לבאר הדברים בענין וירד הגבול הנה גבול ד׳…

The maamar sets out to explain the verse in Parshas Masei that traces the border of the Land of Israel: “And the border shall descend.” The Alter Rebbe proposes that the Land’s borders on its four sides correspond to the “twelve diagonal borders” of Sefer Yetzirah, as explained in Pardes.

Picture a room with four walls, a floor and a ceiling: its six sides meet along twelve edges, such as where the east wall meets the ceiling (“east-upper”) or where the east wall meets the north wall (“east-north”). These twelve edges are the “diagonal borders,” and Pardes lists them in this way.

A border on the ground has no “upper” edge, so the earthly borders cannot simply be the twelve diagonals of a solid. Still, the Alter Rebbe says, they are rooted in them and drawn from them.

Ezekiel’s vision of the future division of the Land (chapter 48) gives twelve portions, one for each tribe, each bordering the next. The Alter Rebbe adds the known principle that the twelve tribes themselves are rooted in the twelve diagonal borders.

The Zohar calls the twelve tribes “twelve boundaries” surrounding the Community of Israel, patterned on what is Above. It says that the supernal Tree, the structure of the divine attributes, is “sealed with its seals” in them, so that the tribes bear its imprint, as a seal leaves its form.

Sefer HaBahir, quoted in Pardes, speaks of one “tree” that the Holy One, blessed be He, has, with twelve diagonal borders that extend outward without end, with the tree within them. This matches the Zohar’s image of the supernal Tree stamped in the twelve tribes.

The Alter Rebbe now explains why these twelve are called “borders” and “boundaries.” They are the ways in which the six emotive attributes, Chesed through Yesod, which correspond to the six directions, blend with one another two at a time.

Examples are kindness blended with restraint, restraint blended with Netzach, and the blending of the two “lines” of the Sefiros: the right line (Chochmah, Chesed, Netzach) and the left line (Binah, Gevurah, Hod). Each such meeting of two attributes is one of the diagonal borders.

Light in itself is simple and undivided, so it has no separate parts to blend. The blending happens only once the light is clothed in vessels: then one attribute can be clothed in another, as the order of G‑d’s conduct of the world requires.

Vessels limit light in two ways. Simple light, which has no particular character, becomes a specific quality, such as kindness, when it animates the vessel of Chesed; and light that is infinite becomes a measured, finite flow. Both are “limits,” and so the vessels are the source of “borders.”

The twelvefold blending exists only because the lights are clothed in vessels, while the light itself remains simple. So the twelve combinations take on the character of the vessels, which is limitation.

That is why they are called “borders” and “boundaries”: the names describe the limits the light takes on in the vessels, where the attributes blend into twelve combinations.

The Zohar’s words “sealed with its seals” can be read as they stand, but the Alter Rebbe prefers to read them with two letters exchanged (ח and ת), giving “bounded within its boundaries.” On that reading the Zohar itself says that the supernal Tree takes on boundaries in the twelve tribes.

So the meaning is the one given above: borders are limitations of the light within vessels. For more on the term “border,” he refers to the Ramaz’s commentary on that Zohar passage and to the entry “Gevul” in Pardes, which explains that Malchus is called “border” as it receives from Chochmah and Binah, while from the side of its Source it rises beyond limit.

The twelve combinations also correspond to the twelve permutations (orders of the letters) of the Name Havayah and of the Name Ado-nai. These in turn are the source of the twelve months: in each month the Jewish people receive their particular flow from one permutation of Havayah.

The blending of the supernal attributes is mirrored below, in the Jewish people’s service of G‑d. For example, the blend of Chesed with Hod, the “south-lower” border, becomes a matching blend in a person’s service.

Chesed with Hod yields love joined with acknowledgment (hoda’ah, the human counterpart of Hod), and Gevurah with Hod, the “north-lower” border, yields awe joined with acknowledgment. Each border above thus becomes a distinct path in the service of the heart.

Every pair of attributes yields a similar path of service, and the Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “These are the journeys” for more. This, he says, is what the borders of the Land of Israel are: the twelve diagonal borders, whose root is very high, descending step by step until they reach Malchus.

The borders descend further still, into the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, and this is “And the border shall descend.” The Zohar speaks of “twelve that are concealed,” and the Mikdash Melech commentary traces their root to the Tiferes of Arich Anpin, the configuration of Keser, which stands above intellect.

The attributes of Arich Anpin are higher than Chochmah and Binah: Abba and Imma, the configurations of Chochmah and Binah, only clothe them like a garment. There, above intellect, the attributes are blended most completely and truly.

From that high source the blending descends into the twelve borders of Z’eir Anpin and finally into Malchus, which the verse calls “the Sea of Kinneret.” Its fruit is “love with delights” (ahavah betaanugim), a love sweet as the music of a harp; the name Kinneret echoes kinor, “harp.”

The Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation, in the discourse “Remember what Amalek did to you” (in Parshas Tetzaveh), of the verse from Song of Songs “I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.”

There, “my honey” stands for the Shema when one truly lives the words “One” and “You shall love”: a love with delights. That sweetness is why this love is called “sweet as a harp” and “my honey.”

For more on this love the Alter Rebbe refers to the letter in Iggeres HaKodesh on “How beautiful you are and how pleasant, love with delights.” This great love (ahavah rabbah) comes from above, through Aharon, who is called “the groomsman of the Queen”: he brings the Queen, Malchus, close to the King.

As explained in the discourse on “And you shall make holy garments for Aharon,” this love flows from “abundant in kindness” (verav chesed), one of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. That level is higher than “the kindness of the world” (chesed olam), the kindness that relates to the world, as the next paragraph explains.

Here the verse’s word kedmah, “eastward,” is read as “prior”: this love comes from a level above “world” and prior to it. “World” here means the six emotive attributes, the kindness that relates to the world, and the love above them is likened to a harp (kinor), the word echoed in the name Kinneret.

The Tikkunei Zohar divides kinor (כנור) into kaf-vav, twenty-six, the numerical value of the Name Havayah, and ner, “lamp.” The harp thus stands for Havayah shining into the lamp, the Shechinah: the divine light filling Malchus, as in “Havayah is my light.”

On the “lamp,” the Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on the verse of tzitzis in Parshas Shelach. Aharon’s kindling of the menorah is called “raising up” the lamps, and the light he brings into the “lamp” makes the “harp” play by itself, as the Zohar cited below says of King David’s harp.

That playing is the ascent of Malchus, for every ascent comes through song. The Alter Rebbe lists other discourses that treat the harp: on Yuval, “the father of all who handle the harp” (in Parshas Bereishis), and on the verse “make music to our G‑d with the harp.”

He also mentions his explanation of “Upon the ten-stringed instrument and upon the lyre.” The Zohar says that the blue (techeiles) thread of the tzitzis takes its color from a creature of the Sea of Kinneret, and the same passage speaks of King David’s harp, which played by itself.

This fits what was explained in the discourse on tzitzis: techeiles comes from the intellect (mochin) of Abba, the level of Chochmah, and draws down self-nullification (bittul).

The Ramaz, commenting on the Zohar’s mention of “the Sea of Ginosar,” identifies it with the Sea of Kinneret and explains it as Malchus of Malchus of Beriah, which becomes Atik, the innermost root, of the world of Yetzirah. The lowest point of one world thus becomes the highest root of the next.

The Arizal’s commentary on Sifra DiTzniusa, a section of the Zohar, distinguishes between kinor (harp) and Kinneret: they are the Hod of the male configuration (“his”) and the Hod of the female configuration (“her”) in Beriah. The Alter Rebbe notes that the Arizal discusses this at length there.

“And shall strike upon the shoulder” describes a love that comes from above without understanding: like someone pushed from behind, on the back of the neck, who moves without knowing where the push came from. Such love is real, but the mind has not yet grasped it.

Every ascent of Malchus begins “back to back,” a Kabbalistic term for a relationship in which the two partners, Z’eir Anpin and Malchus, do not yet face each other; this is the love that “strikes upon the shoulder,” felt but not understood. Only afterwards does it reach “face to face,” a full and open union.

A second reading compares “strike upon the shoulder” to the “locks of hair” (kutzei dese’arei) that strike, an image explained in the discourse on “Remember” and in Pri Etz Chaim’s section on tefillin. The Alter Rebbe then states that this love comes through occupation with the Torah.

The verse “You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing [with] will” is read as G‑d granting will (ratzon), a desire that comes from above, and this comes through Torah. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourses on “Red of eyes,” “And Moshe assembled,” and “Who has counted the dust of Yaakov” for more.

The Torah contains the “thirty-two paths of wisdom” with which, according to Sefer Yetzirah, the world was created, and the Alter Rebbe says that “And the border shall descend” alludes to them. Drawing them down through Torah study is what brings about “and shall strike,” the love that reaches Malchus.

This brings a person to great love, “sweet as a harp.” In the words of the Tikkunim quoted earlier, Havayah, “my light,” then “shines in the lamp.”

The “lamp” is the soul (“The lamp of Havayah is the soul of man”), and the light is the Torah (“and the Torah is light”). Through Torah study G‑d’s light shines into the soul, and this draws down the great love that is sweet as a harp.

“To the Jordan,” the next stage of the border, stands for kelipas nogah, the realm in which good and evil are mixed and from which good can be refined and raised. Torah gives the power to refine the animal soul, as in “all your borders of stones of desire”: even the heart of stone comes to desire G‑d.

The heart of stone itself becomes “desirous and yearning” to cleave to G‑d. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse “In the third month” (Parshas Yisro): the Torah is called “strength” because it strengthens the G‑dly soul, and tushiyah because it weakens (mateshes) the animal soul, a play on the sound of the two words.

Both readings of “And the border shall descend,” the descent of the twelve diagonal borders and the drawing down of the Torah’s thirty-two paths, are really one. For Torah study itself draws down and reveals the supernal attributes that are the root of the twelve borders.

The Alter Rebbe adds that the Zohar (Shelach, 166a) explains the Jordan differently, and he refers to his explanation on “These are the journeys,” on the phrase “the Jordan at Jericho.”