תנו רבנן כיצד מרקדין לפני הכלה ב״ש אומרים…

The maamar opens with a baraisa (a teaching of the Mishnah’s sages recorded outside the Mishnah) in the Talmud (Kesubos 16b–17a): when people dance before a bride at her wedding, what do they say of her? Beis Shammai say one describes her as she actually is; Beis Hillel say one calls every bride “lovely and graced.” The whole maamar reads this dispute as a teaching about how the soul’s hidden love for G‑d is brought into the open.

The Alter Rebbe links kallah (“bride”) with kalsah (“pines”) in the verse “My soul longs, indeed it pines, for the courts of Havayah” (Psalms 84:3). The “bride” is klos hanefesh, the soul’s yearning to be absorbed into G‑d so intense that the soul would expire, and it is present in every spark of every Jewish soul.

This love never stops: it is the “glory” that sings to G‑d and is not silent (Psalms 30:13), and in Aramaic words drawn from the Zohar it “calls constantly and does not subside.” In the maamar “For over all the glory, a canopy” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 38:4), the Alter Rebbe uses these same words for the source of the souls, which always rises upward like fire and is called “the glory of the bride.” The love is present even in people of little stature, the unlearned, and even in transgressors.

In them, however, the love is not felt openly. In the discourse “I am black” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 5) the Alter Rebbe calls such a hidden love “black fire”; here it is a makif, an “encompassing” level that hovers above the person rather than entering his conscious mind and heart. The Talmud (Megillah 3a) says that a person can be frightened “even though he does not see,” because “his mazal sees”: the root of his soul above perceives what he below does not, and so this love is alive at the soul’s root even when he is unaware of it.

Having said that the love is present but hidden, the Alter Rebbe asks how it can be brought out, so that it is actually felt and shines in a person’s soul. This, he says, is the Sages’ question “How does one dance before the bride?”: how is the hidden “bride” brought into the open?

Beis Shammai’s answer reflects their spiritual root in the supernal Gevuros, the divine attributes of restraint and measure; the Zohar (III, 245a–b) calls Hillel and Shammai “one from the side of mercy and one from the side of judgment, which are Chesed and Gevurah.” Even the name Shammai is linked to shum, “appraising”: the Talmud (Moed Katan 5a) reads the verse “And he who sets (vesam) [his] way” (Psalms 50:23) as vesham, “he who appraises,” and teaches that “whoever appraises his paths” merits to see G‑d’s salvation.

To appraise one’s ways is to weigh them exactly. Applied to the soul, it means measure for measure: the revelation of the love from above comes afterward, and only to the extent that the person has first turned from evil.

So Beis Shammai’s “a bride as she is” means that the love revealed in the soul matches the person’s own ascent from below, his iskafya, the subduing of his evil inclination. Much effort brings much revelation; little effort, little revelation.

Beis Hillel, rooted in the Chassadim, the attributes of kindness, reverse the order: the revelation is drawn down from above first, without waiting for the person’s ascent. Once it shines, the “external forces,” the forces of kelipah that conceal holiness, fall away of their own accord. The words “which are not Havayah’s” echo Jeremiah 5:10, where the wild branches to be cut from the vine are called “not Havayah’s.”

Of the two parts of serving G‑d named in “Turn from evil and do good” (Psalms 34:15), Beis Hillel put “do good” first, since a little light drives away much darkness; in Likkutei Torah, Nasso, the Alter Rebbe cites this very teaching and says one should not wait to “do good” until “turn from evil” is complete. The name Hillel is read as “shining,” from Job’s memory of the days “when His lamp shone (behilo) over my head” (Job 29:3).

Hillel also means praise (hillul): contemplating G‑d’s greatness and praising Him draws the light down, and evil falls away by itself. The parenthesis points to the discourse on Isaiah 61:11 (Likkutei Torah, Nitzavim), where “He will cause righteousness and praise to sprout” is the revelation of light from above in the Days of Awe, beyond the growth that comes from a person’s own mitzvos through the year.

“Draw me; we will run after You” (Song of Songs 1:4) shows the same order: the soul’s running toward G‑d is an ascent from below, but it comes only after G‑d first “draws” her from above. In the discourse on “Take the count of the sons of Gershon” (Likkutei Torah, Nasso), cited here with one on “A man, when he brings near from among you,” the Alter Rebbe explains “Draw me” as the Infinite Light drawn down through the mitzvos, which reawakens the soul’s love.

The Alter Rebbe now turns to Beis Hillel’s words. Chasid and chasidah are adjectives for one who is kind or pious, but chasudah, with the vowel u, has the form of a passive participle: not one who does kindness but one to whom kindness is done.

So chasudah describes not a bride who is gracious of herself but one who has been “graced,” endowed with supernal Chesed drawn down to her from above, so that G‑dliness is revealed in her. Once that light shines, evil falls away by itself.

Then the soul’s hidden love comes into the open, so every Jew is “a lovely bride,” the “Israel in whom I take glory” (Isaiah 49:3), even one who is spiritually “lame” or “blind,” the very cases Beis Shammai raise in the Talmud. Before G‑d all are equal, as the High Holiday hymn calls Him the One who “is equal and makes equal,” and as Elihu tells Job, “If you are righteous, what do you give Him?” (Job 35:7). Hence “Then the lame shall leap like a deer” (Isaiah 35:6): in the prophet’s vision of redemption the lame leap, and here even the “lame” dance.

After pointing to the discourse on “I will betroth you to Me” (Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar), which contrasts today’s rising and falling with a future betrothal that stands without interruption, the Alter Rebbe reads Psalms 21:8. Plainly, the king trusts in Havayah and “through the kindness of the Most High he shall not falter”; here chesed elyon is “supernal kindness” revealed from above, which pushes evil away as though it had never been, and the love becomes fixed in the heart like a peg that cannot be moved. (The printed Hebrew’s בחנית האבה is a misprint for בחינת האהבה, “the level of love.”)

On Beis Shammai’s view, by contrast, “turn from evil” must come first, and no one can achieve it perfectly. So the bride can be praised only “as she is,” and not as “lovely” if she is lame or blind (the printed כמוכת is a misprint for כמות, the Talmud’s phrase “the bride as she is”). The Kehot note adds that the Mitteler Rebbe, in his wedding discourses, finds this puzzling, since while dancing before a bride one surely cannot speak of her flaws.

Now the Alter Rebbe explains the dancing itself. Groom and bride are opposites: the groom’s role is to give, flowing downward like water from a height.

¶4 Hold this question about dancing: paragraph 4 explains it.

The groom is the giver, whose giving flows down; the bride is the recipient, whose love rises upward like a flame, the kalsah nafshi, “my soul pines,” of the opening paragraph.

Water and fire are opposites that cannot meet. The Sages, on Bildad’s words “He makes peace in His heights” (Job 25:2), speak of G‑d making peace between the angelic prince of water and the prince of fire.

Peace between opposites comes by drawing down a level higher than both. Before that higher level each sets aside its own existence, and so they can come together.

At a wedding this higher level is the chuppah: “over all the glory, a canopy” (Isaiah 4:5) stands for the supernal makifim, encompassing lights drawn from sovev kol almin, which are above both giver and receiver. Through it the groom and bride are united.

The Alter Rebbe now reads the Talmud’s words closely. Lifnei, “before” the bride, also means “above” her: the encompassing light of sovev kol almin that, as the previous paragraph showed, unites groom and bride. The question “how does one dance” then asks how that higher light is drawn down, and the answer is: through the dancing itself.

¶3 This answers the question about dancing from paragraph 3.

Dancing is done with the feet, the lowest part of the body, which correspond to memalei kol almin, the light that enters the worlds; through them is drawn, from above, the outer dimension of the encompassing light of sovev. In the discourse “The voice of my beloved” (Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 13), cited here, the Alter Rebbe states that every revelation comes only through the level of “feet,” and refers back to this maamar; the parenthesis also cites a discourse on the waving of the omer.

Only the outer dimension of sovev can be drawn down in this way, since its inner dimension is beyond containment. This is why at a wedding the groom and bride are honored, lifted and raised aloft: to raise them to sovev, the level of makif, the encompassing light.

After a pointer to the discourse “This is the dedication of the altar,” the verse “Havayah is righteous in all His ways” (Psalms 145:17) is read as the level of joining that makes “peace in the household above,” the Sages’ phrase for peace among the heavenly hosts; in Kabbalah, tzaddik, “righteous,” names Yesod, the attribute that joins. The printed שלש is evidently a misprint for של, “of.”

Finally the Alter Rebbe refers to two discourses that explain what dancing means: one on “The mountains danced like rams” (Psalms 114:4), in the discourse on “The sea saw and fled,” and one on “Then the maiden shall rejoice in the dance” (Jeremiah 31:13), in the discourse on “On the eighth day he sent away” (I Kings 8:66).