כי כאשר השמים החדשים כו׳

The maamar opens with Isaiah 66:22, “For just as the new heavens and the new earth that I am making stand before Me,” and sets beside it Isaiah 66:1, “The heavens are My throne and the earth is My footstool.” To explain how the future “new heavens” differ from the heavens that are only a “throne,” the Alter Rebbe begins with Adam placed in Gan Eden “to work it,” which he reads as the 248 positive commandments: active mitzvos are the “work” that cultivates the garden.

¶20 Hold this question: paragraph 20 shows how the new heavens differ from “My throne.”

The soul comes down into this world in order to “work” Gan Eden, the spiritual paradise of the souls. In itself, Gan Eden is only the radiance of the Shechinah, the glow of the Divine Presence; the true source of all delight is G‑d Himself, as the verse says, “with You is the source of life.” The parenthesis refers the reader to another discourse, “Spring up, O well.”

A created, finite soul cannot take in delight directly from the Infinite. It can receive only a radiance of G‑d’s Malchus, the level that fills and enlivens each world according to its measure. The word Shechinah comes from shachan, “to dwell,” as in “I will dwell in their midst,” because it is G‑d’s presence as it dwells within creation.

Souls in a body can do what souls in Gan Eden cannot. The body comes from “the skin of the serpent,” a Kabbalistic image for the coarse physicality that hides G‑dliness; by subduing it in their service, the souls draw into Gan Eden a new light from G‑d’s very Essence, beyond the radiance Gan Eden receives on its own. This is the “work” of “to work it.”

Here a long gloss (hagahah) begins, as the summary in paragraph 5 notes. It brings Song of Songs 5:1, “I have come into My garden, My sister, bride,” in which G‑d enters His garden. The Raaya Mehemna, a section of the Zohar, identifies “My garden” with Malchus, the Name Ado-nai, and the Zohar HaRakia, a commentary on the Zohar, explains it as Malchus that has descended into the World of Beriah, where Gan Eden is.

So “I have come into My garden” means that additional light from G‑d’s Essence is drawn into the garden, beyond its usual radiance. The text compares this to the discourse “Binding his foal to the vine,” on the words “those who sanctify Your Name”: Israel draws down from “You are holy,” G‑d as He is in Himself, to “Your Name is holy,” G‑d as He is expressed and revealed (words of the third blessing of the Amidah). The reader is sent to that discourse up to the point quoted next.

The cited passage ends with the Mishnah “Better is one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come” (Avos 4:17): service in this world outweighs Gan Eden because it reaches higher than Gan Eden’s own light. The text then quotes, word for word, a manuscript of “our master, teacher and Rebbe” found in Torah Ohr, Parshas Chayei Sarah, which begins by placing even the higher Gan Eden in the World of Beriah, below Atzilus.

The quoted manuscript explains the Mishnah: the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, G‑d’s emotive attributes and His Malchus, takes place in Atzilus, above Gan Eden. The mitzvos draw down the mayin duchrin, the “masculine waters” of divine influence from above, and their root is the Mocha Stima’ah, the “hidden brain” of Arich Anpin: Arich Anpin is the supernal will, the outer level of Keser (the Crown), and its Mocha Stima’ah is the hidden wisdom within it. So the mitzvos reach far higher than the World to Come.

The text applies this to “I have come into My garden”: it is the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva as drawn from the Mocha Stima’ah. That hidden source is called “the higher Eden,” and the Idra Zuta, a section of the Zohar, calls it “the hidden of all the hidden”; it is far above Gan Eden, which is only the “garden” that Eden waters.

The Zohar in Parshas Bo speaks of the hour when “the Holy One, blessed be He, appears over the garden,” the moment this higher light enters Gan Eden. The text also points to the discourse “There are sixty queens,” which discusses the “spring” that, in the Time to Come, “shall go forth from the House of Havayah” (Joel 4:18).

That future “spring” flows from the higher Chochmah, the first point of divine wisdom. It stands above “the river that goes forth from Eden to water the garden,” which is Binah: a spring is the source of the water itself, while a river is a flow already drawn out and spread.

Knesses Yisrael, the collective soul of Israel, is called “a spring of gardens” (Song of Songs 4:15) because through its service it draws into Gan Eden from the level of the “spring,” which is above the whole chain of worlds. Alternatively, it is like a drawing from Binah as it stands above Tevunah, Binah’s lower aspect; either way, the service draws into Gan Eden from a level higher than Gan Eden itself.

The Midrash Rabbah on Bereishis gives another reading of “to work it and to guard it”: they are the sacrifices. “To work” is the language of serving G‑d (“you shall serve G‑d,” Exodus 3:12), and “to guard” is the language of the offerings (“you shall take care to offer to Me in its due season,” Numbers 28:2).

The Zohar in Parshas Pinchas explains how sacrifices relate to the garden: every offering, when it ascends, first enters “the Garden of Eden,” which is Knesses Yisrael, the receiving level of Malchus. So the offering rises into the “garden” before anything is drawn down into it.

The Mikdash Melech, a commentary on the Zohar by Rabbi Shalom Buzaglo, explains in the name of Rabbi Chaim Vital, the Arizal’s foremost disciple, that the offerings enter the Yesod of Nukva, the root of the mayin nukvin, the “feminine waters” that rise from below. That arousal from below brings down the mayin duchrin, the “masculine waters” from above, and this is “I have come into My garden.”

This is how the verse about Adam in Gan Eden fits: through the service of the sacrifices, which is “to work it and to guard it,” one draws down “I have come into My garden.” The Zohar in Parshas Mikeitz opens a discussion with the same verse.

The Zohar notes that the verse has been explained as alluding to the sacrifices, and adds that “to work it” refers to the supernal King and “to guard it” to the lower King. As the commentary quoted next explains, the supernal King is Z’eir Anpin and the lower King is Malchus.

The two Kings are also the upper world and the lower world. “To work it” corresponds to “Remember the Shabbos day,” and “to guard it” to “Keep the Shabbos day,” the two wordings of the commandment. The Mikdash Melech explains that through the positive commandments a person rectifies Z’eir Anpin and draws down to it mochin, its intellect, from Imma (Binah); the next paragraph continues with “to guard it.”

The Mikdash Melech’s explanation continues: “to guard it” means guarding oneself from transgressing the prohibitions, the negative commandments. Through this a person rectifies Malchus and protects it from the “external forces,” the forces of kelipah that would draw on holiness. So “to work it,” the positive mitzvos, relates to Z’eir Anpin, and “to guard it” to Malchus; “Thus far his words” closes the quotation.

The text compares this with the discourse “How goodly” in Likkutei Torah, Balak, which speaks of three levels of teshuvah. “Turn away from evil,” removing the sins that, in Isaiah’s words, “separate” a person from G‑d, draws down memalei kol almin, the light that fills each world, and so rectifies Malchus; “and do good,” the positive mitzvos, draws down sovev kol almin, the light that encompasses all worlds from beyond.

So “to guard it” matches “turn away from evil,” and “to work it” matches “do good.” The text now looks closely at the word vayanichehu, “He placed him,” which shares its root with menuchah, “rest,” and brings the Zohar at the beginning of Parshas Noach on “a river goes forth from Eden”: the river enters the garden, waters it with waters from above, and “makes rest” (naycha) for it.

The Ramaz, Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, a Kabbalist commentator on the Zohar, explains this rest as the sweetening of the Gevuros, the forces of severity, by the Chasadim, the kindnesses. That rest and delight in the garden flows to man as well, and this is why the verse says vayanichehu: G‑d set him at rest in Gan Eden.

The Midrash quoted earlier (Bereishis Rabbah) also reads vayanichehu as rest, linking it to “and He rested (vayanach) on the seventh day”: G‑d gave Adam the mitzvah of Shabbos. The Zohar in Parshas Toldos expounds “Havayah will guide you (venachacha) always, and satisfy your soul with brightness” as a promise for this world and the World to Come; venachacha, “will guide you,” can also be heard as “will give you rest,” and so the text sets it beside vayanichehu.

A further explanation comes from the sacrifices, which are called “a pleasing fragrance (rei’ach nichoach) to Havayah.” The word nichoach is read as containing two words: nachas ruach, “gratification,” and chos darga, Aramaic for “descending a level.” The offering brings about a descent of light from G‑d’s very Essence into the Name Havayah; this is the meaning of “nichoach to Havayah.”

This is the same as “those who sanctify Your Name” from the first paragraph: drawing from “You are holy,” G‑d Himself, into “Your Name,” His revelation. This is “to work it and to guard it,” and from it a delight flows down to man too; so vayanichehu, “He placed him,” is read as a flow of the delight of nichoach.

The text points to further discussions of “to work it and to guard it”: the Raaya Mehemna on Parshas Va’eschanan and the Zohar on Parshas Vayakhel. There the Zohar speaks of “the higher Eden” that “knows the lower point” through a river that waters it, and that lower point is called “the garden.”

As the Mikdash Melech explains, the “garden” here is the flow from the light of Abba, Chochmah, into Malchus, which is called Gan Eden; and Abba in turn receives from Arich Anpin and Atik Yomin, the levels of Keser, reaching up to the Infinite One. The Idra Zuta, cited above, says the same.

Since the chain reaches to the Infinite, this flow into the garden comes ultimately from G‑d’s Essence. The text refers the reader to its explanation of the term mochin on the Talmudic saying “and the Netzach: this is Jerusalem” (Berakhot 58a), where the flow is said to come from above the order of the worlds, from the Mocha Stima’ah and the Reisha d’Lo Isyada, the “Unknowable Head,” the highest level of Keser. That sheds light on “to work it,” explained above as drawing mochin, intellect, into Z’eir Anpin.

The text refers to the discourse “In the wilderness of Sinai,” which discusses the Mishnah’s “from where you came and to where you are going” (Avos 3:1), the soul’s origin and destination. The print has מאת, a slip for באת, “you came.”

The Zohar in Parshas Terumah says that the higher soul ascends into the wellspring of “the Ancient of Ancients, the hidden of all the hidden”: its root reaches the very highest level.

This raises a question: how can a created soul receive a revelation of light from the level of the Infinite? It can do so only through “garments” made from the Torah and mitzvos it has performed. Iggeres HaKodesh, in the letter beginning “A woman of valor is the crown of her husband,” explains that this light descends step by step until a garment is formed from it, through which the soul can receive what it could not receive bare.

The quotation from Iggeres HaKodesh continues: the soul receives the higher light “by way of this garment.” Moshe entering “into the midst of the cloud” is an example: the cloud both hides and makes it possible to approach. The text refers to the discourse “And Avraham was old” in Torah Ohr, Parshas Chayei Sarah.

It also refers to the discourse on the Chanukah lamp in Torah Ohr, Parshas Mikeitz, which opens with Beis Shammai’s view that one lights eight lamps on the first night. There the Alter Rebbe explains that a deep idea cannot be conveyed to a child except through a garment and a parable, and so the mitzvos are called garments: the parable both covers the idea and is the means by which one comes to grasp it.

In the same way, “The heavens are My throne,” discussed below, refers to the parsa, the partition between the World of Atzilus and the World of Beriah. The partition, like a parable, separates and also connects.

¶17 The throne as partition is explained in paragraph 17.

It is specifically in and through this partition that the supernal light reaches Gan Eden, which is in Beriah, just as a concept is conveyed in and through a parable. Without the covering, the lower world could not receive the higher light at all.

The summary of section 1: Gan Eden in itself is only the radiance of the Shechinah, but through “to work it” souls draw into it light from G‑d’s Essence. The gloss explains this as “I have come into My garden”: drawing from “You are holy” to “Your Name is holy.”

That is the drawing down of the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, rooted in the Mocha Stima’ah, the “higher Eden.” “To work it and to guard it” are the mochin of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, drawn through “do good” and “turn away from evil”; vayanichehu is “rest,” as in “and He rested” and “Havayah will guide you”; and souls receive this light through the garments of Torah and mitzvos.

Section 2 begins. The power to draw a new light from G‑d’s Essence into Gan Eden exists only while the soul is enclothed in a body.

Because the body darkens and hides G‑dliness, the soul is moved to return with extra force, “with greater strength” (an Aramaic phrase): the concealment itself fuels the return. Of this the Sages say that “in the place where baalei teshuvah stand,” even the perfectly righteous cannot stand.

The reason: a tzaddik’s love and awe of G‑d grow out of his understanding, as the Mishnah says, “If there is no wisdom, there is no awe,” but the baal teshuvah’s yearning, the “desire of the heart,” is drawn out by the very opposition he has felt, and so it goes beyond what understanding can produce. The first parable: water that seeps through the soil comes out clearer and is called “waters of life.”

The second parable: water held back by an obstruction rushes on with more force once it breaks through. So too the soul, held back by the body’s concealment, returns with greater power; the text refers to the discourses “Spring up, O well” and “See, the fragrance of my son” for these images.

This teshuvah is not only regret for sins; it is the soul’s return from the very distance of being in a body and a world that hides G‑d. Its “desire of the heart” is to be absorbed into G‑d’s Essence itself.

The text refers to two discourses on the “desire of the heart”: “And Yaakov dwelt” in Torah Ohr, and “Who has counted the dust of Yaakov” in Likkutei Torah, Parshas Balak. The latter explains “I have even made it” (Isaiah 43:7), the verse’s final stage of action, as the world of Asiyah.

Specifically in Asiyah, the world of physical action, souls can reach the desire of the heart that is above intellect, and through it draw down a revelation of the supernal will, Keser, which is above Chochmah. The lowest world gives access to the highest level.

For this reason the Men of the Great Assembly, the Sages who set the order of the prayers, placed prayer before study. Prayer is the higher teshuvah (teshuvah ila’ah), the soul’s return toward its source, which reaches above the intellect that study engages.

Yaakov’s dream of “a ladder set on the ground, and its top reaching heavenward” (Genesis 28:12) is read, as in the Zohar, as prayer: the soul’s ascent from below to above. What its “top reaching heavenward” means is explained next.

The top of the ladder is “with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5), the love beyond all measure that comes from the yechidah, the soul’s innermost, single essence. The yechidah is an encompassing light (or makif): it cannot be held inside the soul’s faculties as an inner light (or pnimi), so it is called “heaven,” what surrounds from above, as the maamar will explain.

¶10 Why yechidah is called “heaven”: paragraph 10 explains.

Through this ascent of the soul in prayer one draws down “Blessed are You”: baruch, “blessed,” is read as a drawing down from above to below, as Chassidus often explains it from mavrich, bending a vine down into the earth to take root. The aim is that the Infinite Light itself be revealed below as “You,” present and addressed directly, so that Havayah, G‑d as He transcends the world, becomes “our G‑d,” revealed within us.

The text refers to its explanation of “Blessed are You, Havayah” in the discourse “How goodly” and at the end of “The heavens are My throne” in Torah Ohr. The Shema expresses the same goal: “Havayah is our G‑d,” that the transcendent Name Havayah be on the level of “our G‑d.”

This comes about through “And you shall love… with all your soul.” Just as G‑d’s flow reaches the worlds through the Ten Sefiros, a person has ten powers of the soul, in intellect and in emotion.

Man’s service is to bind his soul-powers to G‑d’s own intellect and attributes, the Sefiros, and through them to the Infinite Light enclothed within them. The aim is G‑d Himself and not the attributes; as Pardes Rimonim, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s work of Kabbalah (Sha’ar (Gate) 32), puts it, quoting the Sifrei, one’s intention must be “to Him, and not to His attributes.”

In practice the bond is made by binding one’s mind to G‑d’s Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which is the Torah, and by “cleaving to His attributes,” acting as He acts. This is love “with all your soul”: it engages the ten powers of the soul.

Above the Ten Sefiros there is one more level, not counted with them because it belongs to the Infinite itself: the supernal will. Will stands above both intellect and emotion.

The soul has a parallel: a will above intellect, which the discourse on the recital of Shema in Likkutei Torah, Va’eschanan, identifies with the yechidah, the inner point of the heart that receives G‑d’s Oneness. It is expressed in “Whom have I in heaven,” which continues “and besides You I desire nothing on earth,” and “My flesh pines away”: a longing for G‑d alone.

This is love “with all your might” (me’odecha, literally “your very much”), a love without limit. “With all your soul” corresponds to nefesh, ruach and neshamah, the soul-levels clothed in intellect and emotion; “with all your might” corresponds to the will that comes from chayah and yechidah, the two highest soul-levels, which encompass intellect and emotion and are beyond comprehension.

How can one reach a level that the soul’s ten powers cannot reach? Through arousing compassion (rachamim), the attribute of Yaakov, whose portion the Sages call “an inheritance without boundaries” (Shabbos 118a): a portion without limits fits a level beyond all measure.

That is why, in the blessing “Who forms light” before the Shema, we first say “In Your great compassion, have compassion upon us.” The aim is to arouse great compassion for the soul, which has come down, in the Talmud’s phrase, “from a high roof” into a deep pit.

Great compassion applies not only to the soul in this world but even to the higher worlds. The Tikkunei Zohar, a companion work of the Zohar, describes the lower waters, separated from the upper waters at creation, weeping, “We want to be before the King”; and even the higher Gan Eden deserves compassion, since it has only a radiance and glow of G‑d, not His Essence. In Likkutei Torah, Ki Seitzei, the discourse “For the mountains shall depart” explains that G‑d’s compassion, being above the worlds, applies to all of them, even the highest, since none compares to Him.

That is why Yaakov’s attribute is “an inheritance without boundaries”: his compassion has no limit, because it extends even to the highest worlds, all of which are distant from G‑d’s Essence.

Arousing compassion brings a person to the level of “with all your might.” The verse says, “I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me” (Exodus 19:4).

The text identifies the eagle with compassion, and through it G‑d “brought you to Me,” to His very Being and Essence. The parenthesis adds “the way of the eagle in the heavens” (Proverbs 30:19): “heavens” here is “with all your might,” the supernal will, as will be explained.

Reaching that level is “the way of the eagle.” The middle line of the Sefiros, Yaakov’s line of compassion, is “the middle bar” of the Tabernacle that ran “from end to end” (Exodus 26:28), from the highest end, the encompassing light and the supernal will, down to the lowest. The Zohar at the end of Terumah identifies the middle bar with Yaakov, who holds both sides, and an earlier maamar of Likkutei Torah on Shir HaShirim calls his attribute a thread that joins even the furthest end to G‑d’s unity.

The text also refers to the end of the discourse “And He spoke… in the wilderness of Sinai” in Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar, on the census command “Lift up the head of all the congregation… by their families, by their fathers’ houses” (Numbers 1:2). There the census is a rising through three levels of compassion: “by their families,” the seventy souls; “by their fathers’ houses,” the sons of Yaakov; and then the level of Yaakov himself.

There “by their families” is read as the seventy souls who came out of Yaakov’s loins (Exodus 1:5), descendants of Yaakov and so of compassion. Through compassion they come to legulgelosam, “by their heads,” literally “by their skulls”: the skull, which covers the brain, stands for the supernal will above intellect.

The Zohar on Pekudei says the same: “The heavens are My throne”: this is the firmament in which Yaakov dwells. The Alter Rebbe reads it to mean that through Yaakov’s compassion one comes to the level of “heaven” that becomes G‑d’s “throne.”

This explains “Who will go up for us to heaven?”, answered by “for the matter is near to you” (Deuteronomy 30:12, 14): heaven is within reach through compassion. So the Sages say that Yaakov’s image is engraved beneath the Throne of Glory, the “throne” of “The heavens are My throne.”

“With all your might,” the higher teshuvah, is called “heaven” because it comes from the yechidah, an encompassing light (or makif). Such a light surrounds the soul’s faculties rather than entering them. The Kehot note points to the Mitteler Rebbe’s Sha’arei Teshuvah for a long discussion of how the baal teshuvah’s “with all your might” surpasses the tzaddik’s “with all your heart.”

¶7 This explains the “heavenward” encompassing light from paragraph 7.

Of the five soul-levels, nefesh, ruach and neshamah are clothed in “vessels,” the faculties of mind and body; chayah and yechidah are not. Neshamah corresponds to Binah, intellect that is grasped and understood, and Binah is called “the mother of the children” (Psalms 113:9) because the emotions are born from Binah and Daas.

Chochmah, by contrast, is ko’ach mah, “the power of ‘what,’” a self-nullifying insight that comes before understanding grasps it, as Tanya chapter 18 and Iggeres HaKodesh 4 explain. So Chochmah is “encompassing,” and it corresponds to chayah, the “living” level, as in “wisdom gives life” (Ecclesiastes 7:12).

Yechidah is higher still, above Chochmah; chayah and yechidah are called “heavens” and “the heavens of heavens.” A second reason “with all your might” is called “heaven” begins here: Sefer Yetzirah, the ancient Book of Formation, teaches that the three “mother” letters, alef, mem and shin, correspond in the world to ruach (wind or spirit), water and fire, and that the heavens were created first, from fire. In the version the Alter Rebbe quotes, ruach is the element from which the air is then made, as the next lines say; the Warsaw edition of Sefer Yetzirah (3:3) has “air” in its place.

Sefer Yetzirah continues: the earth was created from water, and the air from ruach, which “decides” between fire and water. The same three elements appear in the soul: the head was created from fire, and so on.

The text recalls “For Havayah your G‑d is a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24), explained in “You are standing” and elsewhere as G‑d’s light in a state of withdrawal (histalkus). Like fire, which rises away from what it rests on, it does not settle into the worlds.

The reason for this withdrawal is that “there is no comparison to You” (words of the Shabbos morning prayers): relative to G‑d’s Essence, even Atzilus, the highest world, is a lowering. The word Atzilus is from vayatzel, “and He drew from the spirit” (Numbers 11:25), a drawing off from something greater.

Compared with the Infinite, Atzilus is called “the man of Asiyah,” as low as the world of action. So the Infinite Light withdraws upward, to be absorbed into its source; this is “G‑d Most High,” exalted above all.

From the fire of the heavens comes the soul’s ratzo, its rushing upward like fire to be absorbed above: “the soul of man is the lamp of Havayah,” a flame that strains upward. Knesses Yisrael, the collective soul, is called ishah, “woman”; the same letters spell isheh, the “fire-offering” of “an olah, an isheh,” and isheh holds esh, “fire,” with the hei of the Name: “the fire of Havayah.” Olah, “burnt offering,” also means “rising,” like a flame that rises of itself, and so this level of the soul is called “heavens,” which are made of fire.

Sefer Yetzirah’s “the head was created from fire” fits, because the will is centered in the head: the verse says of the High Priest’s gold plate, “it shall be on his forehead always, for favor (ratzon),” and ratzon, “favor,” is also “will.” The Aramaic phrase “the skull that covers the brain” describes the will resting above the intellect as the skull covers the brain; the text refers to its discourse “I am Havayah your G‑d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

Heaven and earth correspond to the divine Names Mah (45) and Ban (52), two ways of spelling out the letters of Havayah, which add up to these numbers. In every world there is ratzo and shov, a rushing upward and a returning: ratzo comes from Mah, the level of bittul (mah is also the word “what,” as in Moshe and Aharon’s “and what are we?”), longing to be nullified and absorbed in the Infinite Light; shov comes from Ban.

Earth, the shov, is the meaning of “and the earth is My footstool,” which will be explained below. The verse “He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, to judge His people” (Psalms 50:4) also speaks of heaven and earth.

¶19 “The earth is My footstool” is explained in paragraph 19.

The Sages, in Sanhedrin 91b, read it: “‘To the heavens above’: this is the soul; ‘and to the earth’: this is the body,” and the Midrash Rabbah on Vayikra says the same. So heaven and earth are found within each person.

A further explanation comes from the Midrash Rabbah on Ha’azinu, where Moshe is asked why he calls on heaven and earth and answers, “I do not know where my soul is going, to heaven or to earth.” This is puzzling: how could Moshe doubt whether his soul would go “to the earth,” G‑d forbid?

The answer comes from the Zohar on Vayechi, which speaks of “three souls”: the highest, hidden and unknown, and a second, feminine one, from which a body is held, “like the body, which is a vessel for the soul.” The Alter Rebbe draws from it that even within the soul, a lower level serves as a “body” for a higher one.

The soul is born from the union of Z’eir Anpin and Nukva and so contains two levels. Z’eir Anpin is “the end of the worlds of the Infinite,” like the cherub placed “at the end on this side” (Exodus 25:19): it is the lower edge of the realm that reaches up to the Infinite.

In and through Z’eir Anpin there is a connection up through Arich Anpin and Atik to the Infinite itself. Nukva, by contrast, is the root of the lower worlds, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, and is called “the body”; the soul born of their union contains both.

These two are Mah and Ban, which are Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, called heaven and earth. So the soul too has within it a “heaven” and an “earth.”

Within the soul, heaven and earth are Mah and Ban, or the encompassing and the inner levels. Chayah and yechidah, which encompass, are its “heaven”; nefesh, ruach and neshamah, which are clothed in the faculties, are called “body” relative to them.

Souls differ in proportion: some lofty souls come mainly from Z’eir Anpin, “heaven,” with a little from Malchus, “earth,” and others are the reverse. The Mikdash Melech on Bereishis explains this.

Moshe’s doubt was an expression of his humility: he did not know which of the two, heaven or earth, was the main source of his soul. In truth his soul’s root was far higher than both; in the Midrash itself G‑d answers him that his soul will rest beneath the Throne of Glory.

The summary of section 2: the additional light is drawn only through raising “feminine waters” from this world, the arousal from below of the desire of the heart, “with all your might.” This is the advantage of the baal teshuvah, and the text lists the discourses that develop it.

“With all your soul” engages the ten powers of the soul; “with all your might” is the will of the yechidah, which is reached through compassion.

“The way of the eagle in the heavens”: the yechidah is “heaven,” an encompassing light, the top of the ladder that reaches heavenward. Heaven is fire, ratzo and Mah; earth is shov and Ban; and “He calls to the heavens above” refers to soul and body.

Section 3 begins. The arousal from below, the teshuvah of “with all your might,” elicits an arousal from above: that “the heavens are My throne.”

The analogy: when a person sits on a chair, the back part of his body is lowered onto it, and with it his head too is lowered. Sitting is a descent of the whole person to rest on something below him.

So too above: the “throne” is the means by which the Infinite One Himself “sits,” descending and resting on what is below. Daniel saw “thrones set up, and the Ancient of Days sat”; Atik Yomin, “the Ancient of Days,” is the level removed from “the days of the world,” far above time.

That level is above the whole order of the chain of worlds. Yet Ezekiel saw on the throne “a likeness like the appearance of a man” (Ezekiel 1:26), which in Kabbalah is Z’eir Anpin, the divine emotive attributes; this is because Atika Kadisha and Arich Anpin are themselves clothed within Z’eir Anpin.

So Ezekiel says “like the appearance of a man”: like Arich Anpin, within it. The Zohar on Mishpatim notes that the verse says “like the appearance of a man” and not “the appearance of a man,” and the text adds the Mikdash Melech there and the Zohar on Nasso and on Acharei, where the vav of the Name sits on the throne while its hidden alef is “By Myself I have sworn.”

The text refers to the Siddur, after Aleinu, where an explanation of Tanya chapter 52 discusses the Throne of Glory. Its point is given next.

In the analogy, the one who “sits” on the throne is the body, and above it is the supernal emotive attributes, which the Tikkunei Zohar calls “bodies”: “Chesed is the right arm… Tiferes is the body.” The Ten Sefiros are only a “body” and vessel of the Emanator, through which He conducts the worlds; Iggeres HaKodesh 3, cited in the Kehot note, likewise explains that the Infinite Light is clothed in this world only through the Ten Sefiros, which the Zohar calls “body.”

Yet just as the soul is clothed in the body and fully one with it, the Infinite One is clothed in His attributes, and, in the Tikkunei Zohar’s words, “He, His life-forces and His vessels are one.” So when the attributes “sit” on the throne, the Infinite Himself is there.

The Sages’ saying “With ten garments the Holy One, blessed be He, clothed Himself and created the world” supports the previous point: the Sefiros are G‑d’s “garments” and “body,” and He is within them. In the Rosh HaShanah discourse “Sound the shofar,” cited in the Kehot note, the Alter Rebbe brings this saying to show that G‑d’s Malchus is a “garment” He put on to be King.

So when the supernal attributes, called “body,” are drawn down through the throne to shine in Gan Eden, the light is from G‑d’s very Essence, as section 1 said of “I have come into My garden.” The text points to the discourse “And it shall be for you as tzitzis” and concludes that this is “The heavens are My throne.”

The word shamayim, “heavens,” is read as esh and mayim, “fire and water,” as the Sages say. In Atzilus these are Chesed and Gevurah, ratzo and shov, united by Tiferes, the middle line; this united “heaven” is what lowers itself to sit on the throne.

It does so in order to shine below and bring Gan Eden into being as a created realm. The parenthesis explains why fire and water together matter: when ratzo and shov are united, even the shov, the descent, is of a very high rank.

The text asks what causes the throne to come into being and the attributes to lower themselves onto it.

The answer is the level of “heavens,” the supernal will, an encompassing light that cannot be held in vessels. Only from such a level, above the attributes themselves, can their “sitting” and lowering be drawn forth.

The throne is the parsa, the partition between Atzilus and Beriah. Only in and through it can the light of Atzilus reach Beriah; without it there could be no connection between the two worlds at all.

¶4 This explains the throne-partition mentioned in paragraph 4.

In the World of Tohu (Chaos), the world of unbounded lights that preceded the ordered worlds, there was no such connection or revelation of Atzilus in Beriah. The partition is what makes the connection possible, like the cloud into which Moshe entered.

A parable works the same way: it hides the idea, yet only through it can the idea be grasped at all. So “the concealment of the parable is the cause of the revelation.”

The root of the partition is very high, as Torah Ohr explains on “And the curtain shall divide” (Exodus 26:33). So in “The heavens are My throne,” “heaven,” the higher teshuvah and the supernal will, draws down the throne; this is “Extol Him who rides upon the aravos” (Psalms 68:5), the highest heavens, which the Ramaz on Terumah discusses. In the Gemara (Chagigah 12b), Aravos is the seventh and highest of the heavens, where the Throne of Glory stands and the King dwells above it, as this verse says. The maamar cites the verse because it joins the highest “heaven” with the throne, the same link it finds in “The heavens are My throne.”

Another explanation draws on the angels’ threefold “Holy,” explained elsewhere on “And I shall be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel” (Leviticus 22:32).

There the first “holy” is when the vav, the letter of the Name that stands for Z’eir Anpin, ascends upward, “the mystery of the supernal heavens”; afterwards the supernal light shines down upon “the throne, which is heaven,” and then it is called “holy.” So “heaven” appears twice: as the ascent and as the throne.

There the vav’s ascent is explained as giving over one’s soul at the word “One” of the Shema, which draws down the union of Abba and Imma, Chochmah and Binah, and a new light. So “heavens” belongs to the higher teshuvah, the soul’s ascent.

“My throne” is the next stage, when that light is drawn down from above.

The text refers to its discourse on “The heavens declare” (Psalms 19:2), where mesaprim, “declare,” is read as “they shine and sparkle.” The Zohar on Vayechi, on “You who sit in the heavens” (Psalms 123:1), speaks of “the throne that is called heaven,” and the text also points to the end of the discourse “Who sits on high” (Psalms 113:5).

This also explains a double account of Adam in Gan Eden. First the Torah says, “Havayah G‑d planted a garden in Eden, mikedem, and put there the man” (Genesis 2:8); mikedem plainly means “to the east,” but here, as the next lines show, it is read as “of old.”

Later it says, “He took the man and placed him in Gan Eden” (Genesis 2:15). This seems to repeat what was already said.

The wedding blessing “as You gladdened Your creature in Gan Eden mikedem” is explained elsewhere: mikedem, “of old,” refers to the beginning of creation, when revelation came through an arousal from above, at G‑d’s own initiative.

So the first verse, “He put there the man whom He had formed,” refers to the supernal Man, the divine configuration, placed there by G‑d’s own initiative, as the Zohar in Bereishis explains. “Formed” (yatzar) is like “Who forms (yotzer) light” (Isaiah 45:7).

The second verse refers to Adam, the first human being, placed in Gan Eden “to work it and to guard it.” From then on the light would be drawn down only through an arousal from below, through man’s own service.

The summary of section 3: “the heavens,” teshuvah, draw down “My throne,” and through it the Ancient of Days “sat,” which is “Him who rides upon the aravos.” The two verses, “He put there the man” and “as You gladdened Your creature,” contrast the revelation that came from above with the one that man now draws down.

Section 4 turns to the second half of the verse, “and the earth is My footstool.” Drawing down “the heavens are My throne” required raising “feminine waters” through “with all your might,” the ratzo, the soul’s rush from below upward.

¶14 This explains the footstool mentioned in paragraph 14.

“The earth is My footstool” is the opposite movement, shov, the return, the “left hand” that “pushes away.” A person lowers himself and says, “Who am I, that I should come near to the King?”

He fears to approach, like the people at Sinai who “trembled and stood far off” (Exodus 20:15), and he accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven with awe and dread, as in “You shall surely set a king over yourself” (Deuteronomy 17:15).

The shov also brings a response. By accepting the yoke of Heaven in humility, keeping his distance in awe and taking on the yoke of the mitzvos, a person arouses above a matching movement: G‑d’s flow lowers itself to be clothed in lower, physical things.

Those physical things are the practical performance of the mitzvos. This is “the earth is My footstool”: it works measure for measure.

Just as the person lowers himself in awe “from afar,” G‑d’s light and revelation lower themselves into physical matters, the practical mitzvos. “The earth,” the acceptance of the Kingdom of Heaven, the shov, becomes G‑d’s “footstool”: His presence rests even on the lowest physical deeds.

All this belongs to the present order, in which the flow from above comes only through “feminine waters” raised from below. The arousal from above and the “masculine waters” are measured by the arousal from below.

So “heaven” as throne comes through ratzo, and “earth” as footstool through shov. But of the seventh millennium, the time of the main reward, Isaiah says: “the new heavens and the new earth that I am making stand before Me.”

“I am making” means that G‑d makes them Himself, with no arousal from below, which cannot reach so high. They “stand before Me,” lefanai, from panim, “face”: the inner dimension, far above the throne.

¶1 This answers the question from paragraph 1.

On a throne only the back of the one sitting is revealed. Even the supernal will has an outer and an inner dimension, as the discourse “And I was with Him as a nursling” (Proverbs 8:30) explains; the throne relates to the outer, “standing before Me” to the inner.

That is why the new heavens and earth “stand before Me.” It is also the meaning of “Behold, My servant shall prosper… and shall be very high (gavah me’od)” (Isaiah 52:13), said of the Time to Come: all the worlds will rise to the lofty level of me’od, “very,” the same word as me’odecha, “your might.”

Above, “heaven” was explained as “with all your might,” the higher teshuvah, an encompassing level. The future “very high” (gavah me’od) points to a me’od, a “very,” of a rank far higher than that.

The “with all your might” of today comes from the yechidah, but in the Time to Come new souls will come that are higher than even the yechidah of Adam’s soul. The bracketed passage quotes Sefer HaGilgulim, the book of the Arizal’s teachings on the roots of souls recorded by Rabbi Chaim Vital, chapter 7, which begins: there are two kinds of souls.

The first kind were included in the soul of Adam, the first man. The second were not, and they are higher and more exalted than all the souls that were.

Just as the souls included in Adam span every level from the nefesh of Asiyah to the yechidah of Atzilus, so do the souls not included in him, on a higher plane.

In the seventh millennium the souls included in Adam will be “crowned” with the higher souls, each part joined with its counterpart. This is the higher “very” of the Time to Come.

The text refers to the discourse “And you shall eat in plenty” (Joel 2:26) for more on these new souls.

The Midrash Rabbah at the start of Bereishis quotes Rav Huna in the name of Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Rabbi Yose HaGelili: even the “new heavens” of “For behold, I create new heavens” (Isaiah 65:17) were already created in the six days of Creation. It proves this from “For just as the new heavens and the new earth”: the verse says “the new earth,” one already known, and not “a new earth.”

Sefer HaGilgulim likewise says that the new souls, those never included in Adam, were created in the six days of Creation.

The text refers to its discussion of “And the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun… like the light of the seven days” (Isaiah 30:26), and lists Zohar passages on “For just as the new heavens”: in Bereishis, Vayikra, Acharei and at the end of Va’eschanan. Here the long bracketed passage closes.

The text concludes that in the future there will be new heavens and earth that G‑d makes “by Myself,” without any arousal from below.

Section 5 explains the rest of the verse: “so shall your seed and your name endure.” By keeping the mitzvos in this world, the time of “today, to do them” (Deuteronomy 7:11), we add lights above that will be revealed in the Time to Come; this is called “sowing” and “growth.” In Torah Ohr, Shemos, the discourse “In days to come Yaakov will take root” compares the mitzvos, clothed in physical things, to seeds that grow from concealment into revelation, and the text also cites “When you come into the land” and “There are sixty queens.”

The parable: a seed sown in the earth grows, through the earth’s power of growth, into a great and enhanced increase.

And the longer it stays in the ground, the greater the yield. So the mitzvos done now are seeds sown in the “supernal earth,” and the harvest will come in the Time to Come; the same process is also called pregnancy and birth, as in “Zion was in labor and also gave birth” (Isaiah 66:8).

The longer the seed stays in the ground, the greater the harvest. The long time until the days of Mashiach and the Resurrection, while the G‑dliness drawn down by the mitzvos stays hidden, like a seed in the earth or a child in the womb, will make the growth of the Time to Come all the greater.

This explains Isaiah’s “And it shall be said on that day: Behold, this is our G‑d; we hoped (kivinu) for Him” (Isaiah 25:9). Speaking on that day, Israel will say that the G‑dliness revealed to them “now” has come through their having “hoped” for Him, through the service of the present.

Kivinu, “we hoped,” is read as kavin, “lines”: all through the time of “today, to do them,” we draw lines and channels of divine light without seeing the result, “our signs we did not see” (Psalms 74:9). Then we will see it openly and say, “This is Havayah, for whom we hoped”; Shemos Rabbah notes that in the future “this” will be said twice. In Torah Ohr, Beshalach, the Alter Rebbe reads kivinu the same way: we draw the “lines” of the Name Havayah into revelation, and the revelation itself comes in the Time to Come.

Tzaddikim and baalei teshuvah differ. Of the tzaddik it says “Light is sown” (Psalms 97:11); of baalei teshuvah it says “Happy are you who sow beside all waters” (Isaiah 32:20).

For the tzaddik the light is already sown, a thing done; baalei teshuvah are the ones sowing throughout the present era, and the prophet promises them “so shall your seed endure,” the seed they sow. “Your name” is like “David made a name” (II Samuel 8:13).

“Name” stands for accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, which comes before the yoke of the mitzvos. As the Mishnah says (Berachos 2:2), one first accepts the yoke of Heaven and then the yoke of the mitzvos.

That is why “name” goes with “seed”: the power of growth that makes the sown light sprout comes from accepting the yoke of Heaven. The text refers to the discourse “In days to come he will take root.”

In the Time to Come, the present heaven and earth, “throne” and “footstool,” the seed and the name, ratzo and shov, will themselves be raised to “stand before Me.”

They will be like the new heavens and earth, above “The heavens are My throne.” On a throne only the body sits, never the head; to “stand before Me” is the inner dimension, the “face.”

Section 6 brings a Midrash from Vayikra Rabbah, Parshas Emor, on the Rosh HaShanah verses “It shall be a day of sounding for you” (Numbers 29:1) and “and you shall make a burnt offering” (Numbers 29:2).

For every other Musaf offering the Torah says “and you shall offer,” but for Rosh HaShanah it says “and you shall make” (va’asisem). The Midrash reads it as na’asisem, “you were made”: as if today you were made before Me, a new creation, as it says, “For just as the new heavens.”

The maamar asks what being “made anew before Me” on Rosh HaShanah has to do with the new heavens.

¶27 Hold this question: paragraph 27 begins the answer.

One answer comes from Iggeres HaKodesh 14, on “a land… the eyes of Havayah your G‑d are upon it, from the beginning of the year” (Deuteronomy 11:12). Each Rosh HaShanah a new, higher light from the higher Chochmah shines to the “supernal earth,” which Iggeres HaKodesh identifies with the light that fills all worlds.

¶26 This answers the question from paragraph 26.

So each Rosh HaShanah there is a kind of “new earth.” Moreover, the higher Chochmah itself receives this new light from above, like the union of Chochmah and Binah brought about in the Shema.

“New heavens” fits as well. The discourse “Return, O Israel,” on “Know this day… that Havayah is G‑d in the heavens above” (Deuteronomy 4:39), explains that the soul too has heaven and earth, intellect and emotion; here they may be chayah and yechidah, the soul’s “heaven,” and nefesh, ruach and neshamah, its “earth.”

The discourse “I will greatly rejoice” explains that the soul of Adam is renewed every Rosh HaShanah, the anniversary of Adam’s creation. Since the soul has “heaven and earth,” this is a renewal of heaven and earth.

Further, Adam corresponds to the higher Chochmah, as the discourse “O that you were” explains, and his renewal comes from the level of “for He is not a man” (I Samuel 15:29), Arich Anpin, above the level of “man.” So the new heavens and earth are a new ratzo and shov, drawn from their source by an arousal from above.

The ratzo of “heaven,” which comes from the yechidah, is renewed on Rosh HaShanah, and so is the shov of “earth.” That is why it is “a day of teruah”: the teruah, a series of short broken blasts, is ratzo and shov in rapid alternation.

In the teruah ratzo and shov are fully united, “reaching and not reaching” (mati velo mati), so that the shov never separates from the ratzo. The text relates “you shall make a burnt offering” to this as well and refers to its discourse on “And you shall offer a burnt offering, a fire-offering.”

Another angle comes from the discourse “You are standing”: all year long the relation is “They shall walk after Havayah” (Hosea 11:10), following behind, as “He shall roar like a lion”; but in the Ten Days of Teshuvah it is “Seek My face” (Psalms 27:8).

So the rest of the year is like “The heavens are My throne,” the back, while these days are like the new heavens that “stand before Me,” the inner face.

And as the head is above the body, Rosh HaShanah, the “head” of the year, is the level of the head, the gulgalta or skull, which stands for the supernal will; it is above the throne, on which only the body sits.

The text refers to the discourse at the end of Parshas Tavo in Likkutei Torah, which opens with Moshe calling all Israel and continues “a heart to know and eyes to see… until this day” (Deuteronomy 29:1, 3); the print’s “And He called to Moshe” recalls the opening words of Vayikra. There the Alter Rebbe explains that on Rosh HaShanah every Jewish soul receives from above a very high awe and love, which cannot be reached by an arousal from below.

Another explanation: “King Mashiach will bring the tzaddikim to teshuvah.” Teshuvah is “with all your might,” normally reached through the distance of sin; for a tzaddik who never sinned to reach it is like “new heavens,” a heaven not produced in the usual way.

That teshuvah will not come from having sinned but rather from a new perception: next to the coming revelation, even the higher Gan Eden will seem a wilderness and even the higher Chochmah like Asiyah.

This is “very high (gavah me’od)”: the future me’od will come only through Mashiach. Then Atik, the innermost level of Keser, will be revealed, so that even the higher Chochmah will seem like Asiyah, the lowest world, by comparison.

This is why David, in the psalm he composed in the wilderness of Yehudah, said, “So in holiness have I beheld You” (Psalms 63:3). Just as the wilderness, a place far from holiness, brought him to thirst for G‑d, he asked that even in holiness he should come to such a thirst.

“In holiness” means even relative to the Holy of Holies, or to G‑d’s own holiness “above”; next to that, even the holiest place is a wilderness. Such teshuvah will be drawn down only by Mashiach; had Adam not sinned, teshuvah would have been of this kind, from longing rather than from sin.

A taste of this comes in the Ten Days of Teshuvah, when even the perfectly righteous and the prophets, who have no sin at all, need teshuvah. The text refers to the end of the discourse “Return, O Israel,” on Yaakov’s words “If G‑d will be with me” (Genesis 28:20).

So in this case “heaven and earth,” the higher and the lower teshuvah, ratzo and shov, do not arise from the opposite of holiness, from concealment and distance, but are like new heavens and earth.

They arise from “Your face, Havayah, I seek” (Psalms 27:8) and from Yom Kippur, “a Shabbos of Shabbosos,” next to which even Shabbos is like a weekday. This is the revelation of “the will of all wills,” G‑d’s innermost will.

“Seek Havayah when He may be found” (Isaiah 55:6) refers to the Ten Days of Teshuvah, when the “ten depths” of Sefer Yetzirah are revealed: the Ten Sefiros as they are hidden in their source, the Emanator. Sefer Yetzirah (1:5) says the ten Sefiros are “ten that have no end”: the depth of beginning and of end, of good and of evil, of above and of below, and of the four directions. The maamar reads this endless “depth” as the Sefiros before they become defined attributes, as they are in their source, and that is what the Ten Days reveal.

In a person, too, the service all year long is through Chochmah and Binah, the intellect, but in the Ten Days of Teshuvah it is through the depth of the will, above intellect, as the second discourse “Return, O Israel” explains.

A further explanation: the Ramaz, the Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, at the beginning of Parshas Toldos, explains that the souls at the Resurrection of the Dead will be on the level of Yitzchak. His name means laughter (tzechok): the delight that will be revealed in the future, as the discourse “These are the generations of Yitzchak” explains.

Rosh HaShanah too is on the level of Yitzchak, the left side, in the mystery of “His left hand is under my head” (Song of Songs 2:6). The Zohar on Pinchas says so on “Havayah has bared His holy arm” (Isaiah 52:10).

The text refers to its discussion of “For as the earth brings forth its growth… so will Ado-nai Havayah cause righteousness to sprout” (Isaiah 61:11).

That verse refers to Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, when “Ado-nai Havayah will cause righteousness and praise to sprout”: a new sprouting, like the new heavens and earth (the printed שמשים is a misprint for השמים, “the heavens,” as in Isaiah 66:22), since on Rosh HaShanah there is a new creation, as explained above.

“As the earth brings forth its growth” is the arousal from below and the arousal from above produced by the mitzvos done all year: the seeds of the year sprout on Rosh HaShanah. This is the pattern of the whole verse: “For just as the new heavens… so shall your seed endure.”