Chapter 39

In the previous chapter, the Alter Rebbe explained why our Sages compare the performance of a mitzvah to a body and one’s kavanah in performing the mitzvah to a soul.

He stated that kavanah can be classified into two categories, analogous to the two classes of creatures which possess a soul—animals and man.

The higher level of kavanah is that created by an intellectual appreciation of G‑dliness. Upon contemplating G‑d’s greatness, a love and fear of Him is born in one’s heart, which translates into a desire to cleave to Him. This desire in turn motivates one to fulfill the Torah and mitzvot, since they bind him to G‑d, and this motivation is the kavanah in his fulfillment of the Torah and mitzvot. Such kavanah, born of reason and produced by one’s own volition, is analogous to the soul of man, the intelligent being who determines his actions by choice.

The lower level of kavanah is that which stems from an arousal of the soul’s natural, instinctive love and fear of G‑d. Such kavanah is comparable to the soul of an animal, which is ruled by its natural instincts.

The Alter Rebbe now opens ch. 39 by stating that for this reason, the angels, who fear and love G‑d by their very nature, are metaphorically called “animals.”

The abode of ordinary angels, however, is in the World of Yetzirah, and they are thus lower than the souls of the tzaddikim, whose abode is in Beriah. The Alter Rebbe now explains how intellectually created love and fear are related to Beriah and instinctive love and fear to Yetzirah.

The four partzufim (lit., “countenances”; i.e., configurations of sefirot) of the sefirot of Atzilut (the World of Emanation) radiate in the four Worlds—Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, and (the World of Action, viz.,) Asiyah; one partzuf predominates in each World, representing the manifestation of G‑dliness in that World.

These partzufim are: (a) chochmah (wisdom); (b) binah (understanding); (c) Z’eyr Anpin (lit., “The Small Image”; i.e., the six middot); (d) malchut (sovereignty).

In Atzilut, chochmah is the dominant partzuf. Atzilut is thus pervaded with an atmosphere of utter self-nullification before G‑d, for chochmah, the dominant influence in that World, represents the perception that “Ein Sof is One alone, and there is naught besides Him” (as discussed in ch. 35).

In Beriah (also called the “World of the Throne”), binah is the dominant partzuf. Beriah is therefore a World of intellect; the souls and angels of Beriah are distinguished by superior intellectual appreciation of G‑dliness.

Yetzirah is dominated by the six middot (which together constitute the partzuf of Z’eyr Anpin). It is therefore a World of emotion; the creatures of Yetzirah serve G‑d with great emotional intensity.

Asiyah, the lowest World, is dominated by the partzuf of malchut. G‑d’s attribute of Sovereignty evokes subservience in His subjects; therefore, in our service of G‑d in this World, the emphasis is on “accepting the yoke of heaven.”

To return to our subject: Middot are the dominant influence in Yetzirah.

Thus, because middot constitute the dominant partzuf in Yetzirah, the service of the creatures of Yetzirah consists of emotion.

Ultimately, the souls of those who serve G‑d with intellectual love and fear are privileged to abide in the Higher Garden of Eden—Beriah. For the reward given in the Garden of Eden (Paradise) is that the souls “delight in the radiance of the Shechinah,” i.e., they delight in their perception of G‑d’s glory. Since one’s reward is commensurate with his level of divine service, the delight in intellectual perception of G‑dliness is reserved for the souls of those who served G‑d with intellectual love and fear during their lifetime on earth.

At this point, the Alter Rebbe qualifies his earlier statement: Only those tzaddikim whose souls are on the level of neshamah (i.e., the highest of the three soul-levels—nefesh, ruach, and neshamah) abide in Beriah. Neshamah represents Mochin deGadlut—a “superior intellectual grasp” of G‑dliness; those on the level of neshamah understand G‑dliness directly as it is without recourse to analogy or anthropomorphic terms. Love and fear follow from such direct understanding of G‑dliness as its natural extensions; they are not products of intellect, a generation removed. In this case, in fact, the emotions may be considered as part of an intellectual process rather than emotion proper.

Such pleasure is the prerogative of the souls in Beriah, since the soul’s delight is from its understanding and appreciation of G‑dliness to the extent that a soul is capable of such understanding.

With this, the Alter Rebbe concludes his statement that on Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh, the souls of other Jews (who had not served G‑d with intellectual love and fear) ascend to Beriah.

Thus, although these souls served G‑d as angels do, with love and fear that are natural, not intellectual, yet their service ranks higher than that of an angel, for the soul acts out of free choice, while the angel is a creature of compulsive instinct (albeit holy instinct). Therefore, it is occasionally granted to the soul, unlike the angel, to rise to the Higher Garden of Eden in Beriah.

In the following paragraphs, the Alter Rebbe will differentiate between the respective stations of the souls, on one hand, and of their divine service (i.e., the actual Torah and mitzvot that the soul studies and observes) on the other. But before examining his words, an introduction is in order:

Although we spoke above of the sefirot of each of the Four Worlds, it must nevertheless be understood that the sefirot of each World do not constitute that World itself. The sefirot represent, rather, the G‑dliness inherent in each World—its divine life-force. The World itself, on the other hand, is a yesh, a separate being, which comes about through the sefirot.

The significance of this distinction with regard to our discussion is as follows: The Alter Rebbe spoke above of the abode of the soul in either the World of Yetzirah or the World of Beriah (depending on the level of its divine service). The emphasis here is on the word “World”: the soul’s abode is in the World of Beriah or Yetzirah (also described as the heichalot (“Chambers”) of these Worlds), not in the sefirot of these Worlds.

The soul’s divine service, on the other hand, ascends to the sefirot (of the appropriate World); this means, in effect, that it is absorbed in the Ein Sof.

In fact, the soul’s reward in the Garden of Eden, described before as the pleasure of “basking in the radiance of the Shechinah,” is actually the radiance of the Torah and mitzvot that the person observed while in this physical world, which have ascended to the supernal sefirot.

In the Alter Rebbe’s words:

A “ray” issuing from the mitzvot that they have performed, and that have become united with the Ein Sof, shines forth upon the tzaddikim in the Garden of Eden; it is the revelation of this ray that delights the soul.

From this, we may catch a glimpse of the stature of a mitzvah performed in this world. From a mere glimmer of the light radiated by a mitzvah, a soul in Paradise derives pleasure so exquisite that, as our Sages say, all the suffering of Purgatory—a suffering so acute that one moment of it is worse than enduring seventy years of Job’s afflictions—is worthwhile so long as it enables one subsequently to experience the boundless delight of Paradise.

In fact, were the soul when in Paradise to apprehend the essence of the mitzvah instead of a mere ray of it, it would expire—it would dissolve out of existence in the intensity of its light.

This is the meaning of the Mishnah, “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come.”8 For in the World to Come, the soul has only a glimmer of the light of mitzvot, whereas in this world, we have the essence of mitzvot, whereby we are united with G‑d Himself.

The soul’s great pleasure in Paradise is due only to its clear perception of the ray of light given off by the mitzvah, a perception that we lack in this physical world, wherefore the Mishnah concludes, “Better one hour of bliss in the World to Come than all the life of this world”—better even than the bliss of fulfilling the Torah and mitzvot in this world, for true bliss can be experienced only in Paradise, where the soul actually perceives and grasps the G‑dliness of the Torah and mitzvot.

Having explained that Beriah is the abode of souls that served G‑d with intellectual love and fear and Yetzirah of souls that served Him with natural love and fear, the Alter Rebbe will now discuss the divine service of those souls whose abode is the World of Atzilut. The quality of their divine service, he explains, surpasses even that of intellectual love and fear. This is the level of those tzaddikim who become veritable “chariots” for G‑d: they have no will save His will, and their every act testifies to their utter self-nullification before Him.

Were the ChaBaD of Atzilut to shine forth in Beriah without being “contracted,” allowing the creatures of Beriah to grasp G‑dliness as it radiates in the sefirot of Atzilut, these creatures would be overwhelmed by the G‑dly illumination beyond their capacity to absorb and would dissolve out of existence.

Hence, the Alter Rebbe will now continue, it is only the G‑dliness in a “contracted” ChaBaD that creatures of Beriah can grasp and absorb (and even then only to the extent of their limited capacity); the light of ChaBaD in its pristine state, as in Atzilut, is beyond them.

“To such a great degree”—for the very fact of their being sefirot (i.e., individual, defined categories) indicates that ChaBaD are merely contracted, limited manifestations of the undefinable Ein Sof; the degree of contraction, however, is much less than that of Beriah, and therefore, the creatures of Beriah cannot receive intellectual illumination from ChaBaD of Atzilut.

The Patriarchs were constantly in that state of self-nullification before G‑d, denoted by the term “chariot.” Similarly in the case of the tzaddikim spoken of here: Through their Torah and mitzvot, they effect the highest degree of self-nullification before G‑d in themselves and in all their affairs. The abode of their souls, therefore, is likewise in a World pervaded with this spirit of self-nullification, namely the World of Atzilut.

The four rungs in the ladder of prayer correspond to the four Worlds: The prayers preceding Baruch She’amar correspond to Asiyah; the Verses of Praise to Yetzirah; the Shema to Beriah; and the Shemoneh Esrei is at the level of Atzilut.

Having discussed the various “abodes” of souls—three Worlds in which the souls receive a reward commensurate with the level of their divine service during their life on earth—the Alter Rebbe now returns to the theme begun in ch. 38. There, he noted that kavanah in mitzvot (which is the “soul” of the mitzvot) can be classified into various categories, corresponding to the different levels of soul found in living beings—the souls of animals, of man, and so on. A kavanah which consists of intellectual love and fear is like the volitional soul of man, a kavanah consisting of natural love and fear like the instinctive soul of an animal.

To support this contention, he discussed the various levels of “abodes” where souls receive their reward commensurate with their divine service on earth.

Returning now to his original theme, the Alter Rebbe points out that from the varying levels of reward, we can deduce the respective levels of divine service motivated by the different levels of kavanah.

Unlike wages paid to a laborer, for example, which are no index of the nature of the work performed, the reward for a mitzvah—i.e., the revelation of G‑dliness experienced by the soul that performed the mitzvah—is actually the fruit of the mitzvah itself; the revelation consists of a ray of the G‑dly light emitted by the mitzvah.

As explained at length further, love and fear are the “wings” of one’s divine service; lacking the wings, it cannot soar aloft.

The Alter Rebbe now proceeds to amplify his previous statement.

If one cannot arouse his natural love of G‑d to the point where it is actually felt in the heart, he must try, as discussed above, to arouse it at least so that it be felt in the conscious mind and in the substratum of the heart. Even this low-level arousal can produce a will and resolve to study the Torah and fulfill the mitzvot. Thus, the resulting divine service contains (at least to some degree) the force and kavanah of his natural love since it was this love that created the resolve which he is now implementing.

If, however, one does not produce even this minimal level of arousal, the love, although naturally found in his heart, has no bearing on his divine service, and he cannot, therefore, do this service lishmah (“for its own sake”).

One who observes the mitzvot out of habit, however, lacking even this minimal arousal of love cannot be described as serving G‑d for His sake, even though his performance is impelled by no ulterior motive.

Divine “service” connotes the relationship of a servant to his master, whom he serves chiefly out of fear, unlike a child, who carries out his father’s wishes mainly because he loves him. When one performs a mitzvah out of the love of G‑d alone without fear of Him, he is indeed acting for G‑d’s sake—but he is not serving Him.

The Alter Rebbe thus perceives two novel insights in the statement that one should always engage in Torah and mitzvot even shelo lishmah, etc.

Progress from shelo lishmah to lishmah is a certainty, not a possibility, since every sinner will ultimately repent (—and the Alter Rebbe therefore adds the word “certainly” to the quotation).

Not only will the person advance from the state of shelo lishmah to lishmah, but even the Torah that he studied shelo lishmah will be elevated so that it attains the quality of lishmah, for when one repents and returns to G‑d, his Torah “returns” with him.

The aforesaid applies to one who engages in divine service for an ulterior motive, strictly shelo lishmah.

Because his earlier study was not motivated by selfish reasons, the Torah studied is not in exile within the kelipah; it merely lacks the quality of lishmah. This fault is remedied by reviewing the subject lishmah.

When one recites the prayer once again, this time with kavanah, his earlier prayer ascends as well. Further in the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe states that even if from all one’s prayers throughout the year only one full prayer with kavanah can be assembled piecemeal (from one part of prayer said with kavanah one day, another part on another day, and so on), this one prayer is sufficient to elevate all the prayers of the entire year. For even where specific kavanah is lacking, the prayer is endowed with the comprehensive kavanah that one is praying to G‑d.