ושמע אביה את נדרה

The maamar opens with Numbers 30:5, from the laws of vows: when a young woman in her father’s house makes a vow, her father may annul it on the day he hears it. Before turning to the verse, the Alter Rebbe asks about the Rabbinic enactments: why the Talmud is so full of stringencies, fences and safeguards that the Sages added to the Written Torah.

He answers with the Sages’ reading of Song of Songs 1:2, “For Your love is better than wine”: the Congregation of Israel says that the words of the Scribes, the teachings and enactments of the Sages, are sweeter to her than the “wine” of the Torah.

“The wine of the Torah” is its inner dimension, its secrets, for the Talmud says “when wine enters, the secret comes out” (in Hebrew, “wine” and “secret” both have the numerical value seventy). This sharpens the question: the Rabbinic fences, which seem the outermost part of the Torah, are dearer to the Congregation of Israel than its secrets.

The reason is that every Rabbinic fence and stringency, and all the ethical guidance of the Aggadah and of Pirkei Avos, flows from “great love” (ahavah rabbah), the love G‑d declares in “I have loved you” (Malachi 1:2). The parenthesis refers to the discourse on “But Havayah your G‑d would not listen to Bilam” in Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei, on the love expressed in “for Havayah your G‑d loved you.”

A parable: a father who loves his son is more exacting with him than with others, surrounding him with extra fences, even against the son’s will, so that he stays entirely free of wrong. The strictness itself is the expression of his love.

The same love makes the father want his son to excel all the more in grace and understanding, in the language of Proverbs 3:4. A second illustration makes the same point: the more precious a pearl, the more carefully it is guarded, in a case within a case.

Applying the parables: it is because of His great love for Israel that G‑d is exacting with us through the fine points of the Scribes. These are not additions from outside the Torah; they are themselves words of His Torah.

They are drawn from great love, and their fences are for our merit and our good, to keep us clean before Him. The parenthesis points to the discourse on “I am black but comely” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim) and to the opening of Shemos Rabbah, which cites Proverbs 13:24, “he who loves him disciplines him early,” to teach that withholding discipline from a son leads him astray.

The Alter Rebbe now explains why the fine points of the Scribes are needed so much more today. While the Holy Temple stood, the Torah’s own laws were enough, because Israel’s spirit was faithful to G‑d and their capacity for love was not pulled toward physical desires.

In that time love of G‑d was easily settled in every heart, and people were aflame for His service and His Torah without needing the additional great love that the Rabbinic fine points awaken.

Over the generations, hearts whole with fiery love for G‑d (the “flashes of fire” of Song of Songs 8:6) became rare. Instead people were scorched by a “strange fire,” love and desire for bodily things, until these overpowered them.

Now a person can serve G‑d with love only if great love is first aroused, and this comes through the fine points of the Scribes in all their details. They work in two directions, following “turn from evil and do good”: the stringencies of the Gemara and the halachic authorities belong to “turning from evil.”

The ethical teachings of the Aggadah and of Avos belong to “doing good.” Avos 2:9 lists “a good eye,” “a good companion” and “a good heart” as the straight way a person should cling to, and Zechariah 8:17 warns against devising evil against one’s fellow in one’s heart.

A long parenthetical note begins here, referring to the discourse “Thus shall you bless the children of Israel” (Likkutei Torah, Nasso). It discusses the Talmud’s account (Berachos 20b) that the angels asked how G‑d can show favor to Israel, and He answered that they are exacting with themselves to say Grace even after an olive’s bulk, though the Torah requires it after a satisfying meal.

The conclusion: because Israel are stricter with themselves than the Written Torah requires, G‑d responds with “May Havayah lift up His countenance” (Numbers 6:26), a great love from above the whole ordered chain of worlds. Going beyond the measure of the law draws a love beyond measure.

The word “to you” teaches that this transcendent love actually reaches the person and is revealed in him. The discourse on “I am black but comely” adds that this elevates even the animal soul, and the Alter Rebbe also refers to the end of the discourse “For You are my lamp” in Torah Ohr, Parshas Mikeitz.

That passage contrasts the earlier generations with the later ones (only its opening words are quoted here) and connects this with “And Havayah illumines my darkness” (II Samuel 22:29), a light from above the order of the chain of worlds. This is the “lifting of the countenance” that being exacting with oneself draws down, and the Raaya Mehemna on Pinchas is cited for it.

The Raaya Mehemna on Pinchas reads “He bears him on His pinions” (Deuteronomy 32:11) like “May Havayah lift up His countenance,” and here this lifting is placed above what the 248 positive commandments draw down, the commandments that the Tikkunei Zohar calls the limbs of the King. The Gemara in Megillah tells of Sages who were asked how they merited long life and answered with practices they had taken upon themselves.

Similarly, the Talmud’s teaching “whoever prolongs Echad [in the Shema], his days are prolonged” (Berachos 13b) is explained elsewhere. Now the Alter Rebbe returns to the verse: “her father has disallowed her” (Numbers 30:6) shows that it is the father who annuls the vow.

The father stands for great love. The Targum renders “annul” as “nullify,” and great love nullifies all the bonds that tie the Congregation of Israel; as the Talmud says (Berachos 5b), “a prisoner cannot free himself from prison,” so release must come from “her father,” the attribute of great love.

A parenthetical gloss defines these bonds: they are the soul’s own weakness, which leaves it unable to break out of the “sheath” and “prison” that confine it.

That prison is the materiality of the body and the animal soul. The discourse “In the third month” (Torah Ohr, Yisro) explains that the Torah gives the soul strength to undo these knots; elsewhere they are called “adhesions” (sirchos, the term for adhesions on a lung in Jewish law), in which the soul becomes entangled so that it cannot rise.

That last point is explained in the discourse on the verse “Who is a G‑d like You” (Micah 7:18), which speaks of G‑d’s pardoning of sin. The gloss then suggests that the annulment of vows on Yom Kippur alludes to this: teshuvah draws down the undoing of these knots and reveals great love in the soul; and a further explanation of why the father annuls is drawn from the Zohar on Parshas Emor.

The Zohar there (III, 100b) says that the union of the Congregation of Israel with the King takes place when she receives from the house of Abba, the supernal Father, Chochmah, and not when she receives from the house of Imma, the Mother, Binah. Binah and Daas, the faculties of understanding, can bring about only iskafya: the sitra achra is held in check but not changed.

This subduing is what a vow achieves: “vows are a fence for abstinence” (Avos 3:13), holding a person back from what is otherwise permitted. But turning darkness itself into light (is’hapcha) cannot come from Binah, for, as the Zohar says, judgments are aroused from it.

Transformation comes only from supernal Chochmah, to which the Alter Rebbe applies “wisdom gives life” (Ecclesiastes 7:12): the self-nullification that is above comprehension. That is why the father, Chochmah, is the one who annuls the vow; the subject is explained in the discourse “See, I set before you” (Likkutei Torah, Re’eh).

The conclusion: the father, the great love of supernal Chochmah, not only annuls the vow but turns darkness itself into light. From the same level comes “And if she is to be [married] to a man” (Numbers 30:7), the union of the Congregation of Israel with the King, which the Zohar on Emor, cited above, places at the time she receives from the house of Abba.

Yet the verse speaks of the father hearing the vow, so the vow comes first. The vow is iskafya, the person’s own restraint at the outset; only after this subduing is “her father” revealed, transforming darkness into light.

For more on “her father” the Alter Rebbe refers to Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s Pardes Rimonim, which quotes a tradition that Malchus issues from Keser, the highest Sefirah, so that it can be said of her, “she is the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother.” He then reads the opening verse of the passage of vows, “And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes… This is the thing,” in the same light.

“This is the thing” belongs to the level of Moshe, and through it a vow can be released (here the word is “release,” as distinct from the father’s “annulment”). “The heads of the tribes” are re’usa d’liba, the heart’s deep desire for G‑d, which is great love, as explained above.