Daily Tanya

The Alter Rebbe will now state that beyond the above-discussed superior quality of mitzvot requiring action (as well as the study of their laws), they are also essentially superior to the source of the soul by virtue of their source.

Thus, the love and awe experienced by the soul, though spiritual in nature, pale in comparison to these mitzvot (even though they are performed with physical entities), not only because these mitzvot and the extraction of the sparks accomplished thereby are the ultimate purpose of creation, but in essence, too, they are superior to the source of the soul.

The Divine Names Sag and Mah are two of the four Names that echo the varying numerical values which result when the names of the four letters that comprise the Name Havayah are spelled out in any of four different ways. For example, one possible spelling entails the repeated use of the letter vav while another possible spelling entails the repeated use of the letter alef.

When the Hebrew names of the four letters yud and hey and vav and hey are written out with the full complement (milui) of the letter vav, the numerical equivalent of the letters used totals 63 (hence the Divine Name ס"ג). When it is written with the full complement of the letter alef, the numerical equivalent of the letters used totals 45 (hence the Divine Name מ"ה).

The Kabbalah explains how the Name Sag is related to the World of Tohu while the Name Mah is related to the World of Tikkun, which is inferior to it.

The Alter Rebbe is thus stating here that the purifications of the action-related mitzvot find their source in the Divine Name Sag that derives from the internal aspect of Adam Kadmon, the primal Divine thought of creation that encompasses all subsequent stages and levels of creation.

By contrast, since the souls of Jews derive from the World of Tikkun (lit., “correction”), the nefesh or ruach or neshamah is of a level at which it was already corrected by means of the Divine Name Mah. And this Name is but a glimmer that derives from the “forehead” of Adam Kadmon.

The verse reads thus: “These are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before a king ruled over the Children of Israel.” The Kabbalah understands these “kings” as a reference to the sefirot in the World of Tohu who reigned before (i.e., on a superior level to) “a king who ruled over the Jews,” i.e., the World of Tikkun, which is the source of their souls. For the World of Tikkun is merely a glimmer of Adam Kadmon while Tohu (from whence derive the exiled sparks and their purification) stems from the Divine Name Sag, which is rooted in the internal level of Adam Kadmon.

Since the soul derives from the World of Tikkun and incorporates the Divine Name Mah, it is thereby able to extract and purify the sparks found within the inorganic, vegetative, and living classes.

Having refined these sparks that are found within the inorganic, vegetative, and living classes and having drawn Divine energy upon them from their lofty source in Tohu, man in turn is then invigorated by them with an additional measure of spiritual vitality.

However, is it not paradoxical that man, who is so far superior to the inorganic, vegetative, and living classes, should derive his sustenance from them?

The teachings of Chasidut find the answer in the verse, “Not on bread alone does a man live but on all that comes forth from G-d’s mouth does a man live.”44 It is not the physical, vegetative bread alone that sustains man, but the creative Divine utterance that is found within the bread.

However, since man is provided with his ongoing existence by his own creative Divine utterance, viz., “Let us make man,”45 why does he need to be sustained by the creative word that sustains vegetative growth (or, for that matter, the inorganic and living classes of existence)?

The answer lies in the fact that the creative utterance that animates bread derives from a loftier source (the World of Tohu) than the source of the creative utterance that animates man (the World of Tikkun). In terms of the Divine Names, Sag transcends Mah.

Thus, the love and awe by which a man connects with the supernal attributes (middot), which are the innermost essence of the sefirot, cannot draw down into the soul the innermost essence of these attributes but merely their external aspects.

The action-related mitzvot, by contrast, derive from the netzach-hod-yesod—the external and revelatory aspect—of the sefirot. This lower level can descend below in its essential and inward state in action-related mitzvot.

The Alter Rebbe will now explain that since love and fear are essentially spiritual in nature, they resemble the mere glimmer (and not the essence) of the master’s own intellectual illumination that he imparts to his disciple. In contrast, a physical seminal drop is capable of creating a child—it imparts the entire essence. So much so, in fact, that it is possible for the “power of the child to outshine the power of his father”48 so that gifts dormant within the father can become manifest in the child.

The Alter Rebbe will now use this analogy to explain the difference between love and awe, which are spiritual, and the action-related mitzvot, which are physical. Love and awe are “illuminations” (orot), like the illumination of intellect, while the practical mitzvot are “vessels” (kelim) that give forth the essence, similar to the physical drop that gives forth the entire essence of its source.

All the above refers to the drop that derives from the vessels of wisdom.

Though this is a rarefied level of conceptualization, transcending even the subtle articulation sketched by “letters of thought,” nevertheless:

Thus, the soul’s essence is not to be found even within intellectual conception—unlike the drop, which, though physical, comprises within it the essence of the soul, as the Alter Rebbe now goes on to say.

According to the above, however, it would seem that within the love and awe of souls as well, there should be an element of essence—whereas we learned above that the love and awe of souls are likened to the mere reflection (and not the essence) of his own illumination, which a master imparts to his disciple.

The Alter Rebbe anticipates this query by explaining that since the vessels of Atzilut become a neshamah to Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, there are therefore two forms of issue from the soul itself: one is a radiance, which is intellectual love and fear; the other is an issue of essence that finds expression in action-related mitzvot.

Though it derives from the vessels of Atzilut, it is still not of the degree of essence.

Not being manifest, it must therefore descend in a concealed manner, similar to the drop.