In the previous section we learned that the Holy One created the world, and to our eyes it looks as though He issued forth a separate speech from Himself, a foreign reality standing on its own. But that is not what happened. He brought about a situation that to our eyes appears separate, while in truth it is not separate at all. And if we ask whether the world has any value, any standing, any reality of its own, the answer is this: just as speech relative to the soul has no real value, so too by the Creator the speech always remains inside the soul and never went out at all. To our eyes it went out, but in truth it never went out, because the Creator has only the advantage of speech without its deficiency. And therefore the world is nothing and naught.
Let us turn to the language of the chapter: "והנה מדת הקב"ה שלא כמדת בשר ודם" (the way of the Holy One is not like the way of flesh and blood). What happens with a human being when he speaks is nothing like what happens, as it were, with the Holy One when Scripture uses the term "speech." "שהאדם כשמדבר דבור הרי הבל הדבור שבפיו הוא מורגש ונראה דבר בפני עצמו מובדל משרשו שהן עשר בחינות הנפש עצמה" (when a person utters a word, the breath of speech in his mouth is sensed and seen as a thing in its own right, separate from its root, which is the ten faculties of the soul itself). When a person speaks, a tangible breath comes out, and a reality is formed that is cut off from him: it can be captured, recorded and heard. The source stayed in the soul, and the word went outside.
A word that has left a person's mouth cannot be taken back, and he no longer has any control over it. It is already echoing in the world, spreading out on the sound waves; it left him and became detached from him.
Above it is not so: "אבל הקב"ה אין דבורו מובדל ממנו יתברך חס ושלום" (but with the Holy One, His speech is not separate from Him, G-d forbid). The divine speech is not separate and does not leave Him; it is always within Him, and it always is Him. With a human being, Reuven's world ends and Shimon's world begins. With the Creator there is no concept of an ending at all, for "כי אין דבר חוץ ממנו ו'לית אתר פנוי מיניה'" (there is nothing outside of Him, and "there is no place void of Him"). There is no place empty of His reality.
"ולכן אין דבורו יתברך כדבורנו ח"ו, כמו שאין מחשבתו כמחשבתינו, כדכתיב 'כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם' וכתיב 'כן גבהו דרכי מדרכיכם' וגו'" (therefore His speech is not like our speech, G-d forbid, just as His thought is not like our thought, as it is written, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts," and "so are My ways higher than your ways"). The student must not make the mistake of thinking that if the divine power is compared to speech, then it is literally speech. It is only that there is no choice but to give a parable from something created beings are capable of grasping, and therefore the Torah uses the term "speech." That is the only way in which those who dwell in houses of clay can get hold of anything of the matter.
But if the comparison does not really hold, why did the Torah choose precisely this parable, "And G-d said," and likewise the language of speech with the prophets? The answer is that the meaning of the word "speech" is revelation. With a human being, the revelation of speech comes together with the deficiency of being detached from its source; with the Creator, the revelation is not detached from its source in the slightest. It turns out that the parable of speech is being drawn on one point alone: the revelation itself, without the deficiency that goes with it.
"ולא נקרא דבורו יתברך בשם דבור רק על דרך משל, כמו שדבור התחתון שבאדם הוא מגלה לשומעים מה שהיה צפון ונעלם במחשבתו" (His speech is called by the name "speech" only by way of parable: just as the lower speech of a human being reveals to listeners what was hidden and concealed in his thought). That is the job of speech with us: a channel through which a person's thoughts become revealed. "כך למעלה באין סוף ב"ה יציאת האור והחיות ממנו יתברך מההעלם אל הגילוי לברוא עולמות ולהחיותם נקרא בשם דבור, והן הן עשרה מאמרות שבהן נברא העולם" (so too above in the blessed Ein Sof, the emergence of the light and the life force from Him, from concealment into revelation, to create worlds and give them life, is called "speech," and these are the Ten Utterances by which the world was created).
In our speech, a person speaks to someone else. The divine speech creates the someone else. A reality comes into being that has the sense of being an "other": a world that feels itself detached from the Creator, that receives its life force from Him every single moment, and nevertheless asks, "Where is the Creator?" The greatest "other" there is, is the world, and that is the point of resemblance to speech.
"וכן שאר כל התורה נביאים וכתובים שהשיגו הנביאים במראה נבואתם" (and likewise all the rest of Torah, Prophets and Writings, which the prophets grasped in their prophetic vision). The prophet heard words in his prophecy; Moshe Rabbeinu and all the prophets heard. What this means is that a divine power that had been hidden became revealed to them. To a created being the revelation looks detached from its root, but from the Creator's side there is no detachment here at all.
Here is a parable. A world class artist paints a landscape. In his painting there is a tree with a trunk, branches and leaves, dry leaves that have fallen, and a juicy piece of fruit. In the artist's world there is no difference between the juicy fruit and the dry leaf: he is living the entire painting right now, and every single detail expresses the idea he is trying to express. The viewer standing in the gallery, by contrast, distinguishes and divides: "What a beautiful fruit, the fruit speaks to me," while the little leaf or the trunk lying off to the side strike him as insignificant. The distinction between a small detail and a big detail exists only by the viewer, who stands outside the matter and is not living its inner point. By the artist, the smallest detail is exactly as important as the fruit at the center of the picture, because it is all expressing one single idea.
And the analogue: we created beings, as long as we are not living the divine point, distinguish between a low level and a high level, between a limited creature and G-dliness. But by the Creator, "there is no rock (tzur) like our G-d," and the Sages expounded, "there is no artist (tzayar) like our G-d," there is no difference between the big detail and the small detail, and all the points express one idea: when He is below He is above, and when He is above He is below. It is all Him, and they cannot be pulled apart.
This is the continuation of the chapter: "והרי דבורו ומחשבתו כביכול מיוחדות עמו בתכלית היחוד" (His speech and His thought, as it were, are united with Him in absolute unity). The divine speech remains united with Him and does not leave Him at all. To our eyes it seems to have gone out, and in truth it never went out. "דרך משל כמו דבורו ומחשבתו של אדם בעודן בכח חכמתו ושכלו" (by way of parable, like a person's speech and thought while they are still within the potential of his wisdom and intellect), like a person's speech before he has spoken, while it is still held within his own awareness. Except that by the Creator the speech stays inside forever.
And this is what is unique to Him: He is able to let a person hear Him exactly as He is, out of His very innermost self, and to arrange it so that it seems to the student as though the thing came from the outside, when it is not from the outside at all. He gave a person the ability to connect to Him precisely out of a situation that looks like "outside."
And do not imagine that this is merely a game. Picture a father sitting and playing with his small children: with Lego, with blocks, with cards, or with Monopoly, where you gain and lose a million this way and that. In the child's world, when he draws the card that wins him a million he is thrilled and happy, and when he loses he is sad. The father sitting beside him is playing too, winning and losing, except that in his own world these details carry no meaning whatsoever (in his real world he deals with real money, not with play money).
But we have to be precise: is the father's presence in the game merely virtual, or is he really there? The father is really there. The child does not sense some imaginary figure; he feels that his father is sitting with him, playing with him, that he came down into his world and is genuinely enjoying it. And although in the father's world the details are not relevant, in the child's world they are relevant in the extreme.
So too above: the Holy One, as it were, contracted Himself and lowered Himself, and the small details take up no space by Him, while by us they take up a great deal of space. And nevertheless this is not a virtual matter: the Creator is really here, with His whole essence, in the smallest details. If He were present here by "remote control," sending only an image of Himself, it would be obvious why the details take up no space. But the novelty is that He Himself is here, and even so the details take up no space by Him, just as the winning or losing card takes up no space in the father's world.
[And from here a practical question arises: how can a person actually connect to this bittul, this self nullification? A person is always gripped by something and bound up in something, even in his speech, and in order to be nullified he has to be nullified in his speech, in his thought and in all his affairs. The answer: learning Tanya all day. For someone who learns once a week it is extremely difficult. For one hour he hears about bittul and G-dliness and almost touches bittul, but five minutes later he is already in a different world, and only a week later will he come back to it. But one who wants to live in this constantly will take the sefer home with him and occupy himself with it all day long.]
In summary: in this section we learned the opening of chapter 21. A person's speech leaves his mouth and becomes a thing in its own right, separate from its root, which is the ten faculties of the soul, whereas the speech of the Holy One is not separate from Him at all, for "there is no place void of Him." The term "speech" is used about Above only by way of parable, in the sense of revelation: the emergence of the light and the life force from concealment into revelation, to create worlds and give them life, and through this the "other" itself was created. Through the parable of the artist we saw that by the Creator there is no difference between a small detail and a big one, and the distinction exists only by the viewer. And through the parable of the father playing with his children we learned that although the details take up no space Above, the Creator is truly present in them with His entire essence.
In the next section we will continue with the language of the chapter and add further explanation.