In the previous section we studied the third level found in the benoni: a love that essentially belongs to tzaddikim, except that the Holy One arranges for it to be present in the benoni as well. And here a question arises: why does it come in a concealed way? Why can it not be given openly?
The answer is fascinating. The benoni is not a tzaddik, and had the love of the tzaddikim been given to him openly, he would be liable to be caught in arrogance and in yeshus, a sense of self: "Thank G-d, I have love of Hashem!" And the moment he is caught in arrogance, that is the very moment he can fall. Therefore the love is given to him in such a way that at times he is not aware at all of what he has. It is present within him, but he does not know it. This is the meaning of the statement that the benoni sometimes reaches lofty levels: sometimes without any awareness of it, and sometimes with awareness.
Rava was aware of this love, and he held that even though he had arrived at this awareness, he was still no more than a benoni and not on the level of a tzaddik. Further on in Likkutei Torah (and whoever wishes should look it up in the source) the Alter Rebbe cites the very wording that appears before us here in chapter 13, and he explains that this was Rava's mistake.
Alongside Rava the Alter Rebbe brings Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai, who said of himself on the day of his passing: "I do not know on which path they are leading me," meaning, I do not know whether to Gan Eden or to Gehinnom. And this is Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai, whose greatness the Gemara compares to that of Moshe Rabbeinu (he lived a hundred and twenty years, along with many other comparisons the Gemara draws between them). How could he possibly not know? The answer is that all his life he never had a spare moment to waste on wondering whether he was a tzaddik or a benoni. All his life his thought was: who knows, perhaps in my essence I do not belong there at all, and I am nothing more than a benoni who prays. On the day of his passing he stopped to think, and said that he did not know where he truly belonged, even though he certainly belonged among the tzaddikim. And with this, Rava's case is understood as well.
We now come to the end of the chapter. Let us first lay out the direction of the ideas, and then read the text itself. At first glance, everything said until now could leave the benoni in despair. Even if he has reached the highest level, he is told that the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul, is still there, and that everything he achieved is momentary, "at designated times" in the language of the Tanya, and no more than that. If so, what is all his toil for? More than that: seemingly there is no truth in his service at all, since the very definition of something true is that it endures and remains.
As is well known, this is the difference between the letters of "emes" (truth) and the letters of "sheker" (falsehood). The letters of emes are spread out from the alef at the beginning of the alphabet, through the mem in the middle, to the tav at the end. In other words, the thing penetrates everything and never ceases. The letters of sheker, by contrast, are bunched together at the end of the alphabet, with no grip at the beginning and none in the middle. Truth is something that continues always.
So the benoni will come and say: if that is the case, what worth is there in all my service, if it is not truth? To this comes an interesting explanation. Indeed, relative to those greater than you it is not truth. But in those very moments in which you stand where you stand, you have touched the point of absolute truth. The absolute, infinite Divine truth exists in its fullness with the Holy One, and whoever succeeds in touching it at a given point, even if it is only a point in time, has at that point touched the truest truth. And if afterward his animal soul overpowered him and he fell, that is not because he does not belong there. His task is to work on himself and to reach it again anew.
Let us read the words of the Alter Rebbe: "והנה מדת האהבה הזו האמורה בבינונים בשעת התפלה" ("Now this quality of love spoken of regarding benonim at the time of prayer"), the love of the third level, which the benoni reaches during prayer "על ידי התגברות הנפש האלוקית כו'" ("through the strengthening of the Divine soul, etc."), from the source of the gevuros, which is binah, as we learned. "הנה לגבי מדרגת הצדיקים עובדי ה' באמת לאמיתו - אין בחינת אהבה זו נקראת בשם עבודת אמת כלל" ("in relation to the level of the tzaddikim, who serve Hashem with absolute truth, this kind of love is not called true service at all"). When you set up a comparison between the benoni, for whom this is momentary and only during prayer, and the tzaddik, who lives in an entirely different world, the benoni's love is not called true service at all. And why? "מאחר שחולפת ועוברת אחר התפלה" ("since it slips away and passes after the prayer"). For the tzaddik this is a permanent state; for the benoni it is a passing, momentary one.
And on this he brings the words of Shlomo HaMelech: "וכתיב שפת אמת תכון לעד, ועד ארגיעה לשון שקר" ("and it is written: the lip of truth shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is only for a moment"). Something that lasts only a moment, here one moment and gone the next, is defined as a "lying tongue." It comes out that the benoni might think, G-d forbid, that he is a fraud, and that everything he has is not genuine but a pose. This very thought comes from the yetzer, but how do you convince him otherwise? After all, in practice the love does indeed vanish after prayer, and the rule is that something that vanishes is not real.
Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe reassures him: "ואף על פי כן לגבי מדרגת הבינונים נקראת עבודה תמה באמת לאמיתו שלהם, איש איש כפי מדרגתו במדרגת הבינונים" ("and nevertheless, relative to the level of benonim it is called complete service, with the absolute truth that is theirs, each man according to his level within the level of benonim"). Relative to the state he is actually in, his service is called whole and true service.
At first glance truth is absolute, so how can one say "for me this is truth and for you it is not truth"? Here lies the point. Truth in its essence is absolute, and as such it exists with the Holy One. A person can touch it and feel it in one measure or another, but in whatever measure he felt it, in that moment he touched the Infinite itself.
Two illustrations:
The sweetness of an apple. Chassidus explains that the physical sweetness of an apple, which a person tastes and senses, has its source in the hishtalshelus, the chain of descent of the worlds. In the worlds there are Divine attributes, among them the attribute of chesed, and in each of the four general worlds, atzilus, beriah, yetzirah and asiyah, there is an aspect of chesed: the chesed of atzilus, the chesed of beriah, and so too the chesed of asiyah, until the thing descends and becomes the sweetness of an apple. It is all one line: the sweetness of an apple, the higher sweetness of a musical instrument, the incomparable sweetness of a beautiful and profound intellectual idea, the sweetness of G-dliness, the sweetness of atzilus. But can one say that the sweetness of an apple is literally atzilus? No. After millions of tzimtzumim it descended from atzilus and became the sweetness of an apple, but it is not atzilus; it is the tiniest fraction of a fraction of it.
Fire. Can one point to anything in this limited world that is unlimited and tangibly visible? Sand is not such a thing. It is limited; we simply have no way of counting it. And from the very fact that the Torah uses the language of being uncountable, it is understood that in itself it is countable. The waters of the sea are not such a thing either, and one of the Tannaim already said that he could estimate how many drops there are in the sea. But fire: from one burning candle you can kindle an infinite number of candles, and the light of the first candle is not diminished in the slightest. Contrast this with anything limited: a cup of water from which I removed a drop is now missing that drop; sand from which I took a bit is missing the bit I moved elsewhere.
Still, fire is not truly without limit: it is fire and not water and not air. But to a certain degree it gives tangible expression to something beyond limit. And this is also the difference between the two illustrations. In the sweetness of the apple I do not see the chesed of atzilus. I see an apple, and I say that it descended from chesed of atzilus through millions of levels. But when I see the limitlessness in fire, I am seeing limitlessness itself. Not in all its dimensions, of course, since this is fire and not water, and were it truly limitless it would be limitless in every dimension. But in that one dimension that I touched, I touched genuine limitlessness.
And so it is in our subject. The benoni reaches love of Hashem during prayer at a particular point in time, at a particular emotional intensity and in a particular measure. But in that measure, at that point in time and on that level, this is the point of genuine truth as it has become revealed in him. In the tzaddik it is present across the whole span and at all times; in the benoni it is momentary. But the point that he does have is the authentic point as it is in its source. For this reason the benoni must not despair and say, "If so, I am not genuine." Every single point he managed to touch was a touch of the truest, infinite truth.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "והריני קורא באהבתם שבתפלתם ג\"כ שפת אמת תכון לעד" ("and I apply to their love during prayer as well the verse, the lip of truth shall be established forever"). Even though the love passes, I apply to it "the lip of truth shall be established forever," "הואיל ובכח נפשם האלקית לחזור ולעורר בחינת אהבה זו לעולם" ("since it is in the power of their Divine soul to arouse this love again, always"). In potential the thing is always present in him, and it all depends on him: if he invests and exerts himself, the love awakens anew; if he does not invest, it does not awaken, yet it exists in reality. And how does he awaken it? "בהתגברותה בשעת התפלה מדי יום ביום, על ידי הכנה הראויה לכל נפש כפי ערכה ומדרגתה" ("through its strengthening at the time of prayer each and every day, by means of the preparation appropriate to each soul according to its measure and level"). Some prepare at length and some prepare less, each one according to his own measure and level.
There is a story. Rabbi Akiva Eiger, one of the giants of the generations, who wrote many commentaries on the Gemara and volumes of responsa, had a grandson, Reb Leibele, who became close to Chassidus, and in time even stood at the head of a chassidic dynasty himself. He was a disciple of the Tzaddik of Kotzk, and once he asked him: "What shall I tell my grandfather, who says that chassidim waste so much time on preparations for prayer before they ever get to the prayer itself?" (As is well known, chassidim would prepare extensively for prayer. One does not rise in the morning and daven immediately; rather one learns before praying, goes to the mikveh and learns, and only then manages to arrive at genuine feeling in prayer. And as we learned in an earlier lesson, the Sages of Israel themselves created preparations for prayer: the prayer is Shemoneh Esrei, and before it they instituted Shema, Pesukei DeZimra and Birchos HaShachar, and later still further preparations were added.)
The Rebbe of Kotzk answered him: tell him this. Your grandfather wants everything to have a source in halacha, so I will give him a source in halacha. A man hires a worker to chop wood and pays him by the day. The worker arrives and his axe is not sharp, so he has to sharpen it, and he sharpens it again and again until two or three hours have gone by in sharpening alone. Does the employer pay him for those hours as work, or does he say, "I am only paying you for what you actually chopped"? The halacha says that for sharpening the axe he pays him as though he had been working for him, and this is so even if most of the day went by in sharpening and only at the end did he manage to chop a single log. Tell your grandfather: chassidim spend a long time sharpening the knife until they manage to chop the wood, and the sharpening itself is part of the matter.
This is what the Alter Rebbe means by "the preparation appropriate to each soul according to its measure and level." Each person prepares for prayer differently, but it is the preparation that brings him to the feeling of love of Hashem. And once this love is always accessible to you and depends only on you, it exists in reality.
"כי הנה מדת אמת היא מדתו של יעקב, הנקרא בריח התיכון המבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה, מרום המעלות ומדרגות עד סוף כל דרגין" ("for the attribute of truth is the attribute of Yaakov, who is called the middle bar that runs from one end to the other, from the loftiest of levels down to the end of all levels"). And why is Yaakov's attribute called the attribute of truth? Avraham Avinu: one son was Yitzchak, but the other son was Yishmael, and he did not succeed in carrying his holiness through to all his children. Yitzchak Avinu: one son was Yaakov and the other was Eisav, and he too did not carry his holiness through to all his children. Yaakov Avinu, however, had not one son and not two, but twelve, and all of them tzaddikim, the tribes of Israel, the tribes of G-d. That is why he is called the attribute of truth: with him the thing penetrates from beginning to end without interruption.
And this is the "middle bar" of the Mishkan, which ran from one end to the other. The Mishkan was made of individual boards, and a single bar, the middle and innermost one, ran through them all and held them together. Each board gripped the bar at its own spot, and yet every board could say that it was holding on to the middle bar itself. Such is the point of truth: truth from alef to tav, and each one grasps it in the place where he stands and in the way he is able. And this is "ובכל מעלה ומדרגה מבריח תוך נקודה האמצעית שלה, שהיא נקודת ובחינת מדת אמת שלה" ("and in every rung and level it runs through the middle point of that level, which is the point and aspect of the attribute of truth of that level"). "ומדת אמת היא נחלה בלי מצרים" ("and the attribute of truth is an inheritance without boundaries"). Absolute truth has no boundaries and no measure, up to the loftiest heights, and as such it exists with the Holy One.
From here we can draw a further conclusion. If we were to say that the lower is not called truth relative to what is above it, we would have to say the same about tzaddikim, for there are levels among tzaddikim, and a tzaddik on a lower rung is not truth relative to the tzaddik above him. And so too one angel relative to the angel above him, and even the world of atzilus relative to the worlds above it. But it is not correct to speak that way, because truth is one single point, and every level grasps it according to its own level.
"וכל מעלות ומדרגות שלמטה הן כאין לגבי מעלות ומדרגות שלמעלה מהן, כידוע ליודעי ח\"ן, שמבחינת ראש ומוחין של מדרגות תחתונות הן למטה מבחינת עקביים ורגלי מדרגות עליונות מהן, וכמאמר רז\"ל רגלי החיות כנגד כולן" ("and all the lower rungs and levels are as nothing relative to the rungs and levels above them, as is known to those versed in the hidden wisdom, for the head and brain of the lower levels are lower than the heels and feet of the levels above them, as our Sages said: the feet of the chayos are equal to all of them"), as is known to students of Kabbalah. In terms of the ladder of levels there is certainly higher and lower, and the feet of the higher level are loftier than the head of the level beneath it. And yet, that very same point of truth penetrates through all the levels alike.
Consequently the benoni has no reason to despair. He should know that at whatever level he reached, and in every point of feeling for G-dliness and holiness that he managed to arouse within himself, even if it was only at a single point in time, at that point in time he touched absolute, genuine truth. And his task is to make every effort so that at the next point in time as well he will reveal it once again.
To summarize: In this section we learned why the love of the tzaddikim present in the benoni is hidden from him, so that he not come to arrogance and yeshus. We saw the cases of Rava and of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai. We addressed the question of how a love that passes can be called "complete service, with the absolute truth that is theirs," and we learned that at that very point the benoni touches absolute truth, as illustrated by the sweetness of the apple in contrast to the tangible limitlessness of fire. We learned about the value of proper preparation for prayer, and about the attribute of truth of Yaakov Avinu, "the middle bar that runs from one end to the other," which every level grasps at its middle point according to its own measure.
In the next section we will continue, with G-d's help, to chapter 14 of Likkutei Amarim.