ביאור על הנ״ל

This heading marks what follows as a biur (“explanation”): a further discourse that develops the ideas of the maamar before it at greater length. That maamar opens with the rule that the Chanukah lamp is placed on the left of the doorway so that the mezuzah is on the right, and this biur explains that rule.

The biur names its subject: the rule that the Chanukah lamp stands on the left side of the doorway and the mezuzah on the right. It then states the key distinction: the mitzvos work “from below to above,” as a person lifts the physical world toward G‑d, while the Torah works “from above to below,” as G‑d’s wisdom comes down to the person.

The two movements meet like two people on a ladder, one climbing up and the other coming down, who meet in the middle. The rest of the biur explains how the upward movement of the mitzvos and the downward movement of the Torah come together.

Two verses seem to describe creation differently. One says that G‑d made whatever He desired, as though creation came from His desire; the other says that the heavens were made by His word, that is, through speech.

The Alter Rebbe reconciles them: G‑d’s word brought the bare substance of each thing into being, while its particular shape and form come from His desire. That desire for form works through wisdom, as the third verse says, “You have made them all with wisdom.”

Chochmah (wisdom) is linked here with Gevuros, the powers of restraint and measure, because giving each thing its own form means dividing and defining. It draws the boundaries between one shape and another, down to every detail of every kind.

The root of this differentiating wisdom lies higher still, in what the Kabbalah calls Botzina deKardinusa: the primordial power of measure, the “line of measure” that marks out the dimensions of everything that will exist. The verse about G‑d measuring the waters in the hollow of His hand describes this same divine measuring. It first comes into revelation in the Chochmah of Atzilus, called the light of Abba (“Father”), where “How many are Your works” is already present as a great multitude of particulars.

Although the particulars are many, in Chochmah they exist together, included in one. In the same way, a person’s mind can take in many ideas in a single moment, yet putting them into words, one after another, may take an hour or two.

So too, all the forms of creation are contained together in Chochmah, and they were spelled out through the ten utterances by which the world was created. Yet there are only ten utterances, because speech conveyed creation only in broad categories, not detail by detail.

Speech is needed so that created things can exist as yesh, as beings with an existence of their own. The Chochmah of Atzilus, and even Z’eir Anpin, the level of the Name Havayah, cannot produce such existence, because everything there is still wholly one with the Infinite One: “He and His life-forces are one.”

Separate existence begins only with the Malchus (sovereignty) of Atzilus, G‑d’s kingship, which is likened to a king’s word that rules over others. The Malchus of Atzilus descends to become the Atik, the innermost and highest source, of the World of Beriah, the first world of separate beings; the lowest level of the higher world becomes the highest level of the lower one.

Even so, Havayah, the Name of G‑d as He transcends and brings all into being, rules over Malchus, so that the beings that come into existence are nullified before Him. The angels, “the host of heaven,” bow in their self-nullification, in kelos hanefesh, a longing so intense that the soul would expire into its source.

Even the sun and the moon “bow,” not only in spirit but with their very bodies, by circling without end in the course set for them. This bittul comes from G‑d’s desire, which passes down through the Chochmah of Atzilus, then through the Chochmah within the Malchus of Atzilus, until it is enclothed in the three lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah.

The verse “One higher than the high watches over him” is read as a chain of oversight: each level receives from the one above it, all the way to the very top. So G‑d’s desire, at the top of the chain, governs everything below.

In a parenthetical remark the Alter Rebbe notes that even the philosophers accept such a chain of causes; they simply know of only the ten lower levels. In the astronomy of the time, the heavens were made of nested spheres: eight spheres carrying the planets and the stars, and a ninth, “daily” sphere that turns the whole heaven once a day.

The Alter Rebbe refers to the Pardes (Pardes Rimonim, the Kabbalistic work of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero), which records what the philosophers agreed on, including a tenth, the “sphere of the intellect.” Beyond this, he says, they claim no knowledge; yet nothing in their own reasoning rules out further levels above these.

The worshipers of stars and constellations argue that since G‑d’s light has come down through layer upon layer of concealment, through the Name Elokim, which contracts and hides it, the world must stay that way. In their view, once nature is set in place it runs by itself.

Against this stands the verse “For I know that Havayah is great.” The “I” who knows is Malchus and the Community of Israel, who recognize that Havayah rules over every level of Elokim, over all of nature. Pharaoh, who said “I do not know Havayah,” knew only Elokim, G‑d as hidden within nature.

The words “G‑d has forsaken the earth” express the same belief, that G‑d has left the world to run on its own. The parenthetical aside rejects it, pointing to Tanya, Part II: creating heaven and earth from nothing is a greater miracle than splitting the sea, and the world, like the sea, continues only as long as G‑d’s power keeps acting on it. From the mistaken belief comes the taunt “Where is their G‑d?”

The truth is that “whatever Havayah desired, He has done”: the transcendent Name Havayah acts within nature itself. This is the union of Havayah with Elokim, also called the union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah: Havayah is drawn down and interwoven with Elokim, so that created existence is nullified before G‑d.

The union of Havayah and Elokim can take place in two ways. In the first, Havayah descends into Elokim; this is called the interweaving (shiluv) of Havayah within Elokim, in which the letters of the two Names alternate to form a single combined Name.

In that combination the alef, the first letter of Elokim, comes before the yud, the first letter of Havayah, showing that Elokim is on the outside, clothing Havayah within it. The second way is the reverse: Elokim rises upward.

When Elokim rises and is absorbed into Havayah, the yud comes first, showing that Havayah now leads and Elokim is included in it. The Alter Rebbe states that this second way, the ascent of Elokim, is the superior one.

The reason is that for Havayah to come down and clothe itself in Elokim requires many contractions (tzimtzumim), so that it can be enclothed in yesh, in created existence. But when Elokim rises into Havayah, it is lifted into ayin, the divine “nothingness” that lies beyond all defined existence.

The verse “For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah is light” has two halves that match the two movements: the mitzvah, the lamp, is ascent, and the Torah, the light, is drawing down. To explain this, the Alter Rebbe first discusses the nature of the letters, which issue from five places of articulation in the mouth.

Alef, ches, hei and ayin are the letters formed in the throat; the other groups come from the palate, the tongue, the teeth and the lips. Yet these organs do not produce the letters the way a harp produces its sound: a harp holds no music until a player plays it, and only then is the sound born.

Speech is different: the letters already exist in the soul, which is “full of letters.” When they reach the mouth, it is they that move the organs of speech, and not the organs that create them.

Letters exist on several levels. The letters of thought are associated with Binah (understanding), and the letters of speech with Malchus (sovereignty). What counts as “speech” on a higher plane is like “thought” compared with the plane below it.

So the speech of the angels, as when they call to one another in praise, is on the level of human thought. Each level receives from the one above it, all the way up: what is thought for a lower level is only speech compared with the level above, whose thought is more hidden still.

Having shown that the letters exist before speech, the Alter Rebbe traces their root higher. Their revelation begins in Chochmah, the soul-level called Chayah: the verse says that man became a nefesh chayah, “a living soul,” and Chayah is the level of the soul that corresponds to Chochmah. But Chochmah is only where the letters first become revealed.

Their hidden root is far higher, in Keser (the Crown), the level above intellect. The Zohar calls the letters “supernal crowns” and describes the letter kaf coming down from upon G‑d’s Throne of Glory, showing that the letters descend from the very highest place.

The letters are not a product of the intellect. Reason cannot grasp what the letters are in themselves, or account for their pronunciation as alef, beis, gimmel, as though they flowed from the mind’s own faculties.

Rather, the letters are drawn from a level above the intellect, and they become a garment for it. Through them the mind can understand and express any matter, in any of the seventy languages.

Every idea can be grasped only through letters, yet the letters are not the idea itself, only its garment. That is why the same idea can be clothed sometimes in one set of letters and sometimes in another.

The same idea can be put in different words: Tosafos and the Ran, two classic commentators on the Talmud, can express the same reasoning, each in his own words. This shows that the letters are not the idea itself; they come from above the intellect, though they become revealed only within it.

An analogy follows: the power of procreation, which has its seat in the brain, emerges in a person only once he reaches a certain age. The text gives two ages, thirteen or nine, and refers to the beginning of the eighth chapter of tractate Sanhedrin, where the Talmud discusses whether a boy as young as nine can already father a child.

A boy’s mind may already be fully developed, yet the power of procreation is not complete until that age. And its completion depends on the food he eats.

The proof is the law that on the eve of Yom Kippur the High Priest is not fed foods that increase seed, so that he would not become ritually impure on that day. Some foods increase seed and others decrease it, so food affects this power directly.

The foods themselves contain no power of procreation. Only when they reach the brain and strengthen it does that power come into being and become complete.

So it is with the letters: they come from a level above the intellect, a level that cannot be grasped in letters at all. Yet when they reach the intellect, it is through them that the intellect is revealed.

This is why it is said of Metatron, a chief angel, that he “binds crowns for his Maker” from the prayers of Israel. The letters of prayer rise by means of the angels, many of whom are appointed in each heavenly chamber (heichal) to receive the prayers, and the Zohar says that the angel kisses the prayer.

The kiss is explained by analogy: one who kisses puts his breath into what he kisses. So the angel puts his own breath, his own vitality, into the letters of prayer.

In this way the angel lifts the letters from human speech to angelic speech, which, as explained above, is the level of thought relative to the world below. So the prayer rises from one world to the next.

It rises up to the highest world, where Metatron makes of it a crown: he raises the letters to their source and root, which is in Keser, the Crown.

The purpose of raising the letters is to draw down new letters. Prayer says “May it be Your will,” asking that a new will be drawn down, different from the will first drawn into Chochmah; and Chochmah, as explained earlier, is the level of judgment and strict measure.

The Torah too comes from Chochmah, and it is called “a fiery law,” which points to fire and Gevuros: by the Torah’s own measure there is no suffering without sin. But Keser holds simple compassion, which “bears iniquity,” and from there new letters, the expression of a new will, are drawn down.

The same pattern holds for the mitzvos, as in “a mitzvah is a lamp.” A flame gives light only when there is air around it.

Without air the flame goes out and gives no light at all. Air corresponds to the letters, and yet, in the order of the elements, air lies below fire.

Even so, air is far finer and more refined than fire. The reason is that although air lies below fire, its root is higher.

To explain this, the Alter Rebbe turns to Yaakov, who said “How awesome!” after his dream of the ladder. So when we speak of G‑d as “the great, the mighty and the awesome,” “awesome” is the attribute of Yaakov.

Awe would seem to belong not to Yaakov but to Yitzchak, whose G‑d is called “the Fear of Yitzchak.” The answer is that Yaakov was the intermediary between the Patriarchs, joining Avraham’s kindness with Yitzchak’s restraint.

Two opposites cannot be joined by either of them alone; they unite only when a spirit from a level above both is poured out upon them. So G‑d “makes peace in His heights,” bringing harmony between opposing forces from a place above them.

Because Yaakov joined the two sides, he revealed the quality of “awesome,” which stands above both of them. Air, too, is an intermediary, and that is the source of its refinement: it belongs to the middle line of the Sefiros, between the right line of Chochmah, Chesed and Netzach and the left line of Binah, Gevurah and Hod.

The middle line runs through Keser, Daas, Tiferes and Yesod. Air corresponds to this line, which is Z’eir Anpin, the level of Tiferes; that is why the Hebrew word for air, avir, is spelled like or, “light,” with an added yud.

The yud stands for the concealment of the light, which brings the light down and draws it forth so that it can shine. The letters work the same way: they are a concealment, and through them the intellect is conveyed.

In the letters and through them the intellect is grasped and revealed; as explained above, no idea can exist without letters.

Air, the concealing medium, plays the same role for light: in it and through it the light of the flame is held and comes to shine. This is the meaning of “For a mitzvah is a lamp, and the Torah is light.”

Through the mitzvah, the lamp, the Torah becomes light. The mitzvos rise up to Keser, their root, called the “six hundred and twenty pillars of light” (620 is the numerical value of the word keser, כתר), each a pillar that joins above with below.

Yaakov is called “the rope of His inheritance”: when the lower end of a rope is moved, the upper end moves with it. So the mitzvos, which are in Malchus, reach up to Keser, and from there new letters, an added light, are drawn down so that the light of the Torah shines. The Torah is called “the parable of the Ancient One,” as the next paragraph explains.

The Torah was just called a “parable,” and the Alter Rebbe explains what that means through Shlomo, who “spoke three thousand parables.” Shlomo’s wisdom is the “lower Chochmah,” the level of the Malchus of Atzilus, the last of the Sefiros of the World of Emanation.

More precisely, it is the Malchus of Atzilus as it shines into the lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. The Malchus of Atzilus itself is the holy spirit (ruach hakodesh), Netzach and Hod of Atzilus are the source of prophecy, and in Atzilus everything is one with G‑d.

Because prophecy and the holy spirit come from Atzilus, which is one with the Infinite, every verse of the Torah and the Prophets holds six hundred thousand interpretations. Proverbs and the Song of Songs, which Shlomo said with the holy spirit, come from the Malchus of Atzilus itself, a level above Shlomo’s own wisdom.

The wisdom that G‑d gave Shlomo, however, is the lower Chochmah of Beriah. With it he spoke three thousand parables on every matter of the Torah.

Those parables express the spiritual meaning within the words of the Torah as it exists in the three worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. In a parenthetical remark, the Alter Rebbe adds that whatever exists below has a counterpart above: the esrog taken below stirs its counterpart above, which is why the mitzvah requires an esrog specifically and not an apple.

To bring this closer to the mind, it is like a physical object pictured in a person’s imagination. But human imagining accomplishes nothing, whereas above, “My thoughts are not your thoughts”: there, the counterpart is real and has effect.

Shlomo grasped these levels from the lowest rung of Asiyah up to the first rung of Beriah. Each world contains ten Sefiros, each of these contains ten, and each of those ten again, making a thousand in every world; three worlds give three thousand parables.

Shlomo’s comprehension did not reach Atzilus, where G‑d and His attributes are one. Yet even the Torah as it is in Atzilus is only a “parable” compared with G‑d Himself, the Supernal Emanator.

Drawing on the Zohar’s teaching that the Torah is bound to the Holy One, blessed be He, the Alter Rebbe compares the Torah’s relation to G‑d with Israel’s relation to the Torah. Israel bear no comparison to the Torah, yet they are bound to it; in the same way the Torah, though only a “parable” for G‑d, is bound to Him.

For the Infinite Light, G‑d the Emanator, to be drawn down and spread through the Torah, there must be “a mitzvah is a lamp.” The mitzvos are what bring this about.

The mitzvah is the avir, the air around the flame, which is “light with a yud,” as explained above. The mitzvos are ascents, like the offerings in the Temple, in which animals were raised up to become “a fire-offering, a pleasing fragrance” to G‑d.

Likewise, tefillin are written on parchment made from the hide of animals, and tzitzis are made of wool. In each case a physical thing is raised up and included in the spirituality expressed in the blessing “Who has sanctified us with His commandments.”

The mitzvos do draw G‑dliness down as well, but because they are done through a person’s physical action, they count as ascents: the person raises them and binds them to the Infinite Light within them. Torah study, by contrast, is purely a drawing down; the Hebrew kore means both “reads” and “calls,” and one who reads the Torah calls forth what already exists, as one calls a friend.

This ascent through the mitzvos is what brings about the drawing down of the Torah. It is the meaning of the response “May His great Name be blessed.” Havayah is Z’eir Anpin, and “the Name of Havayah,” its revelation, is in Malchus.

The “great Name,” by contrast, is in Keser, the Malchus of Adam Kadmon, the primordial level above Atzilus. The parenthetical aside reconciles a Zohar passage that places it in Binah: Atik, the inner dimension of Keser, is revealed in Binah, so both describe the same thing.

That is why the response says “blessed le’alam,” “for the world,” in the singular: it refers to the one World of Atzilus, the private domain (reshus hayachid, literally “the domain of the single one”) where everything is one with G‑d, into which the great Name, which is above Atzilus, is drawn. This is the meaning of the saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, “nods His head” when this response is said.

His “head” is Keser, which He “moves” and draws downward. This happens specifically with the response said after Aggadah, the non-legal teachings of the Sages, because Aggadah is the level of Chochmah, in which most of the Torah’s secrets are hidden, as the Arizal wrote.

The response “Amen, yehei shmei rabba” is said only with a congregation, because only then does G‑d “move” every aspect of His “head,” drawing down from the whole of Keser. When an individual studies Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, studies opposite him, yet what is drawn down reaches only the portion that belongs to that person’s soul; a congregation draws down the collective whole.

Now the opening question can be answered: why the Chanukah lamp is on the left and the mezuzah on the right. The mezuzah stands for the mitzvos, whose nature is ascent.

A mezuzah declares that a person’s house and everything in it are nullified before the One G‑d: its parchment contains the words “G‑d is One” and the passage that begins “And you shall love.” In that passage, “with all your heart” corresponds to prayer, the service of the heart.

“With all your soul” corresponds to Torah study, which binds a person’s thought with divine thought and his speech with divine speech, as in “My words that I have placed in your mouth.” “With all your might,” meaning all one’s possessions, is the mezuzah itself, set at the edge of the house that holds those possessions.

Through this ascent comes the Chanukah lamp on the left, the drawing down of “the Torah is light.” The Greeks sought to make Israel forget the Torah, and the Sages instituted that the lamp be placed at the entrance of the house, facing outward toward the public domain.

Malchus is called the entrance of the house, since everything goes in and out through it; the verse “With this (zos) shall Aaron come into the Sanctuary” is read as alluding to Malchus as the way into holiness. When Malchus goes out into Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, it rules over all, as in “His sovereignty rules over all.”

The light of the Torah must be drawn even there, into “the mountains of separation,” called “the mountains of Bether,” the realms far from holiness. That is why the Chanukah lamp is on the left, the side of Gevuros; and the text adds that this was in the time of the Second Temple, the period of the Chanukah miracle.