From this point until the end of the maamar, the Rebbe Rashab discusses the unity that characterizes G‑d’s name Havayah, in greater detail.1 He begins by focusing on the interrelation between its first two letters, yud and hei, which are identified with the Sefiros of Chochmah and Binah respectively.
These two chapters are devoted primarily to the explanation of the letter yud and the Sefirah of Chochmah that it represents. The size of the letter yud reflects the concept of contraction. To employ a mortal analogy: For a mashpia, a source of influence, to communicate to a recipient on a far lower level than himself, he cannot convey the message he desires to share as it exists within himself. Doing so would overwhelm the recipient and prevent him from absorbing it. Instead, the mashpia must contract and concentrate that message, withholding its full potency and distilling it into a limited, focused form that the recipient can digest.
In a cosmic sense, this describes the process of tzimtzum, through which G‑d contracted and limited His light to begin the sequence through which our world was brought into being.
The Rebbe Rashab then shifts focus to the recipient, clarifying that just as the input the mashpia conveys is described as a yud — because it is concentrated into a single point — so, too, in its initial stages, the recipient regards it as a single point. For him to grasp that influence, he must concentrate and focus his energies upon it. Even then, it remains beyond his reach. It is described as a point because, like a point, it is without dimension; it cannot be grasped and internalized. To explain by analogy, it is like the seminal drop from which a child is conceived. That drop contains the potential for all the limbs and organs of the child that will later come into being. In its present form, however, they exist only in potentia — entirely different from the state into which they will ultimately develop.
