We have reached chapter 23 of Tanya, and we are in the middle of it, on page 28b. We learned up to the beginning of the last third of the page, the line that opens "rak laratzon ha'elyon"; after the colon a new passage begins with the words "ach hamachshavah vehahirhur". Let us begin with a brief review of the previous lesson and continue from there.
The Alter Rebbe opened chapter 23 with a question: why do we find a difference between Torah and mitzvos in the way the Zohar speaks of them? Of the Torah the Zohar says, "Oraisa veKudsha Brich Hu kula chad" (the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one), while of the mitzvos the Tikunei Zohar says that they are "eivarim demalka" (the limbs of the King). Why are the mitzvos described as, so to speak, the limbs of the King, while the Torah is described as the King Himself?
The expression "the limbs of the King" is a metaphor: the mitzvos are compared to limbs. We examined what characterizes a limb, namely that it is utterly bottel, nullified, to the will of the soul. The moment a person wants to move a limb, the limb obeys that will. It does not travel through a chain of commands from limb to limb, nor does it take any time, because the limb is completely bottel to the will.
From this we learned that two components take part in the performance of a mitzvah, and both of them are bottel to the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, but on two different levels:
The vitality and the power of action: the energy a person invests in performing the mitzvah becomes united with the Holy One, blessed be He. This is what the Tikunei Zohar means, that it is like a limb united with the soul.
The physical limb: the hand, the foot, the mouth and the tongue through which the mitzvah is performed are also bottel to the Creator's will, but the level of their bittul is like a vehicle that is bottel to its rider. A vehicle is bottel to its rider on a lower level than a limb is to a person's will, because the limb senses the will directly and immediately, whereas a vehicle has to be commanded and set in motion.
The inner dimension of the will and the external dimension of the will:
Let us add an introduction that will sharpen all this and serve as the opening to what we are about to learn. At the beginning of the chapter we mentioned the difference between the Creator's will in the worlds, that there should be a world, and His will in Torah and mitzvos. After all, He wants the world and He wants the tefillin and the mezuzah as well, so what is the difference? The will for the world is the external dimension of His will, while the will in Torah and mitzvos is the inner dimension of His will.
To bring this out: there are the well known thirteen principles of faith, which in some places and some versions of the siddur are recited every day after davening in "Ani Maamin." One of these principles, whether or not one has the custom to say it in that formulation, is certainly a fundamental of our faith: "zos haTorah lo teheh muchlefes", that this Torah will never be exchanged, that the Torah and the mitzvos will not be replaced.
And this needs to be understood: what is so fundamental here that it became a principle of faith? On the face of it, why should it trouble us if the Torah were to be exchanged? We are not speaking, G-d forbid, of some human being deciding to make changes in the Torah; that is not under discussion at all. We are speaking of a change made by the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself: if tomorrow morning there were a divine revelation with a different Torah, would anything thereby be diminished from the holiness of the Torah or of the mitzvos?
Compare it to a father who gives his son instructions. The instructions he gives him when the boy is one year old are not the same as those he will give him at age ten, nor the same as those he will give him at age thirty, because an instruction adapts itself to the level, the age, and other factors. Accordingly, one might have said: today the Jewish people are at a certain level, and therefore they were given the Torah they received at Sinai; but when Moshiach comes and there is an elevation and ascent on every level, perhaps a different Torah will be given. To this we say: no! "I believe... that this Torah will not be exchanged." Why?
The answer is simple. If the Torah were merely a collection of commands and instructions serving as a means toward education or toward some other goal, there would be room for such a thought, since a means changes according to age and level. But the Torah and the mitzvos are the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself; His will is Him. And just as it is impossible to say that He will change, so too it is impossible that His Torah should change: "Ani Havayah lo shanisi" (I, G-d, have not changed). There is no change in the Creator, and therefore no change in His Torah. The Torah is He and He is the Torah, one thing: "Oraisa veKudsha Brich Hu kula chad."
This is a foundation of a Jew's relationship to Torah: when he learns Torah and performs mitzvos, he should know that he is connecting to the divine will and becoming one, in a complete and total unity, with the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, on the highest level. A Jew who learns a portion of Torah, any portion, on any level, at any age, is bringing the Creator Himself into his mind.
The same is true of the mitzvos: they too do not change, because the mitzvos are the divine will, they are the inner dimension of His will and His ultimate will, and they are not a means to something else. In this they differ from the world, which is the external dimension of the will and does serve as a means. The mitzvos express His very essence, and no change is possible in them.
Until now we have dealt mainly with the distinction of the mitzvos. Now we turn to the union that takes place when a Jew learns Torah, on page 28b, after the colon: "ach hamachshavah vehahirhur bedivrei Torah shebamoach vekoach hadibur bedivrei Torah shebapeh", when a person contemplates and thinks words of Torah in his mind, and when he uses his power of speech and utters words of Torah with his mouth.
Here we are not dealing with the power of action and the garment of action, as we were with the mitzvos, but with the more inward garments of the divine soul, thought and speech, which are more inward garments than action. "Vechol sheken nafsho ha'Elokis atzmah hamelubeshes bahem" (and all the more so his divine soul itself, which is clothed in them): when a Jew learns Torah in his thought and with his mouth, his soul is clothed in the Torah he is thinking and in the Torah he is speaking, and therefore "kulam meyuchadim mamash beyichud gamur beratzon ha'elyon" (they are all literally united, in complete union, with the supernal will). The soul, the thought, and the power of speech become one in an absolute way.
What is a "complete union," and how does it differ from a union that is not complete?
A union that is not complete: you take two foreign things and join them together, and even after a total joining they remain two things. Such is the relationship of soul and body. The Holy One, blessed be He, through the power of "hamafli laasos" (He who acts wondrously), joins soul to body and the body becomes a living body, but after all the joining, the soul is a soul and the body is a body, and they do not become one.
A complete union: the two things that unite become one, to the point that they cannot be separated at all. The example of this is the soul and its faculties. Soul and body can be separated at least in thought, but the soul and the soul's faculties are one, and that is a complete union.
To summarize: in this section we reviewed the metaphor of "the limbs of the King" in the mitzvos: the power of action that is united with the Holy One, blessed be He, as a limb is with the soul, and the physical limb that is bottel as a vehicle is to its rider. We clarified the difference between the external dimension of the will (the world, which is a means) and the inner dimension of the will (Torah and mitzvos), and the foundation of the principle of faith "that this Torah will not be exchanged," because the Torah and the mitzvos are the Creator Himself, and in Him there is no change. From there we turned to the study of Torah, in which the divine soul together with thought and speech are literally united, in complete union, with the supernal will, like the union of the soul with its own faculties.
In the next section we will continue to delve into the greatness of this complete union in the study of Torah, in the words of the Alter Rebbe.