ביאור ע״פ באתי לגני

The heading names the verse this discourse explains, Song of Songs 5:1. Its later paragraphs take up the verse phrase by phrase: the myrrh and the spice, the honeycomb and the honey, the wine and the milk, the “friends” and the “beloved ones.”

The day and night have a rhythm of descent and ascent: until midnight the divine flow descends, from midnight the ascent begins that is completed in the morning prayer, and from Minchah, the afternoon prayer, the descent starts again. The two phrases describe what happens at night: like the woman of valor who “gives food to her household” while it is still night, the higher level goes down to sustain the lower one and becomes “a head to foxes,” the highest point of a lower realm.

¶6 Midnight begins the ascent; paragraph 6 shows how Torah study after midnight helps.

The discourse now turns to its main theme. “The Holy One, blessed be He” is the configuration Z’eir Anpin, the divine emotions through which G‑d conducts the world; the intellect of Abba and Imma, divine Chochmah and Binah, is enclothed within it, yet that intellect remains “the hidden world.”

The result is that the intellect Z’eir Anpin receives from the side of Abba is wrapped in two coverings, which the text also calls two screens. Further sources in Etz Chaim and in the Ramaz on the Zohar are given for this.

A general principle is now introduced, connected with the verse “For Havayah is a G‑d of knowledges,” whose plural is read as two perspectives of knowledge. From the perspective of the one who receives, looking upward, his own lower level is what is real to him, yesh (existence).

What is above the recipient, beyond his grasp, is ayin (nothing) to him. From the perspective of the one who gives, looking downward, the reverse is true: the higher level is the real existence, and everything below it counts as nothing in comparison with it.

The reason is that the recipient’s whole existence comes only from the lowest level of the giver. The Talmud illustrates this in its description of the chayos, the holy creatures beneath the Throne: their legs alone are equal to all the distances below them, from the earth through the seven heavens, and so are their shins, and so on part by part.

Applying the principle here, what Z’eir Anpin receives from the intellect of Abba and Imma is only a radiance, a mere point, enclothed within it, while the intellect itself stays far above.

This explains why the Name Elokim is mentioned in the creation account on each of the six days. The six days correspond to the six emotive attributes that govern the world, and each day’s utterance, such as “Let there be light” and “Let there be a firmament,” expresses one of them.

Chochmah does reach the attributes, as the verse “You have made them all with Chochmah” says. But it passes through Elokim, the Name associated with tzimtzum, so that only a contracted measure of it comes through; the thirty-two times Elokim appears in the account of creation correspond to the thirty-two paths of wisdom of Sefer Yetzirah, Chochmah divided into channels, which is itself a contraction and concealment.

Shabbos is different, because then the intellect of Abba itself is revealed. After the parenthetical sources, the text draws the consequence for the verses about the seventh day.

On Shabbos Z’eir Anpin enclothes the essence of Abba’s intellect, not just a radiance of it. In the Shabbos prayers Malchus ascends, at Minchah to the place of Abba and at Musaf to the place of Imma, and receives the light of Abba itself from Z’eir Anpin, as Pri Etz Chaim explains in its Gate of the Amidah, at the end of chapter 14.

The Ramaz, commenting on the Zohar’s Pekudei, discusses in this connection the psalm of the Shabbos day, “A psalm, a song for the Shabbos day. It is good to give thanks to Havayah.”

That is why, in the verses about the seventh day, the Name Havayah is added: after “And Elokim finished” comes “On the day that Havayah Elokim made,” a higher revelation than Elokim alone. Torah study for its own sake works in the same way, because, as the Zohar puts it, “the Torah comes forth from Chochmah.”

When a person below studies Torah for its own sake, this arousal from below causes the Holy One, blessed be He, who is Z’eir Anpin, to “read and study opposite him.” In the terms of Kabbalah, Z’eir Anpin then receives intellect from the essence of Abba’s intellect.

¶7 How Torah lishmah reaches Abba's essence: paragraph 7 explains the higher source needed.

That essence is far higher than the radiance of Chochmah that passes through the Name Elokim to conduct the worlds and give them life. That radiance is only a contracted light.

In comparison with the essence of Abba’s intellect, these contracted radiances are called ayin, as nothing, following the principle set out above. The Zohar on Vayikra applies to Torah study at midnight the verse “Lift up your hands to holiness and bless Havayah,” and proclaims of the one who studies: “You shall bless the Holy One, blessed be He,” from the place called the supernal holiness.

That is, the one who studies draws into Z’eir Anpin, called “the Holy One, blessed be He,” from the light of Abba, which is the supernal kodesh. In the discourse beginning “Go out and gaze” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 20), the Alter Rebbe explains that the souls of Israel draw this supernal holiness down through Torah and mitzvos, a power they have because they are rooted in the inner dimension of the higher Chochmah.

The same idea fits the two kinds of knowledge in “a G‑d of knowledges”: the Torah draws the higher Daas down into Z’eir Anpin. The Torah called “a Torah of truth” is what a person draws into Z’eir Anpin through his study.

This is a second reading of lishmah, “for its sake”: the word (לשמה) is divided as leshem hei (לשם ה), “for the sake of the hei.” The aim of such study is to draw down the radiance that issues from the Yesod of Abba and so to sweeten the judgments of Leah, the feminine configuration described in the next lines; Pri Etz Chaim sets this out in its section on the conduct of Torah study.

This is done through study with contemplation and depth. Leah, a feminine configuration, is “the letters of thought”: she is the Malchus, the lowest level, of Tevunah (the lower part of Binah), and Malchus is the level that expresses and reveals, as letters reveal an idea.

Letters are called judgments and severities because they confine an idea within set bounds so that it cannot spread without limit. On their own they hold no understanding at all, as shown by the fact that one can run words through the mind without grasping their meaning.

Every level of intellect is only “letters” compared with the level above it. Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach, develops this on the words “as You have spoken, saying”: the speech of a higher level, revealed there, becomes hidden thought in the level below, as a teacher’s speech becomes thought in his student.

Torah studied with understanding but without contemplation in depth is still called “letters,” and little is revealed in it.

To sweeten the judgments of Leah by bringing real intellect into those letters, one must draw down from the Yesod of Abba, that is, from Chochmah. The faculties of deep contemplation and of memory belong to Chochmah, which is above Binah and is called maskil, the source from which understanding comes.

So one must study in depth until understanding that was hidden before emerges from the Chochmah in one’s own soul. This gives the letters an inner intellect and sweetens the judgments of Leah, and the same happens in all the worlds.

The drawing-down must come mainly from Chochmah, specifically the Yesod of Abba, because the Infinite Light rests in Chochmah without being concealed. In Atzilus “He and His vessels are one,” whereas in the lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah the light arrives through a screen that separates.

That screen is the light’s complete enclothement in the Binah of Atzilus on its way to the lower worlds.

Atzilus too receives through Chochmah, as “You have made them all with Chochmah” says, yet the Chochmah of Adam Kadmon, the primordial level above Atzilus, enclothed in the Chochmah of Atzilus, is no screen at all. It does not hide the Infinite Light because Chochmah is ayin, nothingness and self-nullification: the verse is read “Chochmah is found from ayin,” and the letters of chochmah (חכמה) spell ko’ach mah (כח מה), “the potential of what,” a capacity that is not yet anything defined.

Since “no thought can grasp” G‑d at all, the divine spark in every Jew can rest only in the soul’s faculty of Chochmah, which is above comprehension. Tanya, chapter 18, explains that because the Infinite Light is enclothed in the soul’s Chochmah, all Jews, even the simplest, believe in G‑d and are ready to give their lives rather than deny Him.

Pri Etz Chaim reads the verse in Ruth about Boaz waking at midnight in Kabbalistic terms. At midnight Rachel, the configuration of Malchus, has been pushed down below, while Leah, the other feminine configuration, is judgments and severities; that is why “the man was startled.”

Those who study Torah after midnight are praised because their study draws light to Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, that is, to Rachel, and repairs her so that she can ascend at the morning prayer. The Zohar on Emor (folio 90a) teaches that one who rises at midnight to study joins the Congregation of Israel as she prepares the King’s house.

¶2 This explains the midnight ascent from paragraph 2.

Study after midnight also sweetens the judgments of Leah. For this the text cites the Zohar HaRakia, a commentary on the Zohar, on Parshas Bo, and the Ramaz’s commentary on Emor.

Section 2 asks how Torah study can draw down the very essence of the higher Chochmah. The answer is that the source must be a level higher still than the Chochmah of Atzilus, which then brings the intellect of Abba down to Z’eir Anpin.

¶3 How Torah lishmah draws Abba's essence, as asserted in paragraph 3.

The analogy is a teacher explaining a deep idea. He can do it only because his own mind is far greater than the idea itself.

Moreover, while teaching he must rouse the depths of his intellect to work out how to bring the deep idea down to a student far smaller than he is.

So too above: for the higher Chochmah to reach the emotive attributes, the drawing-down must begin above Chochmah. The verse alludes to this with “I have gathered My myrrh with My spice,” which are fragrances.

Fragrance is perceived by the nose, taste by the mouth and palate, and the nose is set higher on the face. So smell stands for a level above that of taste, which the next paragraph identifies with Chochmah.

The verse “And [for] My praise I will restrain (echtom) for you” uses a word that shares its root with chotem, the nose, and the Idra Rabba of the Zohar says this verse was said of Atik Yomin, the “Ancient of Days,” the innermost level of Keser. Taste, by contrast, needs chewing: only then do the palate and throat taste, and the food that is tasted is used up.

Smell reaches a person at once, while the thing is still whole, so it is not used up and can be smelled again and again.

Above, “tastes” are in Chochmah: of the four elements of the Torah’s text, ta’amim (the cantillation notes, literally “tastes”), nekudos (vowels), tagin (crowns) and osiyos (letters), the ta’amim belong to Chochmah, the beginning of Atzilus. Smell is above Atzilus: it is the “nose of Atik” that the Idra describes, Atik being the innermost level of Keser.

A further explanation: smell is like an encompassing light (makif), which touches from outside, and taste like an inner light (pnimi), which enters. Because smell is encompassing it is something like the eternal, never used up, while taste, being inner, is limited and is consumed in the tasting.

Likewise above: in Atzilus the lights are enclothed in vessels that limit them, but Atik is above the vessels and so is called “infinite” relative to Atzilus; the Idra Zuta of the Zohar even says that the holy Atik “is called ayin.” This is the sense of the Idra’s account that Rav Hamnuna Sava would pray “to the Master of the Nose,” which Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach, explains: the radiance called the nose, the level of smell, spreads from the Infinite Light, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is “the Master of the Nose” as its essence and source.

A commentary on the Sifra deTzniusa (the “Book of Concealment,” a section of the Zohar), by a disciple of the Arizal, writes that the air (avira) above the membrane covering Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden brain, extends through the nose. The parenthesis refers to the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah, section 31, and to remarks there that quote the book Shevilei Emunah; where our text reads “ושם ס״ט ט״ו” (“there, paragraphs 9 and 15”), the Kehot edition reads “ושם ס״ק ט״ו,” sub-paragraph 15 of a commentary there, and points to the Rebbe’s note on this reference.

So smell reaches even higher than Mocha Stima’ah. That is why the Sages call smell the thing from which the soul, not the body, derives pleasure, and Etz Chaim says that the Daas of Atik Yomin shines in this avira and is the “soul” of Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser.

The text then lists other discourses on smell. In Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach, the explanation of the section of Tzitzis distinguishes the Chochmah of Abba, below the will, from Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden intellect above the will; the discourse “These are the journeys” (Likkutei Torah, Masei) says that Yericho, Jericho, is the level of reiach, smell; and “And Yehoshua sent from Shittim” explains Yehoshua’s spies to Jericho as that level of smell.

This is why Yitzchak “smelled the fragrance of his garments”: garments are an encompassing level, like smell. The Midrash reads begadav, “his garments,” as bogdav, “his traitors,” for the fragrance comes from the reverse, from sweetening what was harsh, as sharp foods become the most flavorful once they are sweetened.

The severities have a lofty root in the shattering of the vessels, and they are rectified through the Name Mah, the principle of rectification; when they are sweetened, their high root gives off the fragrance. Of the primordial stages the text names, the shattering took place in Nekudim, while Akudim, where the lights were bound in a single vessel, stands above both the shattering and the rectification, as the Alter Rebbe says in Likkutei Torah, Vaeschanan. In Torah Ohr, Toldos, on “See, the fragrance of my son,” the Alter Rebbe explains the bogdav as those who return in teshuvah, whose service is encompassing and draws down with greater force.

The same pattern appears in the Talmud’s teaching that in the Time to Come Israel will say to Yitzchak, “For you are our father.” Yitzchak is now the attribute of judgment, and in the future that judgment will be sweetened through Israel.

The Likkutei Torah of the Arizal, a collection of his teachings on Scripture from the writings of Rabbi Chaim Vital, is cited on Isaiah for this theme. Then the two fragrances of the verse are interpreted as the two parts of divine service: “My myrrh” is “Turn away from evil,” and “My spice” is “and do good.”

Further discussions of myrrh are listed: the discourse on Esther’s preparation with “six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices,” the discourse on becoming intoxicated on Purim, and the discourse on counting the sons of Gershon. That last discourse (Likkutei Torah, Nasso) explains the name Merari as mor, myrrh, twice: the myrrh of the incense, darkness turned to light, which rises from below, and the myrrh of the anointing oil, which it draws down from above.

The next clause, “I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey,” is explained. Ya’ri, plainly “My honeycomb,” is read as “My forest,” from ya’ar, a forest of trees, and these trees are the angels, from whom the souls receive in the morning blessings Yotzer Or, which describes the angels’ praise, and Ahavah, on G‑d’s love. The parable is a subject who feels awe on seeing great ministers bow before the king, and love when the king draws him close.

Likewise the blessing of love before the Shema speaks of G‑d’s “everlasting love” and of His bringing us near, which evokes love. The souls of Israel arose in G‑d’s thought before creation, whereas the angels came from “the breath of His mouth,” a lower source.

The whole exchange is likened to eating, which keeps a person alive. Eating also benefits the food: mineral, vegetable and animal matter is raised when it becomes part of a human being.

So too the souls draw from the angels, yet the angels are elevated through this, and that is called avodah, service. They rise through the souls as mayin nukvin, “feminine waters,” the arousal from below, in Nukva; this draws down mayin duchrin, “masculine waters,” the flow from above, which refines them until the two become one.

The Ramaz is cited on the Zohar’s words “Who are her household,” said of those who join the Congregation of Israel at night. He speaks there of those who are “deposited within her Yesod,” which fits the rising of the souls as feminine waters.

The clause “I have drunk My wine with My milk” is explained: wine is the intellect of Imma (Binah), and milk is the intellect of Abba (Chochmah), which is enclothed within that of Imma. A similar point is made elsewhere in explaining the phrase mikra kodesh, “a holy convocation.”

Milk is the intellect of nursing, which makes a child grow. Kabbalah describes the development of Z’eir Anpin in stages like a child’s, and in gestation it is folded, “three included within three,” its attributes contained one inside another.

Then comes birth, and then nursing, when the attributes of Z’eir Anpin receive from Chochmah and Binah. Through this its “limbs,” the attributes, grow until each becomes a full structure of ten Sefiros.

The milk is not the configuration of Abba as a whole, only what of it is enclothed in Z’eir Anpin, and it is distinct from the intellect of Imma, which is the wine. The discourse on “The heavens declare” is cited on this point.

Drinking the two together expresses their absorption into the source above. The Zohar on Sh’lach gives the image of a mother nursing her child: from the abundance of milk he nurses his mouth fills and he grows, and he pours the milk back into his mother’s mouth, a flow that returns to its source.

The text explains how this works: milk drawn into the attributes of Z’eir Anpin makes them grow and become inter-included, so that Chesed, for example, comprises ten Sefiros. Through this an abundance of kindness also flows down into the lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah.

Other discussions of milk are listed: the discourse on Yehoshua and Kalev’s words that the land is good, a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and the one on Yaakov’s blessing to Yehudah, “teeth white from milk.”

Further, the discourse on “Who will make you as a brother to me, who nursed at my mother’s breasts,” and the discourse on G‑d appearing to the Patriarchs “as Kel Shaddai.” There Shaddai is linked to shadayim, the breasts that nurse.

There, the text says, gestation, birth and nursing are explained as stages in a person’s service of G‑d. Further sources are the Pardes Rimonim of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, in its gate on the names and terms of Kabbalah, on “milk,” the Zohar on “bathed in milk,” and the Idra Rabba.

The clause “Eat, friends” refers to the souls of Israel, called the “friends” of Z’eir Anpin, as in “For the sake of my brothers and my friends.” Studying Torah for its own sake draws the Infinite Light down below.

That is why the Talmud exempts one whose Torah study is his whole occupation from stopping it to pray: through his study he has drawn down the Infinite Light itself. The Torah says of itself, “I was with Him as a nursling.” In Mishlei, Wisdom speaks these words, and Bereishis Rabbah 1:1 reads them as the Torah speaking: it was reared close beside G‑d, and it was also the craftsman’s tool through which He looked as He created the world. The Alter Rebbe’s point is that the Torah is “with Him,” G‑d’s own, so whoever studies it draws down the Infinite Light itself.

The Torah continues, “and my delights are with the children of men”: these delights are the reasons of the mitzvos, rooted in Chochmah, which is called Eden, delight, though that delight is hidden below. So the Torah in a person’s mouth is “My words” in the literal sense, G‑d’s own.

It follows that the Infinite Light in the Torah is the same in the soul below as it is above.

It is drawn through all the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah down to the human soul, and through the person’s arousal from below it causes the Infinite Light to enclothe itself in Chochmah. This is why the souls of tzaddikim are like the “friends” above.

The last clause, “Drink and become drunk, beloved ones,” is explained. The dodim, “beloved ones,” are Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, whose union is only at certain times, unlike the re’im, “friends,” the level of Abba and Imma, “who are never parted.” So the dodim are in a state of thirst, a fiery longing like “my soul pines.”

Water quenches thirst, as in “Ho, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water.” Then comes “become drunk”: wine arouses the severities of Imma, which bring joy and turn into kindnesses below, as in the wedding blessing to the One “who created joy and gladness.”

The severities of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva are different. Being severities of a lower level, like “flashes of fire,” they can give the forces opposed to holiness a hold from which to draw nourishment.

For those lower severities the remedy is water, “Everyone who is thirsty, come to the water.” Wine, however, stands for the soul’s joy in G‑d, and another discourse identifies it with the “white wine” of Atik.

All this belongs to the level of the dodim. At the higher level of the re’im the image is oil, a bond that is never broken, in the words of Rabbi Shimon in the Idra Zuta of the Zohar, “With one bond I was bound” to the Holy One, blessed be He; and the friends “eat,” and eating means absorption into the source.

That is why the souls of Israel are compared to the “friends” above. In the discourse beginning “Go out and gaze” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 20), the Alter Rebbe explains that oil is above wine, as the Sages speak of oil floating on wine, for oil is the source of Chochmah.

The Zohar’s explanations of the verse “I have come into My garden” are listed, in Parts I and III.

Another discussion is pointed to, on the Zohar’s comment that “I will make him a helper corresponding to him” refers to the Mishnah, “the wife of that lad,” the angel Metatron.

That discussion deals with the Zohar’s teaching that at midnight the Holy One, blessed be He, comes to delight with the tzaddikim in Gan Eden, and explains that at that hour the revelation comes from the essence of the higher Chochmah.

The Zohar on Bo implies the same: when the Holy One, blessed be He, appears over the garden, the whole garden is gathered in and is not separated from Eden. Ordinarily Gan Eden receives a measured flow: “a river goes out of Eden to water the garden.”

But when He appears over the garden, the garden receives from the essence of Eden itself, a level above the river that goes out of Eden.

The discourse “There are sixty queens” makes a similar distinction: the spring that will come out of the House of Havayah is higher than the river that goes out of Eden.

Along the same lines, the discourse on “This matzah” in the Haggadah explains the superiority of the intellect of Abba over that of Imma. Perhaps this is also the meaning of “a spring of gardens”: it is called “a spring,” specifically, a source that wells up, rather than a river that flows out of it.

The Zohar on Bo is cited again, on Rabbi Shimon’s teaching about the hour “when the night is divided,” together with the Ramaz’s commentary there.

The Zohar HaRakia is cited for the teaching that at midnight Abba and Imma unite in order to give intellect.

Pri Etz Chaim’s Gate of the Shema at Bedtime and the Mikdash Melech on Tzav are further sources on what happens at midnight.

The Tosefta in the Zohar on Vayechi speaks of “a lamp that burns,” seen at night and hidden by day. The Zohar HaRakia’s explanation of it is cited, since it too speaks of a light revealed at night.

Two more discourses are pointed to: one on the wedding blessing “As You gladdened Your creation in the Garden of Eden of old,” and one on the light that “the Holy One, blessed be He, sowed in the garden.”