ביאור הדברים ע״פ כי על כל כבוד חופה…

This maamar is a biur, an explanation that expands the preceding discourse on the same verse, Isaiah’s promise of a canopy over all the glory of Zion; Kehot notes that the Tzemach Tzedek cites it as Rabbi Pinchas’s manuscript of the explanation of “For over all glory, a canopy.” It begins by defining “glory” (kavod): the lower glory is Malchus, the attribute through which G‑d’s word creates and rules the worlds, and it is called “the glory of Havayah.”

The Name Havayah stands here for Z’eir Anpin, so “the glory of Havayah” is Malchus, which reveals Z’eir Anpin. The Alter Rebbe reads the angels’ praise “Blessed be the glory of Havayah from its place” word by word: “blessed” means a flow drawn down, and “its place” is Chochmah Ila’ah, the higher wisdom in which Malchus, “the word of Havayah,” has its root.

The Zohar’s saying “Abba founded the Daughter” shows that Malchus (the Daughter) is rooted in Abba, which is Chochmah. Abba, the source of intellect and “the one who understands” (maskil), is therefore the higher glory: the verse joins “glory” with “the wise,” and the numerical value of kavod, thirty-two, matches the thirty-two paths of Chochmah, as the Zohar (3:33a) counts it. It is called glory as “the radiance of His glory,” a shining rather than something grasped.

¶6 The canopy over this higher glory is explained in paragraph 6.

Chochmah is like a flash of lightning: a sudden illumination that comes before, and above, understanding it; in Likkutei Torah, Chukas (“Ali Be’er”), the Alter Rebbe uses the same image for a light that shines in the mind without being grasped. Binah is called “the broad expanses (rechovos) of the river” because there the insight is spread out and grasped in breadth (harchavah) and detail.

Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes, which are mostly kindness, and Nukva, Malchus, are opposites. Malchus is built mainly of Gevuros, forces of restraint that show themselves as longing; like fire, which always rises, she is never still and keeps yearning upward, as the verse says, “so that glory may sing to You and not be silent,” glory being Malchus.

Z’eir Anpin is mostly Chassadim, kindnesses. It stands at the far end of the divine realm, where the Emanator’s flow is measured out and handed on to Malchus, the source of the three lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, so that what is created will itself be bounded. The text refers to Torah Ohr, Terumah, where “one cherub at one end” is the end of the Infinite Light in Z’eir Anpin, and the other cherub is the source of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah in Atzilus.

Created beings are finite: even Avraham, the greatest of souls, and Michael, the greatest of angels, can grasp only up to a point and no further.

So the life-giving flow is contracted through Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferes: Chesed spreads it out, Gevurah holds it back, and Tiferes weighs the two and decides between them. This measured blend of giving and limiting is Z’eir Anpin’s work.

Since Z’eir Anpin and Nukva are opposites, kindness and restraint, they cannot unite on their own. Their union needs a chuppah, a canopy spread over both of them.

The canopy is the Tiferes of Imma: the attribute of Tiferes within Imma, which is Binah. It becomes a Keser, a crown, over Z’eir Anpin and Nukva; in the Torah Ohr discourse on the cherubim (Terumah) that the parenthesis cites, when Nukva stands face to face with Z’eir Anpin, equal in stature and receiving the intellect of Abba and Imma, there is “one Keser for both,” and they are called brothers. The parenthesis also cites a letter of the Ramaz, the Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Zacuto.

The Tiferes of Imma is what joins them. The Sages explained the verse “He makes peace in His heights” as G‑d keeping peace between the angel of water and the angel of fire, who stand side by side without destroying each other.

Opposites are reconciled when something higher than both is revealed: before the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, water and fire are at peace.

In the same way, when the Tiferes of Imma is revealed as a Keser and makif, an encompassing light above both Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, they unite beneath it. The parenthesis refers to the Alter Rebbe’s letter in Iggeres HaKodesh (section 12) on “And the work of charity shall be peace,” which explains that Michael and Gavriel, Chesed and Gevurah, become one through a great revelation of the Infinite Light, beyond even the intellect that is the source of the attributes.

To explain what the Tiferes of Imma is, the Alter Rebbe turns to the human soul. The revealed emotions live in the heart: love, awe, and hispa’arus, glorying, the emotion that corresponds to Tiferes; the same emotions also exist in the mind, where they are the roots of the heart’s feelings.

This can be seen in experience: when a person thinks about how good and lovely something is, love for it awakens first in the mind, before it reaches the heart as actual desire and longing.

The same holds in the service of G‑d: love in the mind, born of contemplation, is constant, while love in the heart rises and falls with the time.

The text refers to its explanation that the large ayin in the word Shema, “Hear, O Israel,” stands for these emotions as they are in the intellect.

The same holds in the divine realm: the intellect, Abba and Imma, has its own attributes, Chesed through Yesod, and these are the roots of the attributes of Z’eir Anpin. Each attribute of Imma is the source of the matching attribute in Z’eir Anpin.

The Tiferes of Imma includes all of Imma’s attributes, because Tiferes itself combines Chesed and Gevurah, as is known from the colors of the Sefiros, where Tiferes blends the white of Chesed and the red of Gevurah. So it is the root of Z’eir Anpin’s attributes as a whole.

That is why the Tiferes of Imma becomes the Keser and makif over Z’eir Anpin and Nukva and joins them.

The reason may be that Chesed and Gevurah branch out from Chochmah and Binah, while Tiferes, the middle line, reaches up to Keser, above the intellect: the Zohar at the end of Terumah (2:175b) calls Yaakov, who is Tiferes, complete on both sides, toward the Holy Ancient One and toward Z’eir Anpin.

The text then refers to a discussion of the Zohar in Vayeshev (1:181b), which reads Isaiah 52:13 as the moon’s future greatness, word by word: “lifted up” from the side of Avraham, “high” from the side of Yitzchak, and “very” from the side of Yaakov, so the superlative belongs to Tiferes. The Arizal also places the fiftieth gate of Binah, its highest gate, in the upper third of the Tiferes of Binah, that is, of Imma. The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 21b) teaches that fifty gates of understanding were created and all were given to Moshe except one. Placing that unattained fiftieth gate within the Tiferes of Imma shows how high this Tiferes reaches, which is why it can serve as the canopy over bride and groom.

For the fiftieth gate the text cites the commentary of the Ramaz on the Zohar in Pinchas, and the discourse in Torah Ohr, Yisro, on Ezekiel’s words “Their appearance and their work.” There the fiftieth gate is the encompassing level that includes all the others and has no above or below, the level in which the Torah was given.

Returning to the chuppah: there are two canopies, one for the groom and one for the bride. The bride’s canopy is “with all your might,” service beyond one’s own measure, and the Alter Rebbe suggests that it is the Keser of Nukva.

This follows the discourse on the man gathering wood (Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach): the Talmud’s “when Israel do the will of the Omnipresent” corresponds to “with all your might.” The proof is that the second section of the Shema, which leaves out “with all your might,” has Israel gathering their own grain, which the Talmud (Berachos 35b) reads as the state in which they do not yet do the will of the Omnipresent.

“The will of the Omnipresent” is the Keser of Nukva, the bride’s own canopy, as the short explanation after that discourse in Sh’lach also says, calling it the Keser of Rachel, that is, of Nukva. When the bride does her part, this arousal from below awakens an arousal from above, the groom’s canopy, the Tiferes of Imma; the printed letters עזי, which make no word here, evidently stand for the abbreviation עי״ז, al yedei zeh, “through this.”

This explains a wedding custom. The groom first spreads a cloth, called in Yiddish the Decktuch (“covering cloth”), over the bride: a canopy for her alone. Then both stand under a sheet stretched on poles: the canopy over both.

The halachic works show that covering the bride’s head with a cloth is itself called chuppah in the view of Tosafos, and this is the hinuma, the bride’s veil. It is the bride’s own canopy described above. In halachah, chuppah is the act that completes the marriage after betrothal. The Rema there records several views of what that act is: one, the view of Tosafos, is spreading a cloth over the bride’s head, and another is a maiden’s going out in a hinuma; the maamar identifies that covering with the hinuma. Beside these he records the present custom of a canopy spread over groom and bride together. The maamar reads these as two canopies: the veil that covers the bride alone, and the canopy that covers both.

Section 2 carries the idea one level higher. Just as the Tiferes of Imma encompasses and unites Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, a more general makif unites Abba and Imma, Chochmah and Binah.

Abba and Imma are also opposites: Abba is the source of all kindnesses and Imma of all restraints. They are joined by the general Keser of Atzilus, which is the Malchus of Adam Kadmon (“Primordial Man”), the lowest level of the primordial realm above Atzilus, which serves as the crown of the whole of Atzilus.

This general Keser is the canopy over “the higher glory,” Abba and Imma, just as paragraph 1 called Abba the higher glory. The parenthesis refers to a discourse on “These are the accounts of the Tabernacle” that treats both unions, of Z’eir Anpin with Nukva and of Abba with Imma.

The comparison is to the Tiferes of Imma, the canopy over Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, which joins them even though they are opposites.

An example of how the intellect can hold opposites: before the Flood, the evil of man’s heart, “every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil,” was the reason for condemnation.

After the Flood, in Parshas Noach, G‑d said He would not again curse the ground, and the reason He gave was the same fact: “for the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” In Torah Ohr, Vayera, the Alter Rebbe explains that when Noach’s offering drew down the attribute of Chesed, the very argument that had led to judgment became a reason for merit.

All this is possible because in the source and root, before an attribute is revealed “in the heart” as a feeling, the intellect can find a reason for either side. Like the king’s heart in G‑d’s hand, “wherever He wishes, He turns it,” toward merit or toward guilt.

That is why the Tiferes of Imma is called a chuppah: like a canopy, chuppah, it covers, chofeh, all the attributes together. When its light is revealed, opposites such as kindness and restraint are nullified there and become equal.

¶5 This is the “more below” promised in paragraph 5.

Likewise there is a canopy over the higher glory, Abba and Imma: the Malchus of Adam Kadmon, which encompasses and unites them, and before which they count as nothing, a mere glow. The parenthesis refers to a discourse on “When you light the lamps,” on the lamps turned “toward the face of the menorah.”

¶1 This explains the canopy over the higher glory from paragraph 1.

To explain these canopies, the Alter Rebbe distinguishes two kinds of will, as the saying quoted in the name of the Zohar has it, “there is will and there is will” (Kehot gives Zohar 3:129a, where the forehead of Arich Anpin is “the will of wills”). The lower will is born of the intellect, as when a person sees the good in something and therefore wants it; this is the Keser of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, drawn from the Tiferes of Imma.

The higher will is shown by the Talmud’s account of Moshe: when he saw the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva and asked, “This is Torah, and this is its reward?”, G‑d answered, “Be silent; so it arose in thought,” and gave no reason. That is the higher will, a will without a stated reason.

The lower will is the reverse: it is produced by a reason the person sees in his mind, so he wants the thing and can always explain why.

So when G‑d said “Be silent,” it shows that the matter came from the higher will, which is above intellect.

That higher will is too lofty to come down, step by step, into the intellect and be explained, so no reason could be given.

Yet a will with no reason at all would look like mere obstinacy, which cannot be said of G‑d. The answer is the Mocha Stima’ah, the “hidden brain” within Keser.

Its very name says that it is hidden: the higher will does have a reason, but one so exalted that it cannot come down and be conveyed to anyone else. It remains hidden, known only to the One who wills.

It is called “brain” because it is a lofty intellect, and “hidden” because it is concealed from all. Hence “Be silent”: the silence is itself a level, and “so it arose in thought” points to a supernal wisdom and reason that no one else can grasp.

To others it looks like will alone, without reason, but the reason and rationale are His alone. There, too, rests the supernal delight in the thing.

This is the level of Atik (“the Ancient One”), a name linked to ne’etak, “removed”: this delight is removed from everything and exists only in G‑d’s own being. As others see it, it is the supernal will, a will with no revealed reason.

So Keser has two levels: Atik, the source of the Mocha Stima’ah with its hidden reason, and the outward will, which seems to be will without reason. The outward will is called gulgalta, the skull that covers the brain: an outer layer over a hidden intellect.

The text refers to its discussion of this in Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach, on the verse “I am Havayah your G‑d, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” There the will is called gulgalta because, like the skull over the brain, it covers the delight and reason from which it comes, and this is the sense of “Be silent; so it arose in thought”: there is certainly a reason, but it is hidden.

In sum, the lower will is the Tiferes of Imma, the Keser of Z’eir Anpin, a will born of intellect. The gulgalta of Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser, is the will above intellect, and within it lies a hidden reason, the Mocha Stima’ah.

This higher will is the canopy over the higher glory, Abba and Imma. The text refers to the discourse on “The Torah Moshe commanded us” in Likkutei Torah, V’Zos HaBerachah, where the chuppah over groom and bride is the most hidden level above Chochmah, which encompasses Chochmah and Malchus alike; and the Ramaz describes this canopy as Abba and Imma being covered by the beard of Arich Anpin.

Section 3 applies the two levels of will to the Torah. The revealed Torah expresses the revealed supernal will, the outer level of Keser; the Zohar says the 613 commandments flow from 613 paths. This is “the crown with which his mother crowned him” in the Song of Songs.

The revealed will is called a crown, and a crown is made of precious stones: lifeless in themselves, yet beautiful, with a hidden and splendid light shining in them. So too the revealed will carries a hidden light within it.

The revealed will is only the outer dimension of the Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden reason that lies within the will.

So the revealed Torah does not give us a satisfying reason for every mitzvah. The Talmud’s example: the words “and you shall see it” are read to exempt a night garment from tzitzis (for the Rambam any garment worn at night, for the Rosh a garment made for the night; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 18:1), yet a blind man’s garment is included, since others see it, and the reason given does not fully satisfy. This is because the revealed Torah comes from the outer dimension, a will without revealed reason.

The Midrash says that in the future a new Torah will be given. Rashi on “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” explains this as G‑d’s promise to reveal the secret of the Torah’s reasons, its inner dimension.

Then the Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden reason and delight within the will, will be revealed. Isaiah’s “Then you will delight upon Havayah” is read as a delight above even the Name Havayah, which is now concealed from us.

When the reason and delight of the Mocha Stima’ah are revealed, the delight will be “upon Havayah,” above the Name itself.

This is also the root of the two stages of Jewish marriage, betrothal (eirusin) and full marriage (nisuin). The Giving of the Torah was only a betrothal, in which the bride receives a ring, a round object that encircles from outside, and “Sanctify us (kadshenu) with Your commandments” echoes the kiddushin, for the mitzvos are the betrothal; in the future there will be full marriage.

The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 15:31) says that in this world there was only betrothal, but in the days of Mashiach there will be marriage, “For your Husband is your Maker.” The verse’s word for “your Husband,” bo’alayich, shares its root with be’ilah, consummation, and the Alter Rebbe links it to the law that a woman can be acquired through intimacy (bi’ah), one of the three ways of kiddushin the Mishnah lists (Kiddushin 1:1); he takes this inward bond, unlike a ring that encircles from outside, as the image of the full marriage to come. In this union the drop comes from the father’s brain, from within: an image of what is inward being given.

So in the future, when the inner dimension of the Mocha Stima’ah and its delight are revealed to us, the bond with G‑d will be full marriage and not only betrothal.

Why must the inner revelation wait for the future? Because the purpose of the mitzvos is refinement (birur): the positive commandments draw out the good from nogah, the realm in Asiyah where good and evil are mixed, and the prohibitions separate the evil away.

Everything, and even every Jewish soul, holds both good and evil, because the 288 sparks of holiness fell and became mixed with evil. The mitzvos are the means of separating and refining them.

Once refined, the sparks are very great, because they come from Tohu, the world of “chaos” whose lights were greater than those of Tikkun, the world of order. Restored after refinement, they stand higher than Tikkun.

This explains why food gives a person life. Food as it exists here below is mixed with evil, but its root is in Tohu, a level higher than Tikkun.

In eating, the good in the food is refined and the waste expelled. The refined good, far from lowering the person, adds strength and life-force to him, even to his soul.

After refinement the sparks rise to their source in Tohu, which preceded Tikkun and is higher. In the language of the divine Names, Tohu corresponds to the Name Sag (the Name Havayah spelled out to the value 63) and Tikkun to the Name Mah (spelled out to the value 45).

Until all the fallen sparks have been refined, the delight is not yet revealed, because good and evil are still mixed.

When the sparks are refined and return to their former rank, creation will reach its goal, “the end of the deed, which was first in thought,” the purpose intended from the beginning. With no evil left to conceal it, the delight of the supernal light will then be revealed of itself.

And it comes specifically from refining the lowly things of this world now.

This is the meaning of “a woman of valor is the crown of her husband”: the bride, Malchus, will become the crown. In her will shine the hidden light of the Mocha Stima’ah, called “good reason and knowledge”: in the verse ta’am is plainly “judgment” (literally “taste”), and here it is the hidden reason of the will and its delight.

The Mocha Stima’ah is higher even than the higher glory of the opening paragraph, the thirty-two paths of Chochmah Ila’ah. Unlike Chochmah, it has not opened into paths at all.

For now this light is hidden in the “precious stone,” the lifeless, physical mitzvah. Then it will be revealed, and Tohu will stand higher than Tikkun; Tikkun will remain, but the refined light of Tohu will be the higher.

This explains the order of the last two of the seven wedding blessings: the first ends “Who gladdens the groom and the bride,” and the last “Who gladdens the groom with the bride.” For now the bride receives from the groom, as Malchus receives from Z’eir Anpin, and that is “the groom and the bride.”

In the future they will be equal in stature, sharing one Keser, as the two luminaries were equal before the moon was diminished; that is “the groom with the bride,” meaning that the groom is gladdened through the bride, for “a woman of valor is the crown of her husband.” The printed letter ayin (ע׳) evidently stands for alef (א׳), “one,” as in Torah Ohr, Terumah, where Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, “equal in stature,” have “one Keser for both of them.” The Talmud (Chullin 60b) notes that Scripture first calls the sun and moon “the two great luminaries” and then “the greater” and “the lesser.” It explains that the moon objected that two kings cannot use one crown, and was told to diminish itself. The maamar sees the future as a return to that original state, when groom and bride again share one crown.

The last blessing also speaks of “the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride,” because in the future the bride will have a voice of her own.

“Voice” means drawing down and revelation, as a physical voice carries the breath of the heart outward through the windpipe. When the bride becomes the crown of her husband, she will have this power of revelation.

Zechariah’s prophecy is read in this way: Jerusalem stands for Malchus, and its living waters flowing to the kadmoni sea (plainly “the eastern sea”; the word also means “former,” that is, earlier and higher) show Malchus giving to what is above her. She will become a crown and a source of influence for her husband, from a level higher than Tikkun.

Yet Tikkun will not be cancelled, so both groom and bride will have a voice, like “the two great luminaries” in their original equality, once the refinement is complete.

The refinement itself is rooted in the Mocha Stima’ah: the saying “through Chochmah they are refined” goes back to the hidden brain, where the main refinement takes place. The text refers to its letter beginning “Why was it juxtaposed” (Iggeres HaKodesh, section 28), where the living water of the red heifer is the Mocha Stima’ah of Arich Anpin, through which the world of Tikkun was refined out of Tohu and the shattering of the vessels.

When the refinement is complete, the Mocha Stima’ah, the supernal delight and ultimate perfection, will be revealed, and with it the inner reasons of the Torah: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.”

For now the Amidah prayer is said in a whisper, because the bride, Malchus, the level of speech, has no voice of her own. Speech is subordinate to thought and the emotions, as Malchus now receives from Z’eir Anpin.

In the future, after the refinement, when the Mocha Stima’ah is revealed, the bride will have “a great voice that did not cease,” the words that describe the voice of the Giving of the Torah: the Shemoneh Esreh will be said aloud.

Malchus will be primary, as in the ten Sefiros of returning light, the light that rises from below, where Malchus becomes Keser and Yesod becomes Chochmah. The text then refers to a discourse at the end of Parshas Vayigash; the explanation at the end of Torah Ohr, Vayigash, likewise says that the Shemoneh Esreh is said quietly now because Nukva only receives, and that in the future, when she gives like the groom himself, it will be said aloud, “the voice of the bride.”