In the previous section we studied the hagahah (the Alter Rebbe's gloss) to chapter 16, which taught that the root of a person's soul is what determines how much revealed feeling he is capable of arousing in his heart. In this section we reach the end of the chapter, where the Alter Rebbe explains how thought and deed are joined to one another through tevunah.
There is deed and there is thought, but the two do not easily come together. A person who has tevunah, an intellectual conclusion that something is fitting and right to do, goes ahead and does it in practice; but who will connect the tevunah of his mind to the deed itself? Emotion does enter into the deed, but how is thought to enter into the deed? About this Chazal say that the Holy One, blessed be He, "joins it" (metzarfah): He is the one who makes the join, He is the one who connects the deed that exists with the thought that exists. This Jew is, as it were, a "baal mum," someone who simply cannot do more than this, because such is the root of his soul, as we learned in the hagahah.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "וזה רמזו רז"ל באמרם מחשבה טובה הקב"ה מצרפה למעשה" ("and this is what our Sages hinted at when they said: a good thought, the Holy One, blessed be He, joins it to the deed"). The Alter Rebbe then presses on the wording: "והוה ליה למימר מעלה עליו הכתוב כאלו עשאה" ("they should have said: Scripture credits him as though he had done it"), a phrase that does in fact appear later in the Gemara's words, but which should have been used from the outset. Why did Chazal first choose a different expression, "metzarfah la'maaseh," "joins it to the deed"?
"אלא הענין כי דחילו ורחימו שבהתגלות לבו הם המתלבשים במעשה המצות להחיותם לפרחא לעילא" ("but the explanation is that it is the dechilu u'rechimu in the revelation of his heart that clothe themselves in the performance of the mitzvos, to enliven them so that they may fly on high"). With this expression Chazal are hinting at something particular, and to grasp it we must distinguish between two kinds of dechilu u'rechimu (in Aramaic: dechilu, fear; rechimu, love):
Dechilu u'rechimu in the revelation of the heart: when a person has actual revealed feeling in his heart, it is no novelty that this feeling clothes itself in the deeds of the mitzvos, enlivening them and raising them up "liparcha le'eila," to fly on high. As we learned in the structure of the soul, intellect, emotion and deed, which correspond to z'eir anpin and malchus, malchus belongs to the realm of action, and so emotion and deed are naturally bound up with one another. In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כי הלב הוא ג"כ חומרי כשאר אברים שהם כלי המעשה, אלא שהוא פנימי וחיות להם, ולכן יכול להתלבש בהם להיות להם גדפין להעלותם" ("for the heart too is physical like the other limbs, which are the instruments of action, except that it is inward and is their vitality; therefore it can clothe itself in them and become wings for them, to raise them up").
"אך הדחילו ורחימו שבתבונות מוחו ותעלומות לבו הנ"ל גבהו דרכיהם למעלה מעלה מבחינת המעשה, ואי אפשר להם להתלבש בבחינת מעשה המצוות להיות להם בחינת מוחין וחיות לעלותן לפרחא לעילא, אם לא שהקב"ה מצרפן ומחברן לבחינת המעשה" ("but the dechilu u'rechimu that are in the tevunos of his mind and in the hidden recesses of his heart, their ways are far higher than the level of deed, and they cannot clothe themselves in the performance of the mitzvos to be for them mochin and vitality to raise them up to fly on high, unless the Holy One, blessed be He, joins them and connects them to the level of deed"). The intellectual feeling remains on a high plane, detached from action, and on its own it cannot clothe itself in the deed.
Why does revealed feeling clothe itself in deed so readily? Because the heart is a physical, palpable organ. True, the brain is also a physical organ, but the brain is lofty and detached from the whole system: you cannot place your hand on a person's forehead and feel whether or not he is contemplating something right now. The heart, by contrast, is accessible, close, and far more drawn downward; and by their very content the middos are all about being drawn downward. When a person is moved, the feeling becomes almost tangible and takes on a physical form, you can literally sense it in the beat of the heart, and therefore it affects all the limbs and can continue on and clothe itself in them.
These feelings, which are not dechilu u'rechimu in the actual revelation of the heart but rather in the tevunos of his mind and the hidden recesses of his heart, "והן נקראות בשם מחשבה טובה" ("and these are called by the name 'a good thought'"), and the Holy One, blessed be He, joins them to the deed.
[The mashpia Reb Shmuel Levitin offered a fine observation on this wording: there is cold thought and there is good thought. Cold thought is thinking that is entirely cold, pure logic with no emotional leaning at all; "good" is a term for warmth and feeling. "A good thought" means that the thought draws the person in a direction and brings matters down into the heart, in the sense of "the heart understands."]
At first glance one could ask: what is missing here? The deed is the main thing, he studied Torah and he put on tefillin. Why is a special Divine power needed to introduce vitality into the deed? The answer is that without this joining, the deed does not "fly on high," it is not elevated, and it remains a dry act here in this world. The Holy One, blessed be He, wants this world to be elevated, to become more alive and to be connected to the upper worlds, and therefore every possible way must be found to bring loftiness into it. In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כי אינן דחילו ורחימו ממש בהתגלות לבו כי אם בתבונת מוחו ותעלומות לבו כנ"ל" ("for they are not actual dechilu u'rechimu in the revelation of his heart, but only in the tevunah of his mind and the hidden recesses of his heart, as above").
How high do the Torah and mitzvos rise? "אך צירוף זה מצרף הקב"ה כדי להעלות מעשה המצות ועסק התורה הנעשים על ידי מחשבה טובה הנ"ל עד עולם הבריאה מקום עליית התורה והמצות הנעשים ע"י דחילו ורחימו שכליים אשר בהתגלו' לבו ממש" ("but the Holy One, blessed be He, makes this join in order to elevate the performance of the mitzvos and the study of Torah done through the aforementioned good thought, up to the world of Beriah, the place to which Torah and mitzvos done through intellectual dechilu u'rechimu that are in the actual revelation of his heart ascend").
This concept is presented here in the most condensed form, in two and a half lines, and the Alter Rebbe himself notes that it will be explained at length further on. We will therefore suffice with a brief explanation here, and return to read the text itself when we reach the fuller treatment in the coming chapters.
It is known that there are four worlds, as was already mentioned in the Tanya back in chapter 2: Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. We are situated in the physical world of Asiyah. The world of Yetzirah is a world of angels who belong more to the realm of emotion, while in the world of Beriah, which is higher still, are the serafim, who belong more to the realm of understanding.
A Jew's performance of a mitzvah does not remain below even when it is done dryly, unlike the act of a non-Jew or of an animal. Even if he felt nothing in it, the "ahavah mesuteres," the hidden love (whose nature will be explained in chapter 18), brings it about that the mitzvah is elevated at least one level, up to the world of Yetzirah. This is what the Alter Rebbe writes: "אבל בלא"ה נמי עולים לעולם היציר' ע"י דחילו ורחימו טבעיים המסותרים בלב כל ישראל בתולדותם כמ"ש לקמן באריכות" ("but even without this they ascend to the world of Yetzirah by virtue of the natural dechilu u'rechimu hidden in the heart of every Jew by birth, as will be explained at length further on"). The novelty of the "good thought" is that through the joining performed by the Holy One, blessed be He, the deed and the study are elevated all the way to the world of Beriah, the place to which Torah and mitzvos done with intellectual dechilu u'rechimu in the actual revelation of the heart ascend.
The hagahah: why is this called "tevunah"?
Throughout the chapter the Alter Rebbe has used the term "tevunah" rather than "binah." Binah is intellect and understanding as such, with no leaning at all, a sort of objective comprehension; tevunah, however, already contains a certain emotional leaning, it is that very "good thought." In the hagahah the Alter Rebbe explains something striking: the very word "tevunah" hints that there is feeling within it.
It is known that emotion is called a "toladah," an offspring, as was already brought in chapter 3, that the middos are the offspring of the intellect, and these offspring are called son and daughter, male and female: love is called male and fear is called female. A hint to this: in Eishes Chayil it says "a woman who fears Hashem, she shall be praised," showing that yirah is associated with woman and daughter; while "zachar chasdo," "He remembered His kindness," although its plain meaning is from the word for memory, is explained in chassidus as hinting that "zachar," male, alludes to chesed and love (and this is not the place to elaborate).
In the words of the hagahah: "וכמו שכתוב בזוהר ועץ חיים דתבונה אותיות ב"ן וב"ת שהן דחילו ורחימו" ("as is written in the Zohar and in Eitz Chaim, that 'tevunah' is composed of the letters of ben and bas, which are dechilu u'rechimu"), fear and love. Ben and bas, with the addition of the letter hei, spell out "tevunah."
[Although the words "ben" and "bas" are printed there with a mark that looks like an abbreviation sign, they are not abbreviations. In the books of earlier generations, when they wanted to highlight a word they would insert a mark inside the word, in place of the quotation marks we today place on either side of a word, and the intent here is simply to emphasize the words "ben" and "bas" themselves.]
This is why it is called "tevunah" and not "binah": it is not intellect alone, but intellect into which a bit of feeling has entered, not revealed feeling in the heart, but feeling that resides in the world of thought and intellect.
"ולפעמים התבונה יורדת להיות מוחין בנוקבא דזעיר אנפין שהן אותיות התורה והמצוות, והמשכיל יבין" ("and sometimes the tevunah descends to become mochin in nukva of z'eir anpin, which are the letters of Torah and the mitzvos, and the discerning one will understand"). Z'eir anpin is a term for the six middos, and nukva of z'eir anpin is the sefirah of malchus, the executive side. Sometimes the tevunah descends and becomes mochin, intellect, within malchus itself: from the mind it goes straight down into deed, skipping the stage of the heart. Were this a matter of the revelation of the heart, it would descend in orderly fashion, understanding, then feeling, then deed; here a stage is skipped, straight from the mochin to the nukva, to the practical side below. This is the conclusion of the chapter and the content of "metzarfah la'maaseh," "He joins it to the deed."
To close, the Rebbe brings in one of the maamarim a verse from Mishlei: "Counsel in the heart of a man is deep waters, and a man of tevunah will draw it out." The commentaries explain it as a parable: in a pit full of water, the upper waters are not good and unfit things float on them, while the deep waters are good, and the man of tevunah goes all the way down and draws up the good water. The Rebbe explains that this refers to what we have learned in this chapter: in the heart of a Jew there are "deep waters," feeling that remains in the depths and never comes to revelation in the heart. Who will draw it up? "A man of tevunah will draw it out," the one who knows how to make use at least of his tevunah is the one who draws the genuine feeling up from the depths and puts it to proper use.
In summary: in this section we studied the conclusion of chapter 16. Dechilu u'rechimu in the revelation of the heart clothe themselves in the deeds of the mitzvos and become "gadfin," wings, to raise them up, since the heart is physical like the other limbs, only that it is inward and is their vitality. But the dechilu u'rechimu of the tevunos of the mind and the hidden recesses of the heart are higher than the level of deed, and they do not clothe themselves in it unless the Holy One, blessed be He, joins and connects them, and this is "a good thought, the Holy One, blessed be He, joins it to the deed." This joining elevates the Torah and mitzvos all the way to the world of Beriah, the place to which mitzvos done with intellectual dechilu u'rechimu in the revelation of the heart ascend, whereas without it they ascend by the power of the natural hidden love and fear only as far as the world of Yetzirah. In the hagahah the Alter Rebbe explained the name "tevunah," the letters of ben and bas, love and fear, and its occasional descent to become mochin in nukva of z'eir anpin, a leap from the mind directly into deed.
In the next section we will move on in our study to chapter 17, while the full explanation of the natural dechilu u'rechimu hidden in the heart of every Jew will be set out at length further on, and especially in chapter 18.