כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד בפיך וגו׳

The maamar opens with Deuteronomy 30:14, “For the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” In parentheses the Alter Rebbe lists where the Sages expound this verse: the Talmud in Eruvin (54a), the Midrash Rabbah and Tanna DeBei Eliyahu. His question concerns Deuteronomy 30:11, a few verses earlier: why does it say the same thing twice, “not hidden” and “not far off”?

The answer begins with the word nifleis. Besides “wondrous,” the root pele can mean “set apart,” as when one who brings an offering lefalei neder (Leviticus 22:21) sets it apart by his word for a vow.

Targum Onkelos renders the word lefarasha, “to set apart,” and Rashi explains it the same way; the Alter Rebbe also recalls his discourse on Joel 2:26, where the same root appears as lehafli, “wondrously.” He suggests that the two meanings are really one: what is set apart is also hidden and beyond grasp, which is what makes it a wonder, and the dictionary of Hebrew roots he cites says the same.

This is a teaching of the Zohar (3:73a): G‑d, the Torah and the Jewish people are bound together, and each has a hidden and a revealed side. The Alter Rebbe identifies these with two modes of divine light: memalei, which fills each thing from within according to its measure, and sovev, which surrounds and transcends it.

Memalei is the “revealed” side because it is enclothed within things and can be grasped by the mind. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “And I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel” (Leviticus 22:32), where he explains the Kabbalistic term “the revealed world” (alma de’isgalya).

Sovev is above knowledge and comprehension: the mind cannot grasp it, and a person relates to it through faith. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourses on “Know this day” (Deuteronomy 4:39), about knowledge and faith, and on “And Israel saw … and they believed in Havayah” (Exodus 14:31).

The Torah too has a revealed and a hidden side, as he explains in his discourse on “The Torah that Moshe commanded us” (Deuteronomy 33:4). So do the souls of Israel, as explained earlier in this book in the discourse on “When you go out [to war].”

He adds his discourses on “This day Havayah your G‑d commands you” (Deuteronomy 26:16) and on “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” (Song of Songs 2:14). Israel is bound to the Torah because the understanding of the Torah is enclothed in every Jew: in “And this was formerly (lefanim) in Israel” (Ruth 4:7), “this” is read as the Torah, and lefanim as lifnim, “within,” in a person’s inner self.

In parentheses he points to further discussions, among them the Zohar on Chukas (3:180a), which expounds the verse from Ruth. Then comes the second link of the chain: the Torah is bound to G‑d, for “the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are all one,” and he refers to the Zohar on Beshalach (2:60a).

The Torah is therefore the intermediary that joins the souls of Israel to G‑d on both levels. Its revealed side links the revealed side of the soul, its understanding, with G‑d’s revealed light, memalei kol almin, the light that fills the worlds.

Its hidden, inner side links the hidden, innermost core of the soul with sovev kol almin, the light that transcends the worlds. The Torah can bridge both levels because it, too, has a hidden and a revealed side.

He refers to further discussions: on “And you shall not omit the salt [of the covenant]” (Leviticus 2:13), at the end of “Return, O Israel” (Hosea 14:2), and in the explanation of the tzitzis passage (Numbers 15:38) on G‑d who “wraps Himself in light as in a garment” (Psalms 104:2). The image of the Torah given as black fire upon white fire likewise shows that it has an outer and an inner dimension.

Now the verse is clear. “Not hidden (nifleis) from you” means not separated from you: this is memalei, enclothed within the very essence of the Jewish soul. “Nor is it far off” is sovev, which does not enter the soul yet is not distant, since it shines on it from around, as an encompassing light (makif).

The verse says “which I command you today” to teach that the Torah’s words should feel new every day: the Torah is eternal, yet every day we say “today.” The Sages read “today” in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:6) the same way, and Rashi (on Deuteronomy 26:16) puts it in these words: every day they should be in your eyes as new, as though you were commanded them that very day.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Zion shall be redeemed with justice” (Isaiah 1:27). The Sages say “Today to do them, and tomorrow to receive their reward”: the whole of life in this world, the time for doing, is “today,” and only the time of reward is “tomorrow.”

On Rosh HaShanah we say in the Musaf prayer, “This day is the beginning of Your works.” Each Rosh HaShanah thus becomes a new “today,” and its effect extends over the whole year.

But this raises a question: if Rosh HaShanah renews the whole year, why do the Sages say that a person is judged every day? And why are the beginnings of months, “heads of months” (Numbers 28:11), and each Shabbos also marked as beginnings, as in “from one new moon to the next, and from one Shabbos to the next” (Isaiah 66:23)?

The answer begins here: G‑d is above time. Therefore all of time, beginning with the six days of creation, was created in a single thought, as the Zohar (2:20a) says that all the worlds arose in one thought and were created in it.

As we say in the Rosh HaShanah Musaf, G‑d “looks and gazes to the end of all generations,” all of them in a single glance; compare the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 18a): “they are all surveyed in a single glance.” The verse “His arrow shall go forth like lightning” (Zechariah 9:14) is read as one flash that takes in the seven days of creation, the days of Mashiach and the Resurrection together.

The same holds for the “fifty thousand jubilees,” revelations and ascents one beyond another (a manuscript reads “all the thousands of jubilees”). All of them were created in one thought, a single general and collective life-force; the Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation of “My dove, in the clefts of the rock,” printed later in this book.

The verse “You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with will” (Psalms 145:16) says “every living thing” because there are many levels of life, as “The living, the living, he shall thank You” (Isaiah 38:19) repeats the word. Each world receives its own particular life-force.

Yet all of these come from one simple divine will, which, as it descends into supernal speech, becomes the Ten Utterances of creation. The Alter Rebbe draws an analogy from the human soul, following “From my flesh I shall see G‑d” (Job 19:26): a person can learn about the divine from himself.

In a person, speech divides into many separate words, while thought holds them all in a single thought. All the more so above: all the particulars of creation are contained in one general life-force.

All the life-force of the year is drawn down on Rosh HaShanah, the anniversary of man’s creation. According to the Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 29:1) the world was created on the twenty-fifth of Elul, so the sixth day, when man was made “in Our image, after Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), fell on the first of Tishrei, Rosh HaShanah.

Man includes all of creation within him, and his soul, which G‑d breathed into him (Genesis 2:7), included all the souls. Sha’ar HaGilgulim, one of the sources the Kehot note gives, teaches that all the souls were at first included in Adam.

Therefore on each Rosh HaShanah a new “combination” (tziruf) is formed: the letters of divine speech that give life to creation are arranged anew. This is a radiance from the Source, sovev, which serves as a general life-force for the whole year, so each year has a life-force of its own.

That general life-force then divides into particulars, the twelve months. Each month receives its life from the year’s general light, and each day, a particular within its month, receives its life from the month.

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 8a–b) calls Rosh HaShanah the festival “on which the month is covered,” since it falls at the start of the month, when the moon is hidden. The Alter Rebbe reads this inwardly: Rosh HaShanah is the all-inclusive source of the year, so the month’s own light is nullified within it, as a ray of sunlight is lost within the sun. He refers to his Torah Ohr discourse on “Let them bring royal apparel” (Esther 6:8).

That discourse discusses the saying that the Prophets and the Writings will be nullified in the future, which the Alter Rebbe explains elsewhere to mean that they will be outshone, like a candle before a torch. The morning prayer’s “Blessed is He who spoke and the world came into being” refers to the general life-force of the whole world, and so does the Mishnah’s question, “Could it not have been created with one utterance?” (Avos 5:1).

That single utterance is the general life-force. The Alter Rebbe notes a comment of the Ramaz (Rabbi Moshe Zacuto) on “with one utterance,” in his commentary on the Zohar, Parshas Toldos, folio 135a. The next phrase of the prayer, “Blessed is He who says and does,” refers to the particular.

The particular is a new combination of divine speech for each day. The Alter Rebbe refers to the Zohar on Beshalach (2:63b) and Yisro (2:88a), which teach that each day receives its own blessing from the Shabbos above it, and to his discourse explaining Yom Kippur.

That discourse speaks of the thoughtful person who reflects that creation is truly “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). In the same way, the life-force of this year is not that of the year that has passed: it is new.

This is why we say on Rosh HaShanah, “This day is the beginning of Your works”: each year a radiance comes anew from the general source. The Torah likewise says “which I command you today,” because the Torah, though above time, must come down through the chain of worlds and be enclothed in time; he refers to his discourse in Parshas Eikev beginning “And to understand the root.”

That discourse explains the phrase “for Your Torah that You have taught us,” from the Grace after Meals. Every day a new radiance of the Torah comes down to be enclothed in the world, so the Torah is truly new each day.

That is why the blessing over the Torah, said every day, calls G‑d “who gives the Torah” in the present tense: He gives it anew. The Alter Rebbe adds references: the end of the discourse on “For this commandment” earlier in this book, on the saying that whoever reads and studies, G‑d reads and studies opposite him, and his discourse on “I am asleep, but my heart is awake” (Song of Songs 5:2).

There he explains that an arousal from below brings an arousal from above, as in “He established a testimony in Yaakov” (Psalms 78:5). He also refers to his discourses on “Go out and see” (Song of Songs 3:11) and, in Parshas Beshalach, on “And Moshe said, ‘Eat it today’” (Exodus 16:25).

The Congregation of Israel says, “They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23). The Alter Rebbe reads emunah here as faith: every day a person must acquire in his soul a new faith, drawn from the Source.

“Days were formed” (Psalms 139:16): a person’s days, seventy years (Psalms 90:10), are fixed and allotted to him (compare Job 7:1). The verse is written lo with an alef, “and not one among them,” but read lo with a vav, “and to Him is one of them”; the Alter Rebbe takes this to mean that the allotted days exist so that the light of faith may be revealed and grow with something new each day.

This is “great is Your faithfulness” coming from sovev, the level above time. Watching evening and morning return each day in unbroken order, a person comes to recognize what stands above time.

Section 2 begins. The divine light within a person’s soul also has two aspects. Memalei is G‑dliness as the mind grasps it, enclothed and held in a person’s understanding.

The verse says, “And you shall choose life, to love Havayah your G‑d … for He is your life” (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). Choosing belongs to the intellect, which chooses good and rejects evil, while love belongs to the heart.

The choice comes first: a person must train his mind until choosing life is settled within him, as in “See, I have set before you today life and good” (Deuteronomy 30:15). The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Hear, O Israel” in Parshas Va’eschanan.

“Life” here means the divine life-force of the heavens and earth we see, as opposed to the physical pleasures of this world, which pass away and are therefore called “death.” Once the mind has firmly chosen the good, the next step can follow.

He then contemplates in order to arrive at love, because G‑d “is your life,” the true life, as in “For with You is the source of life” (Psalms 36:10). This too is explained in the discourse on “Hear, O Israel.”

A love that is enclothed in and held by the intellect is memalei in the soul: loving G‑d “with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Sovev in the soul is “with all your might (me’od),” a love beyond the measure of the intellect, which is the vessel that holds the first kind.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “And now, I pray, let the power be great” (Numbers 14:17), and notes that teshuvah too has two levels, lower and higher, as the Zohar (3:123a) distinguishes. Then he asks: if sovev is above the intellect, how can a person serve G‑d at that level at all?

The answer is teshuvah with self-sacrifice (mesirus nefesh), which is above knowledge. As explained elsewhere, this is why the Torah gives no reason for self-sacrifice.

By contrast, the Torah does give a reason for love: “to love Havayah your G‑d, for He is your life.” Love can be given a reason because it flows from intellect and reason.

Intellect and reason belong to the ordered chain of cause and effect (hishtalshelus). Self-sacrifice has no stated reason because it is above the intellect; the Alter Rebbe refers to his Torah Ohr discourse on “For your love is better than wine” (Song of Songs 1:2).

He also refers to his Purim discourse on “A person is obligated to become intoxicated on Purim” (Megillah 7b). Self-sacrifice is the faith that is above knowledge, drawn from sovev; he refers further to his explanation of “And these are the ordinances” (Exodus 21:1).

There, on “If you acquire a Hebrew (ivri) servant” (Exodus 21:2), he explains that the root of the souls is “beyond (ever) the river,” the river that goes out of Eden (Genesis 2:10). That level is the “circles” (igulim), in Kabbalah the encompassing lights, and sovev kol almin.

Revealing this level in the soul is a revelation from sovev. It does not come in the usual order, from intellect to emotions, but from above that order altogether.

It is like the Talmud’s “Even though he does not see, his mazal sees” (Megillah 3a): a person’s mazal, the root of his soul above, senses what he himself does not. The drawing-down from that inner level is a revelation from above the chain of cause and effect, of intellect and emotion.

That is why “in the place where baalei teshuvah stand, the perfectly righteous cannot stand” (Berachos 34b): teshuvah draws from a level above the ordered chain. To explain why, the Alter Rebbe brings “I am first and I am last” (Isaiah 44:6) and “By the word of Havayah the heavens were made” (Psalms 33:6).

Creation comes about through divine speech, and the word bara (“created”) in “In the beginning Elokim created” (Genesis 1:1) means something from nothing. In other words, creation is not a chain of cause and effect.

By analogy, in a person the emotions come from the intellect and speech comes from the emotions, in a gradual chain: an emotion produces the “breath of the heart,” from which voice and then speech emerge.

After the breath of the heart come voice and speech: speech is drawn from voice, and voice from the breath. In a person everything proceeds by gradual drawing-down, cause and effect.

The creation of the worlds is different. The utterance “Let there be a firmament” (Genesis 1:6) is not on the scale of a physical firmament; no number of contractions and descents from level to level, by cause and effect, could ever turn spirit into physical matter.

That holds even for matter as fine as the firmament’s. It is the power of the Infinite One, the Omnipotent, that creates the firmament through the utterance, something from nothing; that is not a step in a chain but a leap (dilug).

So it is with every creature: it comes from the Creator out of nothing, not by gradual descent. Nothing created, not even the Chochmah within the created worlds, can simply flow out of the divine speech above.

For divine speech is a revelation of the Creator, and the Creator is the opposite of the created. Even supernal Chochmah, the first of all levels, comes from the Infinite One as “Chochmah is found from ayin (nothing)” (Job 28:12), and the Tikkunei Zohar says of G‑d, “You are wise, but not with a known wisdom.”

That is, even the Infinite Light’s enclothing itself in Chochmah is not a gradual descent. When the books speak of a chain of cause and effect, they do not mean creation from the Creator; the Alter Rebbe’s example of what they do mean is the spirit of animals, which descends from the face of the ox in the divine Chariot (Ezekiel 1:10).

Physical matter, and spiritual beings too, come into being from the Infinite One truly as something from nothing. All this is explained in Tanya, Iggeres HaKodesh 20, the epistle beginning “He and His life-forces.”

This explains “I am first”: the very first thing to come into being, supernal Chochmah, did not emerge by gradual descent. It came, as the verse says, “from ayin, nothing.”

The word ani (“I”) has the same letters as ayin (“nothing”). “I am last” means likewise that physical heavens and earth come from the spiritual utterance not by descent but as something from nothing, which comes from sovev kol almin.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation of “Let them bring royal apparel” (Esther 6:8). Every drawing-down of divine light must come from the Source, the Ayin, and above all on Rosh HaShanah, when the general life-force of the whole year is drawn down.

Therefore a person’s service must also reach the sovev of his soul, and this is done specifically through teshuvah, when a person gives over his soul to G‑d. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 17a), which names him Elazar ben Durdaya, tells how after a life of sin he repented with his whole being and wept until his soul left him; his giving over was a giving over of the will.

In the same way, at the very least, a person should give over his will to G‑d in everything his soul desires, as the Mishnah says, “Nullify your will before His will” (Avos 2:4). He should be one who “shuts his eyes from seeing evil” (Isaiah 33:15).

So too with hearing and speech, and with “Do not stray after your heart” (Numbers 15:39): all of these are a nullifying of one’s own will. Even in doing good, a person should act against his own inclination, doing everything contrary to what he himself wants.

This too is self-sacrifice, for, as the Talmud reasons, “what difference is there between killing it entirely and killing half?” (Bava Metzia 95a): giving up one’s will is a giving up of part of oneself. It subdues the sitra achra through “a broken and crushed heart” (Psalms 51:19), and “Man and beast You save” (Psalms 36:7) is read as a person making himself like a beast before G‑d, with no physical desires of his own, as in “and with You I desire nothing” (Psalms 73:25).

“With You” means even what is with G‑d, His attributes, which are one with Him: “He is the Knower and He is the Knowledge,” as the Rambam writes, and “He and His vessels are one,” as the Tikkunei Zohar says. The soul longs for Him alone, “my flesh and my heart pine” (Psalms 73:26), “to Him, and not to His attributes,” as the Pardes quotes from the Sifre; all the more so it should not desire physical things.

Through this a person can reach “with all your might,” drawing from sovev, for by nullifying his own will he reaches the Source of all.

The Source is the Ayin. “Havayah is near to all who call upon Him … in truth” (Psalms 145:18), and this is the inner meaning of “reading (korei) in the Torah” (Berachos 13a): the reader “calls” to the Source to be drawn down into the Torah.

For the Torah comes from Chochmah, and Chochmah comes from Ayin. Through self-sacrifice a person draws from that Source, so all his later learning and reading is Torah lishmah, “for its sake,” that is, for the sake of the Torah itself, since he draws light from the Source into the Torah.

The Sages read “And you shall do them (osam)” as “you shall make yourselves (atem)” (Sanhedrin 99b; Vayikra Rabbah 35:7). So a mitzvah is called “doing,” not merely fulfilling: it is making anew the outspreading light that gives life to all the worlds.

That is why our verse ends “to do it”: specifically to draw it down anew from the Source. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “When they put ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear’” (Shabbos 88a), on the angels who are “doers of His word” (Psalms 103:20).

That is why the Torah says of the Rosh HaShanah Musaf offering “And you shall make a burnt offering” (Numbers 29:2) rather than “offer”: it is the level of “to do it,” making anew. “His Name alone is exalted” (Psalms 148:13), and before the world was created there were only He and His Name (Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 3); a name is not the essence, just as a person’s name, Reuven or Shimon, is only a glimmer of who he is.

This is explained further in the discourse on “My Shabbosos you shall keep.” Likewise, the World to Come was created with the letter yud and this world with the letter hei (Menachos 29b): both only at the level of a name, through letters of G‑d’s Name.

Through self-sacrifice, however, a person draws down sovev, which reaches all the way to the Source. That is the meaning of “this commandment which I (Anochi) command you today.”

“I” means G‑d Himself, His very being and essence, far above any name or radiance. That is why the mitzvah is called “making” anew, and it comes about through “in your mouth,” which is Torah.

“In your heart” is teshuvah. “To do it” means that a person actually makes, as it were, the level of His word, and does not merely fulfill it, as in “And David made a name” (2 Samuel 8:13), which the Zohar reads as David “making” G‑d’s Name above.

This is why the Rosh HaShanah offering says “And you shall make a burnt offering”: Rosh HaShanah is “the beginning of Your works,” when we make and build His word anew, drawing it from the Source, the Ayin.

This is why the Kingship (Malchuyos) verses of the Rosh HaShanah Musaf include “Thus says Havayah, King of Israel and its Redeemer, Havayah of Hosts: I am first and I am last” (Isaiah 44:6).

The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse in the Song of Songs section, “Your neck with strings of beads” (Song of Songs 1:10), and to the Zohar at the end of Pinchas (3:258b), which asks why the Torah says “And you shall make a burnt offering” on Rosh HaShanah and not “And you shall offer.”

“To do it” can also be read in light of the Zohar on “And Havayah did for Sarah” (Genesis 21:1), which says that the “doing” for Sarah came from a level higher than the “remembering” mentioned in the same verse.

From the Ayin, above the chain of worlds, comes every act of making something from nothing. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Command the children of Israel … the one lamb you shall make” (Numbers 28:2–4), and says that this level is reached through “and with You I desire nothing” (Psalms 73:25).

Chefetz, “desire,” means the innermost longing, as he explains in his discourse on “And I will make your windows of kadkod … and all your border of stones of chefetz” (Isaiah 54:12). A person reaches this by contemplating that all the worlds exist only within time.

Time is only the outspreading of a single radiance, as explained above, and it counts as utterly nothing compared to G‑d’s own being, which is far above time. Seeing this, a person can long for G‑d Himself and for nothing else.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Who is a G‑d like You” (Micah 7:18). The Ten Days of Teshuvah correspond to the ten Sefiros of the soul, its three intellectual powers and seven emotive attributes.

All ten must be raised to G‑d through teshuvah, until Yom Kippur, which is higher still, as it says, “Before Havayah you shall be purified” (Leviticus 16:30).

Teshuvah too has two levels. The lower teshuvah belongs to the soul’s memalei, its inner, measured powers.

Lower teshuvah binds a person’s thought, speech and action, which flow from his intellect and emotions, to G‑d, each according to its measure. This is “with all your heart,” which the Sages read as “with both your inclinations” (Berachos 54a), “and with all your soul.”

Higher teshuvah is the soul’s sovev, “with all your might (me’od).” This level too is near, as the verse says, “the matter is very (me’od) near to you,” and as explained at the start of the maamar, “nor is it far off” speaks of sovev, which is near even though it surrounds.