אלה מסעי בני ישראל אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים…

The maamar opens with the first verse of Parshas Masei (Numbers 33:1), which introduces the list of Israel’s stations in the wilderness. Its first question: the verse speaks of “journeys,” in the plural, yet describes them all as the journeys of those “who went out of the land of Egypt.”

Strictly speaking, only the first journey, from Raamses to Sukkos, was a going out of Egypt; all the rest were travels through the wilderness. The verse also says the journeys were “under the hand of Moshe and Aharon,” though Aharon died before some of them took place. The maamar answers these questions later on (paragraphs 9, 22 and 23).

The questions continue with the inner meaning of the forty-two stations listed in the parshah, each described as “they journeyed” and “they encamped.” The verses about the Ark (Numbers 10:35–36) give the pattern: when it set out, Moshe prayed that G‑d’s enemies flee, and when it came to rest, he prayed for G‑d’s return. All the travel aimed at one destination, the plains by the Jordan at Jericho, where the list of stations ends.

Ezekiel calls the desert “the wilderness of the nations,” and the Torah describes it as a place of snakes, serpents and scorpions. It is a place empty of holiness, and the kelipos, the forces that conceal G‑dliness, draw their life-force from it.

The Congregation of Israel, the collective soul of the Jewish people, is called Rachel, as in Jeremiah’s “Rachel weeps for her children.” The name also means “ewe,” and Isaiah’s “like a ewe before her shearers, she is mute” supplies the image the maamar will develop. Two features of the ewe matter: of all animals, it is the one that is shorn, and it lets itself be shorn without kicking.

Psalms 103:19 says that G‑d’s kingship “rules over all.” Nothing exists outside G‑d’s Malchus, the attribute through which He creates and rules, so even the external forces (the kelipos) are sustained by it; but they receive only from its “hairs,” its outermost level.

Hair grows from the body and draws nourishment from it, yet it is not part of the person’s living self: cutting it causes no pain. So too, what the external forces receive is connected to its holy source only at a distance, without its inner life.

The point is sharpened: the external forces do not touch the inner dimension of G‑d’s Malchus at all, only its “hairs,” and only after the hairs are shorn, that is, cut off from their source. What they receive has already been separated from holiness before it reaches them.

This is why the ewe is “mute” specifically “before her shearers,” before those who take her wool. Malchus is G‑d’s speech, the Ten Utterances through which the world was created; toward the external forces this speech is “mute,” as in “I was mute with stillness” (Psalms 39:3). They receive nothing from the divine words themselves, only through layers of garments and hairs that hide the speech.

The Alter Rebbe refers to two other maamarim of Likkutei Torah: one on “And the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun” (Isaiah 30:26), which asks why “the voice of the bride” is not yet heard, and one on “And the number of the children of Israel shall be” (Hosea 2:1). Both deal with the concealment of Malchus in the present time.

Here the maamar begins its answer: the forty-two journeys were meant to fulfill “let those who hate You flee,” so that the external forces would have no nourishment at all from holiness. This was accomplished by the journeying of the Jewish people themselves.

Only the Jewish people could do this, because man was created “in Our image, after Our likeness” and given dominion over the world (Genesis 1:26). The Sages, reading Ezekiel 34:31, “You are adam,” teach that the Jewish people are called adam (man); this is why everything depends on their deeds.

The maamar now explains “Our image” and “Our likeness” as two ways of seeing G‑d’s unity. The “likeness” is the lower unity: heaven, earth and all creatures appear to us as real, independent things, and G‑d’s unity is that He gives them life from within. It is called “likeness” and “appearance” because this is how things seem to us, not how they truly are.

In truth, creation changed nothing: G‑d says, “I, Havayah, have not changed” (Malachi 3:6), and the prayers say, “You are He before the world was created.” Before Him everything is “as actually nothing,” in the words of the Zohar.

The world seems to be a thing in its own right only to “eyes of flesh.” Ezekiel saw upon the throne “a likeness like the appearance of a man”: a likeness and an appearance, not the essence itself, and in the same way the world’s independent existence is only an appearance.

“In Our image” is the higher unity: the world as it truly is before G‑d, “considered as nothing.” From this point of view creation changed nothing, and G‑d is now exactly as He was before the world was created. For more on this the Alter Rebbe refers to his maamar on “the heads of the tribes” in Parshas Matos.

G‑d willed to create man with both levels, “image” and “likeness,” because “there is no king without a nation.” A king rules a people distinct from himself, so G‑d’s kingship requires a being who lives in a world that seems separate (the “likeness”) and also carries the truth of the higher unity (the “image”).

Because man bears both levels, he can draw down from the light that encompasses all worlds (sovev) and from the light that fills all worlds (memalei). This is the purpose of the forty-two journeys: to go out of Mitzrayim (Egypt), which the Alter Rebbe reads as meitzar, “constriction” and limitation.

Leaving Egypt means transforming all seven emotive attributes, with all their details, from darkness to light, so that each becomes G‑d’s, from “Yours, Havayah, is the greatness” (Chesed) to “Yours, Havayah, is the kingdom” (Malchus) in I Chronicles 29:11. Then Malchus, G‑d’s word, will shine with the revealed light of the Ten Utterances instead of being “mute.”

Each of the seven attributes contains all six emotive attributes within it, so the journeys number six times seven, forty-two. The same structure appears in the prayer “Ana BeKo’ach,” which encodes the Name of forty-two letters known from Kabbalah.

That prayer has seven verses of six words each, forty-two words in all. Its Name expresses ascent from below to above, like the angels in Isaiah’s vision who “with two would fly” (Isaiah 6:2); so too the journeys are a rising upward.

Now the maamar answers why the journeys were “under the hand of Moshe and Aharon.” Moshe embodies the higher unity, and his name shows it.

Pharaoh’s daughter named him Moshe, saying, “for I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:10). Since the drawing out had already happened, a past-tense name, Mashui (“drawn”), would seem to fit; Moshe instead is in the present tense, “one who draws.”

The present tense alludes to the higher unity: a radiance is constantly being drawn forth from the Infinite Light, like water drawn up from a well, to become both the light that fills the worlds and the light that encompasses them. Of Moshe, Yisro’s daughters said, “he surely drew water for us” (Exodus 2:19).

Yet the whole radiance that becomes all the worlds is only like a drop compared with the ocean. That is why all the worlds are nullified and included in G‑d’s essence and count as nothing before Him, which is the higher unity.

A drop of water is round, and the radiance is compared to it: it surrounds and encompasses all worlds equally, from every side.

G‑d says, “Behold, there is a place with Me” (Exodus 33:21), and the Midrash explains that He is called Makom (Place) because “He is the place of the world,” and the world is not His place. The world exists within Him; only to eyes of flesh does it appear as a separate entity.

Yisro’s daughters said Moshe drew water “for us”: the higher unity, drawn by Moshe, is meant for the Jewish people. It is expressed in the first verse of the Shema, “Hear, O Israel, Havayah is our G‑d, Havayah is one,” which also has six words, like the lines of “Ana BeKo’ach.” Contemplating this higher unity brings a person to love G‑d “with all your heart,” which the Mishnah reads as “with both your inclinations,” the good and the evil.

Loving G‑d with both inclinations means turning all one’s emotive attributes to G‑d alone. The Alter Rebbe reads ahavah (love) as related to avah (want): love is the heart’s deepest desire, that Havayah be “your G‑d” openly, so that a person can say, “besides You I desire nothing” (Psalms 73:25).

The second section shows that the love of G‑d described above contains the other attributes too. Within love (Chesed) there is also Gevurah, awe in the form of fear of sin: one who loves G‑d dreads being separated from His unity by any sin, even a minor prohibition of the Sages.

Sin is what separates, as Isaiah says, “your iniquities separate between you and your G‑d” (Isaiah 59:2). The Alter Rebbe refers to two other maamarim on the fear of sin: the end of the one on “And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes” (Parshas Matos, cited in paragraph 6), and the end of the one on “And Korach took,” where he discusses techeiles, the blue thread.

Love also contains compassion. Contemplating G‑d’s unity, a person realizes how far the spark of G‑dliness that gives life to his soul has fallen: “from a lofty roof to a deep pit,” in the Talmud’s words.

The spark comes from the highest place: “Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:9), and “Israel arose in [G‑d’s] thought” even before creation (Bereshit Rabbah 1:4). Yet it has come down into a body and a vital soul, to be busy with worries over livelihood and with physical desires.

Everyday experience shows how the body’s worries cling to the soul: while a person sleeps he has no worries, but the moment he wakes they all wake with him.

This is another meaning of “like a ewe before her shearers”: the soul itself does not enter the body; only a small radiance of it does, like hair that extends from the body.

Because this radiance shines in the body, the body can think and become absorbed in material matters, using the soul’s light for its own concerns. That is what “her shearers” means here: the body takes the soul’s outer “wool.”

Seeing this, one’s compassion for the spark of G‑dliness becomes very great. In the blessing before the morning Shema we ask, “In Your great compassion, have compassion on us”; the stress on “Your” compassion means we ask for G‑d’s compassion, not our own.

We cannot grasp G‑d, for “no thought can grasp Him,” as the Tikkunei Zohar says. So we cannot grasp how far the soul has fallen, and our own compassion falls short.

G‑d, however, is Himself the knowledge and the knower, as the Rambam writes; He knows His own being and greatness, before which all is as nothing, and so He knows how far the soul has fallen. Therefore we ask Him to have compassion, and His compassion is drawn from the attribute of Tiferes above.

Contemplation of the higher unity belongs to the time of the Shema, when one meditates with intellect and understanding. Afterward, through the day, that contemplation is gone, and no one can pray all day, as the Sages’ wish “If only a person would pray all day” (Berakhot 21a) shows.

For the rest of the day a person needs nitzachon, the power to prevail: the hidden love for G‑d that every Jewish soul has from birth, because the Jewish people are “Havayah’s portion” (Deuteronomy 32:9). This natural love is so strong that they are called “a stiff-necked people” (Exodus 34:9), unbending in their attachment to G‑d.

The Talmud (Beitzah 25b) lists three creatures that are bold, among them “Israel among the nations.” The Alter Rebbe reads this boldness as the attribute of victory: the Jewish people are by nature strong and unyielding in loving G‑d with a great love, even without contemplation.

This love works like a decided halachah: the law is so, without needing a reason or an argument. The parenthesis adds that this also explains “If only a person would pray all day”: in this way prayer can continue through the whole day.

Netzach is the resolve that remains from the contemplation of prayer, and it lasts all day. The Alter Rebbe links metzach (forehead) with netzach: the tzitz, the golden plate on the High Priest’s forehead (Exodus 28:36–38), stands for this resolve, and the two words are one level, as in “the Eternal One (Netzach) of Israel will not lie” (I Samuel 15:29).

G‑d showed Yaakov, through the angel who wrestled with him and touched “the socket of his thigh” (Genesis 32:25–26), that later generations would lack the breadth of mind to reach love through contemplation, but would still have the attribute of victory.

Next comes hoda’ah, acknowledgment, the attribute of Hod: admitting that something is true even when one does not understand it. In the Modim blessing of the Amidah we say, “We acknowledge to You that You are Havayah our G‑d.”

Its meaning: although we do not comprehend, we acknowledge nevertheless. Here lies the difference between blessing and acknowledgment: berachah (blessing) means drawing down from concealment into revelation, related to the word berichah.

Acknowledgment does not rest on understanding, reason or knowledge; it is simply assent. The parenthesis refers to three other discussions: the maamar on “Zion shall be redeemed with justice” (Isaiah 1:27), one in Parshas Eikev on “We give thanks to You” in Grace after Meals, and the maamar on “And the number of the children of Israel shall be” in Parshas Bamidbar, about the gathering of Yehudah and Israel (Hosea 2:1–2).

Yesod is the attribute of bonding: binding one’s mind to G‑d with strength, firmness and depth. It runs through every attribute, love and awe alike, and it corresponds to “for all that is in heaven [and on earth]” in the verse “Yours, Havayah, is the greatness,” quoted in paragraph 7.

All these attributes have their counterparts within awe as well. Through the same contemplation of G‑d’s unity, a person accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven with love and goodwill, so that it is no burden. The verse “to love Havayah your G‑d … for He is your life” (Deuteronomy 30:20) shows love joined with the acceptance of His rule.

The Alter Rebbe reads “your G‑d” (Elokecha) as awe, the acceptance of G‑d’s kingship, as in “you shall surely set a king over yourself” (Deuteronomy 17:15). And “for He is your life” echoes “The fear of Havayah is for life” (Proverbs 19:23): awe of G‑d brings life.

All the worlds receive their life from Malchus, as in “Your kingship is a kingship over all worlds” (Psalms 145:13); and since “there is no king without a nation,” His kingship is what gives them life. Therefore the yoke is accepted with love, as the morning prayers describe the angels who “accept upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven … with love.” The text also refers to Tanna DeBei Eliyahu, chapter 18.

Accepting G‑d’s rule with love is Chesed within Gevurah. Such a person also does not “kick” against suffering, as the ewe does not kick (paragraph 2), since “a king establishes the land through justice” (Proverbs 29:4): judgment is part of His kingship. And contemplation brings awe in its own form too, dread and fear before G‑d.

Awe also includes compassion, here for one’s own soul: when a person sees that all this contemplation does not move him, that there is “no fear of G‑d before his eyes” (Psalms 36:2) and he is like the animals, he should feel great pity for his soul. Then he prays for compassion, that G‑dliness be revealed to him.

This prayer for revelation is the meaning of “Blessed are You, Havayah”: that G‑d be revealed and not hidden. It is also why the Mishnah says not to make one’s prayer a fixed routine, but “compassion and supplication before HaMakom” (Pirkei Avot 2:13).

HaMakom, “the Place,” is a name for G‑d as the higher unity: “He is the place of the world” (Bereshit Rabbah 68:9), containing the world rather than contained in it. The prayer for compassion asks that this level, now hidden, be revealed.

Just as all the details of the attributes were included in love, they are included in Gevurah, awe. Each of the seven attributes, with its details, is to be turned to G‑d alone and nullified in His unity; and since each includes six, there are six times seven, forty-two: the forty-two journeys.

The third section explains why the journeys are forty-two and not forty-nine. Counted from above to below, the attributes number forty-nine, as in the Counting of the Omer: on each day of the count, encompassing light is drawn down into one of the forty-nine details of the seven supernal attributes.

These forty-nine include the Malchus within every attribute, “Yours, Havayah, is the kingdom.” Malchus is yesh and revelation: existence that is felt and manifest, the “yesh” that G‑d gives to those who love Him (Proverbs 8:21).

The journeys go from below upward, and there each attribute has only six details: its Malchus, the sense of one’s own existence, is absent. Rising toward G‑d requires ayin, self-nullification, and not yesh, which here means feeling one’s own attributes.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai wept before his death because he did not know by which path, to Gan Eden or to Gehinnom, he was being led (Berakhot 28b). The Alter Rebbe explains that he did not know or feel his own love and awe.

The journeys also needed Aharon. The letters of Aharon (אהרן) rearrange into nir’eh (נראה), “is seen”: Aharon is revelation out of concealment. So the verse speaks of Aharon “raising up” the lamps (Exodus 30:8), not “kindling” them.

The lamps are the souls of Israel, as in “The lamp of Havayah is the soul of man” (Proverbs 20:27). Aharon raised them “toward the face of the menorah,” lifting each soul until the G‑dliness within it, the “lamp of Havayah,” was revealed.

In Kabbalistic terms Aharon is “the groomsman of the Queen” (shushvina d’matronisa), who escorts the bride, the Congregation of Israel; this is why the journeys bear his name as well. He is one of the “seven shepherds” who sustain the souls of Israel, and every High Priest descended from him shares this role. For more, the Alter Rebbe refers to his maamarim on Chanukah (Parshas Miketz) and on “When you raise up the lamps” (Parshas Beha’alosecha).

All forty-two journeys are ratzo, “running,” the soul’s yearning upward. In the Shema this is the forty-two words from “And you shall love” to “and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:5–9); the Alter Rebbe refers to his maamar “And behold, a menorah of gold” for more on this.

The encampments, “and they encamped,” are shov, “returning,” the drawing of G‑dliness back down. This is the Shemoneh Esreh that follows the Shema, whose blessings begin “Blessed are You”: baruch, from berichah, means drawing down, and “You,” in direct address, means G‑d revealed and present. This is “and when it rested he would say, ‘Return’” (Numbers 10:36).

The ultimate goal of the journeys was to leave “Egypt,” meaning every constriction and limit. Even the higher Gan Eden, where souls enjoy comprehension of G‑dliness, is a limit, because comprehension has bounds.

This answers the opening question: every one of the forty-two journeys is called “going out of Egypt,” because each left a further limit behind, all the way to the encampment at the Jordan by Jericho. The name Yericho is linked to rei’ach, “scent.”

Scent is only a small radiance of a thing, yet it comes from the thing’s very essence. The scent of an apple is not the apple’s substance (Song of Songs 7:9), but it carries something of what the apple is.

Yitzchak blessed Yaakov after he smelled “the scent of his garments” (Genesis 27:27–28). The Zohar (Balak 186a) tells of a child who knew “by the scent of your garments” that his guests had not recited the Shema at its time.

Garments stand for the mitzvos, which are makifim, encompassing lights: they come from G‑d’s will, which is above wisdom and comprehension. The Torah, by contrast, “comes forth from Chochmah,” and Chochmah can be comprehended.

Therefore the souls in Gan Eden “enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah” (Berakhot 17a), the delight of comprehension. But the supernal will, above Chochmah, cannot be comprehended at all.

This is why the Mishnah says, “One hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come” (Pirkei Avot 4:17), and “the reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah” (Pirkei Avot 4:2). The mitzvah itself, rooted in G‑d’s will, is higher than the World to Come, which is comprehension.

Yitzchak’s blessing came out of “the scent of his garments”: from scent, the level of the will, blessing is drawn down, beginning with “the dew of heaven.”

“The dew of heaven” is the Written Torah and “the fat of the earth” is the Oral Torah. Both have their source in “the scent of his garments,” the encompassing will, which is above Chochmah and Binah, the roots of the Written and the Oral Torah.

The will is perceived not by comprehension but only as scent, as with the offerings, called “a pleasing fragrance (rei’ach nicho’ach) to Havayah” (Leviticus 1:9). The Alter Rebbe reads nicho’ach as nechis darga, “descent”: from scent, a new and very lofty existence is drawn down.

In the time to come this level will be revealed: of the Mashiach it is said, “And he will smell with the fear of Havayah; not by what his eyes see will he judge” (Isaiah 11:3), and the Talmud explains that he “smells and judges” (Sanhedrin 93b). This is the inner meaning of the last encampment, at the Jordan by Jericho.