Daily Tanya

To explain:

There is a well-known statement of Eliyahu, in the passage entitled Patach Eliyahu, in the introduction to Tikkunei Zohar: “You are He Who elicited the ten tikkunim (lit., ‘garments’), which we call the ten sefirot, by which to conduct the concealed worlds…[and the revealed worlds…].28

You are wise but not with a knowable attribute of wisdom;

You understand but not with a knowable attribute of understanding; and so on”—with regard to the remaining sefirot.

All the ten sefirot are included and represented in their source, the Tetragrammaton.

The yud, which is a simple point, extending in neither length nor breadth, indicates G-d’s wisdom, the sefirah of chochmah,

which is the state of concealment and obscurity before it develops into a state of expansion and revelation in comprehension and understanding.

(29The “thorn” above30 the yud indicates the supreme will, this being the level of keter, which transcends by far the level of chochmah ila’ah, supernal wisdom, as is known.)

When [the seminal “point” of chochmah] is eventually amplified and revealed as something comprehensible to the concealed worlds, i.e., when it descends to the level and sefirah of binah,

it is then contained and represented in the letter hey of the Tetragrammaton. This letter extends in breadth, implying a breadth of explanation and understanding, which is the function of binah.

[The letter hey] also extends in length to indicate extension and flow downward into the concealed worlds.

In the next stage, when this extension and flow are drawn still lower into the revealed worlds,

which may be compared, by way of analogy, to one who wishes31 to reveal his thoughts to another through his speech,

this extension is contained and represented in the [final] letters vav and hey [of the Tetragrammaton],

for the letter vav, which is shaped like a vertical line, indicates downward extension.

Also, this downward flow into the revealed worlds is effected through the Divine traits of benevolence and goodness and [G-d’s] other holy traits, included in general terms in the six attributes, the numerical equivalent of vav, in the verse, “Yours, O G-d, is greatness…”32 until “Yours, O G-d, is sovereignty…,” but not including it.

For His attribute of sovereignty is called the “Word of G-d” (and speech is not one of the middot, the spiritual emotive attributes),

as in the verse, “Wherever the word of the king holds sway.”33

This [attribute of sovereignty] is contained and represented in the final hey of the Tetragrammaton, in the following manner:

The internal aspect and the source of speech is the breath that rises from the heart, then is particularized into the five oral articulations (five being the numerical equivalent of the letter hey). [One of these produces the bracket of letters] alef, chet, hey, and ayin from the throat, another produces the bracket of letters beit, vav, mem, and pey from the lips, and so on.

In particular, the enunciation of the letter hey is solely unvocalized breath,

as in the phrase, “A light letter without substance.”34

Now “He has no corporeal form,” G-d forbid.

Nevertheless, “the Torah speaks as in the language of men.”

Moreover (i.e., there is yet another reason why this analogy is apt, notwithstanding the fact that G-d has no corporeal form):

for G-d’s speech as well consists, as it were, of twenty-two letters that separate into the five articulations that produce the Divine speech from which all beings were created.

(35For a discussion of these letters and their significance, see Likkutei Amarim, Part II, ch. 11.)