ביאור הדברים

This maamar is the “explanation” (biur) of the preceding one, on “When you hearken to the voice of Havayah your G‑d” (Deuteronomy 13:19). It opens with two ways in which creation is one with G‑d: in the higher unity everything is as nothing before Him, while in the lower unity, rooted in the Name Elokim, a sense of independent existence (yesh) is allowed to arise precisely so that this yesh can then bow and be nullified.

The first kind of bittul belongs to the higher unity: “You are He, Havayah, alone” (Nehemiah 9:6), for before Him everything is as nothing. The second belongs to the lower unity: the heavens and their hosts do exist, and that existing being bows down before G‑d.

Bowing at Modim in the Amidah, “We acknowledge You,” is the human form of the second bittul: a person who exists as a self bends before G‑d, and the Talmud (Bava Kamma 16a) speaks severely of one who does not bow there. The parenthesis points ahead to the explanation of “Return, O Israel” in the discourse beginning “It is found in Mishnas Chassidim.”

Each of these two unities has its own providence, its own way in which G‑d watches over the world from above. The reader is referred to the explanation of “You have captured my heart with one of your eyes” (Song of Songs 4:9), a verse that itself speaks of a single eye.

The first providence is “From heaven Havayah looked” (Psalms 33:13): a looking down from above, from the standpoint in which all is as nothing before Him. This is providence in the mode of the higher unity.

Even this providence from above comes through different attributes, at times through Chesed (kindness) and at times through Gevurah (restraint). The Hebrew middah (attribute) is a term for a garment, as in the priest’s “linen garment (mido vad)” (Leviticus 6:3): an attribute is a garment through which G‑d’s providence is expressed.

The same pattern holds across the chain of worlds: the Chesed and Gevurah of Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes of the World of Atzilus, are what “From heaven He looked” refers to, and Malchus, below them, has its own Chesed and Gevurah. The sentence then goes on to a lower mode, providence as it is in the created worlds.

The lowest mode is providence as it operates in Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, the created worlds, which are wholly an outer dimension and bear no comparison to Atzilus. In Atzilus “He and His life-forces are one” (Tikkunei Zohar), so the bittul there is of a higher order than any bittul in the created worlds.

This parenthesis supports reading “looked” as watching from above: the Midrash says that the Hebrew habet (look) is used only of looking from above to below. The Alter Rebbe also refers to his discourse in Torah Ohr on “I will go down now and see” (Genesis 18:21), which deals with the same two kinds of providence.

The second verse, “The eyes of Havayah are toward the righteous” (Psalms 34:16), says “eyes” in the plural because here the two kinds of providence are joined and united. In the same way G‑d is called “a G‑d of knowledges” (I Samuel 2:3), two kinds of knowledge included in each other, and the prophet promises that “eye to eye they shall see” (Isaiah 52:8).

The two righteous ones are Yosef and Binyamin: Yosef, “the attendant of the King,” draws from above to below, and Binyamin, “the attendant of the Matronita,” the Queen, that is, Malchus, raises from below to above. The Torah Ohr discourse on “Moshe would speak” (Exodus 19:19), cited here, uses the same image, calling Moshe “the attendant of the King,” who draws from above to below.

The same joining happens every Shabbos, as the Zohar (2:135b) describes it: Malchus is prepared for the supernal King to rest upon her, which is the higher unity, but the Holy One, Who is One, does not rest upon her until she herself becomes “one,” which is the lower unity. Only then is there “one in One.”

When the lower unity is in place, the higher unity rests and is revealed within it, so that below is like above. On Shabbos this reaches only the inner dimension of the worlds, but in the Time to Come, “the day that is entirely Shabbos” (Mishnah Tamid 7:4), even bodies will be a chariot for G‑dliness; the Alter Rebbe applies to the time of the Resurrection the Sages’ words that “there is no eating” in it (Berachos 17a), and he names the Tzaddik, “one pillar” on which the world stands (Chagigah 12b), as the one who joins the two.

The Tzaddik is “all that is in heaven and earth” (I Chronicles 29:11), rendered in Aramaic as one “that holds fast to heaven and to earth”: he binds the higher unity, “From heaven He looked,” to the lower unity. Yosef is called ben poras (Genesis 49:22), and poras has the letters of tofer, “one who sews,” for he stitches the two together; this is why “the eyes,” in the plural, are directed “toward the righteous.”

Those who fear Him, by contrast, have only “the outer keys,” the Talmud’s image (used in the preceding maamar) for awe as against Torah. So Psalms 33:18 speaks of a single “eye”: G‑d watches over them in one mode, either the higher unity or the lower, but not with the two included in each other.

A parenthesis explains why the inclusion of both is greater even than the single eye of the higher unity. The Talmud (Chagigah 2a) learns that one comes to the Temple “to be seen” just as one comes “to see,” with two eyes; seeing with “the two eyes of the Omnipresent” means that the lower unity becomes like the higher one, and this is the purpose of creation.

A second reason: for the lower unity to receive the same revelation as the higher unity, light must be drawn from a level above both of them. So the joining of the two eyes reaches higher than either eye alone.

A third reason: providence through one eye, even the eye of the higher unity, can later change, so that one comes to be watched through the eye of the lower unity instead. When the two are included in each other, as in “the eyes of Havayah are toward the righteous,” no such later change applies.

The same idea explains the rule (Yevamos 105b) that one who prays should direct his eyes downward and his heart upward: the eyes below correspond to the lower unity and the heart above to the higher unity. Holding both at once includes the two levels in each other, so that the person’s sense of self (yesh) does not afterwards hide G‑d.

All this describes the soul below. Above, the same pair, the higher and the lower unity, is the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, the giving and the receiving configurations of Atzilus.

The Alter Rebbe now takes the idea one level higher. The “eyes” that join the two kinds of providence will be traced to a source above Z’eir Anpin itself.

In the Zohar’s language this is the “gazing” of Atika Kadisha, the innermost level above Atzilus, into Z’eir Anpin. Z’eir Anpin has 150 lights, and when the light of “May Havayah make His face shine” (Numbers 6:25) is drawn into it, it becomes 370; even Z’eir Anpin, though it is in Atzilus, counts as “the outer keys” relative to this.

These Zohar passages show how something can be “outside” even within holiness: in Toldos (1:141b), on “Wisdoms cry aloud outside” (Proverbs 1:20), the Zohar says that from a certain point onward the level is called “outside.” In Acharei it reads “or born outside” (Leviticus 18:9) as what comes forth from the place of Z’eir Anpin.

Atika Kadisha is the inner dimension of the Infinite One Himself, above Atzilus. The proof is Yaakov’s vow: after “and I return in peace to my father’s house” he says “then Havayah will be my G‑d (Elokim)” (Genesis 28:21), which the Alter Rebbe reads as “Havayah will be to me at the level of Elokim.”

Relative to Atika Kadisha, even Havayah, that is, Z’eir Anpin, is like Elokim, the Name of contraction and limitation. This parallels the beginning of the maamar, where the lower unity is called Elokim relative to the higher unity.

Ne’ilah, at the close of Yom Kippur, ends with the sevenfold proclamation “Havayah, He is HaElokim” (from I Kings 18:39). The Alter Rebbe reads it as Z’eir Anpin, Havayah, rising until before Atika Kadisha it is as Elokim; his explanation of “Return, O Israel” makes the same point.

This joining, the drawing of light from Atika Kadisha and Arich Anpin, called “the worlds of Ein Sof,” down into Atzilus, comes about through the Torah. Torah is what links the levels above Atzilus with Atzilus itself.

The Idra (Zohar 3:131b, 140a) explains “Wisdoms cry aloud outside” in this way: wisdom is drawn from the hidden brain of Arich Anpin to the brain of Z’eir Anpin. Yosef is called “a fruitful son” twice in one verse (Genesis 49:22) because there are two such joinings: of the two unities below, and of Atika Kadisha with Z’eir Anpin above.

The same verse goes on “over the eye (alei ayin)”: Yosef stands above the single “eye” of those who fear Him, at the level of “the eyes” toward the righteous. The one eye and the two eyes of the two psalms are thus read into Yosef’s blessing.

Now the verse of the maamar, “to do what is upright in the eyes of Havayah” (Deuteronomy 13:19), is explained: “upright” (yashar) as in “the upright shall behold His face” (Psalms 11:7), that the higher and the lower unity become level and equal, and “eyes” again in the plural. The Torah, which stems from the 613 paths of Arich Anpin, is what makes things upright, for it is the middle line that balances the sides.

The bracketed gloss spells out the goal: that even Z’eir Anpin and Nukva receive light and revelation from Atika Kadisha itself. The prophecy “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun” (Isaiah 30:26) describes this future equality of the lower with the higher.

Isaiah goes on to say that the light of the sun will be “as the light of the seven days.” When the lower reflects the higher in this way, below as above, that is yashar, and this is what “the upright shall behold His face” means.

The word fanaimo, “their faces,” refers to two faces, of Atika Kadisha and of Z’eir Anpin: when they “behold” each other, that is the “gazing” of Atika into Z’eir Anpin, and that is called yashar. So the Zohar on Vayikra (3:15a) explains the verse.

Rabbi Moshe Zacuto (the Ramaz), in his commentary on that Zohar passage (at 15b, according to the Kehot note), links it to “As in water, face to face” (Proverbs 27:19). Torah is called water, as in “All who thirst, go to the water” (Isaiah 55:1), so through the Torah the two faces come to reflect each other “face to face.”

Torah joins because it comes from the middle line, which unites right and left. The Idra Rabba (Zohar 3:129a) speaks of a path of light “in the parting of the hair” that divides into the 613 paths of the Torah, and the Arizal explains there what this path is.

According to the Arizal, the Written Torah is the “middle pillar,” the line that holds the sides together. The Alter Rebbe also refers to his discourse in Parshas Matos on “Or let him take hold of My strength, let him make peace with Me” (Isaiah 27:5): peace, here, is the joining that Torah brings about.

A further angle comes from the explanation of “I am black… like the curtains of Shlomo” (Song of Songs 1:5): the prohibitions, linked to the hairs of Z’eir Anpin, draw from a higher level than the positive commandments, linked to the hairs of Arich Anpin. Hair, in this imagery, is a channel that carries light outward from the brain.

Therefore Torah brings “peace” and joining from the level called “the curtains of Shlomo” (the name Shlomo is from shalom, peace), so that Atika Kadisha is revealed even in Z’eir Anpin and Nukva. Further discussion of yashar is referred to the Zohar on Vayishlach (1:175b).

That Zohar passage opens with “For the ways of Havayah are upright” (Hosea 14:10) and teaches that all the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He, are upright. Further references are given to the Zohar on Emor and Terumah, and to a book cited only by its initials, ע״ה.

Here begins a summary (kitzur) of the preceding discourse, “When you hearken to the voice,” in numbered points. The first point is the Talmud’s image (Shabbos 31b): Torah is “the inner keys” and awe of G‑d “the outer keys,” so one who has Torah without awe is like a treasurer given the inner keys but not the outer ones.

The 248 positive commandments correspond to the 248 limbs, and as the limbs carry the soul’s life, the mitzvos draw down the life of the World to Come for the righteous, which the Sages call “the radiance (ziv) of the Shechinah.” That radiance is the radiance of the mitzvos themselves; two other discourses, and Me’orei Or, a Kabbalistic dictionary, are cited for the term ziv.

In this world a person draws down that radiance through avodah, by contemplating in prayer G‑d’s greatness as it shows in creation, as the preceding discourse explained. Such contemplation touches only G‑d’s radiance and illumination, which Scripture calls His “Name,” as in “Let them praise the Name.”

Awe that comes from contemplating G‑d’s radiance is therefore only “the outer keys.” The inner keys open the inner dimension, the revelation of the Infinite Light itself, and this comes through the Torah.

Kabbalistic sources for the image of a “key”: the Zohar on Terumah (2:174a) implies that the Yesod of Abba, the channel of Chochmah, is called a key, and the Zohar (1:13b) on “that opens every womb” (Exodus 13:2) speaks of the narrow path that opens the womb. The discourse “How goodly are your tents” is also cited on this.

Me’orei Or explains that Abba and Imma, the configurations of intellect, are called “the inner houses,” while Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, the configurations of emotion and of receiving, are “the outer houses,” matching the inner and outer keys. The Idra in the Zohar on Naso (3:133b) likewise distinguishes an inner Chesed, of the Ancient of Ancients, from an outer Chesed.

The second point applies this to the verse: “When you hearken to the voice” is the inner key, Torah. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on the Talmud’s teaching (Shabbos 88a) that when Israel put “we will do” before “we will hear,” a heavenly voice called it the secret of the angels, who “do His word, to hearken to the voice of His word” (Psalms 103:20).

Yet the order matters: first the outer keys of awe, and only then the inner keys of Torah. This is the Mishnah’s “If there is no awe, there is no wisdom” (Avos 3:17).

The third point: Torah rests on the positive and the prohibitive commandments, because G‑d does not dwell where there is evil: “evil shall not dwell with You” (Psalms 5:5), as the discourse on “In the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting” explains. Torah study without this purity is only “a gate to the courtyard,” in the Talmud’s image (Shabbos 31b), a gate with no courtyard behind it.

This is “to keep all His commandments”: the mitzvos guard and preserve the inner light that Torah draws down. In Jeremiah’s verse, knowing G‑d is completed by “Who does kindness and justice” (Jeremiah 9:23), and the prayer “Sanctify us with Your mitzvos and grant our portion in Your Torah,” discussed in the discourse cited, likewise pairs the two.

The fourth point names the goal of the verse: “to do what is upright in the eyes of Havayah.” Since awe is still only the outer key, those who fear G‑d are watched with His “one eye,” in the words of the Midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 8:13), as in “the eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him” (Psalms 33:18).

The righteous are watched with “two eyes,” because in them the flow from below to above equals the flow from above to below. The tzaddik binds the worlds together, so both directions meet in him.

The Zohar on Beshalach (2:60b) reads “you will do what is upright in His eyes” (Exodus 15:26) as referring to Tzaddik, the Sefirah of Yesod that binds above and below. This is also “the upright shall behold His face” (Psalms 11:7), the equality of the two faces described in paragraph 1.

A fifth note brings another reading, from Panim Yafos, a commentary on the Torah: doing “what is upright” means returning to the level of Adam before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Of that level it is said, “G‑d made man upright” (Koheles 7:29).

The Midrash there and the Zohar (Vayechi 1:221b; Emor 3:107a) discuss this verse; the Zohar says that man, made upright, left the single highest Tree and was drawn into changes, now good and now bad, the “many calculations.” The Alter Rebbe notes that this reading agrees with his own, uprightness as the equality of above and below.

Now a difficulty: the Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 40:1) applies “the eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him” to Avraham, citing “Now I know that you fear G‑d” (Genesis 22:12), said at the binding of Yitzchak. If the single eye is the lower level, this would place Avraham there, a problem taken up next.

The difficulty: no one did G‑d’s will more than Avraham, above all at the Akeidah, the binding of Yitzchak, the tenth of his trials (see Avos 5:3 and Sanhedrin 89b). So “those who fear Him” cannot simply mean a level below “the righteous.”

There is also a difficulty in the Talmud itself (Shabbos 31b): it calls awe “the outer keys,” below Torah, yet in the same passage it calls Torah, relative to awe, only “a gate to the courtyard,” which puts awe above Torah.

Section 3 of the summary above gave a strained answer, that Torah without the mitzvos is a mere gate. The real answer draws on the discourse on “And G‑d spoke… I am Havayah,” the opening of the Ten Commandments.

That discourse explains the Mishnah “If there is no awe, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, there is no awe” (Avos 3:17), which seems to go in a circle. The answer is that there are two levels of awe.

The first is the lower awe, of which the Mishnah says one’s fear of sin must come before one’s wisdom (Avos 3:9). This is the outer key, the awe without which “there is no wisdom.”

The second is the higher awe, which can be reached only through wisdom, that is, Torah; yet relative to it Torah is only “a gate to the courtyard,” as Tanya (end of chapter 23) says. This awe is rooted in Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden brain of Arich Anpin, above the Chochmah of Atzilus, while Torah “comes forth from Chochmah” (Zohar 2:121a); so this awe stands higher than Torah.

This higher awe is what is meant in “Now I know that you fear G‑d” (Genesis 22:12), said to Avraham at the Akeidah. The Talmud (Sotah 31a) teaches that the “fear of G‑d” said of Avraham was out of love.

The Shelah, in its section “Be’asarah Maamaros,” speaks of an awe that is “innermost” (lifnei velifnim), and discusses it again in Parshas Vayera. These are cited as further discussion of the higher awe.

The Midrash Rabbah discusses this too, in several places: at the beginning of Matos, in Beha’aloscha, in Vayera and in Chayei Sarah, it cites “Now I know that you fear G‑d” for Avraham as the one who fears G‑d. The conclusion: the higher awe is more inward than Chochmah itself.

With two kinds of awe, the Midrashim no longer contradict each other. Shir HaShirim Rabbah (8:13) says that when Israel do not do the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, He watches them with one eye, “the eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him”; this refers to those whose awe is only the lower awe.

People whose awe is only the lower awe stand below the righteous, and the “one eye” that watches them is Malchus, as the Zohar on Pinchas explains. That is the single eye at its lower end.

The two eyes turned toward the righteous are Z’eir Anpin and Nukva together, and that is higher than Malchus alone. This fits paragraph 1, where the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva was the joining of the two unities.

The two eyes join the providence of the higher unity with that of the lower unity. The Zohar discusses “the eyes of Havayah are toward the righteous” in several places, beginning with Vayetzei (1:164a).

These are further Zohar passages on the same verse: Beshalach (2:60b), Pekudei (2:225a) with the Ramaz’s commentary there, Vayakhel (2:202b) and the end of Shelach (3:175b).

The Idra in the Zohar on Naso (3:130a), however, treats “Behold, the eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him” as a very high level: there the single eye is “the upper eye” that never sleeps. That seems to reverse the Midrash, and the Alter Rebbe now resolves it.

The Zohar speaks of those who fear Him with the higher awe, like Avraham in the Midrash on Lech Lecha. To them light is drawn from the level of sovev kol almin, the light that encompasses all worlds and is above all division.

That level is “He is not a man” (I Samuel 15:29), above “a likeness like the appearance of a man” (Ezekiel 1:26), the human-like form in which the prophet saw G‑d’s attributes. In such a human-like form there are two eyes.

Two eyes mean two kinds of providence, right and left, kindness and restraint, which can join and become equal. In sovev kol almin there is no division of levels at all, “there is no left,” and so the verse that follows speaks of one eye.

So “the eye” in the singular can mean either the lowest providence, Malchus alone, or the highest, the undivided encompassing light, with the two eyes of the righteous in between. The reader is referred to the discourse on “And you shall know this day” (Deuteronomy 4:39), which reads “above the wood” (Genesis 22:9), said at the Akeidah, as above the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.