ביאור על פסוק כי אתה נרי הנה בארוממך…

This explanation (biur) takes up the verse “For You are my lamp, Havayah, and Havayah illuminates my darkness,” but opens with another phrase, “I will exalt You” (Psalms 145: “I will exalt You, my G‑d the King”). Because the words speak to G‑d directly, they can mean drawing His exaltedness down into the world or raising something up to Him. In the first sense, the words of the prayers “Single One, Life of the worlds, King” describe how the One who is utterly alone also becomes, as King, the life of countless worlds.

The Arizal taught that creation required tzimtzum, a withdrawal of the Infinite Light that left a “vacated space” in which finite worlds could exist; worlds cannot come straight from the Infinite One as He is. So every flow from above passes through Malchus, G‑d’s kingship, the last of the Sefiros. Even the “thirteen tikkunim of the beard,” the highest channels of mercy, descend into Malchus, pictured as one whose “feet go down” into the lower worlds.

Kabbalistic books call Malchus Atarah, a crown, because the Supernal Keser, the highest level, is itself drawn down into Malchus. “I will exalt You” also has a second meaning: to raise Malchus up, so that it reaches the level of “King, Single One, Life of the worlds.”

When the Malchus of Atzilus descends to become Atik, the inner core of Keser, for the World of Beriah, it acts there as “Single One” in order to give life to the worlds. Exalting Malchus lifts it from below to above, until it reaches the Malchus of the Infinite One, kingship within the Infinite itself.

The two meanings of “I will exalt You” now become two holy days. Shabbos is the ascent from below to above, and Chanukah the drawing down of light from above to below.

The ascent is the work of birurim, refining the material of the world and raising it to holiness. The text alludes to the verse “He causes grass to grow for the beast” and to the beasts on “a thousand mountains,” and traces these to the Divine Name Kel Shaddai with its letters spelled out in full.

Refinement turns “something” (yesh) into “nothing” (ayin): the grass is absorbed into the beast and no longer stands on its own. The descent of creation runs the other way and produces coarse, self-assertive existence; the text links it with the Names Ban (52, the value of behemah, “beast”) and Sag (63), two ways of spelling out the Name Havayah. The reversal comes through the Name Mah (45), a word that also means “what?”, the stance of self-nullification (bittul).

In a person, this ascent happens in the animal soul when it is subdued (iskafya), when its drives are held in check for the sake of holiness. Its subjugation reaches very high because the animal soul’s root is in the World of Tohu (Chaos), the world that preceded the ordered World of Tikkun.

Physical foods also came down from Tohu in the shattering of the vessels, when that world’s vessels broke and their sparks fell into lower realms. That is why the Talmud says that wine and fragrance sharpen the mind, and records a Sage who explained an earlier statement by saying he had not eaten ox meat: these physical things carry a lofty root.

The animal soul itself was taken from the “dregs” of the Ofanim and the Chayos, the angels of Ezekiel’s vision of the Divine Chariot. Each face of the Chayos is the source of life for a class of creatures: from the face of the lion comes the life-force of the wild beasts.

Likewise the face of the ox gives life to the domestic animals, and the face of the eagle to the birds. All these roots lie in Tohu, and they came down into Beriah, the realm of creation, in the shattering of the vessels.

Tohu (Chaos) was a world of intense light in vessels too few to hold it. Because the light overpowered the vessels, each attribute stood alone, with no inter-inclusion, no blending with the others.

The Torah lists the kings who reigned in Edom before Israel had a king, beginning with “Bela son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dinhavah,” and Kabbalah reads these kings as the attributes of Tohu. The text reads Dinhavah as din havah, “give judgment!”: judgment in pure, unmixed form, too strong to blend with kindness.

Yovav, the next king of Edom, is Chesed (kindness), and it too is absolute: kindness so unlimited that it cannot combine with restraint. The World of Tikkun (Rectification), linked with the Name Mah and self-nullification, is the opposite: many vessels and less light, so that the light is weakened enough to be contained.

Because the light of Tikkun is tempered, even its judgment is not so severe, and the attributes can be included in one another. Kindness and judgment can then work together instead of excluding each other.

The animal soul comes from Tohu and the G‑dly soul from Tikkun, which is why the G‑dly soul, with its balance and self-nullification, is the one that refines the animal soul. Yet when the animal soul is subdued, it is lifted very high, because its root in Tohu is so lofty.

The verse “Their heart cried out” is read as speaking of the animal soul, which the text identifies with the heart. A cry is an ascent from below to above with meod, utmost intensity.

This cry is the ascent of Malchus that “I will exalt You” describes, reaching up to Keser. The worlds were made only from the “surplus” of the Divine intellect, pictured as hairs, because G‑d’s own essence has no relation or proportion to creation at all.

Hair grows from what is left over, and cutting it causes no pain: it belongs to the person yet does not touch his inner life. So the worlds draw their life through a very narrow “hair,” a mere glimmer that does not affect G‑d’s essence.

When a person reflects that all of G‑d’s light that fills and surrounds the worlds is only a faint glimmer of Him, the heart cries out to rise beyond it. This yearning is ratzo, “running” toward G‑d, and it corresponds to the wick of the lamp.

Ratzo must be joined by shov, “returning”: “if your heart runs, return to the One,” drawing the light down from above to below, which is the theme of Chanukah. A wick alone burns out quickly and gives little light; it is the oil that lets the flame last and shine.

Oil stands for Chochmah, wisdom, which is present at every level of reality: there is a Chochmah of Atzilus, a Chochmah of Beriah, and so on down.

At the lowest level, the Chochmah of Asiyah, wisdom is the Torah as we have it, clothed in physical things. A higher Torah, the Torah of Beriah, is what the Mishnah means when it says that Abraham kept the whole Torah before it was given: he kept it before it was clothed in this physical world.

Abraham kept the mitzvah of tefillin even though their passages, beginning with “Sanctify to Me every firstborn,” recall the Exodus, which had not yet happened. He kept the mitzvah at its higher level, before it took physical form.

He likewise kept circumcision before he physically circumcised himself. Circumcision means removing the foreskin so that the external forces, the powers opposed to holiness, receive no nurture, and Abraham accomplished this spiritually first.

Only the physical act was missing, and that is the meaning of “before it was given.” The oil that is drawn down is above all the higher Chochmah, which transcends the emotions, unlike the lower Chochmah that is derived from them.

Love and awe come in an order: awe and love, love and awe. The lower awe comes from the lower unity, G‑d as present within the world, in Malchus; the higher awe is in the higher Chochmah and is rooted in Mocha Stima’ah, the “hidden brain” within Keser.

Mocha Stima’ah comes from the Gevurah of Atik, the innermost level of Keser, and from there the “hairs,” the thirteen tikkunim of the beard, extend. Their true source is this hidden brain, not Abba, the Chochmah of Atzilus.

This hidden source is what Rabbi Moshe Cordovero calls the Chochmah within Keser; according to the Arizal it is higher still, in the Malchus of the Infinite itself. This same lofty source is drawn into the Torah we have.

It enters the physical Torah given at Sinai, as in the verse “which I command you today, to do them,” the word “today” pointing to the doing of mitzvos in this world. The abbreviation in the Hebrew, נתב״ס, is read here as “given at Sinai.” Above, by contrast, light descends step by step through countless levels of cause and effect.

Through the chain of descent, Malchus is extremely far from Mocha Stima’ah, the Chochmah within Keser. Yet in physical Asiyah, through the Torah’s physical mitzvos, that highest source is drawn down directly, without passing through the chain.

The miracle of Chanukah fits this pattern: the Greeks, who stand for the Chochmah of kelipah, the wisdom of the forces opposed to holiness, defiled all the oil, which stands for holy Chochmah. In the Book of Daniel, Babylon is the head of gold in the vision of the kingdoms, and the text calls Persia and Media the arms; only one cruse of oil, sealed with the High Priest’s seal, remained pure.

The seal stands for Yesod, the Sefirah that connects and transmits. The High Priest corresponds to the “Great Priest” (Kahana Rabba), “abundant in kindness,” whose beard, with its thirteen tikkunim, the text goes on to identify with the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy.

The source of this “Great Priest” is Mocha Stima’ah, the hidden brain described above. This is why, in the Torah, the attributes of mercy, “Kel, merciful and gracious,” are preceded by “Havayah, Havayah.”

The thirteen attributes begin with the Name Kel; for them to come into being, a flow must first come from the doubled “Havayah, Havayah,” which corresponds to the two pe’os (sidelocks). That flow comes from Mocha Stima’ah.

In the Torah’s “Havayah, Havayah,” at the start of the Thirteen Attributes, the cantillation sets a pause between the two Names. The verse from the Prophets on which this maamar is built also says the Name twice: “For You are my lamp, Havayah, and Havayah illuminates my darkness.”

There the second Name is joined to the first by the letter vav, “and,” with no pause between them. To explain the difference, the text brings two verses that order the same words in opposite ways, beginning with “Gracious and merciful is Havayah.”

The other verse reads “Havayah, merciful and gracious.” The two orders reflect two levels of Havayah: one in Z’eir Anpin, from which the created worlds come to be, and one in Arich Anpin, the source of grace and mercy themselves.

“Havayah, merciful and gracious,” with the Name first, describes Arich Anpin: its Havayah, the two pe’os, flows down in order to bring the thirteen tikkunim into Z’eir Anpin.

“Gracious and merciful is Havayah,” with the Name last, describes the result: the thirteen attributes of grace and mercy are drawn into Z’eir Anpin so that Z’eir Anpin itself can bear the Name Havayah.

The first half of the verse, “For You are my lamp, Havayah,” refers to the Havayah of Z’eir Anpin, which receives its light step by step from the thirteen tikkunim. It corresponds to the early generations, whose souls were themselves on a lofty level.

“And Havayah illuminates my darkness” refers to the darkness of the time just before Mashiach, “the footsteps of Mashiach.” Its light comes from the Havayah of Arich Anpin, outside the ordinary chain of descent, and the joining vav is needed to draw light down from so high a place.

The light of Arich Anpin is drawn down through tzedakah, charity, as the Sages taught that redemption comes only through tzedakah. The morning blessing before the Shema (Yotzer Or) calls G‑d the One who “sows tzedakos,” for charity works like sowing.

A seed sown in the ground yields far more than itself, because the earth holds a hidden power of growth that is, in a sense, infinite: it can keep producing without end.

Tzedakah likewise holds a hidden power of the Infinite. That power comes from Arich Anpin, called “the most hidden of all hidden.”

Through tzedakah, the revelation of the Infinite Light itself increases: the light that was hidden in Mocha Stima’ah before it came down into the thirteen tikkunim. Chanukah shows the same pattern, since all the oil below had been defiled.

The light could be drawn down only through the one cruse sealed with the High Priest’s seal, the “Great Priest” whose source, as explained above, is Mocha Stima’ah.

Oil stands for concealment: it soaks into the wick and is not seen. Yet from that hidden place it makes the flame shine all the more, as the oil is drawn up the wick.

The flame of a lamp shows two colors. The blue light, produced by the wick, only lets the flame hold on and gives little light; the oil produces the pure, bright light.

The white light stands for open, direct revelation, as though one saw G‑dliness face to face, not merely imagined it in thought, which the text calls concealment. The words “after our likeness,” from the verse of man’s creation, share their root, d-m-h, with dimyonos, “imaginings.”

The two lights correspond to love and awe in the four letters of the Name Havayah: yud is awe, the first hei love, the vav love, the final hei awe. So the two loves stand in the middle, framed by two kinds of awe.

Higher awe, in Chochmah, is complete self-nullification before G‑d. Lower awe, in Malchus, is fear: a subject’s fear of rebelling against the King, like the trembling before the Throne.

Those before the Throne “all proclaim in awe and fear”: this is the lower, outward fear. Higher awe is complete self-nullification, since “there is nothing else besides Him.”

The bowing and prostration of the Shemoneh Esreh draw this self-nullification down into a person. Of the two loves, the higher belongs to the first hei, Binah, and is called “love in delights,” a phrase from the Song of Songs.

This higher love comes from above, while the lower love, in the vav, Z’eir Anpin, is born of the mind’s contemplation and rises from below. The word V’ahavta, “and you shall love,” has the numerical value 414, twice or, “light” (207): the two loves are the two lights.