קצת ביאור ע״פ מקושש עצים הנ״ל

The heading introduces a short supplement to the preceding maamar, which opened with the verse about the man found “gathering wood” on Shabbos in the wilderness. The notes that follow explain what “doing the will of the Omnipresent (Makom)” means, and why the gatherer’s sin is understood as a separation of Malchus from the six attributes above it, which leaves her dark.

The Sages contrast times when Israel “do the will of the Omnipresent” with times when they do not (Berachos 35b), and G‑d is called Makom, “Place,” because “He is the place of the world” (Bereishis Rabbah 68:9). The Alter Rebbe identifies this Makom with the light that fills all worlds: the Divine power that enters each world and gives it its existence, its “place.”

“Behold, there is a place with Me” (Exodus 33:21) is read as Malchus, the level that is “with” G‑d. Like the moon in the Talmud (Chullin 60b), Malchus was told “Go and diminish yourself,” and so, instead of being the last of the higher levels, it became “a head to foxes,” the head of the lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, to which it gives life. “The will of the Omnipresent,” the will above this Makom, is the Keser, the crown, of Rachel, the configuration of Malchus.

“Your word” in “Forever, Your word stands firm in the heavens” (Psalms 119:89) is Malchus, the Divine speech. Its crown, its Keser, stays “in the heavens,” in Z’eir Anpin, which is called “heavens” and is Rachel’s “husband,” her partner; only the rest of her goes down.

Only the nine lower Sefiros of Malchus descend into the World of Beriah to give it life, while her Keser remains above. The bracket points to a discussion in Likkutei Torah on Bamidbar and to the Mikdash Melech, a commentary on the Zohar, which speaks in Rabbi Chaim Vital’s name of nine parts in Beriah.

From midnight on, the text says, Malchus, here called “the point of Rachel,” begins to sing with longing to rise. The Alter Rebbe places this point “beneath the bed” and refers to two Kabbalistic works, the Mikdash Melech on Parshas Emor and Yonas Elem, for the background.

From midnight Malchus praises and sings, longing to rise and be included in one of G‑d’s attributes in Atzilus, where the Divine light and its vessels are one. Like the Menorah’s flame, which the Talmud describes as rising of itself (Shabbos 21a), she rises of her own accord; and “So that glory may sing praise to You” (Psalms 30:13) is read as Malchus, called “glory,” singing to G‑d.

The verse continues “forever I will thank You.” King David was “a chariot” for Malchus, wholly given over to it as a chariot is to its rider, and his constant songs and praises made a vessel through which Malchus herself could sing.

“A psalm of David” is connected with this, and the Alter Rebbe refers to the Zohar on Kedoshim on “David, the beautiful.” The phrase “and is not stilled” matches “and not be silent” in the verse just quoted: the unceasing song of Malchus.

So a person can serve G‑d out of love “with all your soul” and still not be “doing the will of the Omnipresent.” That higher service is a love for the light that encompasses all worlds, the Divine light too great to enter them, and it is the “with all your might” that the next lines explain.

In detail, the will of the Omnipresent is “Atik of Nukva,” the innermost core of Malchus’s crown, and in a person’s service it corresponds to “with all your might,” a love beyond measure. The nine Sefiros of Nukva correspond to “with all your soul,” a lower love; the Alter Rebbe refers to a fuller treatment elsewhere.

In the discourse on “For over all the glory [shall be] a canopy” (Isaiah 4:5), the bride’s “glory” is the love “with all your soul,” Malchus singing to G‑d. Above it, “with all your might,” the heart’s deepest desire, is the “canopy,” an encompassing light, the Keser of Nukva; and when this love is roused below, it draws down from above a revelation of the encompassing light.

“Those who do His word, to hearken to the voice of His word” (Psalms 103:20) puts doing before hearing, as the Talmud notes (Shabbos 88a) in praising Israel for saying “we will do” before “we will hear.” So “doing the will of the Omnipresent” is a commitment that comes before and beyond understanding, as the discourse “At the time when they put ‘we will do’ first” explains.

Closing the parenthesis: the will of the Omnipresent is “with all your might.” The second paragraph of the Shema speaks only of “all your heart and all your soul” (Deuteronomy 11:13) and then says “And you shall gather in your grain,” because at that level a person’s task is still to raise the holy sparks hidden in business, plowing and sowing.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai objected: if a man plows in plowing time and sows in sowing time, what will become of the Torah? (Berachos 35b). The Alter Rebbe explains that such labor only rectifies Nukva, the level of Makom, the Divine life within the world.

In the time to come, “strangers shall stand and shepherd your flocks” (Isaiah 61:5): the nations will do the labor, as subordinates of Israel. The text says they will keep the mitzvos in which a woman is obligated; in the terms of this discourse, their work belongs to the rectification of Nukva, the level of Makom.

Zephaniah foretells that the nations will be given “a pure language” to serve G‑d together (Zephaniah 3:9). So they too will be able to rise, through plowing and sowing and as subordinates of Israel.

Israel, at the level of “with all your might,” the yearning of Makom itself for the encompassing light, will be beyond the task of rectifying Makom through labor. They will “eat from what is prepared,” receiving sustenance without toil.

The parenthesis points to the Arizal’s Ta’amei HaMitzvos on Parshas Behar, which contrasts the weekdays, with their “preparations,” and the seventh year, and to the discourse on “And it shall be, from one new moon to the next” (Isaiah 66:23), which explains why Rosh Chodesh is not called a “day of work.” Both are given as parallels to a time when labor gives way to what is already prepared.

Eating differs from plowing and sowing because it has a counterpart above: “Eat, friends” (Song of Songs 5:1). Below, food strengthens the mind, which through the Torah draws what is above time into time; so in the future Israel will still eat, though they will not toil.

All this is for the future. For now the law follows Rabbi Yishmael, who taught that Torah study is to be combined with “the way of the world,” earning a living (Berachos 35b).

“And you shall gather in your grain” (Deuteronomy 11:14) and “when you gather in from your threshing floor” (Deuteronomy 16:13) speak of ordinary labor, and the Talmud reports that many who followed Rabbi Yishmael succeeded. Turning back to the wood-gatherer, the Alter Rebbe cites Rabbeinu Bachya’s question: why does the Torah say mekoshesh, a word used for gathering straw, rather than melaket, the usual word for gathering wood?

Bachya answers that mekoshesh hints at mi-kav shesh, “from the line of six”: the world stands on six extremities, and the gatherer, by desecrating Shabbos, left the middle line of the six and denied the seventh. The Alter Rebbe reads this as a separation within the six supernal attributes.

The Talmud (Shabbos 89a) reads “For Moshe delayed (boshesh)” (Exodus 32:1) as “six (shesh) hours came (ba’u)”: Moshe had said he would return at the start of the sixth hour, and when it came and he had not, the people turned to the golden calf. The Midrash on Ki Sisa says the same (Shemos Rabbah 41:7).

In the Midrash on Beha’alos’cha the people tell the elders, “Six hours and more [have passed], and he has not come down” (Bamidbar Rabbah 15:21). The Zohar discusses this too, on Ki Sisa and on Pekudei.

The Raaya Mehemna and the Tikkunei Zohar explain that at the calf the people separated “six,” Tiferes, the middle pillar that includes the six emotive attributes, from “seven,” Malchus, G‑d’s kingship. “Seven [times] a day I praise You” (Psalms 119:164) links the number seven with Malchus.

The meaning of that separation is the error of those who say that G‑d has forsaken the land and handed rule to the stars and constellations. These powers are rooted in the four camps of the Shechinah, the four faces of the Chariot in Ezekiel’s vision: lion, ox, eagle and man (Ezekiel 1:10).

Hence they made “the likeness of an ox” (Psalms 106:20), the golden calf. They reasoned that Egypt fell because it worshiped the constellation of the Lamb, while the Ox, rooted in “the face of an ox on the left” of the Chariot, is stronger.

The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 42:5) says G‑d foresaw that Israel would “pull out” the ox from among the four faces of His Chariot and provoke Him with it. Treating one power as independent severs the supernal unity of “Havayah is Elokim”: the oneness of G‑d who transcends nature (Havayah) with G‑d as He is hidden within nature (Elokim).

The Midrash says this was done by the converts who came up with Israel from Egypt (Vayikra Rabbah 27:8), the mixed multitude (erev rav), not by Israel. Of Israel Isaiah says, “This people (am zu) I formed for Myself” (Isaiah 43:21), a phrase the Alter Rebbe decodes below.

The Midrash on “An ox or a sheep” (Leviticus 22:27) asks why the ox heads the list of offerings. Rabbi Levi compares Israel to a noblewoman rumored to have sinned with a great minister: the nations accuse Israel of making the calf, but G‑d, like the king, investigated and found nothing in the charge.

To show this publicly, the king in the parable seated the man at the head of his banquet; so the ox was made first among the offerings. The Talmud (Menachos 53b) reads “Let this one come and receive this from this One, for this people” as Moshe receiving the Torah from G‑d for Israel, who are “this people,” am zu.

Israel are called “this people” because they join the supernal unity of “Havayah is Elokim” by believing that G‑d’s providence reaches every detail. “Who is like Havayah our G‑d, who is enthroned on high, who lowers [Himself] to look upon the heavens and the earth” (Psalms 113:5–6) says this: the One exalted beyond all attends to everything below.

The stars and constellations have no power of their own; they are only channels for the Divine flow, like an axe that does nothing without the hand that swings it (an image from Isaiah 10:15). The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse “Return, O Israel” for more on this.

The word zu (זו) is spelled zayin, whose value is seven, and vav, whose value is six. The zayin is the seventh attribute, Malchus, called “earth”; the vav is Tiferes with the six attributes, the Tree of Life, called “heavens”; so am zu, read as “with (im) zu,” is the joining of the zayin to the vav, Malchus to Z’eir Anpin.

This joining is the drawing down of the Infinite Light through the middle pillar into Malchus. The phrase from the prayers, “Unique One, Life of the worlds, King,” traces the same descent: from the Unique One, through the life of the worlds, to the King.

The Raaya Mehemna at the end of Shoftim says this as well, and “this people (am zu) whom You acquired” in the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:16) carries the same meaning. The parenthesis adds the Midrash at the end of Parshas Bamidbar and the Zohar on Ki Sisa.

The gatherer’s sin is understood the same way: he separated the Tree of Knowledge, Malchus, from the Tree of Life, the six attributes, and so mi-kav shesh means he cut himself off “from the line of six.” In the letters of the Name Havayah, he separated the vav (Z’eir Anpin) from the final hei (Malchus); the Mikdash Melech on the Zohar’s Shelach discusses this.

“Do not look at me that I am swarthy, for the sun has gazed upon me” (Song of Songs 1:6) is read in the Zohar on Acharei as “the sun did not look at me to shine upon me.” The sun is Havayah, as in “For a sun and a shield is Havayah Elokim” (Psalms 84:12); cut off from the six, Malchus is dark because the light of Havayah does not shine on her.

The Zohar on Tazria notes that the verse says sheshezafatni where shezafatni would have been enough, and reads the extra letters as shesh, “six.” The sun, which the previous paragraph identified with Havayah, shines with six lights, the six attributes of Z’eir Anpin.

When the sun withdraws, all six lights withdraw with it, and Malchus, cut off from the six, is left “swarthy.” The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Lift up the head of the sons of Gershon” (Numbers 4:22), which discusses the sasgona, the Talmud’s name for the tachash, which “rejoices (sas) in many colors” (Shabbos 28a), another word built on the letters of shesh.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse “I am black but comely” (Song of Songs 1:5) for more on “the sun has gazed upon me.” He then limits the “withdrawal” of the six lights: it is like the gazelle in the Midrash on “Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle” (Song of Songs 8:14), the last verse of the Song.

A gazelle sleeps with one eye open and one closed. The Midrash applies this to the way G‑d watches over Israel, which depends on whether they do His will.

When Israel do G‑d’s will He watches them with both eyes, “The eyes of Havayah are toward the righteous” (Psalms 34:16); when they do not, He still watches with one eye, “Behold, the eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him” (Psalms 33:18). So the withdrawal of the six lights is never complete: one “eye” stays open.

The Zera Avraham, a commentary on this Midrash, explains it in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz. The Alter Rebbe also refers to the end of his discourse “When you hearken to the voice” (Deuteronomy 13:19), on “doing what is right in the eyes of Havayah.”