לבאר הדברים ע״פ ששים המה מלכות כו׳ ודרשו…

The maamar opens with Song of Songs 6:8 and the Sages’ reading of it as a picture of the Torah. The sixty “queens” are the sixty tractates, the eighty “concubines” the beraisos (teachings of the Sages of the Mishnah’s era left outside the Mishnah), and the “maidens without number” the countless individual halachos.

The difficulty: the very next verse, “One is she, my dove,” speaks of the Congregation of Israel and sets her above all those “queens,” that is, above the Torah. The Talmud (Pesachim 49b) says the same when it reads morashah, “a heritage,” as me’orasah, “betrothed”: the Torah is betrothed to Israel, so Israel is the groom and the Torah the bride.

Other sources point the other way. The Zohar speaks of three that are bound to one another, the Holy One, blessed be He, the Torah and Israel, and in that chain Israel is bound to the Torah, which implies that the Torah is the higher.

¶4 Hold this question of Israel versus Torah: paragraph 4 resolves it.

Further still, the Mishnah at the end of Tractate Taanis reads “On the day of his wedding” (Song of Songs 3:11) as the Giving of the Torah. As the Alter Rebbe reads it here, the Torah is then the groom and Israel the bride.

This is the reverse of the first picture. In Likkutei Torah, V’Zos HaBerachah, in the discourse “Moshe commanded us the Torah,” the Alter Rebbe gathers the sources that call Israel the bride and brings the answer some give: in relation to the Holy One, blessed be He, Israel is called the bride, and in relation to the Torah, the groom.

Both views must be true, since “these and those are the words of the living G‑d,” the Talmud’s phrase (Eruvin 13b) for two opposing views that are both correct. The answer begins with a teaching of Mishnas Chassidim, a Kabbalistic work by Rabbi Immanuel Chai Ricchi that sets out the Arizal’s teachings in the form of a Mishnah.

Knesses Yisrael is related to Malchus, the last of the Sefiros, but not to Malchus as it stands as a separate partzuf, a complete configuration of its own; it is Malchus as it exists within the inner dimension of Z’eir Anpin, the configuration of the emotive attributes, where she is not smaller than he but equal, “as great as he.” In Likkutei Torah, Sukkos, the Alter Rebbe cites this same teaching of Mishnas Chassidim, on G‑d’s inner love for Israel, and refers back to this discourse for its explanation.

This inner Malchus is what is called “the bride of Moshe,” a name drawn from Numbers 7:1, “on the day that Moshe finished (kalos),” where the word is written without a vav and the Midrash reads it kalas, “the bride of” (Bamidbar Rabbah 12:8). Following the Kehot edition’s note, the abbreviation is read as Zohar HaRakia, a commentary on the Zohar, here on the Zohar’s opening words “As a rose among the thorns” (Song of Songs 2:2), where the rose is Knesses Yisrael; Sefer Hadras Melech is another commentary on the Zohar.

The explanation starts from a general rule: every level in the chain of descent, and each of the ten Sefiros, has an inner and an outer dimension. In Chochmah, the inner dimension is like the depth and core content of an idea.

That core of the idea is above being put into the letters of thought and speech. In Likkutei Torah, Emor, near the end of the explanation on “And the kohen shall wave them,” the Alter Rebbe explains that one can put into words only the outer part of an idea, while its essence and depth can be hinted but not spoken: so the cantillation of the Written Torah reveals a glimpse of the inner Chochmah that its letters cannot hold.

In Likkutei Torah, Tzav, the discourse “Behold, the Sea of Reeds” shows that the letters of speech are vessels for the intellect yet hide it, so that a child can read every word and not grasp the idea inside; and the explanation on “For on this day He shall atone” (Likkutei Torah, Acharei) adds that a teacher’s words convey the plain sense of an idea while its depth stays hidden in them. The outer dimension of Chochmah, then, is the light of the idea as it is clothed in thought and speech.

The same holds for the emotive attributes. The inner dimension of kindness or of restraint is the deep, hidden feeling that cannot be held within words; the outer dimension is the part of the feeling that goes into speech when one tells it to someone else.

The Zohar, on Isaiah 43:10, “and after Me there shall not be,” says that David is called acharai, “after Me,” a word from the same root as achorayim, “the back.” David stands for Malchus, the “world of speech,” which receives from the back, the outer side, of Z’eir Anpin; and Netzach, Hod and Yesod, the lowest attributes of Z’eir Anpin, serve as the intellect (mochin) of Nukva.

That is why Malchus is called “after Me”: it receives from what is behind, the outer dimension. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “After Havayah your G‑d shall you walk” (Deuteronomy 13:5) and adds that the same pattern runs through the whole chain of descent.

A general rule follows: in a chain of cause and effect, what is outer in the cause becomes the inner core of the effect below it. The effect is too far below the cause to receive its inner dimension at all.

The rule is now applied to Chochmah, the first of the emanated levels, where the chain of descent of Atzilus begins: Binah issues from Chochmah, and the emotive attributes from Binah. What Chochmah passes on in this chain is only its outer dimension.

The inner dimension of Chochmah stays above the chain and is not enclothed even in Binah. It is like an idea entering someone’s comprehension: only its outer part is taken in, not its depth.

The Zohar describes all the levels as layers, “this one within that one,” each one the outer shell of the one inside it. Kelipah here means an outer shell around a kernel, as the Zohar itself puts it there, not the forces opposed to holiness.

The Zohar continues: the first point spread out and became a “palace” to clothe it, yet that palace is not as fine and pure as the first point. What comes out of a source is only its garment, never its full inner light.

The Zohar’s words are understood through the rule just explained. The Alter Rebbe then points to the discourse “Who wraps Himself in light as in a garment,” which the Kehot note identifies as Iggeres HaKodesh 19 in the Tanya, where he explains that Moshe’s prophecy grasped only the “back” of Chochmah and that the Torah given through him is “the fallen fruit of the wisdom above”; and to the end of the discourse “And these are the names of the children of Israel.”

The rule of inner and outer dimensions is now applied to souls and angels. The souls of Israel are rooted in the inner dimension of Chochmah and the angels in its outer dimension, because angels come from the “union of kisses” of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, a purely spiritual union whose flow descends step by step in the regular order of the chain.

As explained above, only the outer dimension of Chochmah descends through the chain of descent, and so that is all the angels receive.

The souls of Israel come instead from what Kabbalah calls a “bodily union,” at a lower level and physical by comparison, and here the teaching of Sefer Yetzirah applies, “their end is embedded in their beginning”: the lowest point is bound to the highest, so precisely in this lower union the light of the inner dimension is drawn down. The text refers to the commentary on Sefer Yetzirah (1:7) attributed to the Raavad, Rabbi Avraham ben David (12th century).

An analogy from the human soul: the intellect reaches speech only through a gradual descent, by way of thought. What reaches speech is only the outer dimension of the intellect, since the inner dimension cannot enter any gradual chain at all.

Yet the drop drawn from the father’s brain carries the inner power of his intellect, so that he begets a child like himself.

This seems surprising, since speech is far more spiritual than the drop; the other transcript of this discourse (Sefer HaMaamarim 5568) spells it out: speech comes from the light of the intellect that dwells in the brain, the drop only from the physical matter of the brain itself. But that is the very reason: being spiritual, speech stands close to the intellect and receives from it step by step, and such a gradual chain can carry only the outer dimension.

The physical, though lowest of all, can become a resting place for the inner dimension, which never passes down step by step; it reaches the physical because, as said above, the end is embedded in the beginning. The same is true above: the angels, born of a spiritual union that proceeds through the chain of descent, receive only from the outer dimension.

The souls of Israel, born of the “bodily union,” come from the “drop of Abba,” that is, of Chochmah, and so from the inner dimension of Chochmah. The reference is to an explanation on the verse “My dove” that opens with the Sages’ saying about “the fallen fruit of wisdom.”

This explains why souls, and not angels, have the power of reproduction, as in “Avraham begot” (Genesis 25:19). Angels of Yetzirah do branch out from angels of Beriah, but that is only a drawing down and a scintillation, a ray of light passing from one world to the next.

In the same way every level of Beriah has its offshoot in Yetzirah, and every level of Yetzirah its offshoot in Asiyah. That is not reproduction: the angels of Beriah or of Yetzirah do not themselves beget beings like themselves.

The deeper reason: all true reproduction comes from the Infinite Light, which alone brings forth something from nothing, and the Infinite Light is enclothed specifically in Chochmah, in its inner dimension. The verse “Havayah by wisdom founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19) is read here as “Havayah in Chochmah”: the Infinite is within Chochmah.

The souls, rooted in that inner dimension of Chochmah, therefore have the power of reproduction, which mirrors the infinite power of the Infinite One: from a single person come many generations.

The same is seen in “Light is sown for the righteous” (Psalms 97:11) and in the morning blessing’s phrase “who sows acts of righteousness”: a single seed that is sown yields many seeds. It does so because it is sown in the earth, which also has the power of reproduction.

The earth’s power is shown by the verses “All came from the dust” (Ecclesiastes 3:20) and “The earth, out of it comes bread” (Job 28:5). Animals too can reproduce, because they are nourished by plants that grow from the earth.

The earth, lowest of all, has this power because “their beginning is embedded in their end,” just as was said of the souls. In Torah Ohr, Shemos, the discourse “Those who came, Yaakov will take root” (Isaiah 27:6) and its explanation call Knesses Yisrael “a woman who fears Havayah” (Proverbs 31:30), in whom the seed of Torah and mitzvos grows because “their end is embedded in their beginning.”

Angels, rooted only in the outer dimension, cannot reproduce. That is why the Sages say that one angel does not carry out two missions (Bereishis Rabbah 50:2): an angel is a “standing” being, as the prophet calls the angels “these who stand” (Zechariah 3:7).

An angel stays exactly as it is, at one fixed level with no other, because it is drawn from the level of the letters, the divine speech.

A letter does not beget another letter, nor does it grow, increase or diminish; it stays as it came from its source, and so do the angels. The text refers to the discourse “If you walk in My statutes” (Leviticus 26:3) for more on this.

Now the opening verse is explained. The “sixty queens” are the Oral Torah, in Hebrew “the Torah of the mouth,” which comes from Malchus, the Sefirah called “mouth” (Tikkunei Zohar 17a), and specifically from Malchus as a separate partzuf of its own, not the Malchus within Z’eir Anpin.

This Malchus is the supernal speech, and it is rooted in the outer dimension of Abba, that is, Chochmah, just as speech carries only the outer dimension of a person’s intellect. That is why the Sages call the Torah “the fallen fruit (novlos) of the wisdom above” (Bereishis Rabbah 17:5): it is what falls from Chochmah, as unripe fruit falls from a tree, not its inner core.

The “maidens without number” are the details of halachah, in which Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel, the schools of the sages Shammai and Hillel, disagree, each according to the root and level of his soul.

One who is rooted in Chesed, as Beis Hillel is, declares things fit and permitted, so that they can be elevated; one who is rooted in Gevurah forbids, meaning that the thing is not fit to be elevated. A person speaks according to the attribute in his heart, and so the rulings differ.

These countless halachos branch out from the Chochmah of Nukva, the Oral Torah as a whole, and the Zohar calls them “hairs.” Yet above them all stands “One is she, my dove, my perfect one (tamasi),” which the Midrash reads as teomasi, “my twin”: “I am not greater than she, nor is she greater than I” (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 5:2). She is Knesses Yisrael, the Malchus within Z’eir Anpin, equal to him as a twin.

Knesses Yisrael is also “my dove” in the sense of “your eyes are doves” (Song of Songs 1:15; 4:1). When Z’eir Anpin gazes at the forehead it receives 370 lights, a radiance so high that it can reach Z’eir Anpin only through gazing, a contact that remains on the outer level. The forehead is that of Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser. In Kabbalistic imagery its 370 lights are a radiance the lower partzuf cannot take into itself and can only behold from without.

The reason is that Arich Anpin, the “Long Countenance,” the outer level of Keser, whose forehead is meant, belongs to the “worlds of the Infinite One” above Atzilus; the Zohar gives that name to everything up to Chochmah. The liturgy’s “He causes salvations (yeshuos) to sprout” is read in this light: yeshuos is linked to vayisha, “He turned [His gaze]” to Hevel (Genesis 4:4), and the letters the two words share, shin-ayin, have the numerical value 370, the 370 lights.

After references to the explanation on “His eyes are red” (Genesis 49:12) and the discourse “And I besought” (Deuteronomy 3:23), the text explains why Knesses Yisrael is called “one”: she receives from the “One,” Keser, the crown above all the Sefiros.

“My twin” means that she and Z’eir Anpin are “equal in stature” and share “one crown,” Keser. The phrases recall the Gemara (Chullin 60b): the sun and the moon were made as “the two great luminaries” until the moon asked, “Can two kings use one crown?”; in Kabbalah the two are Z’eir Anpin and Malchus.

The books of Kabbalah explain the Talmudic saying “A woman is only for beauty” (Kesubos 59b) along the same lines. Beauty is found more in women than in men because the light of Keser shines more in Malchus, the last of the Sefiros, since “their end is embedded in their beginning”; a second reason is added, that she needs protection.

This level of Knesses Yisrael is higher than the “sixty queens,” the Torah, which is only the “fallen fruit” of Chochmah. The Gemara (Berachos 32b) tells of the early pious ones who spent nine hours a day in prayer and asks how their Torah learning was preserved.

The Gemara answers that because they were pious, their Torah was preserved. The Alter Rebbe explains that they had “the desire of the heart” (re’usa deliba, in Aramaic), the boundless love of “with all your might.”

This love is higher than “with all your soul,” which is love according to the capacity of the vessel. It reaches Keser, which is above the Torah, and so their Torah was preserved of itself.

One who has not reached this desire of the heart, the level of Keser and of the inner dimension of Chochmah, stands below the Torah. Of him it is said that “Israel are bound to the Torah” and that the Torah is the groom; so both views in the opening question are true, each of a different level.

¶1 This answers the question from paragraph 1.