הנך יפה רעיתי יפה עיניך יונים כו׳

The maamar opens with Song of Songs 1:15, where the lover tells his beloved twice, “Behold, you are fair”; the Sages read the Song as the love between G‑d and the Community of Israel. It states its thesis at once: the two praises correspond to the two words Israel said when they received the Torah, “we will do” and “we will hear” (Exodus 24:7).

¶10 Hold the two “fair”s, “we will do” and “we will hear”: paragraph 10 explains them.

Ra’yasi, usually “my beloved,” is read in two ways that turn out to agree. The Midrash on “To my mare” (Song of Songs 1:9; the printed לסובתי is a slip for לסוסתי, as the Kehot note reads it) hears in it ra’ah, “to pasture” or “to feed”: Israel are G‑d’s “sustainer,” who “feed” Him with the two tamid offerings, the continual offerings of every morning and afternoon. The Zohar (III, 7b) puts it as “Israel sustain their Father in heaven,” and in Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, on “To my mare,” the Alter Rebbe explains that they do so by drawing life and the Infinite Light into the worlds through Torah and mitzvos, as food draws life from the brain to the other limbs.

¶4 How the two meanings of ra’yasi fit together: paragraph 4 shows it.

The same root gives ro’eh, “shepherd”: Psalms 80 calls G‑d the “Shepherd of Israel,” and the text explains that He feeds and sustains their souls, as in Yechezkel’s prophecy, “In a good pasture I will feed them.” Yaakov’s blessing of Yosef, “And his bow abode in strength … from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel,” is brought for the word ro’eh as well.

Yechezkel also compares G‑d to a shepherd who inspects his flock, words that the Rosh Hashanah prayer Unesaneh Tokef takes up for G‑d reviewing every living soul. On Rosh Hashanah, the text says, G‑d is “he who shepherds among the lilies” (Song of Songs 2:16 and 6:3), and the Grace after Meals asks Him to “shepherd us, nourish us, sustain us”: to shepherd is to sustain.

The second meaning is the plain one: ra’yasi from re’us, friendship and love. Three verses show re’a as a beloved friend: the Torah’s “your friend who is as your own soul,” David’s “for the sake of my brothers and my friends,” and the Song’s “This is my beloved, and this is my friend,” which the Sages read as the Community of Israel speaking of G‑d.

Before applying the idea Above, the text describes how food keeps the soul joined to the body. Digestion refines the food in stages until its best part becomes “the blood of the soul,” the blood that carries life; this rises to the heart, and its finest part rises from the heart to the brain.

Applying the analogy Above: nothing can be compared to G‑d, and even the highest emanated levels count as nothing before Him. All of existence comes from one “thought” alone that arose in His mind, as it were, “I will reign”: the wish to be King over a world.

That one thought is the life of all the worlds. Because this thought is to be Malchus, G‑d’s Kingship, Malchus is called “One is she, my dove”: she is the one thought. The line from Lecha Dodi, the hymn that welcomes Shabbos, “last in deed, first in thought,” says the same: what comes last in the order of creation was the first intention.

Time is nothing to G‑d: the whole long exile since the destruction of the Temple is “a moment” to Him, as Yeshayahu says. The comparison shows how small the one thought of creation is in relation to Him.

For G‑d to invest Himself in that one thought is therefore an immense self-contraction. At creation He did it out of kindness that no one had earned; since then it must be drawn down by a will aroused in Him, and the souls of Israel have the power to arouse it, because they themselves “arose in thought.” The Sages teach that Israel preceded the world in G‑d’s thought: the souls of Israel were the first intent for which the world was conceived. Because they are rooted in that very thought, they can awaken in Him the will to enclothe Himself in it anew.

This is what it means that Israel “sustain” their Father in heaven: they draw the revelation of the Infinite Light into the supernal thought, the one thought from which all the worlds come.

The analogy of food returns: food strengthens the brain, which binds the soul to it, and from the brain life spreads to the heart and the limbs. So Above, the light drawn into the supernal thought then spreads into “the nine utterances,” the nine times “And G‑d said” in the account of creation (the Sages count “In the beginning” as the tenth), through which the world was made.

The text asks how Israel draw the light down and answers with the second meaning of ra’yasi, love. When a person wants nothing but G‑d, “Whom have I in heaven? Besides You I desire nothing,” this will below arouses the supernal will to lower itself and be enclothed in the thought of creation.

¶1 This shows how the two meanings of ra’yasi from paragraph 1 fit together.

Section 2 opens with Song of Songs 6:4, where the lover calls his beloved fair “as Tirtzah,” a royal city of the northern kingdom; the maamar hears in the name the word ratzon, “will.” It states its theme: there are two levels of will.

The first will is hidden in the mind: contemplating G‑d’s greatness gives birth to a will toward Him there, but it may stay in the mind without truly entering the heart. In Tanya (whose first part is called Sefer Shel Beinonim, “the Book of the Intermediates”), chapter 16, the Alter Rebbe teaches that even such a love, hidden in the mind and not felt in the heart, can move a person to Torah and mitzvos. The Hebrew word for this will is ratzon.

The second will is revealed in the heart itself, and then it has an Aramaic name, re’usa deliba, “the heart’s desire.”

Re’usa is the word the Targum, the Aramaic translation of the Torah, uses for the Hebrew ratzon, and a translation exists to explain and reveal the original: Rav Yosef said that were it not for the Targum of a certain verse, he would not know what it means. So too the heart’s desire is the “translation” that reveals the will hidden in the mind.

The heart is more physical than the brain and closer to the body, so a will that reaches it is a fuller revelation. Tanya, chapter 16, says that the heart too is physical like the other limbs, only inward, and so the love revealed in it can enter the deeds of the mitzvos.

This revealed will of the heart is ra’yasi, from re’us, friendship: the Aramaic re’usa and the Hebrew ra’yasi sound alike. So “You are fair, my beloved” praises the heart’s desire.

“As Tirtzah,” from ratzon, is the will in the mind, and the verse praises the two together, mind and heart wanting G‑d as one (the printed word is ביד, beyad, “in the hand,” read here as ביחד, beyachad, “together”). The word ve’ahavta, “and you shall love,” equals 414, twice or, “light” (207): two lights, the two wills. The gematria comes from the Arizal, who teaches that on saying ve’ahavta in the Shema one should intend to draw down two lights (Pri Etz Chaim, Gate of the Shema, chapter 23).

When the will of Israel awakens in both mind and heart, “my beloved, as Tirtzah,” it arouses Above the revelation of the supernal will within the one thought of creation.

That is why ra’yasi also means “my sustainer.” As food lets the soul spread through the brain and from there to the heart and limbs, Israel’s love draws the Infinite Light into Chochmah and Binah, which the Zohar calls the “two companions” (trein rei’in), a word that echoes ra’yasi. In Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, the Alter Rebbe explains that these two, the self-nullification of Chochmah and the contemplation of Binah, must always go together in a person’s service, as they never part Above.

Once the light reaches the supernal Chochmah, it flows on, together with the supernal will enclothed in it, into every soul of Israel.

The analogy is the brain: strengthened by food, it sends the soul’s life through the whole body, even to the feet, the lowest limbs, giving a person the strength to lift them and to stand.

The bond runs both ways: the brain feels at once any pain in the foot. So too Above: when the Infinite Light is enclothed in the supernal Chochmah, which Kabbalah calls Abba, “Father,” G‑d is “our Father,” and the righteous are His children.

The saying “a son is his father’s leg” (cited by Tosafot on Yevamot 3a) makes the children the “foot” of their Father, an extension of him. In Torah Ohr, Bereishis, on “The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool,” the Alter Rebbe calls the Community of Israel the “foot” with these same two proofs, and shows that the foot has a virtue the head lacks: it carries the head where it wishes to go.

When the Infinite Light is enclothed in the supernal thought, it reaches the “foot” too, as a person’s thought moves his foot wherever he wishes.

The text stresses that G‑d is called “our Father” precisely when His light is enclothed in the supernal Chochmah, Abba.

The words of prayer “our Father, our King, our Shepherd” join the names Father and Shepherd. G‑d is called Shepherd because He sustains the souls, the “foot,” by letting His wisdom and will shine into them.

The verse “You open Your hand (yadecha)” is read as yudecha, “Your yud”: the letter yud of the Name Havayah, the supernal Chochmah, which “satisfies every living thing with ratzon,” will. The will given to the living is G‑d’s own will, which comes so close to the will of the righteous that the two become one: they want nothing but what He wants.

It works the other way as well: G‑d does the will of those who fear Him (Psalms 145:19). In Torah Ohr, Miketz, in the discourse “For with You is the source of life,” the Alter Rebbe reads “from heaven (min hashamayim)” as sham mayim, “there is water,” the Torah, through which Israel are seen before G‑d as something of worth; “from heaven” is understood like “their Father in heaven.”

In Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, Chochmah is also eisan, “strength,” the firm self-nullification in every Jew (from “maskil le’eisan,” Psalms 89:1), so Yosef’s bow that “abode in eisan” alludes to it. “From there,” specifically: Israel’s love and will arouse the drawing down into Chochmah and Binah, and only then, “from there,” comes “the shepherd, the stone,” the flow that sustains them.

Another reading: “their Father in heaven” is the light of Abba, Chochmah, enclothed in Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes, which is called shamayim, “heaven.” The Sages read shamayim as esh and mayim, fire and water (Chagigah 12a): Gevurah and Chesed.

The worlds are conducted through these emotive attributes, but the revealed light of Chochmah must be drawn into them, as the discourse “I have come into My garden” explains. That light comes through the two wills in a person, the will in the mind and the heart’s desire: “You are fair, my beloved, as Tirtzah.”

Section 3 explains “Behold, you are fair” from the physical world: true beauty is in a picture that blends several colors.

The three basic colors are white, red and green, and each alone lacks the fullness of beauty that their combination gives.

In the Community of Israel (Knesses Yisrael, the souls of Israel as one whole), white is love and kindness, the desire, in the Torah’s words, “to love Havayah … and to cleave to Him” (Deuteronomy 11:22 and 30:20). Love is kesef, “silver,” which is white, because kesef is related to nichsof, longing, as in Lavan’s words to Yaakov, “you longed greatly (nichsof nichsafta) for your father’s house.”

White stands for the natural love rooted in every Jew because it is a color in itself, not a mixture: in Likkutei Torah, Acharei, the Alter Rebbe explains that white is the thing itself, while red and green are dyes added to it.

So too this natural love comes from the essence of the soul, above understanding.

But longing alone is not enough: after it one must lower oneself, as in “the left hand pushes away” (Sotah 47a), with awe, which holds a person back; Torah Ohr, Bereishis, reads “The heavens are My throne” as such a lowering, like one who sits down, after the running of love. This is the red in the soul, from Gevurah: love and awe are the qualities of Avraham, whom G‑d calls “who loves Me,” and Yitzchak, whose G‑d is called “the Fear of Yitzchak.”

The third color, green, mediates between the two opposites, white and red, love and awe.

It is the attribute of Yaakov, compassion: a person sees G‑d’s boundless greatness and how far his own soul has descended, in the Talmud’s words “from a high roof to a deep pit” (the print has מעיקרא רמה, read as מאיגרא רמה), and is moved to compassion for it.

This compassion stands between Chesed and Gevurah: being deeply moved, with a heated heart, resembles Gevurah, but compassion leans toward kindness and love. The Pardes Rimonim of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a classic of Kabbalah, discusses this green in its Gate of Colors; Or HaTorah, quoted in the Kehot note, says that it is “like saffron and like the yolk of an egg,” truly a blend of red and white.

No single attribute is beautiful alone; only the three together let a person keep rising, level after level. Such souls are “ones who walk” (mehalchim, Zechariah 3:7), always advancing, unlike the angels, who “stand.”

The text points to two discussions of “flocks”: the discourse on “Your teeth are like a flock of ewes” and the explanation on “Know this day,” on the well where “all the flocks would be gathered.” In the first, later in Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, shinayich, “your teeth,” is the letter shin, made of three vavs, the three Patriarchs; through their combination a power beyond each one alone is drawn down.

All three attributes are present in prayer, for the Talmud teaches that the Patriarchs instituted the daily prayers: Avraham the morning prayer, Yitzchak the afternoon prayer and Yaakov the evening prayer. Since they are the sources of Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferes, all three qualities are in prayer.

Yeshayahu’s words “to Yaakov, who redeemed Avraham” are read as saying that Yaakov redeemed Avraham: Avraham’s love without Yaakov’s compassion is not yet beautiful, but blended into all three attributes it becomes beautiful and can rise without end. In Likkutei Torah, Emor, the Alter Rebbe explains that one whose heart is like stone, so bound to the world that contemplation does not bring him to love, should arouse great compassion for his soul; this is how Yaakov “redeems” Avraham.

As below a picture is beautiful when its colors are combined, so the soul is beautiful when Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferes, love, awe and compassion, are all present together. The text points again to the end of the discourse on “Your teeth are like a flock of ewes.”

The first “Behold, you are fair” is “we will do”: the beauty we create through our own service, with love, awe and compassion, to the point of setting aside our own will for G‑d’s, as the Mishnah teaches. This is a nullification of one’s very being (bittul bimetzius), not only of particular wishes. Another transcript of this discourse, quoted in the Kehot note from Or HaTorah, reads na’aseh as “we will make” the beauty ourselves, adorning ourselves from below upward.

¶1 This explains the two “fair”s from paragraph 1.

The second “fair,” “we will hear,” is greater: the Sages say that one who comes to purify himself is helped from Above, and the text adds “greatly.” This help is the drawing down of G‑d’s own supernal attributes, called “Israel Above,” of whom it is said, “Israel, in whom I am glorified (espa’ar)”; the name Yisrael itself comes from “for you have striven (sarisa) with G‑d.”

The supernal attributes are the bridegroom’s “glory” (pe’er) of Yeshayahu’s verse and the “splendor” (tiferes) of David’s blessing, “Yours, Havayah, are the greatness, and the might, and the splendor”: espa’ar, pe’er and tiferes come from one root, glory. The Community of Israel receives this glory from Israel Above, and that is the second “fair” (the print has השנ, read as השני, “the second”).

Turning to “your eyes are doves”: doves live in pairs, and the female receives from the male. So G‑d is compared to a bridegroom and the Community of Israel to a bride, who receives from Him, as the Mishnah (Taanit 26b) reads “the day of his wedding” as the giving of the Torah. Another transcript of this discourse, quoted in the Kehot note, says that the verse ends “your eyes are doves” to give the reason why the face Above shines toward the face of the Community of Israel below, although there is no comparison between creature and Creator.

As a pair of doves gaze at each other, Israel can look at everything and see in it that there is nothing besides G‑d, and that He is One, until their own will is set aside.

Doves gaze at each other constantly and delight in it; so the Community of Israel “gazes upon the glory of the King,” a phrase of the Zohar that Tanya, chapter 9, uses for the joy of the wise whose minds gaze upon the King’s glory, and sees G‑d’s oneness in all things.

Yeshayahu’s “eye to eye they shall see” describes two eyes: Israel’s gaze upward and G‑d’s gaze, His bestowal, downward. The Talmud’s rule for the pilgrim who appears in the Temple on the three festivals, “as one comes to see, so one comes to be seen,” states this mutual seeing; so too “The eye of Havayah is toward those who fear Him, toward those who hope for His kindness.”

The next verse says that this saves “their soul from death.” The flow of the light that fills all worlds (memalei kol almin), which gives each world its life, can at times descend into the domain of the kelipos, the forces that conceal G‑dliness, as Proverbs says of the strange woman, “her feet go down to death”; the Torah’s choice between life and death speaks of this.

Through those who hope for His kindness, G‑d saves “their soul,” which the text identifies with the light that fills all worlds, so that it does not go down to the kelipos. The beloved’s “I have washed my feet,” feet she will not soil again, speaks of this, and the text points again to its discussion of “the earth is My footstool.”

The verse goes on, “and to keep them alive in hunger,” and the text begins to explain it from the Torah’s “not by bread alone does man live”: “bread” here is the level of the Torah.

The first “fair,” “we will do,” gives life like bread, the Torah we study. But life also comes “by everything that comes forth from the mouth of Havayah,” the bestowal from Above, which is the second “fair,” “we will hear.”

The Talmud asks one who recites the Shema to “let your ears hear what you bring forth from your mouth” (Berakhot 13a); so too, when we speak the Torah it is “what comes forth from the mouth of Havayah,” His words placed in our mouth, and our tongue only “responds” to His word. At the end of the discourse on Shemini Atzeres in Likkutei Torah, Sukkos, the Alter Rebbe explains that in “My tongue shall respond to Your word” G‑d’s very word is drawn into the mouth of the one who learns, who only answers after Him, while ordinary study draws only a glimmer of the supernal speech.

The text now reads “to keep them alive in hunger” literally: their very hunger and thirst for G‑d is what gives them life, as Psalms 107 says, “Hungry and thirsty too, their soul faints within them.” Another transcript of this discourse, quoted in the Kehot note, says that in the days of Mashiach their life will come not from food but from the hunger itself, as Moshe lived forty days on the mountain without bread.

“Their soul” was explained above as the light that fills all worlds; its fainting is longing, as in “our soul waits for Havayah.” So in the desert G‑d first let Israel hunger and then fed them the manna, to teach that man lives by “everything that comes forth from the mouth of Havayah.”

At the end of the discourse “And He fed you the manna” (Likkutei Torah, Eikev), the Alter Rebbe explains that one lives by contemplating that the Torah is what comes forth from G‑d’s mouth, one with Him, like the manna, a dew from Above that took physical form so that it could be eaten. Another reading: “alive in hunger” is Yom Kippur, the fast on which “you shall afflict your souls,” for it is above the level of eating.

Eating works through refinement: food becomes blood and joins the outer dimension of the heart, just as all the offerings were brought on the outer altar; the inner, golden altar was for the incense, and the Torah forbids burnt offerings and meal offerings on it (Exodus 30:9). The inner dimension of the heart is above eating: in Likkutei Torah, Shemini Atzeres, the Alter Rebbe explains that it corresponds to that golden altar, and that on Yom Kippur this inner point of the heart is revealed, which is not nourished by physical food but “by everything that comes forth from the mouth of Havayah.”

This is the meaning of “to keep them alive in hunger”: the inner heart lives from the hunger itself, and this life comes through “the eye of Havayah toward those who fear Him,” the gaze from Above of paragraph 11.