ביאור על הנ״ל

This heading introduces a further explanation of the preceding maamar, which expounded the verse “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion.” What follows takes up that verse again, word by word and in greater depth.

The verse is Zechariah’s call, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst.” The Alter Rebbe first notes that the word “Zion” carries both a masculine and a feminine sense, so it stands for a level in which male and female are joined.

In Kabbalah Yesod is the “masculine” channel of giving and Nukva (Malchus) is the “feminine” recipient; Zion is the Yesod within Malchus, which is why it is both. The parenthesis then defines the verse’s words: Jerusalem is the Malchus of Malchus, likened to a seal; “daughter of Zion” is Malchus as she descends into the lower worlds to refine them; and “Sing” is a fiery yearning from Binah (“the Gevuros of Imma”) that carries the soul upward and out of itself as it contemplates G‑d’s infinity.

“Rejoice” is the opposite movement: the Chasadim of Imma (Binah; imma means “mother”), kindness that brings joy and open revelation, as in the verse “the mother of the children is joyful.” To explain why both song and joy are needed, the Alter Rebbe first contrasts angels with souls.

Angels have only “song,” the upward yearning, and not “joy,” because they cannot draw G‑d’s light down into the world through Torah and mitzvos; that is the work of souls in bodies. Song belongs to Gevurah and withdrawal: the Mishnah’s ruling about animals going out with their neck-chains (shir) is read here as “all who have song go out with song,” that is, song carries a being out of its vessel, beyond its own limits.

Yet an angel’s “going out” is not complete: its “body,” its own defined existence, stays where it is, and it is only stirred by feeling. That is why song is an outer dimension: song is telling G‑d’s praise, which the one who praises does while remaining himself.

The analogy: a person standing before a king is silent in awe and has nothing to say; only when he leaves the king’s presence does he speak of the king’s greatness, to stir up enthusiasm. So too the angels’ praise is the speech of those who stand “outside.”

The angels’ “going out” takes the form of song: they delight in telling of G‑d’s infinite greatness, and in that delight they rise from world to world and from chamber to chamber, merging into the heavenly “chambers” (heichalos). Their praise is sung in melodies.

A melody is the heart’s feeling expressed in sound alone, before it is shaped into words: the voice comes straight from the heart, while speech divides it into articulated words. That is why the angels, whose song is an outpouring of feeling, sing in melodies.

Melodies differ because loves differ: there is love that delights (“love with delights”), love that is bitter, pained by its distance from G‑d precisely because it loves so much, and love that reaches to the very soul.

All these melodies are, in general, love, for love contains all the other emotions. Kabbalah calls Chesed (love, kindness) “yomam,” “by day,” the “day” that goes with all the days, because it extends into all the attributes after it; the Zohar calls the same quality “the cloud of Aaron.”

The Sages teach that the cloud of glory came in Aaron’s merit; though it was one cloud, it included seven, corresponding to the seven days of Sukkos and seven encompassing lights (makifim). In the same way the one attribute of love divides into seven, Chesed of Chesed, Gevurah of Chesed and so on.

The “song” of the verse is the Gevuros of Imma: love born of distance, which grows stronger the farther one feels from G‑d and rises upward with greater force. The psalmist’s “my soul yearns, indeed it pines” and Isaiah’s “with my soul I desire You in the night” express that longing.

One can only long for what one lacks, so this longing belongs to “night,” a time of absence. The awareness of this distance is expressed in the verse about those who “utter the remembrance of Your abundant goodness” and “sing of Your righteousness”: they have only a “remembrance,” a glimmer, of G‑d’s goodness, and that lack is what moves them to sing.

G‑d’s light reaches Tzedek (“righteousness”), a name for Malchus, only after many contractions, so those who receive it there feel how far they are from its source. Their soul therefore yearns and is nullified toward the Infinite Light hidden within Malchus; they long for G‑d Himself, not for His attributes.

Yet their grasp of the Infinite Light is limited to what is vested in Malchus, G‑d’s kingship, which makes Him their King and gives them life and existence. They know Him only as King over them.

Now the Alter Rebbe explains “song in the evening” (renana be-ramsha), night being the attribute of Malchus. When Malchus descends into the lower worlds and passes through the “screen” (masach) that divides Atzilus from them, she is far from her source, and her cry is the verse “O G‑d, do not keep silent,” a cry that will not rest.

In that state Malchus sings, as in the verse “Who gives hymns in the night.” Her hymn is the longing to rise and be absorbed above, like the bride in the Song of Songs “leaning upon her beloved.”

The angels’ service is also song, because they come from Malchus: the Malchus of each world is the source and life of that world’s angels. Since their root is the “night” of Malchus, their service is the longing song of night.

Angels have only song because their source is Malchus alone. Souls, by contrast, include all the configurations (partzufim) of Atzilus, as implied by “Let us make man in our image”: Abba and Imma (Chochmah and Binah), Z’eir Anpin and Nukva.

Because souls include the higher levels, they also have “joy,” the drawing of G‑d’s light down into the world through Torah and mitzvos. The 248 positive mitzvos are called “the 248 limbs of the King,” and they correspond to the nine Sefiros of Z’eir Anpin.

The number is reached this way: each of Z’eir Anpin’s nine Sefiros contains all nine, making 81; each has three vessels (inner, outer and middle), making 243; and the five Chasadim that Imma gives Z’eir Anpin for its growth bring the total to 248.

Torah and mitzvos are drawn into Z’eir Anpin, for “the Torah issues from Chochmah,” but their root is higher still, in Keser, the level above intellect. There it is called the “620 pillars of light” (the 613 mitzvos together with the seven rabbinic ones), identified with the “skull” and “hidden brain” of Arich Anpin, the outer configuration of Keser.

All these lights flow into Z’eir Anpin, as the verse “All the paths of Havayah…” says. The “paths” are the 613 paths that issue from the “whiteness,” a Kabbalistic image for the colorless light of the highest level; through them the Name Havayah is drawn down.

The souls of Israel receive all the lights drawn into Z’eir Anpin, even from the very highest levels, because they include every level. This is the meaning of “Serve Havayah with joy”: through their service the Name Havayah is drawn down from above to below, and that drawing-down is joy.

Even so, the same verse continues “Come before Him with song”: to “come to the King,” to rise from below and be absorbed into Him, is possible only through song, the yearning of “night.” Joy draws G‑d down; song carries the soul up.

“They shall sing of Your righteousness” shows that song reaches only Tzedek, Malchus, since the ascent of mayin nukvin (“feminine waters,” the arousal that rises from the lower beings) reaches no higher than Malchus. The drawing-down from above, by contrast, is like the king himself coming to his subjects.

When G‑d draws down from above, the Infinite Light from the very highest comes of itself, beyond anything the ascent could reach. The Alter Rebbe reads this into “these words which I (Anochi) command you”: the “I” is G‑d’s very Self, “Who I am,” drawn down through the mitzvos.

Now the Alter Rebbe returns to the verse itself. When Malchus is in her place in Atzilus she is “Zion,” a word that means a marker or seal: there she receives, in her Yesod (the “point of Zion”), all the lights from truly above that are drawn into Z’eir Anpin, and bears their imprint as a seal does.

What she receives is Torah and mitzvos. The explanation of a mitzvah, what it is and how it is done, belongs to Z’eir Anpin, while its actual performance belongs to Malchus, the level through which things come into concrete being.

An example is “Sanctify to Me every firstborn,” the opening of one of the passages written in the tefillin. Its inner meaning concerns the vesting of Chochmah, while its fulfillment in deed is the physical parchment placed on the arm and the head.

Because the supernal light of Chochmah in that passage comes down only through the physical act, Malchus, the level of actual deed, is called “Zion” and “seal.” All the higher lights are engraved in her, as an impression is engraved in a seal.

This explains the principle that “mitzvos require intention”: the mitzvah itself is the physical act, which belongs to Malchus, and the intention is the higher lights drawn into it. The parenthesis adds that when Malchus receives all these lights, she is in a state of joy.

When Malchus descends into the lower worlds she is called “daughter of Zion,” and she is then in the state of “song in the evening.” She passes through the screen and vests herself in the “seventy princes,” the spiritual powers that in Kabbalistic tradition stand over the seventy nations, in order to subdue them, so that G‑d’s kingship “rules over all.”

Her chief descent is in exile, as the Sages say that when Israel was exiled to Edom the Shechinah went with them. Then Malchus, G‑d’s “speech,” is cut off from the “voice” (Z’eir Anpin) from which it comes.

In exile Malchus longs from afar, “with my soul I desire You in the night,” leaning on her beloved. But in the time of the Holy Temple, when “Shlomo’s wisdom increased,” the Zohar says that “the moon stood in its fullness”: Malchus, likened to the moon, was complete.

Then Malchus did not have to descend herself into the lower worlds to refine them; Israel did the refining through the offerings, whose smoke rose upward. The offerings, “a fire-offering, a pleasing fragrance,” brought about a supernal union in Atzilus.

As a result, the forces outside holiness were subdued and subordinate to it without further effort, and Israel continually united the Shechinah with its source above. That is why Malchus is called “daughter of Zion” only in exile.

The prophet therefore consoles: even so, in the time to come there will be both “Sing” and “rejoice.” The parenthesis adds that Malchus will be raised so high that she will have both at once, ascent and drawing-down together.

The basis is that G‑d can arouse Himself from above without any arousal from below, “for My sake, for My sake I will do it.” Even now, the drawing-down of the mitzvos, such as putting on the tallis, comes before the arousal from below in prayer, in Pesukei deZimra (the verses of praise) and the Shema.

But a drawing-down that is not prompted from below reaches only the outer dimension. The inner dimension is reached through “Come before Him (lefanav) with song”: lefanav is related to penim, “inner,” and it is reached precisely through song.

In the future G‑d will “dwell in your midst,” truly within. The verse ends “declares G‑d” (ne’um Havayah), pointing to speech: G‑d will speak from within the person, as the Shechinah spoke from Moshe’s throat, and as Moshe said in G‑d’s own first person, “I will give the rain of your land.”

Every Jew says these same words, “I will give grass…,” in the Shema, speaking in G‑d’s first person. When a person reaches self-sacrifice at “One” and at “with all your might,” the promise “My words which I have placed in your mouth” is fulfilled: G‑d’s word speaks from his mouth.

The Talmud reads “and G‑d answered him with a voice” as “with the voice of Moshe”: G‑d spoke through Moshe’s own voice, an example of the Shechinah speaking from within. The Alter Rebbe then parses “Behold, I come”: “I come” is a drawing-down from above, unprompted from below, and “Behold I” (hineni) is G‑d’s very Self, from the very highest.

Isaiah’s “My servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted, lifted up and very high” is applied to Mashiach. His eminence will come from the inner dimension of Atik, the innermost level of Keser, which is also the inner dimension of Arich Anpin.

The verse “And of Zion it shall be said: man and man was born in her” is read alongside the Talmud’s teaching that when the woman “seeds first” the child is male. The first “man” is plain, while the second, “and man,” with the letter vav (a line drawn downward), is a drawing-down from the supernal “Man” above.

This is because “the Most High Himself will establish her,” which the Alter Rebbe connects to Mashiach, on whom “the spirit of G‑d will rest” and who will be “made to smell,” to sense, the fear of G‑d. The Aramaic phrase that follows continues the theme of scent with an image of a supernal “nose.”

Since the Most High Himself establishes her, everything will be at the level of “man,” drawn from above. Therefore even the “daughter of Zion,” the level called “daughter,” will have both song and joy.

The Talmud’s teaching continues: when the man seeds first, the child is a daughter. “Daughter” is the level that receives from an arousal from above; in the future it will be raised so high that it receives from the highest arousal from above, because “the Most High Himself will establish her.”

Therefore “Sing” and “rejoice” will come together: ascent and drawing-down will be one. Even in joy, the drawing-down from above, there will be song.

The same idea explains the Chanukah lamp, which the Sages say is placed at the entrance of the house, on the outside. The doorway is Malchus, “the gates of righteousness” (Tzedek), and outside it are the lower worlds, as in the Chanukah thanksgiving prayer, “they kindled lights in Your holy courtyards.”

The lamp is lit even in the public domain, the lowest place. Its light, oil and wick together, with the inner and encompassing colors of the flame, are all drawn down even to the very lowest, and this is an arousal from above alone, with no prior arousal from below.