In the previous section we learned about the greatness of fulfilling mitzvos: the physical limbs through which a mitzvah is performed become a merkavah, a chariot, for the Supreme Will. Now the Alter Rebbe turns to the greatness of Torah study, and to the sharp expression he uses for it: yichud gamur, a complete and total union.
What this means is that when a Jew learns Torah, his thought and his soul become united at that very moment with the Holy One, blessed be He, and with His will: "ביחוד גמור ברצון העליון" ("in complete union with the Supreme Will").
The Alter Rebbe continues: "ולא מרכבה לבד" ("and not merely a chariot"). When speaking about mitzvos, the Alter Rebbe mentioned the limbs through which they are performed, and among them the brain and the mouth. The brain and the mouth, being physical organs, do not literally become one with the Supreme Will; they are no more than a merkavah. But the faculties that dwell within the brain and the mouth, the power of thought and the power of speech, become absolutely and completely united with the Divine will, for what a person draws into his mind and what rests upon his lips is literally the word of Hashem.
This is a far greater level than that of the mitzvos. In a mitzvah a person carries out the will of the Creator, but the will itself is not inside him: it is the Creator's will that he put on tefillin, and he fulfills that will. By contrast, one who studies the laws of tefillin, the laws of Shabbos or the laws of kashrus is drawing the Creator's own will into his mind, and the will itself is present there. This is of course not to say that Torah study takes the place of the mitzvah; one needs both. But there is certainly a greater quality in Torah, since through it a person brings the will of the Creator into his mind and into his power of speech, and not as a chariot alone.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כי רצון העליון הוא הוא הדבר הלכה עצמה שמהרהר ומדבר בה" ("for the Supreme Will is itself the very halachah that he is contemplating and speaking"). When a person contemplates or pronounces a particular halachah, a verse of Torah, a passage of Gemara or a chapter of Tanya, any part of Torah at all, the Supreme Will itself is present in his mind. "שכל ההלכות" ("for all the halachos") that a Jew learns in Torah "הן פרטי המשכות פנימיות רצון העליון עצמו - שכך עלה ברצונו יתברך שדבר זה מותר או כשר או פטור או זכאי או להפך" ("are particular drawings-down of the innermost dimension of the Supreme Will itself, for so it arose in His blessed will that this thing be permitted, or kosher, or exempt, or innocent, or the reverse"). It is the Supreme Will that the halachah be just so, and that very will a person brings into his mind and into his mouth, until his thought and the Divine will become one.
With these examples the Alter Rebbe is seeking to cover every category of halachah and every possible status, and at first glance one case is missing: "tahor," pure, since the laws of purity are an enormous area of halachah. The Rebbe explains that the concept of tahor is already included in the very terms he used:
"מותר" ("permitted") has a broad meaning. It does not refer only to something permitted to eat, but also to something permitted to touch. There are things a person is warned not to touch so that he not become tamei, and accordingly "permitted to touch" means tahor.
"כשר" ("kosher") is not limited to the fitness of an object; it includes the fitness of a person as well. There are halachos in which a person is "kosher" to testify, as opposed to those who are disqualified as witnesses.
It emerges that with his precise wording the Alter Rebbe encompassed every possible case, choosing deliberately to state the positive side in positive language, and folding all the remaining cases into the words "או להפך" ("or the reverse").
All of this refers to the study itself. The moment a person opens the Gemara, the Mishnah or the Shulchan Aruch and learns the halachah, he is learning the will of the Creator: it is the Creator's will that this food be kosher, and in his study he has learned the Creator's will. He is not sitting and eating the kosher food; he is not on the plane of implementation. Implementation is the subject of mitzvos that we learned in the previous section, taking the Divine will and drawing it down into the world of action, into the limbs. When something must be done, it certainly must be done.
It is only that the degree of union with the Divine will attained by the one performing the mitzvah is lower than the degree of union attained by one who is learning at the moment of his study. Studying Hashem's Torah is a more wondrous unity, a yichud gamur with the Divine will, because this is the Divine will itself: he learns the Torah in his mind, and the Creator, as it were, enters into his mind.
How, then, does this fit with the existence of disputes in Torah?
Seemingly, if Beis Hillel learn one way and Beis Shammai another, are there several wills? That is a question that stands on its own, and it belongs to the principle "אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים" ("these and these are the words of the living G-d"), which is said regarding the differing lines of reasoning in Torah, and specifically with the Name Elokim; whereas with regard to the practical halachah it says "דבר הוי' זו הלכה" ("the word of Havayah, this is halachah"), with the Name Havayah. For our purposes here: even a person learning both opinions, Beis Shammai say this and Beis Hillel say that, is at that moment drawing the will of the Creator into his mind, for the reasoning of Beis Shammai is the will of the Creator, and the reasoning of Beis Hillel is the will of the Creator.
Until now the example has dealt with learning halachos, but there is a type of study that is not in the realm of halachah at all: one who learns Chumash, or verses in one of the books of Tanach, is not learning kosher or tahor, permitted or exempt, but verses, and these too are Divine will and Divine wisdom. In the Alter Rebbe's words: "וכן כל צרופי אותיות תנ"ך הן המשכת רצונו וחכמתו המיוחדות באין סוף ברוך הוא בתכלית יחוד" ("and so too all the letter-combinations of Tanach are drawings-down of His will and His wisdom, which are united with the Infinite One, blessed be He, in ultimate union").
All the letters of Tanach are a treasury of Divine wisdom united with Him utterly, and as the Rambam puts it, "שהוא היודע והוא המדע כו'" ("that He is the Knower and He is the Knowledge"): the Holy One, blessed be He, is the Knower, and the Torah is His Knowledge, and it is impossible to separate the Knower from the Knowledge. Consequently, one who learns His Knowledge, His wisdom and His Torah, is learning Him Himself, and is bringing the Creator Himself into his mind.
And here is the most precise expression: the letters of Tanach are combinations of letters. When we look at Tanach and Chumash, see the letters and understand the meaning of the letters as they are joined together, we are generally grasping only one layer of those combinations. These combinations contain countless modes and countless levels, and our understanding is no more than one layer among them.
To what may this be compared? A person who lays out all the letters of the alef-beis one after another in sequence and studies them can find combinations in them that arose from the mere fact of their being strung together: beis, gimmel, daled spell "beged," a garment; alef, beis spell "av," father. Was that the intent of the sequence? No. Before him lies a sequence of the letters of the alef-beis, and he suddenly saw a word, grasping only one small possibility out of the endless modes contained within it.
Interesting in this context is the Rambam's explanation in his introduction to the Moreh Nevuchim of Shlomo HaMelech's words in Mishlei: "תפוחי זהב במשכיות כסף דבר דבור על אופניו" ("apples of gold in settings of silver, a word spoken in its proper manner"). Many explanations and interpretations have been offered on this verse, and the Rambam gives a fascinating one: "apples of gold" means an apple made of gold, and that apple was placed inside "settings of silver," a covering ("משכיות" from the root of sechach, a covering) made of silver and pierced with small holes. One who looks from the outside sees a vessel of silver; but when he looks more deeply he discovers that it is not silver at all, but gold hidden within, and when he probes deeper still, he may well discover several more things.
This is the meaning of "a word spoken in its proper manner": all the words of Torah, on the first layer, appear to be silver; when one looks deeply, gold is revealed; and when one goes deeper still, more is revealed.
In summary: in this section we learned that in Torah study a person's thought and soul become united with the Supreme Will in complete union, "ולא מרכבה לבד" ("and not merely a chariot") as with mitzvos, since the halachah he contemplates and speaks is the Supreme Will itself. We noted the Rebbe's observation that the concept of "tahor" is included in the term "מותר" (permitted to touch) and in "כשר" (which includes a person's fitness, as in fitness to testify); and that all this is said about the study itself and not about practical implementation, which is why the union at the time of study is greater than that of one performing the mitzvah in deed. We also saw that the letter-combinations of Tanach too are drawings-down of His will and wisdom, united with Him utterly ("He is the Knower and He is the Knowledge"), and that our grasp of these combinations is no more than one layer out of endless modes, as in the Rambam's analogy of "apples of gold in settings of silver."
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 23, and with his explanation of the superiority of Torah relative to the other mitzvos.