ולתוספת ביאור ענין שמחת תורה דהיינו שהתורה תהיה שמחה כו׳

This is a supplementary discourse that adds to the explanation of Simchas Torah: the name means not only that we rejoice with the Torah but that the Torah itself becomes joyful. The opening verse from Psalms describes G‑d “wrapping” Himself in light like a garment, and the Alter Rebbe reads that light as the Torah, a garment that links the spiritual with the physical.

A parenthetical list of places where this theme is developed: a discourse on the tzitzis verse, Iggeres HaKodesh (the fourth part of Tanya), section 19, and passages of the Midrash and the Zohar that expound “Wrapping [Himself in] light.”

The first sense of the Torah as a garment: the Torah as it stands in Asiyah, the lowest world, is what keeps every physical thing in existence. Whatever physical thing the Torah mentions, the Torah’s words about it are its life-force. The printed word here appears as hashmiyim, apparently for gashmiyim, “physical,” as the rest of the sentence shows.

Even things the Torah does not name outright draw their existence from it, through a hint or through a recombination of its letters.

A play on words. The Talmudic phrase “the Sages spoke ba-hoveh” ordinarily means that they described the usual case. The Alter Rebbe hears hoveh as related to hishtahvus, “coming into being”: whatever the Sages spoke of in the Torah comes into being because they spoke of it.

Beyond the Torah that sustains physical things there is a spiritual Torah, studied by the souls in the Higher Garden of Eden. The proof is the Talmud’s story that the Heavenly Academy disputed a law of tzaraas (whether a bright spot that appeared before the white hair makes one impure) and called up Rabbah bar Nachmani to decide it.

Souls in the Heavenly Academy have no bodies and no skin disease, so their debate must concern the spiritual meaning of the law.

Here is that meaning. A baheres is a snow-white spot, and it is white because no red blood reaches it; the Torah says “the blood is the soul.” So the baheres stands for a place where the flow of the soul’s life is blocked.

The same applies to all four shades of affliction the Mishnah lists and their sub-shades. By contrast, a bohak, a dull white spot, is ruled pure, because some blood, and so some of the soul’s life, still moves there.

On the spiritual plane, the baheres is segiru dinehora, a “shutting-off of light”: whatever blocks G‑d’s flow of life from above. To study the laws of tzaraas in the Higher Garden of Eden is to study what blocks that flow, until a soul cannot enjoy the radiance, recalling the Talmud’s picture of the righteous who enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah.

The same holds throughout the Torah: every law also has a spiritual meaning. The example is the verse that compares the beloved to an apple tree, explained by the apple’s colors; the text leaves the application with “etc.” The conclusion is that the Torah is the garment that links world to world, the spiritual with the physical.

An analogy for the Torah as G‑d’s garment. A garment that is worn adorns its wearer and gains by being worn; a garment left lying in a corner rots. So it is, as it were, with the “Supernal Man,” the divine configuration that the prophet saw in human likeness.

Ezekiel saw “a likeness like the appearance of a man” upon the throne. When G‑d “wears” the Torah, that is, when the Infinite Light is drawn into it, the Torah is joyful, like a garment in use. The Torah says of itself, “I was His delights,” and the text notes that va’ehyeh has the form of the future tense, leaving the point with “etc.”

The Alter Rebbe points to Sefer Shel Beinonim (Likkutei Amarim, the first part of Tanya), chapter 52, for why the Torah is called a garment. The worlds cannot bear the light of the Shechinah directly.

Without a covering that conceals it, the divine light would overwhelm the worlds. The covering must hide the light without being dissolved by it, and the only such covering is G‑d’s own will and wisdom as clothed in the Torah and mitzvos; being divine, it is not nullified, yet it screens the light. This is the “Holy of Holies” of every world, and a further discussion is cited from the discourse on “You shall keep My Shabbosos and revere My Sanctuary.”

A heading: what follows is a condensed version (kitzur) of a discourse on the verse “On the eighth day there shall be an assembly for you,” the Torah’s command for Shemini Atzeres. Its numbered points (1)–(5) trace the themes of Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur and Shemini Atzeres.

Point (1). The Rosh HaShanah prayers say, “This day is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.” The worlds descend from one another not in one leap but through many intermediate levels, each one bridging the level above it and the level below.

The lower Garden of Eden is the bridge between the spiritual worlds and ours. So “the beginning of Your works (ma’asecha)” is read as the beginning of the World of Asiyah, the “world of making.”

“The first day” is read as what precedes the whole chain of worlds: Keser, the Crown, which bridges the flow of the Emanator, the Infinite One, to the emanated Sefiros. The text refers to fuller treatments in the discourse “Elijah opened” and in the Siddur’s explanation of “You have set all the borders of the earth.”

Point (2). Souls descend into this world for the sake of a higher ascent. The verse “I am Havayah, that is My Name” is read to mean that Havayah, however exalted, is only a “name,” an expression of G‑d and not His essence; the soul’s descent lets it reach beyond that level. The text refers to the explanation of “Return, O Israel.”

The ascent is to “delight upon Havayah”: al, “upon,” is read as “above,” a delight higher than the level of the Name Havayah. The same reading applies to Hannah’s praying “upon Havayah,” explained in the discourse “None shall miscarry.”

Teshuvah is the way to that delight. Teshuvah preceded the world, and the world is drawn from the Name Havayah, so teshuvah reaches above Havayah; this is Yom Kippur, when we are purified “before Havayah.” Point (3) begins: the power of this teshuvah is drawn down on Shemini Atzeres and becomes Simchas Torah.

Simchas Torah means gladdening the Torah by joining the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah stems from Chochmah, of which Koheles says, “I will become wise, but it is far from me”: wisdom at its source is beyond grasp.

The Written Torah, from Chochmah, is called “the instruction of your father,” for Chochmah is Abba, the “father.” Chochmah is also the level of “what are we,” self-effacement, and of wisdom that comes “from ayin (nothing)”: it is so close to its source that it is hidden. The aim is for it to shine openly, like the Oral Torah, “the teaching of your mother,” from Binah, Imma, where ideas become explicit. The reference to “the Ramash” on Pinchas is an abbreviation the text does not expand.

Joy is revelation, so to gladden the Torah is to reveal it. “From Havayah this came to be” is read: from Havayah, which is Chochmah, comes zos, “this,” the Oral Torah. This happens by the power of teshuvah, the purification “before Havayah” of Yom Kippur.

The text refers to the discourse “This matzah,” which contrasts Shabbos and Yom Tov. Shabbos is called simply “holy” and draws from Chochmah, the intellect (mochin) of Abba; Yom Tov is called “a holy convocation” and draws from the intellect of Imma, Binah. That is why festivals are times of joy: Binah is “the mother of the children,” who is “joyful.”

Two more discourses are cited. Yom Kippur, the day of teshuvah, is called “a Shabbos of Shabbosos,” and is explained as the level of the Holy of Holies, above even “holy,” the intellect of Abba. So teshuvah reaches beyond Chochmah itself.

This explains how the power of teshuvah can bring about Simchas Torah: coming from above Chochmah, it can make Chochmah, the intellect of Abba, which is ordinarily hidden, shine openly, and so be joyful, as Binah, “the mother of the children,” is on the festivals. A further reference is to the end of the discourse “You shall draw water with joy,” explained above.

Point (4). Isaiah’s promise, “As a man whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you,” is read with “mother” as the Oral Torah: in the future the inner dimension of the Torah, called Eden, will be revealed as openly as the Oral Torah is now. Joel’s “a spring shall go forth from the House of G‑d” describes the same flow.

The discourse on “And I pleaded” treats Moses’ request, “Let me cross over and see.” The theme is “the far one who has become near,” what was distant brought close, echoing Isaiah’s “peace to the far and to the near.” The Zohar on Toldos speaks of one drawn near “from a distant place,” and the text refers to the Mikdash Melech, a commentary on the Zohar, there.

Teshuvah itself is “the far one who has become near,” one who was distant and returned, so it has the power to draw this distant light close. Point (5) begins with the verse “This is the day Havayah has made.”

“This day” is the “today” of “Today, if you will listen to His voice,” and the “first day” of the Rosh HaShanah prayer: the level before the chain of worlds. It is drawn into this world specifically through teshuvah, just as “the beginning of Your works,” the lowest, is linked to “the first day,” the highest, for the end of things is wedged in their beginning.

Hence “I have this day begotten you”: the rebirth comes from “this day,” the highest level. From it the light is drawn down to be “made,” the Name Havayah revealed, as in “David made a name,” which Iggeres HaKodesh explains.

The summary returns to the discourse’s opening verse: the Torah is “Wrapping [Himself in] light as a garment,” a garment that joins the Infinite One to the worlds.

The reason: the Torah is rooted in the Supernal Chochmah, and Chochmah, too, is an intermediary that links the Infinite Light with the worlds. The text refers to the discourse “For Abraham has not known us.”

Teshuvah draws the Infinite Light down to be clothed in the Torah, the way King David would bind the Torah above with the Holy One, blessed be He, joining the Torah to its Giver; the discourse “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” is cited. When the Infinite Light is clothed in the Torah, the Torah rejoices, like a garment that is worn, and that is Simchas Torah, the Torah’s own joy.

The joy in turn reveals the Torah, the far brought near. So atzeres, “assembly,” is read as a gathering of everything into its root, the Supernal Chochmah and Binah, “the instruction of your father” and “the teaching of your mother.”

In this light, “the beginning of Your works,” the intermediary between the spiritual worlds and physical Asiyah, is also drawn down through “the first day,” Keser, the highest intermediary.

Shemini Atzeres completes the drawing down of “Wrapping [Himself in] light as a garment”: the Torah, the intermediary that carries the revealed Infinite Light into all worlds, upper and lower. The summary closes where the discourse began.

A list of places where the verse “Wrapping [Himself in] light” is expounded, starting with the Midrash Rabbah on Genesis and on Exodus (Bo). As the Kehot notes quote them, Genesis Rabbah asks where light was created and answers that the Holy One, blessed be He, wrapped Himself in it like a garment and its radiance shone from one end of the world to the other; Exodus Rabbah says that after creating light He created the heavens.

The list continues with the Midrash on Vayakhel and passages in the first volume of the Zohar; according to the Kehot notes, the Zohar on Lech Lecha says that G‑d looked into the primordial light, wrapped Himself in it and created the heavens with it. Sefer Hadras Melech and the Mikdash Melech are both commentaries on the Zohar by R. Shalom Buzaglo.

Passages in the second volume of the Zohar follow, and a reference on the word salmah, “garment,” in a work abbreviated M.A.A., under the letter Shin, section 65.