ביאור הדברים ע״פ וידעת היום כו׳

This heading marks the discourse as a biur, an explanation that expands on the verse “And you shall know this day and take it to your heart that Havayah is G‑d” (Deuteronomy 4:39). The whole discourse revolves around what this second call to “know” adds.

Deuteronomy 4:35 already says “You have been shown, to know that Havayah is G‑d,” so the Alter Rebbe asks what the further “And you shall know” of 4:39 adds; his answer, at the end of the discourse, is that there are two levels of Daas (knowledge). He begins with a principle: the ten holy Sefiros have a mirror image, the “ten crowns of impurity,” for G‑d made “one opposite the other.” Avraham embodies holy Chesed, love, and Yishmael the Chesed of the other side.

The Talmud and Midrash speak of “Avraham, from whom Yishmael came out.” The Alter Rebbe reads “came out” as a separating-out: Yishmael was removed from Avraham the way dross is refined out of silver. In the same way Yitzchak embodies holy Gevurah, awe and restraint, and he too has a counterpart in kelipah, the forces that conceal G‑dliness.

This is the key rule of the discourse: each force of the other side can oppose only its own holy counterpart. Yishmael, the corruption of love, stands against Avraham’s love, but he has no hold on Yitzchak’s awe.

Alien love is desire directed at anything other than G‑d. It is the exact mirror of holy love: both are the same emotion, love, and differ only in their object, which is why they can contend with each other.

Alien love has no such relationship with holy awe. When love for G‑d stands alone, alien love can sometimes win, as G‑d told Rivkah of the twins in her womb, “one nation shall be stronger than the other”: two counterparts rise and fall against each other. But once holy awe is joined to the love, the picture changes.

Love joined with awe cannot be overcome by alien love at all, because alien love has nothing in it that matches awe. Where there is no counterpart there is no contest, so even the occasional upper hand that the verse describes does not apply.

Genesis 26:18 tells that after Avraham’s death the Philistines stopped up the wells he had dug. The Talmud calls the Philistines scoffers; in the Alter Rebbe’s terms they stand for the frivolity and empty joy of kelipah, the counterpart of Avraham’s joyful, outflowing love.

A well is love that flows like water, the quality of Avraham. When that holy love departed with Avraham, the external forces, the Philistines, could feed on it and block it, because frivolous joy is the direct counterpart of joyful love.

Yitzchak dug the same wells again, and after that they kept flowing. The reason is that Yitzchak’s quality is awe and dread, and frivolity has no power to stand against awe, since it is not awe’s counterpart.

The Alter Rebbe refers the reader to two related discourses in Torah Ohr: the one on “These are the generations of Yitzchak” (Genesis 25:19), and the end of the one on “And it was, when Pharaoh sent away the people,” which deals with G‑d’s not leading Israel “by way of the land of the Philistines” (Exodus 13:17).

Further references: the discourse in Parshas Chukas on the song of the well, “The well that princes dug” (Numbers 21:18), and the Zohar in Parshas Tzav with the commentary of Rabbi Moshe Zacuto (the Ramaz). That Zohar passage reads “And Yitzchak dug again the wells of water” (Genesis 26:18) as Hoshana Rabbah, the day the judgment begun on Rosh HaShanah is sealed: Yitzchak, Gevurah, draws the powers of Gevurah down to the Community of Israel to arouse the waters, for rain comes down to the world through Gevurah.

Now a qualification: Yitzchak’s awe, when it stands alone, also has a counterpart, the Gevurah of kelipah.

That counterpart shows itself as evil fear, a fear directed at something other than G‑d, or as anger, both distortions of Gevurah. Ordinarily any holy attribute is strong enough to nullify its own negative counterpart.

Holiness outweighs kelipah as light outweighs darkness (Ecclesiastes 2:13), for a little light dispels much darkness. Even so, as with the two nations in Rivkah’s womb, there are times when the counterpart prevails.

The vulnerability described so far applies only when one holy attribute stands alone. When love and awe are combined, each included in the other, the forces of the other side cannot touch them at all, since the combination has no counterpart.

The Alter Rebbe reads Genesis 29:3 this way: the shepherds could roll the heavy stone off the well only when “all the flocks” had gathered, that is, when all the attributes are combined. The stone is “the heart of stone” (Ezekiel 11:19), the dullness that blocks the heart’s feeling for G‑d, and it is rolled away when love and awe are joined.

Even love and awe combined are two attributes joined together. Yaakov’s quality is different: he is “the middle bar” of the Tabernacle, which ran through all the boards (Exodus 26:28), and his attribute is truth, a radiance from Keser, the level above both intellect and emotion.

Tiferes, Yaakov’s Sefirah, is by its nature the meeting point of Chesed and Gevurah. That is why Yaakov is called “dwelling in tents,” in the plural (Genesis 25:27): the Zohar explains that he holds on to both sides at once.

The Midrash says the two tents were the study halls of Shem and of Ever. The Alter Rebbe adds that the two tents also allude to the Zohar’s “two supernal dwellings,” which correspond to the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.

He suggests why the Written Torah would be “the tent of Shem”: shem means “name,” and the whole Torah is made of the Names of G‑d. He then opens a parenthetical list of further sources, beginning with a Zohar passage that explains how Yaakov joins the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.

The list continues with Midrashim on “dwelling in tents”: because he dwelt in tents, Yaakov came home “whole” (Bereshis Rabbah 79); he drew himself near to G‑d by dwelling in tents (Bamidbar Rabbah 3); the tents are tied to the tribe of Yissachar, whose prince Nesanel brought his offering on the second day (Bamidbar Rabbah 13); and in Devarim Rabbah, Esav complains that the “tent-dweller” took both his birthright and his blessing.

Because Yaakov includes both Chesed and Gevurah, the external forces have no single attribute to latch on to. So the angel who wrestled with him “could not prevail against him” (Genesis 32:26), and he was told, “for you have striven with G‑d and with men, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:29).

That is why Yaakov alone rolled the stone off the well (Genesis 29:10), a task that otherwise needed all the shepherds together. His attribute is called truth because, as Proverbs 12:19 says, “the lip of truth shall be established forever”: it is never interrupted by an opposing force.

Chesed and Gevurah each represent a single line, the right or the left, so each can be interrupted and changed by its counterpart, and what can change is not complete truth. Yaakov’s middle line is not subject to this.

This explains the verse “You will grant truth to Yaakov” (Micah 7:20). In Iggeres HaKodesh, epistle 6, the Alter Rebbe explains that Yaakov’s attribute is compassion, and that the love and awe that come afterward from above, as a gift, are the ones called truth. In a person’s own service, Tiferes means contemplating the infinite greatness of G‑d.

The parenthesis points to the discourse in Kedoshim on the fruit of the fourth year, where the fourth year corresponds to Tiferes. The contemplation continues: the entire chain of worlds is like a single drop before G‑d’s infinite greatness.

Seeing how great G‑d is, and how far the soul has descended into a dark and hidden place, a person is moved to great compassion for his own soul. This compassion is Yaakov’s quality, as the discourses cited from Bamidbar and Ha’azinu explain.

The same is true of the supernal attributes: Tiferes, the middle line, unites Chesed and Gevurah and also runs from the highest level to the lowest, like the middle bar of the Tabernacle that passed from one end to the other.

The Mikdash Melech, a classic commentary on the Zohar, explains the Zohar’s statement that Yaakov dwells between two dwellings: Yaakov is the vav, the third letter of the Name Havayah. The vav, a straight vertical line, draws down from the first two letters, yud and hei (Chochmah and Binah), to the final hei (Malchus).

Elsewhere, on “Hallelu Yah” (“praise Yah”), the Alter Rebbe explains that yud-hei is the Infinite Light as it is clothed in Chochmah and Binah, and that drawing from this level leaves the evil attributes nothing to feed on. Job 4:21 says of the wicked that “they die, and not with wisdom”: where Chochmah is present, evil has no life.

Because Yaakov draws from yud-hei, where evil has no hold, his attribute is called truth. The Zohar reads Rachav’s request for “a sign of truth” (Joshua 2:12) as the letter vav, and the Pardes, in its lexicon of Kabbalistic terms, records that “truth” refers to Tiferes.

The Sages’ familiar name for G‑d, “the Holy One, blessed be He,” refers specifically to G‑d as clothed in Tiferes of Atzilus, the attribute of Yaakov. The Zohar in Chayei Sarah speaks of “the Holy One, blessed be He, who is included from a supernal place,” and the Alter Rebbe explains that passage elsewhere.

The summary gives two reasons why Yaakov’s attribute is called truth: in a person’s service it lasts, without the interruptions that affect love or awe alone; and it is the middle line, the middle bar that joins the sides and runs from top to bottom.

Section 2 asks what the radiance in Tiferes is, the radiance from Keser that makes it truth. The answer is that it is Daas, and the Alter Rebbe cites the Pardes of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and the Kabbalah of the Arizal as agreeing.

In the Arizal’s system the ten Sefiros are counted either with Keser or with Daas in its place, never both, which shows that Daas is the inner expression of Keser. The Kehot note explains that the Sha’ar number follows the Shklov printing of 1800; in current editions of Etz Chaim the passage is Sha’ar 23, and the chapter should read 5, not 1.

Daas is what keeps the emotive attributes alive and lasting. Etz Chaim explains that Daas is not counted among the Sefiros because it is a soul without a vessel: it is the soul of Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes, just as Atik Yomin, the inner level of Keser, is the soul of all Atzilus.

To show that Daas is the life of the emotive attributes, the Alter Rebbe takes an example from human life: a person’s emotions are only as large as his understanding. A small child’s desires are for very small things.

The child loves playing with nuts; as he matures, that game looks trivial and he wants fine shoes and clothes; later these seem worthless to him, and he wants money.

Later still he wants honor. Each step up in his Daas raises the object of his desire, until, when his Daas is strong enough, his emotions are directed to G‑d Himself. The Rambam, introducing the chapter Chelek of Sanhedrin, describes the same ladder: a child is drawn to study with nuts and sweets, later with clothes, money and honor, until he comes to serve G‑d for its own sake.

Jewish law treats a minor as lacking daas, legal awareness, as the Talmud says of children, “they are not persons of knowledge.” Because his Daas is small, his emotions are small too.

The rule behind this: Daas gives the emotions their endurance and their life. The Alter Rebbe refers to Iggeres HaKodesh, epistle 15, which explains the Sefiros by analogy with the powers of the human soul.

He also refers to Tanya, chapter 3, which ends with the words “Daas is the endurance and life-force of the attributes.” That is why Daas is called truth: it holds the thing itself. Malchus, by contrast, is called faith, which believes that something is true without seeing it.

Daas is the truth itself, grasped from within. As explained earlier, Daas means recognition and feeling, as though one actually sees what one knows.

The Torah Ohr discourse on “And these are the laws” (Exodus 21:1) uses the saying that hearing cannot compare with seeing: what is seen is certain in a way that what is heard is not. Daas is the power that makes a grasp of G‑dliness as vivid as sight.

The Pardes says that Daas draws from Keser and Chochmah, and Chochmah is the faculty of sight, as in “Who is wise? One who sees what is coming into being” (cited from the end of tractate Tamid). So Daas is called truth because it sees the truth itself.

When Korach’s company was swallowed by the earth, they were heard crying out, “Moshe is truth and his Torah is truth” (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 11; Bava Basra 74a). The Tikkunei Zohar says “Moshe is within and Yaakov is without”: Yaakov is Tiferes, and Moshe is its inner core, Daas. So the truth ascribed to Moshe is Yaakov’s truth at its deeper level.

So there are two reasons Moshe is called truth: he is the Daas within Yaakov’s Tiferes, and the higher Daas of Z’eir Anpin is rooted in the tikkun called “and truth,” one of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, which in the Kabbalah are the thirteen tikkunim of Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser.

A further reason why truth belongs to Daas: truth is what does not change, as G‑d says, “I, Havayah, have not changed” (Malachi 3:6). In a person’s service, Daas is what gives love and awe their staying power.

Feelings that come from a passing inspiration fade under the pressure of physical life; feelings rooted in Daas remain, “like a spring whose waters do not prove false” (Isaiah 58:11), a spring that never runs dry. The Alter Rebbe refers to discourses that develop this: “And these are the laws,” “Many waters,” and the discourse on the lulav.

This is truth as the opposite of the “falsehood” of a spring that fails. Faith is different: a person who has not reached the point of “seeing” still believes and accepts the truth.

Among the Sefiros, Malchus of Atzilus is called faith (emunah). The Zohar says that Malchus is called faith when truth is joined to it: it receives the truth of Z’eir Anpin.

Daas belongs to the “higher unity,” the view from G‑d’s side, in which “all before Him is considered as nothing” and everything below is truly nothing.

Malchus is the “lower unity,” the source of the three lower worlds, where created things are made “something from nothing” and feel themselves to be something. G‑d’s kingship needs such separate subjects, for “there is no king without a people.”

Even so, the higher unity is drawn into the lower one. This is truth drawn into faith: the Daas of the higher unity is revealed within the lower unity, not as direct sight but as faith, believing in the truth.

The phrase “she is in Hod” describes this: Malchus receives through Hod, acknowledgment. The discourse on Grace after Meals in the Siddur discusses it in terms of bread from heaven and bread from the earth. So too Moshe was told to put “some of your splendor (hod)” upon Yehoshua (Numbers 27:20).

Moshe is Daas, the sun, the higher unity; Yehoshua had “the face of the moon,” as the elders said (Bava Basra 75a), the lower unity, which receives from the higher only through Hod. This matches the known difference between blessing (berachah), which draws down into revelation, and acknowledgment (hoda’ah).

Acknowledgment means admitting that something is true before G‑d even though it is not revealed to oneself. That is why faith, Malchus, is “in Hod”: it holds the truth by acknowledging it rather than by seeing it.

The summary recalls the two points of this section: Moshe, Daas, is the inner dimension of Yaakov, Tiferes; and Daas is truth, while Malchus is faith.

Section 3 turns to Malchus. It is called atarah, a crown, because in one respect it is Keser itself: the last level reflects the first. The Alter Rebbe refers to his discourses on “A menorah all of gold” (Zechariah 4:2) and “Let me see your countenance” (Song of Songs 2:14).

An analogy from nature: the air near the earth is warm like the air high above, while the middle layer is cold, because the sun’s rays strike the ground with force and bounce back as returning light. The lowest point thus receives a strength that the middle lacks.

Now the analogy is applied above. Malchus is “the end of all levels” and is called “earth”; the line of Infinite Light, the kav, which runs down through all the partzufim of Atzilus (Arich Anpin, Abba and Imma, Z’eir Anpin and Nukva), comes to its end in Malchus.

As with sunlight striking the earth, the end of a descent has the strongest impact: there the light turns back upward as returning light, and the lowest point gains the warmth of the highest.

So the kav, reaching its end in Malchus of Atzilus, shines back upward as returning light, and from the point of view of this upward movement Malchus is itself Keser, the crown, the first level counting from below.

Sefer Yetzirah says of the Sefiros that “their beginning is wedged in their end”: the highest is rooted in the lowest. Iggeres HaKodesh, epistle 20, explains that Keser is called “the Keser of Malchus” because it holds the last level, the Malchus, of the Infinite; and so Malchus of Atzilus, in turn, is called a crown from below upward.

Malchus is also above Daas. In its root it is the “crown of beauty for those borne from the womb” of the blessing over the new moon (Sanhedrin 42a), for it comes from the Name Sag, a higher source than the Name Mah.

The Zohar at the beginning of Tazria reads “a crown of beauty (tiferes)” as Malchus being the crown of Tiferes, like “a woman of valor, the crown of her husband,” where Tiferes is the husband.

Earlier it was shown that Daas is the inner core of Tiferes. The Zohar at the end of Mishpatim says the same: the “mouth” of the King is Daas, hidden in the mouth of the King, who is called Tiferes.

If Malchus crowns Tiferes, it crowns the Daas within Tiferes as well. This is possible because, from below upward, Malchus is Keser, and Keser is above Daas.

“Those borne from the womb” (Isaiah 46:3) are the seven lower Sefiros of Imma, Binah: the emotions as they exist within the intellect. The Zohar says that the souls of Israel come from within the body of the supernal tree and are therefore called “those borne from the womb.” By contrast, the Daas that extends into the emotions receives mainly from Binah.

“If there is no Binah, there is no Daas” (Avos 3:17): Daas depends on Binah, except that Binah itself carries a radiance of Keser, as the Torah Ohr discourse on “Go for yourself” explains. So Daas has only an indirect light of Keser.

The same can be seen in a person. Daas and felt understanding apply only to G‑dliness as it fills the worlds, where it can be grasped within them.

G‑dliness as it encompasses the worlds, beyond all their bounds, cannot be known or felt; it can only be believed. Faith is believing that G‑d is beyond the category of worlds altogether, as the Torah Ohr discourse on “And Israel saw … and they believed in Havayah” (Exodus 14:31) explains.

So the light that transcends the worlds is revealed more in faith than in Daas, because Daas reaches only the light that fills the worlds. This is the human parallel to Malchus, faith, being a crown above Daas.

By the same token, Keser shines in Malchus more than in Daas and Tiferes. The Pardes says the same in its lexicon, under “Atarah” (crown), and in Sha’ar HaMetziyus, where it says that “earth,” Malchus, precedes “heavens,” Tiferes, in its root.

Proverbs 3:19 says, “With wisdom He founded the earth; He established the heavens with understanding.” The earth, Malchus or faith, is rooted in the higher Chochmah, above understanding and Daas; the heavens, Tiferes, are established through understanding and depend on it, as “if there is no Binah there is no Daas.”

The Alter Rebbe anticipates an objection: earlier he said that Daas and Tiferes are truth, and that Malchus, faith, merely receives from the truth.

Both are so. Malchus does receive from Z’eir Anpin, but it also receives from Keser, which is the source and root of Z’eir Anpin’s truth itself.

Truth is rooted in “the radiance of the countenance of Atika,” the innermost level of Keser, as the Zohar in Naso says, and this radiance shines more in Malchus. That is why the Song of Songs praises the beloved, Malchus or the Community of Israel: “Behold, you are beautiful.”

This answers a puzzle: why would the Torah praise the Matriarchs for their beauty (Sarah in Genesis 12:11, Rachel in Genesis 29:17)? Their beauty was the radiance of Keser shining in Malchus, the beginning wedged in the end.

The Alter Rebbe refers to the Pesach discourse “The voice of my beloved” (Song of Songs 2:8), which reads “leaping over the hills” as a revelation through the Matriarchs. He then explains “And Yaakov loved Rachel” (Genesis 29:18): Rachel is Malchus, faith, and Yaakov is Tiferes, which receives from Daas.

Daas is only a radiance of Keser, while Rachel, faith, holds Keser itself, the light that encompasses all worlds, since the beginning is wedged in the end. Yaakov’s love for Rachel thus expresses the bond between Tiferes, which receives Keser’s light only through Daas, and faith, in which Keser itself shines.

Rachel’s plea, “Give me children” (Genesis 30:1), is read in the same way. The “children” are love and awe, which are born mainly from Daas. Faith alone, without Daas drawn into it, remains a crown, a surrounding light that does not enter within.

Faith by itself does not give birth to love and awe, because the distractions of this world and the concealment of the body and the animal soul silence it: it is “like a ewe (rachel) before her shearers, mute” (Isaiah 53:7). That is why “Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:31).

When Daas contemplates the greatness of G‑d and arouses great compassion for the soul, then Rachel, faith, gives birth.

The love and awe born then come from the light that encompasses all worlds, and so they are the highest love and awe. This is Yosef, Rachel’s son, the level of the supernal tzaddik, “love with delights” (Song of Songs 7:7).

The summary of section 3: faith is called a crown; Malchus is “a crown of beauty,” crowning Tiferes; and all this follows from “their beginning is wedged in their end.”

Section 4 looks to the future. Now Malchus, faith, receives from Z’eir Anpin; in the Time to Come, when “the earth shall be full of knowledge” (Isaiah 11:9), Malchus will be equal to Z’eir Anpin. The Talmud tells that the sun and moon were created equal until the moon asked, “Can two kings share one crown?” (Chullin 60b); in the future that equality will return, with Daas flowing into Malchus and raising it to Keser.

A long parenthesis gathers Zohar sources. The Hashmatos, the addenda to the Zohar, apply “the earth shall be full of knowledge” to the water libation of the festival of Sukkos, since the verse ends “as the waters cover the sea”: pouring the water draws the higher Chochmah into Malchus.

Water covering the sea also stands for the “hidden world,” the transcendent light, the higher level of Havayah. In the future it will be revealed in the “earth,” the revealed world: what now transcends the worlds will openly fill them.

The Alter Rebbe brings the Zohar’s reading of “And Adam knew his wife again” (Genesis 4:25) as said of the Time to Come; “knew” echoes Daas, and the wife, Malchus. The idea is mentioned again in the Midrash HaNe’elam on Chayei Sarah.

The Ramaz, Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, comments that the root of this flow is the revelation of the Daas of Atik, the innermost level of Keser. The further Zohar passages say that in the days of Mashiach the deep secrets of the Torah will be revealed, and that knowledge will then fill the world “as the waters cover the sea.”

Elsewhere the Alter Rebbe explains the seven days of the milu’im, the inauguration of the Tabernacle, as filling the moon’s defect: drawing the transcendent light into the immanent light, as when “the glory of Havayah filled” the Tabernacle. “The earth shall be full of knowledge” is to be understood in the same way.

There are moments even now when Malchus rises, as at Minchah of Shabbos and at Ne’ilah of Yom Kippur, the climactic hours of the week and of the year.

But today every ascent is followed by a descent, because what we receive comes from the immanent light, which is subject to change. At Sinai the people stood “face to face” with G‑d.

Then came the fall at the sin of the Calf, then the period of the First Temple, and so on: every generation has its rises and falls. The Kabbalistic work Chesed LeAvraham lists these changing periods at its beginning.

The reason is that the immanent light enters the world like life in a body: it is present in the head and in the foot, and even in the belly and intestines with their waste, where only a tiny measure of life is found. Where the light is so diminished, there is room for change and decline.

This explains why the First Temple fell in a time of false prophets, and the Second because of baseless hatred.

Kelipah always grows as the counterpart of the holiness of its time. In the First Temple, when the Shechinah rested between the poles of the Ark and G‑dliness was openly revealed, the opposing force took the form of false beliefs, idolatry set directly against G‑dliness.

So the prophets describe women weeping for the Tammuz, an idol (Ezekiel 8:14), and the people in Egypt who told Yirmeyahu that since they had stopped burning incense to “the queen of heaven,” a heathen goddess, they had lacked everything (Jeremiah 44:18).

Their belief was the exact inverse of the truth: they lacked everything because they had not served G‑d “out of an abundance of everything” (Deuteronomy 28:47), yet they concluded, as people said in Yechezkel’s day, that “Havayah has forsaken the land” to the rule of the stars, and turned to idols.

The false prophets performed no wonders at all. Yechezkel rebukes those who prophesied falsely “for handfuls of barley and crumbs of bread,” declaring by their lies who would die and who would live; Rashi explains the crumbs of bread as the fee they took.

The true prophets did perform wonders, Yirmeyahu and Yechezkel among them, though not on Eliyahu’s scale; and still the people chose to believe the falsehood. The pull toward false belief was the counterpart of that era’s open revelation.

In the Second Temple five things that had been present in the First Temple were missing, among them the Ark, the Shechinah and the holy spirit of prophecy. The Alter Rebbe explains this as the absence of a revelation below of the first hei of the Name Havayah, the level of Binah, as he discusses in the discourse “The festival day of Rosh HaShanah.”

With less revelation of G‑dliness, the opposing force was less directed against faith in G‑d and took a different form: believing talebearers about ordinary matters. That is baseless hatred, which goes against nature, since a person does not naturally hate someone who has done him no harm.

The hatred arises only when talebearers falsely tell a person that his fellow is plotting against him. Because it rests on lies about someone who in truth did nothing wrong, it is “baseless.”

All these ups and downs belong to the immanent light, which reaches even the lowest places and so leaves room for evil to rule, just as the belly and its waste receive only a little life.

Hair, too, receives only a very contracted life. But of the transcendent light it is said, “And I will remove the spirit of impurity from the land” (Zechariah 13:2): when it is revealed in the future, evil will have no place at all.

That future revelation is brought about now, through Torah and mitzvos: “today, to do them” (Deuteronomy 7:11). And “this is the commandment … to do in the land” (Deuteronomy 6:1): the mitzvos are to be done “in the land,” that is, drawn into the level of faith, which is called earth.

The Torah and mitzvos must be drawn into faith, the “earth,” as in “dwell in the land and nurture faith” (Psalms 37:3), and this draws down the transcendent light. That is the meaning of “And you shall know this day”: to bring Daas into faith, a Daas of the transcendent light.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation on “Many waters” (Song of Songs 8:7), which distinguishes two levels of Daas. The lower Daas is drawn from Binah, understanding.

The lower Daas depends on understanding, as “if there is no Binah, there is no Daas,” and it grasps G‑dliness as it fills the worlds. The higher Daas comes directly from Keser and is a knowledge of the light that encompasses all worlds.

Now the opening question is answered. “You have been shown, to know” (Deuteronomy 4:35) is the lower Daas; “And you shall know this day” (Deuteronomy 4:39) is the higher Daas. “This day” stresses this world, the present life.

Gan Eden, the World to Come of the souls, is a world of judgment and reward that receives from the immanent light, and it is far from the transcendent light. In this world, though the transcendent light is hidden, it is nonetheless drawn down through Torah and mitzvos.

The discourse in Pinchas on “Command the children of Israel … My offering” (Numbers 28:2) develops this. So it is specifically “this day,” in this world, that a person can draw down the transcendent light and “nurture faith.”

This is the end of the verse, “that Havayah is Elokim.” The Zohar reads it: Havayah, Atik Yomin, the transcendent light, is one with Elokim, the power that conceals itself within the worlds; “all is one.” The higher Daas makes known, within this world, that the transcendent and the immanent are one.

The summary of section 4: in the future “the earth shall be full of knowledge,” and this is prepared now through “And you shall know this day,” bringing the higher Daas into faith, and through “nurture faith.”