2), records that the careful fast during these ten days and that such fasts need not be completed. The aim is not the fast itself but the affliction, so that the soul is not sated and the belly full, for one who eats to satiety cannot receive a pure heart.

Now Moshe’s words are explained. “You have seen” refers to what Israel had reached until then through their own effort, an arousal from below; “yet Havayah has not given you” refers to something beyond that.

What had not yet been given is the “pure heart” that comes only from above and that no created being can reach by his own arousal. This was the purpose of the manna, of which it says “He afflicted you and let you hunger” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

Through the manna, with its afflictions and self-denial, Israel merited a higher level, receiving a pure heart; and the same holds for the Ten Days of Teshuvah. That is why this portion, with Moshe’s words, is read before Rosh HaShanah.