In the previous section we worked through the analogy of human speech, and how the Holy One's speech never leaves Him and is never separated from Him at all. In this section we continue with the Alter Rebbe's own words, and arrive at the practical conclusion that emerges from the chapter, and at the connection between chapter 21 and "Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad."
A person has to feel that the Divine speech remains, so to speak, exactly as a person's words are before he has spoken, while they are still contained within the power of his wisdom and intellect, "או בתשוקה וחמדה שבלבו, קודם שעלתה מהלב למוח להרהר בה בבחינת אותיות" ("or in the desire and longing of his heart, before it rose from the heart to the mind to be contemplated in the form of letters"). Picture a person before he has spoken, while the matter still stands in the world of his intellect or in the world of his emotion: at that stage the speech is literally part of him. With the Creator, it always stays that way.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "שאז היו אותיות המחשבה והדבור הזה הנמשכות מחמדה ותשוקה זו בכח בלב, ומיוחדות שם בתכלית היחוד בשרשן, שהן החכמה ושכל שבמוח וחמדה ותשוקה שבלב" ("for then the letters of this thought and speech, which are drawn from that longing and desire, were in the heart in potential, and united there in the ultimate union with their source, which is the wisdom and intellect in the mind and the longing and desire in the heart"). As long as a person has not yet spoken, it is obvious to everyone where the letters are: inside him, in potential. And everyone would agree that the letters, as they exist within the world of the mind or the world of the heart, are utterly nullified there relative to their source, the wisdom and intellect of the mind and the longing and desire of the heart. But the moment they go outside, they suddenly acquire a reality and an "ego" of their own. With the Creator, by contrast, it all stays inside the whole time.
"וככה ממש, דרך משל, מיוחדות דבורו ומחשבתו של הקב"ה בתכלית היחוד במהותו ועצמותו יתברך, גם אחר שיצא דבורו יתברך אל הפועל בבריאות העולמות, כמו שהיה מיוחד עמו קודם בריאת העולמות, ואין שום שינוי כלל לפניו יתברך" ("and exactly so, by way of analogy, the speech and thought of the Holy One are united in the ultimate union with His essence and being, even after His speech has emerged into actuality in the creation of the worlds, just as it was united with Him before the worlds were created, and there is no change at all before Him"). Even after He created the entire world, the world remains within Him exactly as it was united with Him before creation. Relative to the Creator nothing whatsoever changed.
And if you object: we see a real, tangible world, and in practice the world did change? The question is: changed relative to whom. Relative to created beings there is certainly change. The slightest shift in a person's toenail drives him crazy; it moves a millimeter and he cannot find a place for himself. And obviously in the world of created beings things develop every moment, the sun rises and acts upon the world, and so on. But the whole change is only from the side of the receivers, in the Alter Rebbe's words, "אלא אל הברואים המקבלים חיותם" ("but only to the created beings who receive their life force").
It is like a student hearing an analogy from his teacher. In the student's world an entire universe is unfolding: a beautiful story, a fascinating parable (some people even prefer to read only the parables, and never see the content behind them). But from the teacher's side nothing has happened. There is no separate "copy" here; it is all him, and nothing in him has changed.
The change exists only for "הברואים המקבלים חיותם מבחינת דיבורו יתברך, בבחינת יציאתו כבר אל הפועל בבריאת העולמות, שמתלבש בהם להחיותם" ("the created beings who receive their life force from the level of His speech as it has already emerged into actuality in the creation of the worlds, where it clothes itself in them to give them life"). The Divine life force clothes itself in creation, and this enclothement comes about "על ידי השתלשלות מעלה לעלול וירידת המדרגות בצמצומים רבים ושונים, עד שיוכלו הברואים לקבל חיותם והתהוותם ממנו ולא יתבטלו במציאותם" ("through a hishtalshelus, a chain of cause and effect, and a descent of levels through many different tzimtzumim, until the creatures can receive their life and their very existence from Him without being nullified out of existence").
It is like the teacher sitting by himself and planning: which analogy should I give this student, which example will suit him, how can I simplify it still further. He is constructing a whole hishtalshelus. But that chain, as it exists within him, conceals nothing. Every additional garment, every additional parable, every additional concealment: whom does it conceal from? From the creature. Just as when a person puts on another coat and another coat, others see him as more and more covered, yet he himself does not become hidden from himself by covering himself. He is still himself, and nothing in him has changed.
The Holy One contracted Himself through a multitude of tzimtzumim so that the creature would be able to exist as something in its own right. For the instant the truth were revealed to us, that we are part of Him, in that very instant we would be utterly nullified out of existence. Our very sense of ourselves as having independent reality, as a "yesh," stems from the fact that we do not feel the truth, because the Creator concealed it from us. It sounds very close and obvious, but in practice it is far, and it takes work.
"וכל הצמצומים הם בחינת הסתר פנים להסתיר ולהעלים האור והחיות הנמשך מדיבורו יתברך, שלא יתגלה בבחינת גילוי רב שלא יוכלו התחתונים לקבל" ("and all the tzimtzumim are a form of hester panim, a hiding of the face, to conceal and hide the light and life force drawn from His speech, so that it should not shine with a degree of revelation that the lower beings could not absorb"). The Creator hides and contracts so that the revelation should not exceed the capacity to receive. And so it is within the world itself: there are creatures to whom more is revealed and creatures to whom less is revealed, some with greater closeness and some with greater distance, all according to each creature's capacity to receive.
And because of the tzimtzum, "ולכן ג"כ נדמה להם אור וחיות הדיבור של הקב"ה המלובש בהם כאילו הוא דבר מובדל ממהותו ועצמותו יתברך, רק שנמשך ממנו יתברך כמו דבור של אדם מנפשו" ("and therefore it also appears to them as though the light and life force of the Holy One's speech clothed within them were something separate from His essence and being, merely drawn from Him, like a person's speech from his soul"). The creature receives its life force through the tzimtzum, and from this it becomes confused and imagines that the matter is detached from the Creator. But the tzimtzum exists only in its imagination: the truth is that it is inside Him the entire time, and only seems to itself to be outside.
"אך לגבי הקב"ה אין שום צמצום והסתר והעלם מסתיר ומעלים לפניו" ("but with respect to the Holy One, no tzimtzum, concealment or hiddenness conceals or hides anything before Him"). Relative to the Creator nothing has happened: no tzimtzum, no concealment, no hiddenness. Everything is Him, and He is equally present in atzilus and in asiyah, in a grain of sand exactly as in an angel, with no difference between them. All these distinctions exist only relative to the creature, who is the one experiencing changes.
Like the analogy of the painter: it makes no difference to him whether he is painting a small leaf that has already fallen from the tree or a luscious, valuable fruit. For the painter it is all one. The point of the painting is not the details, and it makes no difference whether a given detail is large or small, since everything expresses that same single idea.
The Alter Rebbe continues: "וכחשכה כאורה" ("and darkness is like light"). This does not refer only to physical darkness and light, but to "light" in the sense of revelation and "darkness" in the sense of tzimtzum: concealment and revelation are equal before Him, and the tzimtzum concealed nothing at all, "כדכתיב גם חשך לא יחשיך ממך וגו'" ("as it is written, 'even darkness is not dark to You'").
"משום שאין הצמצומים והלבושים דבר נפרד ממנו יתברך חס ושלום" ("because the tzimtzumim and the garments are not something separate from Him, Heaven forbid"). It is not that someone else contracted Him; He contracted Himself. When another person conceals you, you are genuinely concealed; but when a person conceals himself, he is not really concealed at all.
This is like a halachah in the Shulchan Aruch: a person whose head is uncovered may not utter a berachah, and he must cover his head. Anything is valid as a covering, except for one thing: his own hand. If he places his own hand on his head it does not count as a covering, whereas another person's hand on his head does work. And it is not because it is flesh, since a friend's hand is effective. Rather, the question is who did the covering, and a person cannot cover himself. The moment the covering comes from you, you are not covered at all.
[True, when a person puts his hand on his head, another person does not see his head: to the other he is concealed, but to himself he is not concealed.] So too with the tzimtzum: it conceals from the created beings, but it conceals nothing from Him.
In the Alter Rebbe's words, "אלא כהדין קמצה דלבושיה מיניה וביה" ("but like this locust, whose garment is from it and of it"), like the locust whose shell or armor is itself and not something foreign to it. (Some sources bring this example with a turtle and some specifically with a locust, and for our purposes it makes no difference.)
"כמו שכתוב כי ה' הוא האלוקים" ("as it is written, 'for Havayah is Elokim'"). The name Havayah expresses revelation; the name Elokim expresses concealment and tzimtzum.
So too in the verse "for Hashem Elokim is a sun and a shield": the sun corresponds to the name Havayah, and the shield to the name Elokim. From whom does the shield conceal? From the created beings: because of the shield they do not receive the full force of the energy. But the sun itself is not concealed by its own shield. "כמ"ש כי ה' הוא האלוקים" ("as it is written, 'for Havayah is Elokim'"): the tzimtzum called "Elokim" conceals from the creatures, but relative to the Creator there is no tzimtzum at all, "וכמו שכתוב במקום אחר" ("as is explained elsewhere").
"ולכן קמיה כולא כלא חשיב ממש" ("and therefore before Him everything is truly considered as nothing"). This is the conclusion that emerges from these two chapters: everything, relative to Him, is as naught and as nothing, in complete bittul.
The practical conclusion from all this is that these ideas must not remain an interesting concept in the mind, but have to come down into practice: there is no such thing as a place, a situation, a character trait or a movement in which the Creator is not present. No such thing and no such reality. Nature is Hashem and a miracle is Hashem; Hashem is in nature and Hashem is in the miracle, Hashem is in the darkness and Hashem is in the light. Every reality is Hashem.
Therefore, wherever a person finds himself, he cannot say: "I have come to a certain place, and here one can be a bit lenient in the laws of the Torah, because here it does not really fit." Halachah is halachah everywhere, and the Shulchan Aruch is true everywhere, "and the word of our God stands forever," with no change in Him. In our eyes it seems "here it is not comfortable for me" and "here it does not suit me," but these are nonsense we invent for ourselves. Relative to Him there is no difference whatsoever, and darkness and light are equal before Him.
Atzilus too is a tzimtzum; everything is tzimtzum. Consequently, if a person comes and says, "In this small detail I just can't manage to keep it," we answer him: "You shall have no other gods before Me." Are you ascribing independent reality to something? There is no reality other than Him, for everything is Him.
And if a person would feel this, it would be easy for him to fulfill everything, because the hidden love that exists in every Jew cries out that it does not want to be separated from the Creator even for a single moment. And every small detail to which a person ascribes independent reality and importance, Heaven forbid, is separate only in his imagination, like speech that has supposedly left the speaker: it seems to him that it went out, but it never went out, and it is all Him.
[And if you ask: if there is no difference at all, why are there mitzvos that depend on being in the Land and mitzvos of outside the Land? Of course there are distinctions, because the Creator Himself established them. Tefillin go on the left arm and not the right; tefillin contain four parshiyos and not five; Shabbos is Shabbos, and we do not make it on Sunday or Monday; there is the Beis Hamikdash, there is Jerusalem, there is Eretz Yisrael and there are other places; a korban may be eaten here and not there. Every mitzvah is defined by its boundary, but the Creator is present within that very boundary, because He is the one who set the boundary and this is His will. Everything has its domain and its limit, and every single detail is Him: He determined and desired that it be so.]
So we have to look at everything with this eye: everything is Him and He is everything. And if, Heaven forbid, we ascribe reality to something separate from Him, that is literally avodah zarah. That is the whole idea.
[And the intent is not to ascribe importance to the world as a world, but rather as in the analogy of the thrown stone: the world is an expression of Him, yet not in a way that it left Him, but that it remained within Him.]
The fact that we see a world that looks real is precisely the power of the tzimtzum: the Creator contracted Himself, and it seems to us that He is concealed. But do not get confused, the tzimtzum is relative to you and not relative to Him.
This foundation must be reviewed constantly, and it is one of the matters a Jew must live with every single day, because this is the very meaning of the unity of Hashem: "Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad." Chapter 21 is not a chapter one merely studies, but a chapter one has to live. And whoever does not learn chapter 21 cannot understand what "Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad" really means.
In summary: in this section we learned that the Holy One's speech and thought are united with His essence and being in the ultimate union even after the creation of the worlds, just as the letters of a person's thought and speech are entirely nullified in their source before they emerge into actuality. The entire change is only from the side of the created beings, who receive their life force by way of hishtalshelus, a chain from cause to effect, and through many tzimtzumim which are a form of hester panim, so that they not be nullified out of existence. We saw that the tzimtzum conceals from the creature and not from the Creator, as in the analogy of a person covering his head with his own hand, the locust whose garment is from it and of it, and the sun that is not concealed by its own shield. From here, "kula kamei kelo chashiv mamash," before Him everything is truly as nothing. And the practical conclusion: there is no place, no situation and no movement in which the Creator is not present, and one must not ascribe separate reality to anything. This is the content of "Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad."
In the next section we will continue, with God's help, with the coming chapters of Tanya.