ביאור על הנ״ל

This maamar is a further explanation of the discourse just before it in Torah Ohr, which opens “Remember the Shabbos day to keep it holy.” It returns to that discourse’s themes: what was given at Sinai, why the angels did not receive the Torah, why the soul must descend into a body, and how the Chariot raises “the man upon the Throne.”

The maamar opens with its question: what, at root, are the Giving of the Torah and Israel’s receiving of it? Its first answer is that the whole Torah and every mitzvah join the Infinite Light, G‑d’s light as it is beyond all limits, to the finite worlds.

The formula “for the sake of the union of the Holy One, blessed be He” states the inner purpose of a mitzvah. That union means bringing the higher unity, in which the worlds are as nothing before G‑d, into the lower unity, in which G‑d is present within the worlds as they exist, so that light flows from the level that encompasses the worlds into the level that fills them.

Two passages promise rain as the reward for keeping the mitzvos: Leviticus 26, “I will give your rains in their season,” and the second paragraph of the Shema, “And it shall be, if you will listen… I will give the rain of your land.” The question is why such a promise is needed, since after the Flood G‑d had already made a covenant, whose sign is the rainbow, never again to destroy the world.

After the Flood G‑d promised that as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, day and night will not cease. The Alter Rebbe answers that this promise only keeps the world going as it was already set up in the chain of descent; it adds nothing new.

What is new, a fresh light from the level beyond the worlds and an added blessing, comes only through the Torah and mitzvos. “Who renews each day the work of Creation” is a phrase of the morning blessings, and “to work it and to guard it,” said of Adam in the Garden, is read here as the Torah and mitzvos, which make Gan Eden, the delight of the souls; that delight reaches the souls only by being contracted and then expanded.

Contraction and expansion are the pattern of the Name Havayah: the yud is the contracted point, the first heh its expansion, the vav a drawing down, and the final heh a further spreading out. Because the whole Torah is included in this Name, the Torah is the means by which this light is contracted and expanded so that it can reach the souls.

The mitzvos too are linked to the letters of this Name, some to the yud and some to the heh. The proof is a prayer said with the bedtime Shema, where a blemish in the letter yud is tied to the punishment of stoning.

Since each mitzvah belongs to a letter of the Name, its reward is the mitzvah itself: doing it draws a new light from beyond the worlds into that very letter. This is how the Alter Rebbe reads the Mishnah’s saying “the reward of a mitzvah is the mitzvah.”

Anochi, “I,” the first word of the Ten Commandments, is taken as the Infinite One above the worlds. “I am Havayah your G‑d” then means that this level is drawn down through the Name Havayah until it is truly “your G‑d,” present within each person.

In Leviticus 18:5, “You shall keep My statutes… which a person shall do (ya’aseh)… I am Havayah,” the word “do” is read as “make”: by doing the mitzvos one makes Ani, “I,” a lower level, become Havayah. Yet nothing is drawn down without an ascent from below first, as in the Sages’ image that no drop of rain descends unless water rises from below to meet it.

Because every drawing down needs an ascent, the Torah was given amid thunder and lightning that made the whole people tremble, bringing them to bittul, the nullification of their own existence. The Zohar’s words “spirit brings spirit” state the rule: a spirit of longing roused below draws a spirit down from above.

This power, that keeping the Torah and mitzvos should draw down G‑dliness, was itself the gift of Sinai. An idolater who studies Torah or wears a tallis performs the same act but draws nothing down, because only Israel received this power at Mount Sinai.

When Moshe went up to receive the Torah, the angels protested with the verse “who have set Your majesty upon the heavens,” asking that the Torah stay with them. It was not given to them, because angels come from the level of divine “speech,” which the Zohar calls the “revealed world.”

Speech is the outer dimension of the vessels, the garments through which light is expressed. So the angels, though they give themselves over entirely and are wholly nullified before G‑d, cannot draw down the light that encompasses the worlds as Israel can.

Israel “arose in thought”: their souls are rooted in G‑d’s “thought,” the inner dimension of the vessels, which is one with the light it expresses. The human analogy shows the difference: thought runs constantly, even when one does not want it to, while speech comes only when a person chooses to speak.

The difference between speech and thought is drawn from human experience: a person can hold back from speaking, but cannot stop himself from thinking.

Thought is one with the mind and intellect, so it cannot be switched off. This is the Zohar’s “He and His organs (garmohi, literally ‘His bones,’ the vessels) are one in them”; its companion phrase, “He and His life-forces (chayohi) are one,” refers to the intellect, Chochmah, Binah and Daas, of the World of Atzilus.

G‑d Himself is beyond even Chochmah: as Elijah’s prayer in Tikkunei Zohar (Patach Eliyahu) says, He is “not of all these attributes at all.” Yet He unites with Chochmah so completely that, in the well-known phrase, He is the Knowledge and He is the Known.

“He and His organs are one” refers to thought, where the souls of Israel are rooted. Their oneness with G‑d is real but not total, unlike the complete oneness of “He and His life-forces.”

This raises a difficulty: if the souls are rooted only in “thought,” how could they receive the drawing down of the Infinite Light itself, the encompassing light, the level of Anochi revealed at Sinai?

The answer is that the souls received it only by being enclothed in a body and a vital soul. Their descent into the body is for the sake of an ascent: through it they rise from the level of “His organs” to the higher level of “His life-forces.”

The vital, animal soul is rooted in the faces of the lion and the ox among the chayos of the Chariot, which carry the Throne. In origin they belong to the “kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel,” which Kabbalah reads as the first, broken world of Tohu, whose fragments fell into the World of Beriah.

Because their root is so high, these forces can lift the “man upon the Throne,” the figure of a man seen above the chayos in the vision of the Chariot, up to the level of which Shmuel said, “for He is not a man,” beyond all form.

Food illustrates this: a human being, the “speaking” creature, ranks above animals and plants, yet they give him life, because their root is higher than his. Hence the verse “Behind and before You formed me,” explained in the next paragraph.

The Talmud explains “Behind and before You formed me”: man was “behind,” created last of all the works of Creation, after the animals and plants. In the same way the holy chayos, though below the “man upon the Throne,” have the power to raise him.

The Sages’ saying “the Patriarchs are themselves the Chariot” means that they, like the chayos, raise what rides upon them: the six emotive attributes of Atzilus, called adam, which is Z’eir Anpin. Z’eir Anpin is counted here as nine Sefiros, and nine times nine is eighty-one.

Three times eighty-one is 243, and adding the five chasadim (kindnesses) gives 248, the number of the limbs of a man, adam. This raising is expressed in David’s words “Yours, Havayah, are the greatness and the might,” where greatness and might are Chesed and Gevurah.

The raising carries the attributes from adam, ordered existence, to “for He is not a man,” which is beyond that order. In a parenthesis the Alter Rebbe adds that the emotive attributes of Atzilus are likewise a “chariot” for Chochmah and Binah, which the Tikkunei Zohar calls the “supernal chariot,” with a reference further on.

The reason the lower attributes can raise what is above them is the Zohar’s statement that Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes, is bound to and hangs upon Atika, the innermost level of Keser, above intellect. In the order of Atzilus, by contrast, Abba and Imma, the intellect, stand far above Z’eir Anpin.

Yet in their root the emotive attributes are higher than intellect. Experience shows it: an animal, a creature of drives, is by nature stronger than a human being, who has intellect, because emotion carries more force than reason.

Although the emotive attributes come into being from intellect, once formed they carry a stronger force and so can rise higher. The Zohar’s Idra puts it this way: Abba and Imma, the intellect, are included in the Mazla, the flow that issues from Atika; Z’eir Anpin is bound to and hangs upon Atika; and in Atika “there is no left,” no side of severity or judgment. The first two sayings are found in the Idra Zuta (Zohar 3:292a), which itself says that this was explained “in the Idra”; “in Atika there is no left” is from the Idra Rabba.

This is why Scripture says of G‑d, “for He is not a man.” “Man” (adam) stands for divine light drawn down in lines, the right line of Chochmah, Chesed and Netzach, the left line and the middle line, like a human body with its right, left and center.

That structure follows the chain of descent, and so G‑d’s conduct of the world follows it too, divided into levels and measured to each recipient: “With the kind You show Yourself kind.”

Such measured conduct is as His wisdom determined. But in Atika “there is no left,” no division into levels, and so there are no changes there at all.

After Shaul sinned and the kingship was taken from him, he begged Shmuel that it be restored. Shmuel answered that “the Eternal One of Israel does not lie and does not relent, for He is not a man, that He should relent.”

Shmuel’s meaning: once the kingship had been given to David it could not be taken from him, because David’s kingship was drawn from a supernal place, the level of “for He is not a man,” where there is no change.

Shaul’s kingship, by contrast, came from the level of adam: he was chosen for his righteousness, so when he sinned it was taken from him. It depended on his conduct, as everything at the level of adam is measured by deeds.

The Talmud says that Shaul sinned once and it cost him the kingship, while David sinned twice and it did not. The Alter Rebbe explains why: David’s kingship stems from “for He is not a man,” and the blemish of sin does not reach that high.

David is the level of Malchus, the last of the Sefiros, and “their beginning is wedged in their end”: the last level is rooted in the very first, beyond the order of adam. The level of adam follows the chain of descent from Chochmah downward, where the flow is measured to each level, that is, by the deeds of those below.

Above adam, in Atika, “there is no left,” because there G‑d is “exalted from the days of old,” “high and lofty,” beyond the measuring of deeds.

In her song Chanah said, “My horn is exalted (ramah) in Havayah,” and the Talmud learns from it that David and Shlomo, anointed from a horn, had kingdoms that lasted, while Shaul and Yehu, anointed from a flask, did not. The Alter Rebbe reads ramah, “exalted,” as the level above adam, while the flask belongs to adam, where change is possible.

At the level of adam G‑d can “relent of the evil,” as He did after the Golden Calf. But at ramah, which is Atika, “He is not a man” and does not change.

That is why “David, King of Israel, lives and endures,” the words the Talmud records as a sign sent with the sanctification of the new month. To raise adam to the level beyond “man” is the purpose of all our service, and it is what the Patriarchs, “the Chariot,” accomplished.

The service has two directions: to raise adam up to “for He is not a man,” and then to draw down from there, into adam, a revelation of G‑dliness and of the Infinite Light itself.

Both the holy chayos and the Patriarchs are called the Chariot, but they differ. The chayos are constantly in tumult and nullified before the Infinite Light, and they too draw down from there.

But what the chayos draw down is only the flow that keeps the worlds existing and alive. The ascent and drawing down brought about by the Patriarchs is higher: it brings new souls into being.

This matches the known Kabbalistic teaching of two unions of Abba and Imma, Chochmah and Binah. The outer union is constant, “two companions who never part,” and sustains the worlds; the inner union, which brings new souls, comes about only through the souls of the tzaddikim.

The mitzvos themselves divide the same way: some raise up and some draw down. Charity raises up, as the verse says, “Charity exalts (teromem) a nation,” lifting to the level of ramah, the exalted level discussed above.

Charity has this power because it is clothed in physical silver and gold, which stand under the dominion of nogah, the intermediate realm that can be raised to holiness. Their source is in what fell in the shattering of the vessels, from the kings who reigned “before any king reigned,” and so their root is very high.

Because of this source, silver and gold given as charity have the power to rise and to arouse a very high drawing down from above. The same is true of all the practical mitzvos, which are done with physical things.

Some practical mitzvos are of the kind that raise up, like terumah and the tithes, in which a portion of the produce is set apart for holiness. Others are of the kind that draw down, like tzitzis, tefillin and shofar.

Whether by raising up or by drawing down, the mitzvos arouse Anochi itself, the level of “for He is not a man,” in order to draw its light down into adam, the ordered world.

This power was given to Israel when they received the Torah, and it works in two ways. The first is outward: the actual doing of the mitzvos, which raise up and draw down.

The second way is inward: self-sacrifice in the Shema at the word “One,” where a person gives himself over to G‑d entirely, bringing a revelation of G‑dliness and the Infinite Light itself. This too was drawn down at the receiving of the Torah.

Without the gift of Sinai, an idolater cannot draw anything down even for a moment through self-sacrifice. The Sages say that “Remember” and “Keep,” the two wordings of the Shabbos commandment, were said in a single utterance; “Remember” (zachor) corresponds to the masculine (dechar), the giver, and “Keep” (shamor) to the feminine (Nukva), the receiver.

Shamor has the sense it has when Yaakov heard Yosef’s dreams: “and his father kept the matter,” that is, he waited for it to come about. It denotes a long, patient expectation, in which the receiver’s eyes are always turned to the giver.

Like a poor man waiting for the householder to put something in his hand, Israel’s eyes are lifted to G‑d’s salvation: a revelation of G‑dliness in the world as it will be in the Time to Come, when “they will see eye to eye” and “all flesh shall see” G‑d’s glory.

The psalm “As the eyes of servants… so are our eyes to G‑d” describes this longing. The “servants” are the angels Metatron and Sandalfon, of the worlds of Yetzirah and Asiyah, and the “maidservant” is the world of Beriah.

These angels and worlds wait and hope for the revelation of the light of Atzilus, and their longing is very great because they perceive how exalted the Infinite One is. That perception is what moves them to proclaim “Holy” and “Blessed.”

Israel’s souls are rooted higher, in the Supernal Thought, yet they too look and hope, toward the very essence of the Infinite One, the level of “for He is not a man.” Their longing is for a new light to come from there and reveal the inner dimension.

The parenthesis recalls paragraph 17: the “feminine waters” (mayin nukvin), the arousal from below, raised by the souls of the tzaddikim draw down the inner union of Abba and Imma, which the arousal raised by the angels cannot do. This is the sense of “As the eyes of servants.”

The angels’ arousal draws down only “masculine waters” (mayin dechurin), the flow from above, for the existence and life of the worlds within the order of descent, and that is what their eyes look to. Israel’s eyes look to G‑d for a new light from above the whole order of descent.

The Alter Rebbe closes with two references: the meaning of “said in a single utterance” is explained further on, and a related discussion appears on the verse “And all the people saw the voices… and the sound of the shofar.”