כי״ק אדמו״ר נ״ע

This heading marks what follows as taken from the Alter Rebbe’s own handwriting: the abbreviation stands for “his holy handwriting,” and “whose soul is in Eden” reflects that the book was printed after his passing. Kehot’s note on the next line reports that the manuscript copy, in a notebook of 5571 in the Tzemach Tzedek’s hand, written while the Alter Rebbe was still living, is headed “The holy handwriting of the Rav, may he live.”

This is the title of the piece. It explains the cherubim, the two winged figures made of one piece with the cover of the Ark in the Mishkan, as Z’eir Anpin and Nukva of Atzilus.

In Kabbalah, Z’eir Anpin is the configuration of the six emotive Sefiros, and Nukva is Malchus, its feminine counterpart; the Community of Israel, the Jewish people as a whole in its root above, is Nukva. This part describes their highest state: face to face and of equal stature, with Nukva receiving the intellect (mochin) of Abba and Imma (Chochmah and Binah) just as Z’eir Anpin does, and one Keser (crown) above them both.

Because both now draw from the same source, Abba and Imma, they are called brothers: equals rather than a greater and a lesser. This state came about at the Giving of the Torah, which issues from Chochmah and Binah and was received face to face. In Atzilus, where the Infinite Light is enclothed even in the vessels so that “He and His vessels are one,” the pair are called “the great man” and “large faces.”

Through the Mishkan and the Holy Temple, G‑d contracted His Presence into the space between the poles of the Ark, here in the World of Asiyah. In that contracted state Z’eir Anpin and Nukva are the “small faces” of the Gemara, which says that a cherub has the face of a child and explains the difference between the face of a cherub and the face of a man as “large faces and small faces.” These small faces, the Alter Rebbe says, are the cherubim.

The World of Asiyah rises into Atzilus three times every day; Kabbalah connects these ascents with the three daily prayers. The cherubim, Z’eir Anpin and Nukva enclothed in Asiyah, must rise with it, and that is why they were made with wings spread upward: to fly up to Atzilus.

This is a known principle: the Infinite Light descends through the levels of Atzilus and reaches its furthest point in Z’eir Anpin. From there it is meant to illuminate the lower worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, but only through Nukva, called “the lower Imma” (the lower mother) because she is the source, within Atzilus, from which those worlds come forth.

The Alter Rebbe reads the verse’s word “end” (katzeh) as the end of the Infinite Light’s descent. One cherub is that “end”: Z’eir Anpin, where the descent reaches its limit. The other is Nukva, the source and root of the lower worlds within Atzilus, and in her too the Infinite Light is enclothed, as the next part explains.

The Infinite Light reaches Nukva through the intellect (mochin) of Abba and Imma that is placed in her “head.” When she stands equal with Z’eir Anpin, her husband, these mochin only pass through him on their way to her, without being enclothed in him; this is unlike the time when she is smaller and stands only from his chest downward, when they reach her by being actually enclothed in him.

The cherubim were hammered out of one piece with the kapores, the cover of the Ark. The kapores is the one Keser (crown) of the two cherubim, Z’eir Anpin and Nukva, and also an encompassing level over the Tablets inside the Ark; the Tablets are Yesod of Abba, the channel of Chochmah, and were enclothed in Asiyah while the Mishkan and the Temple stood. When the cherubim ascend to Atzilus, they carry the kapores and the Tablets up with them.

This is why the verse says the cherubim are “sheltering with their wings over the kapores”: as they fly up, the kapores rises with them. After the destruction of the First Temple, Z’eir Anpin and Nukva of Atzilus withdrew to their own place and were never again enclothed in physical Asiyah, not even in the Second Temple, for the cherubim had been hidden away.

Instead they were drawn only into the inner dimension of the worlds, through the Torah study of the Tannaim, the Sages of the Mishnah, during and after the Second Temple era, in the halachos (laws). These laws are the inner dimension of G‑d’s Supernal Will, which was not revealed in the higher Chochmah, the Written Torah. The closing verse, cited “as is known,” is read in this light: the Oral Torah’s halachos are the “woman of valor” who is a crown to her “husband,” the Written Torah.