In the previous section we learned the core of the analogy drawn from the power of speech in the human soul. From here to the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe dresses that analogy in further detail, so that we can follow the process itself step by step.
First, a point worth noting: this hisbonenus can leave a student disoriented. We have moved down from dealing with thought, with letters and with speech, and we now find ourselves in a lofty spiritual matter in which there is no thought, no speech and no letters at all. This is an extremely far-reaching abstraction, and it is precisely what connects us to the ayin and the efes, the "nothing," because reaching there requires stripping everything away. [There is no need to worry: these two chapters alone are difficult in their degree of abstraction, and after them the discussion returns to solid ground.]
The abstraction we are speaking of exists in us, in the human soul, but we have to take it, as it were, as an analogy for the Creator of the world. The divine power being spoken of there is the constricted divine power, for the faculty of speech in itself is already a great tzimtzum, a great constriction: the soul itself is abstract, its descent into thought is a tzimtzum, and its descent into speech is a still greater tzimtzum. Regarding the divine power that contracted itself in order to create a creation, one could seemingly not say that the creation is literally nothing and naught relative to it, since that very power contracted itself in order to engage with the creation. But relative to the Creator Himself, the creation is nothing at all: it is not an existence, it does not count, and its existence takes up no space whatsoever.
Engagement with the creation, then, is found in the lower stages. In chapter 21 we will deal with these lower stages as well, but already now it must be said: relative to the lower stages, relative to the potential for speech, there is something here. Even though it too is finite relative to the Infinite, nevertheless one can say that speech has some content of its own.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "למשל, כשנופלת איזו אהבה וחמדה בלבו של אדם קודם שעולה מהלב אל המוח לחשב ולהרהר בה" ("For example, when some love or desire falls into a person's heart, before it rises from the heart to the brain to think and reflect upon it") - at this stage "אין בה בחינת אותיות עדיין, רק חפץ פשוט, וחשיקה בלב אל הדבר ההוא הנחמד אצלו" ("there are as yet no letters in it at all, only a simple desire and a yearning in the heart for that thing which is precious to him"). For example: a craving for a certain food, or a love for a certain song, falls into a person's heart, before he has begun to think about it, to plan and to obtain it; or, as in the example brought earlier, the feeling of hunger that exists in him even before it has descended into the world of thought - "What do I do? I am hungry, and how will I quiet my hunger?" As long as the matter remains in the world of desire alone, it is stripped of letters.
The Alter Rebbe adds: "וכל שכן קודם שנפלה התאוה והחמדה בלבו לאותו דבר, רק היתה בכח חכמתו ושכלו וידיעתו" ("and all the more so before the craving and desire for that thing fell into his heart, when it was still only within the faculty of his chochmah, his intellect and his knowledge"). For a person cannot be aroused with longing for something he has no awareness of, and he cannot yearn for something that does not exist in his world of intellect. First there must be in him a knowledge that the thing exists (and sometimes this knowledge resides even in the subconscious), and only then can he yearn for it. And if a person has a longing for something, then it must be that beforehand the thing existed in his chochmah and in his intellect, "שהיה נודע אצלו אותו דבר שהוא נחמד ונעים וטוב ויפה להשיגו ולידבק בו" ("that this thing was known to him as precious and pleasant and good and fine to obtain and to cleave to"), such as in the examples he brings here: "כגון ללמוד איזו חכמה או לאכול איזה מאכל ערב" ("such as to study some branch of wisdom, or to eat some pleasing food").
It is worth noting that the expression "נחמד ונעים," "precious and pleasant," is not used only in a negative context. On the one hand it is said of the Tree of Knowledge, "and the tree was good for eating"; on the other hand, every day in the blessing after Shema we say, "and it is firm and established and enduring and upright and faithful... and beloved and precious and pleasant" - and there the words refer to G-dliness. The "precious and pleasant" can be directed upward and it can be directed downward; it all depends on the person and on what is precious in his eyes.
Once the desire and craving have already fallen into his heart - first the matter was in the awareness of the mind, and then it descended in him to the heart - the next stage arrives: "רק לאחר שכבר נפלה החמדה והתאוה בלבו בכח חכמתו ושכלו וידיעתו ואח"כ חזרה ועלתה מהלב אל המוח לחשב ולהרהר בה איך להוציא תאותו מכח אל הפועל, להשיג המאכל או למידת החכמה בפועל" ("only after the desire and craving have already fallen into his heart through the power of his chochmah, his intellect and his knowledge, and afterward it returns and rises from the heart to the brain to think and reflect upon how to bring his desire from potential into actuality, to obtain the food or the study of that wisdom in actual fact"). Sometimes the process happens so quickly that a person does not notice at all how he jumped from awareness to craving, and immediately to searching out the way to bring it into action - but this is a process the soul goes through, a process of stages.
And what changed at that moment when the matter passed from the stage of emotion to the stage of thought? Letters were born. The matter descended from the abstract world into a world framed by letters, for in thought there are already letters: "הרי בכאן נולדה בחינת אותיות במוחו, שהן אותיות כלשון עם ועם המדברים והמהרהרים בהם כל ענייני העולם" ("here letters were born in his brain, which are the letters of the language of each and every nation, in which they speak and think about all the affairs of the world"). In the world of desire it makes no difference whether a person is Israeli or American - there everything is the same. But the moment the matter descends into letters, it takes shape differently for each person, and each one reflects in his own way on how to obtain what he wants.
So what is the conclusion? Let us consider the whole process: from awareness to emotion, from emotion to thought, and from thought to speech (and after that to action). Even if we remain within the world of speech alone - the word that left the mouth is a tremendous constriction, and it takes up no space at all:
Relative to the potential for speech, it takes up no space.
And all the more so relative to the potential for thought.
And all the more so relative to the world of emotion and desire.
And how much more so relative to the awareness and the knowledge in the intellect: it is nothing.
This is the analogy we must bring close to our understanding: the great, wondrous, immense world in which we find ourselves and of which we are a part exists at this very moment like a stone in flight, with the divine energy producing it at this very instant. And how did the Holy One, blessed be He, reveal to us the name of this energy? "Speech." And why did He call it that? To teach us that the divine process, the divine tzimtzum, descended stage after stage until it reached the divine power that is called "speech."
And what do these stages teach us? That even after the power has contracted and arrived at the bottom line, a person should not imagine that this world has significance and existence of its own, and say that G-d is not the same before and after - that beforehand He had no world and now He has a world. Look at yourself as a human being and see: the speech you spoke, what value does it have? Before and after you are the same person, your essence is the same essence, nothing was diminished and nothing was added, whether you spoke or did not speak. So too with regard to the Holy One, blessed be He: "You are the same before the world was created, You are the same since the world was created" - the world has no value and no place at all. This is the oneness of the Creator: He is one and only, and no change whatsoever took place in Him, neither before nor after.
And if we want to make this more tangible: consider a king of flesh and blood, or a foreman, whose speech creates, not in the sense that he created something from nothing, but that he gave an order and the workers carry it out. An entire world gets built out of the word he spoke, and that very word, relative to his essence, is nothing and naught - and here before us are the results it produced. [With human beings it is hard to grasp this fully, since in the end they do have a reality of their own, and we ourselves are a reality; but with a certain measure of hisbonenus we can at least understand and believe that "You are the same before the world was created, and You are the same since the world was created."]
We are not standing here in order to study divine philosophy. The purpose of all this is, in the end, to understand that the entire world is nothing but an expression of G-d alone. And if we attribute existence to something outside the divine will, that is exactly like transgressing the commandment "You shall have no other gods" - there is no independent existence, and existence must not be attributed to anything, since everything that exists is nothing but a divine expression. And when a person attributes reality to some craving and turns it into a "thing" - "this is a thing, and I do it and enjoy it" - what is he enjoying? Something that is in essence nothing and naught. He takes the nothing and the naught and gives it such enormous credit, and that is literally "You shall have no other gods before Me."
This is the conclusion a person must internalize: in every detail and in every test, the question is one of faith or denial. And such an outlook will help him, so that there is fulfilled in him "for the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it."
In summary: in this section we completed the analogy of chapter 20: the stages of the soul from the knowledge in the intellect, to the abstract desire in the heart which has no letters in it, to thought, in which "letters" are born, and on to actual speech - and at each and every stage there is a further tzimtzum, until the word that leaves the mouth takes up no space at all relative to the essence of the soul. From here to the nimshal: the divine power that enlivens and brings the world into being at every moment is called "speech," to teach us that even after all the tzimtzumim, the world takes up no space at all before the Creator, "You are the same before the world was created, You are the same since the world was created" - and this is the oneness of the Creator. And from here comes the practical directive: attributing reality to something outside the divine will falls under "You shall have no other gods before Me," and every test is a question of faith or denial.
In the next section we will take up chapter 21, in which the lower stages of the divine power's engagement with the creation will also be explained.