ביאור על הנ״ל

This short maamar explains the one before it, “And you shall make a tzitz of pure gold,” on the golden headplate the High Priest wore on his forehead. It takes up that maamar’s themes (the forehead, Aharon’s love, Moshe’s self-nullification against Amalek, and the two Names Havayah) and sets them out more fully in Kabbalistic terms.

The Zohar speaks of three cavities in the skull of Z’eir Anpin that hold three brains; the Alter Rebbe identifies them with the three powers of the intellect, Chochmah, Binah and Daas. Just as each part of the physical brain is the seat of its own power of thought, so each of these supernal “brains” carries its own light of intellect.

The Mikdash Melech, a commentary on the Zohar, explains that the “brains” are the intellect of Z’eir Anpin itself, while the light that fills them comes from the intellect of Imma, the higher configuration of Binah. The point that each brain has its own power is taken from medicine, and the Alter Rebbe states the principle that what is physical in man mirrors what is above.

The skull covers the brain, and the forehead lies at the edge of the skull. Because the forehead is set opposite the brain of Daas, it shares the function of Daas in an outer way, as the next parts explain.

In the anatomy described here, the brains of Chochmah and Binah lie in front, side by side, and the brain of Daas lies behind them in the middle. So the forehead, at the front and center, lines up with Daas.

Daas is the power that binds a person inwardly to what his mind has grasped, so that a conclusion reached through Chochmah and Binah stays firm. The forehead does the same thing on the outside: it is the outer counterpart of Daas.

The role of the forehead is “agreement”: a settled resolve to keep what the mind once decided, even after the intellectual excitement has gone. The previous maamar explained that after prayer the love fades but a reshimu, an impression, remains on the “forehead”; this resolve is that impression.

The parenthesis distinguishes the two: Daas works inside, binding Chochmah and Binah while they are fully alight, whereas the forehead keeps their impression afterward. The Alter Rebbe refers the reader to Sha’ar HaYichudim, chapter 7, to Etz Chaim, and to Zohar HaRakia, a commentary on the Zohar, on the Idra Rabba, which discuss how Daas shines in the forehead.

Aharon is one of the “seven shepherds” who sustain the Jewish people, and his task is to draw down great love, the heart’s yearning for G‑d (re’usa d’liba). The previous maamar explained that this love shines during prayer but then fades, because an “iron partition” separates Israel from their Father in Heaven; only now and then does it break through, as the beloved in the Song of Songs “peers through the lattices.”

Those glimpses are sudden thoughts of teshuvah, so the love comes and goes. The remedy, that the love stay “on his forehead always” as the verse says of the tzitz, comes through Moshe: through the Torah he gave, and through the “men” chosen at his word to fight Amalek.

The iron partition is Amalek, the counterpart on the side of kelipah that stands against holiness. In a person it appears as brazen pride, the self-exaltation the prophet Ovadiah describes as soaring like an eagle, together with obstinacy and the need to win.

The parenthesis defines Amalek precisely: he knows his Master yet sets out to rebel, so he is the kelipah that opposes Daas. He does not deny knowledge; he blocks it, with a brazenness that has no reason, from reaching the emotions, so that what a person knows never moves his heart. The Alter Rebbe refers to the Biur on “Remember what Amalek did,” and to the Ramaz, the Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, at the beginning of Parshas Vayakhel.

Against this stands Moshe, who said “and what (mah) are we?”: the quality of self-nullification, which the next paragraph ties to the Name Mah. Torah, too, must be studied with self-nullification; the Sages teach that one who says “I have nothing but Torah” does not have even Torah.

It must be “the Torah of Moshe,” studied with the awareness that “you shall not profane,” which the previous maamar read as “do not make a void (chalal)”: do not imagine any place empty of G‑d. As the morning prayer says, “You are He before the world was created; You are He since it was created”: G‑d is exactly the same, unchanged by creation.

An objection: Torah study is thought and speech, which are a definite “something,” not self-nullification. The answer is that the Torah we study is the lower Chochmah, the Oral Torah, and Chochmah is itself self-nullification. Through the chain “from world to world,” in which the lowest level of each world becomes the innermost root (Atik) of the next, the Chochmah of the lowest world, Asiyah, is the practical law of forbidden and permitted that we learn.

The verse says “make a tzitz,” a masculine form, not tzitzis, a feminine one. Following Rabbi Chaim Vital’s Taamei HaMitzvos, the masculine form signals a light that comes from above, while the feminine signals what rises from below, as prayer does.

Torah, unlike prayer, comes from above: it brings self-nullification and the awareness that no place is empty of G‑d, and so it is holiness’s counterpart to Amalek. The previous maamar taught that Amalek covers the Name Yah so that it is not revealed in vav-hei, the remaining letters of Havayah, that is, in the emotions; Torah lets Yah be revealed in vav-hei, in love and awe. That is why Moshe, through whom the Torah was given, makes the tzitz.

Rabbi Chaim Vital writes that the tzitz is drawn from the mochin of Abba, the intellect of Chochmah, which is Moshe’s level. Higher still, in the forehead of Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser, the Daas of Arich Anpin shines, and this too is Moshe, whose root is in the higher Daas, a knowledge above ordinary understanding.

Amalek can oppose only the lower Daas, the knowledge that is meant to reach the emotions; there it hides and covers. It cannot touch the higher Daas, so Moshe’s root defeats it. Higher yet is the Name Mah (the spelling of Havayah whose letters total 45) shining in the forehead of Adam Kadmon, the primordial level before the worlds, and this is Moshe’s “what (mah) are we?”

That is why the command “make a tzitz” was given to Moshe: the tzitz is a light shining in the forehead from the higher Daas, beyond comprehension. The Name Mah stands for the most complete self-nullification, the nullification of one’s very being (bittul bimetzius).

This total self-nullification is what overcomes Amalek. The Alter Rebbe refers to the Biur on “Let them bring royal apparel,” which speaks of Haman, a descendant of Amalek, as the epitome of yesh, a swollen sense of self; its opposite is setting aside one’s own will, eyes lowered, and saying “what are we.”

The tzitz was of pure gold: gold is love like “flashes of fire,” intense and burning, whereas silver is a calmer love, like water, as the previous maamar explained. The verse then says “engrave upon it engravings of a seal,” which the following parts explain.

These engravings are the letters of Binah, at the Yesod of Imma, the point where Binah gives shape and where letters first take form. Chochmah is a flash of lightning, a point of insight without any defined shape.

Only Binah, which develops an idea into a definite “something,” can hold letters. The Torah originates in Chochmah but is clothed in Binah; the two are the Zohar’s “two companions,” which are never apart.

The words “scribe and telling” recall Sefer Yetzirah: G‑d created His world with three “books,” which the Alter Rebbe reads as sofer (scribe), sefer (book) and sippur (telling). Such letters are like a seal impressed in wax: the wax may bear the name Avraham, yet the impression is nothing like Avraham himself.

The same holds even for Chochmah: “You have made them all with Chochmah” implies that Chochmah itself counts as something “made,” a seal impression, relative to the Holy One, blessed be He.

Studying Torah lishmah, “for its own sake,” means for the sake of the Torah itself, so that the Torah becomes the clothing of the Infinite One within Chochmah. Because the Torah relates to G‑d as an impression relates to its seal, it is called a “seal.”

The tzitz bore the words “Holy to G‑d,” and the Sages record that they were written on two lines: the Name Havayah above, and kodesh with the lamed (the “to” of “to Havayah”) below. The Alter Rebbe reads the lower line as the effect of Torah and mitzvos: Torah becomes an inner light within a person, as the Psalm says, “Your Torah is within my inward parts,” and this is the “seal engraving” explained above.

Mitzvos draw down encompassing lights (makifin), which surround a person rather than entering his understanding. Hence the word kodesh: the blessing over a mitzvah says that G‑d “sanctified us (kideshanu) with His commandments,” and kadosh means set apart, beyond, like a light that encompasses.

The lamed stands for the three encompassing lights of Keser, Chochmah and Binah, as its value, thirty, is three times ten; in the word tzelem (image), the tzadi, ninety, is the nine Sefiros of inner light, and the lamed the encompassing lights. Yet all of this is still “below,” since it is the response from above that answers human effort from below.

“Havayah above” is a level that no human effort can reach. In the verse of the Thirteen Attributes the Name is said twice, “Havayah, Havayah,” with a break in the cantillation between them, showing that they are two levels. Within Atzilus, the yud of the Name and the tip of the yud stand for Chochmah and Keser.

There is also a Name Havayah above Atzilus, the source from which the Havayah of Atzilus comes. Atzilus itself came into being “when it arose in His will” to create.

That arising of the will is the Keser of Atzilus, the tip of the yud. But that there should be a will for this will at all comes from a still higher level, the “Will of all wills,” which is Atik, the innermost dimension of Keser. This is the double “Havayah, Havayah.”

The verse “And He called, ‘Havayah, Havayah’” is read here as the Havayah of Atzilus calling upon the Havayah that precedes Atzilus. The parenthesis notes that the end of the maamar explains the two Names differently, as the tikkunim of the head and its “corners,” both above the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, and that both readings are true.

Since this higher Havayah lies beyond the reach of any arousal from below, the line “kodesh-lamed,” the holiness achieved through Torah and mitzvos, is called “below” relative to it.

So the verse says the tzitz is “for favor (leratzon) before Havayah”: the will it brings comes from a level that precedes the Havayah of Atzilus. Alternatively, lifnei (“before”) shares its root with penim, “inside,” so it means the innermost dimension of the Name Havayah.

Of Yom Kippur the Torah says “before Havayah you shall be purified”: the atonement comes from the level “before” Havayah, beyond change and beyond human effort, and so there the favor is constant, “always.” The same holds in a person’s own service of G‑d.

In a person, the “forehead” is the outer layer of will: a will without reasons, which is not the contemplation itself but the impression it leaves. After prayer, in which one contemplated with Binah and Daas, what remains is this settled will.

The word “always” on the tzitz means all day: even when a person is not contemplating, and even while he is busy with worldly affairs, his will remains turned to G‑d.

This follows the Sages’ ideal of making one’s Torah fixed and one’s work occasional. The point is the purpose of the work: one works so as to have free time for Torah and prayer.

When this aim governs everything he does, his will is “always for favor.” This constancy comes from Moshe, who makes the tzitz, the light that keeps the “forehead” steady.

Moshe embodies Daas, and he draws light from the Will of all wills into the “forehead,” which faces the brain of Daas. So the steady will of the forehead is fed from the highest source.

The parenthesis recalls that Daas reaches upward to its source, so that Atik, the innermost level of Keser, is revealed in it; the Alter Rebbe refers to the explanation on “Arm men from among you.” Every soul has something of Moshe, the unique one among the seven shepherds.

But the verse says “on Aharon’s forehead.” Aharon is great love, and his “forehead” is the agreement that love leaves behind; that is where the tzitz must rest, so that the will stays constant without changes.

Moshe himself needs no tzitz, for he is “within”: he is Daas itself, the inner dimension. Terms like agreement, outer dimension and will do not apply to him, only Daas and chefetz, a desire deeper than will.

Chefetz, desire, is higher than will, so Moshe has no need of the tzitz; he only makes it for Aharon’s forehead. The tzitz is holiness’s answer to Amalek, who also has a “forehead.”

Amalek’s forehead is the brazen “forehead of a harlot” of Jeremiah: arrogance and obstinacy, a hard sense of self. He knows his Master yet rebels anyway. The tzitz, drawn from Moshe’s self-nullification, nullifies that brazenness.

The verse continues, “Aharon shall bear the iniquity of the holy things”: the tzitz atones. This is the divine attribute of “bearing iniquity,” and it works because the Name Havayah on the tzitz is above kodesh-lamed, above what human effort reaches.

“Bearing iniquity” is one of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, called in Aramaic the thirteen “measures of mercy” and, in Kabbalah, the thirteen tikkunim of the beard. They are the radiance of the second Havayah in the verse “Havayah, Havayah, G‑d, merciful and gracious.”

The second Havayah corresponds to the pe’os, the “corners” of the head, and the first to the tikkunim of the head itself; the tzitz on the forehead belongs to these tikkunim of the head, the Will of all wills. This is the other explanation promised earlier in the maamar.

Through the two Names, Atzilus and its Ten Sefiros come into being from the thirteen measures of mercy, as in the Kabbalistic teaching that “Abba nurses from the mazal” (a tikkun of the beard). All this is drawn through the tzitz, which draws from the Will of all wills, the Keser within Keser, the most hidden of all.