Chapter 22 of Likkutei Amarim follows directly on the heels of the previous chapter. Let us first review the central point we learned in chapter 21, and from there we will understand the additional link that chapter 22 adds.
In chapter 21 we learned at length that the divine power which brings created beings into existence and gives them life at every single moment is called "speech," yet it is not entirely comparable to speech as it exists in created beings. In human speech there are two components that cannot be separated from one another; they come as one:
The advantage: revelation of the concealed. What was previously hidden in thought, once it descends into the letters of speech, emerges and is revealed to another.
The drawback: the disconnection. In order to reach the listener's ears, the words must detach themselves from the speaker, leave his world, and arrive at a place that is foreign and separate.
In divine speech, as we learned, the advantage is present and the drawback is not. The Torah calls the divine power that creates and brings created beings into existence by the name "speech" - "And G-d said, let there be light," and likewise in all Ten Utterances (and in the account of creation the name Elokim appears thirty-two times) - because of the advantage of speech, that it reveals to created beings what was hidden. But the drawback is absent, for the divine speech never left the Creator, as it were, and one cannot speak of it detaching and arriving at a separate place.
This point leads to the conclusion: since even after the speech everything remains within its source and within His essence, it emerges that the entire world is naught and nothing and is not considered at all, for speech relative to its source is naught and nothing. That is the essence of chapter 21.
And here is the question that chapter 22 comes to address: if divine speech is not comparable to human speech, since there is no detachment in it and everything remains within Him, why did the Torah specifically use the term "speech"? Here below, among created beings, speech also means detachment, so the Torah should have found a different word. The Torah contains no merely approximate expression chosen for lack of a better option; every expression in it is absolutely precise from every angle, and one cannot say that it borrowed only one part of speech while in its second part the comparison breaks down.
In chapter 22 the Alter Rebbe explains that it is indeed "actual speech": even the "drawback" of speech, the detachment, exists in divine speech, as it were. Only that this detachment is in the experience of the created being. And this is not imagination, for the Holy One indeed contracted Himself, and the tzimtzum is real - only that it is a tzimtzum relative to the created being alone and not relative to Himself. As we learned: when a person conceals himself, the concealment is relative to the one looking at him, but he himself is not considered concealed on account of the covering with which he covered himself. And since both matters genuinely took place here, both the revelation and the tzimtzum, it is fitting that this be called "speech."
For a person's speech, too, is not merely a transfer from one point to another: speech brings down the points of thought, which are more abstract, into letters, and thereby the matter takes on a dimension that is coarser and more constricted. This is why a person sometimes says: the thing sits clearly in my head, but I cannot find the letters and I am unable to bring it down into speech. If speech were merely a transfer from point to point, there would be no obstacle to doing it at any moment; rather, the descent into speech is a genuine tzimtzum and descent. And so too in divine speech: a situation is created in which the created being feels itself detached and fallen from its source.
The Alter Rebbe opens: "רק שהתורה דברה כלשון בני אדם" - "only that the Torah speaks in the language of human beings," in the words of the Gemara in Berachos, that the Torah uses parables and illustrations in human language, since it is addressing human beings and therefore speaks according to their understanding. But the intent is not that this is how human beings will understand it while in truth the matter is otherwise. Rather, "ונקרא בתורה דבורו של מקום ב"ה בשם דבור ממש" - "and the speech of the Omnipresent, blessed be He, is called in the Torah by the name of actual speech": in truth, speech took place here with everything that the definition of speech implies.
There is no contradiction to the previous chapter: there the discussion was about divine speech as it is relative to the Holy One, and from His side nothing indeed detached; here the discussion is relative to the created being and in its experience, and from its side there genuinely was a disconnect. This is like the analogy of the teacher who gives his student a parable, which we mentioned in the previous lesson: in the student's world, the role of the parable is to conceal the lesson it carries, since the student is not a vessel to receive all the depth at once, and so the matter is given to him in the garment of a story; but in the teacher's world, even while he is telling the parable, the parable conceals nothing at all, and the teacher sees in every single detail of the parable the full depth of what it represents. So too, relative to the Holy One no disconnect whatsoever was made, everything remains within Him, and consequently the world is utterly nullified - but relative to created beings it is "כדבורו של אדם, לפי שבאמת כך הוא" - "like the speech of a human being, for in truth this is how it is": tzimtzum and descent genuinely took place, and this is no sleight of hand, but a reality that the Holy One created relative to the created being's experience.
Through the end of the chapter the Alter Rebbe will elaborate on these lines - what "in truth this is how it is" means: how, in creating the world, the Holy One contracted the divine power in such a way that there came into being not only material and coarse creatures, but even creatures called kelipah and sitra achra and idolatry, which deny the Creator's existence and oppose Him. All of them receive life from Him at every single moment, and there is nothing that conceals relative to Him, yet they were created in such a way that they are able to feel nothing at all of the divine reality that illuminates and enlivens them. This is the meaning of its being "speech" that detached: in the created being's experience it genuinely did detach.
[It is worth noting, with infinite distinctions, that in the speech that was revealed to Moshe Rabbeinu and to the prophets there was no detachment, and the speech remained within. This is hinted at, and indeed stated explicitly, in the verse that concludes Parshas Naso, which deals with the manner in which Moshe received the divine revelation: "And when Moshe came into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heard the Voice speaking to him." Rashi explains: "midaber" is like "misdaber" - as if the Holy One were speaking to Himself, and Moshe overhears on his own. For relative to Moshe Rabbeinu the speech did not go outward and was not in the category of "another": by all other created beings there is a sense of being another, of distance, of separation and of tzimtzum, as though hearing from afar; whereas Moshe Rabbeinu, who was in complete union, heard openly the speech that was speaking, as it were, to itself.]
"כך הוא דרך ירידת והמשכת החיות לתחתונים" - "such is the manner of the descent and drawing down of the life-force to the lower beings." The Alter Rebbe goes on to describe the way the divine life-force descends and is drawn down to the lower beings, to the creatures of this world. We will not examine every detail of the wording in the Tanya, but will note in a general way three stages:
"בצמצומים רבים ועצומים" - "through many and powerful tzimtzumim": a great multitude of contractions.
"מינים ממינים שונים" - "of various different kinds": not merely a multitude of contractions, but different and varied types of contraction.
"להבראות מהם ברואים רבים מינים ממינים שונים" - "so that from them many creatures of various different kinds should be created": each contraction produces a created being corresponding to that contraction.
An example of the different types of tzimtzum: "A person should always teach his student in a concise way" - the teacher conveys the idea itself, only that he abbreviates it and does not say it expansively; that is one type of contraction. Beyond that, he can convey the same idea by way of an illustration and a parable - and here it is not merely an abbreviation, but a transfer of the matter into an entirely different category. And beyond that, there are times when he says the thing by way of a hint, and times when he says it in a manner in which the listener does not grasp at all that something wondrous and great has been said here - as in the stories of the Gemara (what is called "Ein Yaakov"), in which the deepest secrets are hidden: it seems to the student that before him is a story about so-and-so who went somewhere, heard and saw, and only when he studies the wondrous and profound commentaries does he discover that wondrous secrets are buried there, only that they were said in a way in which one does not see the point.
So too in the order of hishtalshelus, the chain of worlds: the world of Atzilus is along the lines of "a person should always teach his student in a concise way" - the matter remains exactly what it is, only that it is conveyed concisely; whereas in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah we are already speaking of many and powerful tzimtzumim, of various different kinds, in which there is a far greater descent and a far greater darkness.
And the main point: "וכל כך גברו ועצמו הצמצומים והסתר פנים העליונים" - "and so greatly did the contractions and the supernal concealment of the Divine countenance increase and intensify": the divine concealment is so tangible and so immense that even impure things, kelipos and sitra achra, can come into being and be created from it. The descent and the tzimtzum reach such a point that from them were created things that oppose the Creator Himself.
In summary: in chapter 21 we learned that human speech has an advantage, the revelation of the concealed, and a drawback, the detachment from the speaker; and that in divine speech, as it is relative to the Creator, the advantage is present and the drawback is absent, and therefore the entire world is naught and nothing. In chapter 22 the Alter Rebbe explains that the Torah calls the divine power "actual speech," because relative to the created being's experience a genuine tzimtzum and descent did take place - a real contraction relative to the created being, even though it is no contraction relative to the Creator. This descent was effected through many and powerful tzimtzumim, of various different kinds, from which were created many creatures of various different kinds, down to the kelipos and the sitra achra.
In the next part we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 22, in his explanation of the manner of the descent and the concealment.