Daily Tanya

Now, it is known to the students of the Kabbalah23

that the “word of G-d” is referred to as the Shechinah, in the terminology of the [Talmudic and Midrashic] Sages, of blessed memory, and as Imma Tataah (the “nether mother”) and Matronita (the “Queen”) in the terminology of the Zohar,

especially at the beginning of Parashat Va’eira, where an analogy is drawn to G-d’s speech from a princess,

because [the “word of G-d”] dwells and vests itself in created beings to give them life.

In the terminology of the Kabbalists, [the “word of G-d”] is called malchut, for24 “the word of a king rules”—a king rules his kingdom through his speech and also for other reasons known to the students of the Kabbalah.

Now, it is known that there is a rank and level of [the sefirah of] malchut of [the World of] Atzilut, and a rank of [the sefirah of] malchut of [the World of] Beriah, and so on. There are thus many degrees of “G-d’s speech.”

Malchut of Atzilut means the “word of G-d” which animates and brings into being the great souls that are of the rank of Atzilut,

such as the soul of Adam, of whom it is said, “And He blew into his nostrils the soul of life…”25 (i.e., a soul from the level of Atzilut); and such as the souls of the patriarchs and the prophets and the like

(26who were truly a “chariot” unto G-d27 and in a state of total self-abnegation in relation to Him;

as our Sages, of blessed memory, said, “The Shechinah speaks from the throat of Moses”28;

and likewise with all the prophets and those possessed of the Holy Spirit: the supernal voice and speech vested itself in their actual voice and speech, as Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, of blessed memory, stated).

Malchut of Beriah is the ‘‘word of G-d” which animates and brings into being the souls and angels in the World of Beriah,

whose level is not like the level of Atzilut, and so on; i.e., malchut of Yetzirah is the level of Divine speech that brings into being and animates the souls and angels in the World of Yetzirah.

And malchut of Asiyah is the “word of G-d” which animates and creates this world in its entirety,

up to and including the Element of Earth and “the water that is below the earth.”29