להבין הטעם שנשתנה יצירת גוף האדם משאר כל…

AI research Found by AI reading every place in the Rebbe’s works that cites this maamar, and checked against each source by a second AI reader, the less certain by a third. Only what rated high is shown: the Rebbe’s own words, about this very passage. No person has reviewed it yet, so check the place itself before relying on a detail. See something to correct? Send a suggestion

The maamar in the Rebbe’s light

The Rebbe’s teachings on this maamar keep returning to its paradox: the choicest of creatures („מובחר בנבראים”) was given the lowest body. In a talk of Shabbos Nitzavim 5745 (unedited) he finds man’s body lowest even within the inanimate, made of loose grains of dust („פירורים של חול”), and gives this maamar’s reason: to raise the whole creation one must take hold of its lowest part, as a jack (כלי ההגבהה) is set under the lowest beam. In his maamar of Zos Chanukah 5746 and a note of Shabbos Eikev 5751 he sets that jack beside Likkutei Torah’s balance scale, each showing another side of how the lowest bears on the rise of the highest. In a talk of Shabbos Noach 5731 (unedited) he explains why life reached so low a body by “blowing” (נפיחה), from G‑d’s innermost and yet more tangible than speech, and in his maamar Hayoshevet BaGanim (5713) he cites the paragraph’s „נעוץ תחלתן בסופן” (“their beginning is wedged in their end”) for the advantage of doing the mitzvos over study. In notes of 5702 on the Chevra Kadisha he carries the passage to its end: what was done in Adam alone is completed when every body returns to dust („אל עפר תשוב”) before the revival. Perhaps, in our own reading, the inanimate body then appears less as man’s lowliness than as the place where his task begins and is fulfilled.

Paragraph by paragraph

1. ¶2

   The Rebbe explains

   In his source notes to the Rebbe Rayatz’s maamar V’Yakem Eidus b’Yaakov (Shabbos Chol HaMoed Pesach 5700), which retells this passage almost word for word to show how a soul can be vested in a body of the inanimate level (דומם), the Rebbe remarks on the order of the verses it quotes for the plants and the animals.

   Our paragraph lists what came forth out of the Torah’s order: the plants of the earth („תדשא הארץ”, the third day), then the beasts of the earth („תוצא הארץ”, the sixth day), and only then the fish of the waters („ישרצו המים”, the fifth day). The Rebbe notes that Torah Ohr already cites the verses in this order, while Torah Chaim does not, and suggests that the order was changed „כדי לסמוך מעשה ארץ זל״ז” (to set the works of the earth next to each other).

   The Alter Rebbeע״י מאמר ה׳ שאמר תוצא הארץ כו׳ ישרצו המים כו׳ והוא צוה ונבראו כמו שהן עתה

   The Rebbeבסדר זה הובאו גם בתו״א שם (משא״כ בתו״ח). וי״ל דשינה סדר הפסוקים, כדי לסמוך מעשה ארץ זל״ז

   Sefer HaMaamarim 5700 (the Rebbe’s source notes to the Rebbe Rayatz’s maamarim), p. 61, the note on "תדשא, תוצא, ישרצו" · the maamar was said on Shabbos Chol HaMoed Pesach 5700; the notes are the Rebbe’s

   Suggest a correction

2. ¶2

   A question the Rebbe raises

   In notes he wrote for himself on the founding of a Chevra Kadisha (headed 5 Menachem Av 5702), starting from the Baal Shem Tov’s saying, recorded in the Rebbe Rashab’s Hemshech 5672, that he „יכול לעלות בסערה השמים” (could have gone up to heaven in a storm) but wished to pass through „אל עפר תשוב” (“to dust you shall return”), the Rebbe suggests why that return is so great a thing.

   The Rebbe draws from this passage and its reason („הגבוה ביותר יכול לירד דוקא בהמטה יותר”, only the highest can go down into the lowest) a difficulty: apart from Adam, every person’s body has a soul from conception (Sanhedrin 91b). He answers „שמספקת ההכנה שנעשית ע״י אדה״ר” (that the preparation made through Adam suffices), and that it is present, hidden, in everyone. But for the time to come, when nothing is hidden, the preparation must be revealed and actual; so every body must „אל עפר תשוב” (“return to dust”), becoming in actual fact inanimate, „שגם צדיקים שבים לעפרם שעה א׳ עכ״פ” (even the righteous for at least an hour) before the revival (Shabbos 152b), so that the light of the revival can then be revealed in them.

   The Alter Rebbeוכמארז״ל בקומתן נבראו. משא״כ בבריאת האדם שנעשה גופו תחלה בפ״ע עפר בלי שום נפש חיונית בתוכו

   The Rebbeהאדם גופו נברא דומם משא״כ שאר הנבראים דבקומתן נבראו. ואחד הטעמים דהגבוה ביותר יכול לירד דוקא בהמטה יותר

   Reshimos, vol. booklet 25 (on the founding of the Chevra Kadisha, headed 5 Menachem Av 5702), p. 5 (the Rebbe’s own text; the editors’ expanded version, with their deciphering woven in, pp. 12–14) · notes the Rebbe wrote for himself, headed 5 Menachem Av 5702 (published 5756)

   Suggest a correction

3. ¶3

   The Rebbe explains

   In a talk on Shabbos Noach, Rosh Chodesh Marcheshvan 5731 (unedited), taking up the reading, explained in Chassidus, of a year “poor at its beginning” and “rich at its end” (Rosh Hashanah 16b) as before and after the shofar, and why blowing the shofar takes more effort than speech („יש צורך בהשתדלות יתירה מאשר ענין הדיבור”), the Rebbe connects the shofar with man’s creation on Rosh Hashanah: „ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים” (“He blew into his nostrils the breath of life”).

   The Rebbe sees two sides in G‑d’s “blowing” the soul into man. It comes from within, from the innermost life („מאן דנפח מתוכי׳ נפח”, “one who blows, blows from within himself”), unlike creation as a whole, which came from the outer level, speech. Yet „הבל הנפיחה נתגשם ויש בו ממשות יותר מאשר הבל הדיבור” (the breath of blowing is coarser and more tangible than the breath of speech), and that is why it can give life to man’s body, which is lower than the bodies of the animals, „שנבראו לכתחילה עם נפש החיונית שבתוכם” (made with their life in them from the start), as Torah Ohr explains in this maamar.

   The Alter Rebbeעד שאח״כ ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים הרי שלא יצא גופו מן הארץ על דרך שהוא עתה

   The Rebbeהבל הנפיחה נתגשם ויש בו ממשות יותר מאשר הבל הדיבור, ולכן יש בכחו להחיות את גוף האדם

   Toras Menachem 5731 (unedited), vol. 1, p. 231 (§ב; the talk from p. 229) · Shabbos Noach, Rosh Chodesh Marcheshvan 5731 (unedited)

   Suggest a correction

4. ¶3

   The Rebbe explains

   In a talk on Shabbos Nitzavim, 28 Elul 5745, the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah, the day of Adam’s creation, the Rebbe asks how the body of man, the choicest of creatures and the purpose of creation, can be the lowest of all bodies.

   Even within the inanimate there are grades, the Rebbe says: mountain, hill, plain, valley, stone, and within dust itself „עפר חזק, ועכ״פ גוש” (firm earth or at least a clod). Adam was made of „עפר מן האדמה” (“dust from the ground”), loose grains gathered from the whole world („מכל העולם כולו הוצבר עפרו”), which needed water to join them into „גולם אחד” (one golem), as flour is joined into dough. So man’s body differs from all creatures not only in that the soul came afterward, but in being made from the very lowest grade of the inanimate; and the reason is this maamar’s jack: since the purpose is to raise the whole creation, one must take hold of its lowest parts („די חלקים הכי תחתונים”).

   The Alter Rebbeוכמארז״ל שעה ראשונה צבר עפרו כו׳ ומתחלה היה גולם כמ״ש גלמי ראו עיניך

   The Rebbeנאר אין דומם גופא - איז ער באשאפן געווארן פון דער דרגא הכי תחתונה בדומם, פירורים של חול

   Sichos Kodesh 5745 (unedited), vol. 5 (Tammuz–Elul), p. ח (the talk’s own pagination, the only number printed) · Shabbos Nitzavim, 28 Elul 5745, Shabbos Mevarchim Tishrei (unedited)

   Suggest a correction

5. ¶8

   The Rebbe explainsThe Rebbe says this in more than one place

   In a sicha of Shabbos Eikev, Shabbos Mevarchim Elul 5751, on „אני לדודי ודודי לי” (“I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”), the Rebbe says that the full rise of the highest, the „חלק אלוקה ממעל” (“part of G‑d above”), comes about only by raising the very lowest, the body; he brings for this the image of the scale and explains in a note why not this maamar’s jack.

   In a note the Rebbe restates this analogy and how the Alter Rebbe uses it: man, the purpose of creation, raises the whole order of the worlds, so his body was made first, by itself, „מבחי׳ דומם היותר תחתון מכולם” (“of the inanimate level, the lowest of them all”), and only then „ויפח” (“He blew”). Then he marks its limit: by this analogy „זהו נוגע רק לתחתונים” (the lifting concerns only the lower ones). By the balance scale of Likkutei Torah, where the lower one pan goes the higher the other rises, the higher ones themselves gain height, „ולא מפני ענין צדדי” (and not through something incidental).

   The Alter Rebbeכשצריכים להגביה איזה דבר מן הארץ ע״י כלי ההגבהה הנקרא ליווע״ר צריכים לאחוז בחלקים התחתונים שבו דוקא

   The Rebbeאבל עפ״ז זהו נוגע רק לתחתונים, משא״כ ע״פ המשל שם (מהכף מאזניים, …) נמצא שגם בעליונים מצד ענינם הם ניתוסף בגובה

   Sefer HaSichos 5751, vol. 2, p. 758, note 83 · Shabbos Eikev, 23 Menachem Av, Shabbos Mevarchim Elul 5751

   Suggest a correction

6. ¶8

   The Rebbe explainsThe Rebbe says this in more than one place

   In a maamar on the night of Zos Chanukah 5746, having shown that the main point of Chanukah’s eighth day is „ההמשכה למטה” (the drawing down below), into Malchus, the Rebbe explains it from the advantage of action, „כח המעשה שבאדם, כח הכי תחתון” (the lowest power of the soul), through which all the powers rise.

   The Rebbe brings this analogy and adds his own reading: „דכיון שכל הקורות הם של בית אחד” (since all the beams belong to one house), if the lowest beam stays down even the raising of the upper beams is incomplete; all the more so in the soul, „שכל כח משפיע על שאר הכחות” (where every power affects the others), so the intellect’s own rise is complete only when action is raised. In a note he explains why two analogies are needed: the balance scale of Likkutei Torah shows that the higher powers depend on the lowest in themselves, and the jack shows that even the rise they could have on their own is complete only by raising the lowest.

   The Alter Rebbeמשא״כ אם היה מתחיל מאמצע הכותל לא היה מגביה התחתונים

   The Rebbeויש לומר, דכיון שכל הקורות הם של בית אחד, לכן, כשקורה התחתונה נשארת למטה, גם ההגבהה והעלי׳ של קורות העליונות אינה בשלימות

   Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, vol. 4, p. קי–קיא (notes 17 and 19) · Motzaei Shabbos Mikeitz, the night of Zos Chanukah 5746

   Suggest a correction

7. ¶9

   The Rebbe explains

   In a maamar for the Alter Rebbe’s yahrzeit, Hayoshevet BaGanim (Shabbos Shemos, 23 Teves 5713), which sets out the Rebbe Rashab’s maamar of that name (5667) and with it his account of the letters of Havayah in a person’s service, where the Vav is the study of Torah and the final Hei the doing of the mitzvos, the Rebbe draws what follows from the mitzvos being the lower letter.

   Although the doing of the mitzvos is the final Hei, below the Vav of Torah study, „מזה גופא” (“from this itself”), the Rebbe writes, it is understood „דיש מעלה במצוות לגבי תורה” (that the mitzvos have an advantage over Torah). His note gives the reason from this paragraph: „דבה׳ תתאה דוקא מתגלה היו״ד וגם קוצו של יי״ד” (in the lower Hei specifically the Yud, and even the tip of the Yud, is revealed), for „נעוץ תחילתן בסופן” (“their beginning is wedged in their end”). He reads our paragraph’s rule, the highest vested directly in the lowest, as the root of the advantage of deed over study.

   The Alter Rebbeאלא בבחינת ה׳ תתאה שהוא מקור בחינת דומם הוא מתלבש כי נעוץ תחלתן בסופן דוקא

   The Rebbeדבה׳ תתאה דוקא מתגלה היו״ד וגם קוצו של יי״ד, כי נעוץ תחילתן בסופן דוקא

   Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, vol. 2, p. רלד, note 44 · Shabbos Shemos, 23 Teves, Shabbos Mevarchim Shevat 5713

   Suggest a correction

Short quotes only, with the place of each so it can be read in full. The Rebbe’s sichos, letters and maamarim are published by Kehot and by Vaad Hanochos B’Lahak (lahak.org).