In chapter 21 we learned at length that as far as the Holy One Himself is concerned there are no 'achorayim', no 'back': everything is Him, and nothing ever departs from Him. Chapter 22 comes to explain the other side of the picture, the dimension that faces the creations: although in truth there is no 'outside' to Him, and the whole of reality remains within Him, nevertheless there is an aspect of achorayim as it is experienced by the creation.
In fact, the very opposite is true: the divine power to contract Himself is even more wondrous than the power to reveal Himself. The power to produce a situation in which, as it were, He is not present, while in truth He is present, that is, to create a being that will feel as though the Creator is not there at all, is an infinite power, a power of greater intensity than the power of revelation.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כאדם הנותן דבר לשונאו שלא ברצונו, שמשליכו לו כלאחר כתפו, כי מחזיר פניו ממנו משנאתו אותו" (like a man who gives something to his enemy against his will, who throws it to him over his shoulder, because he turns his face away from him out of his hatred for him). Why does he toss it to him from behind his shoulder? Because he cannot bear to look him in the face, out of his hatred for him. That is the mashal as it works among creations here below, and that very same idea is the nimshal with regard to how the creation experiences itself.
"כך למעלה בחינת פנים הוא פנימית הרצון העליון וחפצו האמיתי" (so too Above, the aspect of 'face' is the innerness of the Supreme Will and His true desire). As the verse says, "a man's wisdom lights up his face": when you look at a person's face you can see everything he is going through - whether he is happy or sad, worried or content, whether he is confident. The face is the innerness, and a person's entire inner world is reflected in it. Accordingly, when we say that the Holy One gives something "from the face", it means from the innerness: this is the purpose and this is the goal, this is why the world was created, this is His will, and so it will remain forever.
The aspect of 'face' in G-dliness is the innerness of the Supreme Will and His true desire, "אשר חפץ ה' להשפיע חיות לכל הקרוב אליו מסטרא דקדושה" (that Hashem desires to bestow life-force upon everything that is close to Him, from the side of holiness). Whatever is called kedusha is G-dliness in a revealed way; to put it differently, the Holy One is, as it were, at ease there, since there He is present openly, and that is a creation which reveals Him.
"אבל הסטרא אחרא והטומאה היא תועבת ה' אשר שנא" (but the sitra achra and impurity are the abomination of Hashem, which He hates), in the language of the verse in Devarim. And if He hates them, why do they exist at all, and why does He go on sustaining them?
The answer, as the Alter Rebbe explains further on, is that they were created so that there should be free choice, and not because they have any purpose in themselves. [Along these lines we find in the Gemara a claim raised against one of the Tannaim: one should not support the poor at all, for if the Holy One made them poor, whoever gives them tzedakah is acting against Hashem's will. And the answer is "olam chesed yibaneh", the world is built through kindness - the poor were created so that kindness should be done with them. That is, there are things that were created not because this is how they are meant to be.]
Therefore, "ואינו משפיע לו חיות מפנימית הרצון וחפצו האמיתי אשר חפץ בה ח"ו, כי אם כמאן דשדי בתר כתפוי לשונאו שלא ברצונו" (He does not bestow life-force upon it from the innerness of the Will and His true desire, as though He desired it, G-d forbid, but rather like one who throws something over his shoulder to his enemy, against his will). Remember that what we are speaking about here is the encompassing (makif) life-force, concerning which it says "all that Hashem desired, He did". This life-force exists even in those creations that are klipah and sitra achra, since every creation has it; but one cannot say that they receive it out of an inner desire - G-d forbid to say that there is a divine desire for klipah, for sitra achra and for sin - and therefore it reaches them like a man who throws something to his enemy from behind his shoulder, against his will.
So why, after all, does the Holy One leave these creations in the world? "רק כדי להעניש את הרשעים וליתן שכר טוב לצדיקים דאכפיין לסטרא אחרא" (only in order to punish the wicked and to give good reward to the righteous who subdue the sitra achra). The Holy One placed both evil and good in the world, and when a Jew uses his free choice for good and engages in is'kafya, subduing the sitra achra, his reward is great, because he had a struggle and he had a test. It turns out that all those creations were brought into being only so that a Jew should arouse within himself deeper and stronger inner divine powers to carry out the Creator's will, and not, G-d forbid, because the Holy One wants a person to be drawn after all that nonsense. "וזה נקרא בחי' אחוריים דרצון העליון ב"ה" (and this is called the aspect of achorayim of the Supreme Will, blessed be He).
Up to this point the Alter Rebbe has explained why these creations are called "elohim acherim", other gods, with respect to the encompassing life-force: every creation has an encompassing life-force that stems from an inner desire, "all that Hashem desired, He did", and even creations that are klipah and sitra achra have this encompassing life-force, except that with them it does not come in an inner way but in the manner of achorayim.
From here on the Alter Rebbe will explain that every creation also has a particular, inner life-force, and that from that angle too there is a reason to call these creations "elohim acherim" - only that this is an entirely different reason.
"והנה רצון העליון בבחינת פנים הוא מקור החיים המחיה את כל העולמות" (now the Supreme Will in the aspect of 'face' is the source of life that enlivens all the worlds). The divine will enters in an inner way into each and every creation and enlivens all the worlds internally. Every creation has divine energy that gives it life, and every sensation it has, every faculty and every talent, is literally an expression of G-dliness, and everything it possesses is given to it by the Holy One at every single moment. A person who lives with kedusha relates to each particular power within him as G-dliness that is present inside him.
But those creations that are klipah and sitra achra are incapable of making peace with the news that their powers, their senses and their abilities are divine energy - and if they were able to make peace with that, they would not be klipah and sitra achra at all. With the encompassing life-force they do not have much of a problem, for, as will be explained later in Tanya, there are nations that say that the Holy One is great and do not deny His greatness, but they claim, "we too have power; He is stronger than us, but we are also something." However, when it comes to the particular, inner life-force - the senses, the powers, the abilities, the money and the possessions - to come and feel that every single detail is the Holy One, there the klipah says "that is as far as I go": "this is mine, I did this on my own, kochi v'otzem yadi, my strength and the might of my hand made me all this wealth." In saying that, it utterly denies the Creator's existence, and this is a second reason for the name "elohim acherim": that it does not feel, does not believe and does not acknowledge that the thing comes from Elokim, but holds that it comes from 'others'.
And this is the continuation of his words: "ולפי שאינו שורה כלל על הסטרא אחרא, וגם בחינת אחוריים של רצון העליון אינו מלובש בתוכה ממש אלא מקיף עליה מלמעלה" (and because it does not rest upon the sitra achra at all, and even the aspect of achorayim of the Supreme Will is not actually clothed within it but encompasses it from above). [Here there is still a completion of the previous level, and in the course of it the Alter Rebbe moves on to the second level.] The divine life-force does not penetrate it internally, because that creation does not acknowledge and is not willing to accept that there is G-dliness within it; it attributes nothing to G-d, but attributes everything to itself.
"לכך היא מקום המיתה והטומאה ה' ישמרנו" (therefore it is the place of death and impurity, may Hashem protect us). From here we also understand what Chazal say, "the wicked in their lifetime are called dead": they are alive, breathing and functioning, and yet they are called dead, because they are not connected to true life. Death and life are not merely a question of whether a person breathes or does not breathe: life is G-dliness and kedusha, standing in the right place, while death is disconnection - disconnection from the right awareness and from the divine life-force.
"כי מעט מזער אור וחיות שיונקת ומקבלת לתוכה מבחינת אחוריים דקדושה שלמעלה, הוא בבחינת גלות ממש בתוכה" (for the minute amount of light and life-force that it draws and receives into itself from the aspect of achorayim of holiness above is in a state of literal exile within it). The klipos too receive an inner life-force, since every creation has both an encompassing life-force and an inner one. And even among the wicked themselves there are levels, as the Rebbe brings in his sichos:
Sancheriv - who blasphemes and reviles the armies of the living G-d.
Pharaoh - who still admits to a certain degree and says, "it is the finger of G-d".
Bilaam - who says, "I cannot transgress the word of Hashem... to do small or great".
Nevertheless, each one on his own level is unwilling to accept and admit fully that everything he has comes from the Creator alone, and even Bilaam wants to grab the moment for himself. They lack the true, complete, inner recognition, and therefore the divine energy is present within them, but it is in a state of exile.
What is exile? A person who finds himself not in his natural place, not in the place where he wants to be. As it were, the Holy One enlivens them and does not want to be there: He continues to pour life-force into them while they deny His existence and claim that there is nobody bestowing anything upon them, and this is the secret of the exile of the Shechinah. And for this reason, in the time to come there will be no state of darkness, evil, sitra achra and klipah in the world, and all of it will be nullified, since there will no longer be any need for it; at present there is a need for it and therefore it exists, but its existence is in a state of exile.
The two explanations of the name 'elohim acherim':
From the side of the Holy One, as it were - from the side of the encompassing life-force: He gives them as 'others', from the aspect of achorayim, and not from the innerness of the Will.
From the side of the klipah - from the side of the inner life-force: it says 'others', since it does not recognize Him at all and attributes everything to itself.
"ולכן נקרא בשם אלקים אחרים, שהיא עבודה זרה ממש וכפירה באחדותו של מלך מלכי המלכים הקב"ה" (and therefore it is called by the name 'other gods', for it is literally idolatry and a denial of the oneness of the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He). Throughout chapter 21 we learned at length about the concept of achdus Hashem, the oneness of G-d: that there is no other reality, that everything is Him and that everything remains within Him. The creation's sense that some disconnection has occurred here, as though the divine speech became detached, is a denial of His oneness, and that is what is called "other gods".
"כי מאחר שאור וחיות דקדושה הוא בבחינת גלות בתוכה, אינה בטילה כלל לגבי קדושת הקב"ה, ואדרבה מגביה עצמה כנשר לומר אני ואפסי עוד" (for since the light and life-force of holiness is in a state of exile within it, it is not nullified at all before the holiness of the Holy One; on the contrary, it raises itself up like an eagle to say, "I am, and there is nothing besides me"). The klipah declares: I exist, and apart from me there is nothing. This is the precise opposite of the verse in parshas Va'eschanan, "you have been shown to know that Hashem is G-d, there is none besides Him" - the klipah says, "there is none besides me."
He continues: "וכמאמר יאור לי ואני עשיתני" (as in the saying, "the river is mine and I made myself"). This phrasing appears in the book of Yechezkel, and it is an expression that Pharaoh said. It is worth noting that in the source there are two verses in the same chapter: "my river is mine and I made it", and "mine is my river and I made myself", and the Alter Rebbe has combined the two here - which is why he does not introduce it with the word "as it is written". The Rebbe points out this combination, and there are places (in Likkutei Torah) where the phrase is cited without the combination; we will not go into the reason for that here. Also, here the Alter Rebbe does not attribute the expression specifically to Pharaoh; rather it is the expression of the absolute self-existence of klipah and sitra achra.
With this the Alter Rebbe has completed the subject he opened with in three lines at the beginning of the chapter: why is the divine utterance called by the name "speech"? Because speech also contains an element of disconnection, at least as far as the creation's own perception goes, for it feels as though a severance and a descent took place here - and therefore all those creations came into being that contain many tzimtzumim of various kinds, down to hester panim, the concealment of the face, and klipah.
What emerges from all this is that every sin a person commits is avodah zarah, idolatry, for in every sin he gives room to self-existence and to a reality that is not the Creator's will - and that is avodah zarah, that is 'other gods', in any sin whatsoever. And if so, since anything that goes against Hashem's will is like idolatry, why are there particular sins that Chazal associate with idolatry in a more explicit way?
"ולכן אמרו רז"ל שגסות הרוח שקולה כעבודה זרה ממש" (and therefore our Sages said that haughtiness is equivalent to literal idolatry) - in haughtiness the element of idolatry stands out far more, "כי עיקר ושורש עבודה זרה הוא מה שנחשב לדבר בפני עצמו נפרד מקדושתו של מקום ולא כפירה בה' לגמרי" (for the essence and root of idolatry is that something considers itself an independent entity, separate from the holiness of the Omnipresent, and not a complete denial of Hashem). Idolatry does not require an absolute denial of Hashem's existence, G-d forbid; a person can believe in Hashem's existence and at the same time also believe in his own existence - and that is idolatry.
"כדאיתא בגמרא דקרו ליה אלקא דאלקיא" (as it is stated in the Gemara, that they call Him the G-d of gods) - the Gemara brings in the name of Rav that from Tzur to Kartigni they know Israel and their Father in Heaven, while at the two other extremes they know neither Israel nor their Father in Heaven. Rav Shimi asked him: but it is written, "from the rising of the sun to its setting My name is great among the nations"! He answered him: "Shimi, is that you? They call Him the G-d of gods." In other words, it is true that from the rising of the sun to its setting His name is great among the nations, but they also consider themselves significant - and since they consider themselves significant, that is idolatry.
"אלא שגם הם מחשיבים עצמם ליש ודבר בפני עצמו, ובזה מפרידים את עצמם מקדושתו של מקום ב"ה, מאחר שאין בטלים לו יתברך; כי אין קדושה עליונה שורה אלא על מה שבטל לו יתברך כנזכר לעיל" (except that they also consider themselves a 'something' and an independent entity, and thereby they separate themselves from the holiness of the Omnipresent, blessed be He, since they are not nullified to Him; for supernal holiness rests only upon that which is nullified to Him, as mentioned above). Kedusha rests only in a place where there is bittul to the Creator. This principle was already stated in chapter 6 of Tanya, where the Alter Rebbe first defines the concept of sitra achra: kedusha is bittul to G-dliness, and whatever is not nullified to G-dliness is a matter of klipah.
"ולכן נקראים" - all the forces of impurity are called - "טורי דפרודא בזוהר הקדוש" (therefore they are called 'mountains of separation' in the holy Zohar). 'Turei diperuda' means separate mountains. A mountain casts a shadow and conceals, and higher mountains create a greater concealment; so too the forces of impurity appear as an entity unto themselves, and they cause a concealment, as it were, of the Creator's existence.
"והרי זו כפירה באחדותו האמיתית, דכולא קמיה כלא חשיב" (and this is a denial of His true oneness, for everything before Him is considered as nothing). The truth, as we learned at length in chapter 21, is that the whole of creation is "considered as nothing" and does not exist at all, since it is entirely nullified, "ובטל באמת לו יתברך ולרצונו המחיה את כולם" (and is truly nullified to Him and to His will which enlivens them all) - "His will which enlivens them all" is the general encompassing life-force, and it is that will which "מהווה אותם מאין ליש תמיד" (continually brings them into being from nothing to something) in a particular way as well, and therefore everything is nullified to Him.
It emerges that the creation's sense of self-existence on any level at all - among the nations of the world, and even in a Jew who is haughty - every point of self-existence is a matter of 'other gods', in both of the explanations we have learned.
And this is why the divine life-force through which the world was created is called by the name "speech": in this respect it resembles a person's speech, in that it contains not only the element of revelation, but also the element of separation.
In summary: in this chapter we learned that the power of tzimtzum is more wondrous than the power of revelation, and that for this reason there is an aspect of "achorayim" with regard to the creations, like a man who throws something to his enemy from behind his shoulder. We examined the two explanations of the name "elohim acherim": from the side of the encompassing life-force, which the sitra achra receives not from the innerness of the Will but in the aspect of achorayim, its very existence being only in order to punish the wicked and to give good reward to the righteous who subdue the sitra achra; and from the side of the inner life-force, where the klipah refuses to admit that its powers, its senses and its abilities are G-dliness, and instead says "my strength and the might of my hand" and "I am, and there is nothing besides me", so that the light and life-force within it are in a state of literal exile. We also learned that haughtiness is equivalent to idolatry, since the root of idolatry is regarding oneself as a 'something', an entity separate from the holiness of the Omnipresent, and holiness rests only upon that which is nullified to Him.
A Jew's avodah is to reveal in the world the content of chapter 21 - that achdus Hashem, the oneness of G-d, reigns in the world, that everything is G-dliness and nothing is separate. And that, with Hashem's help, will be the continuation of what we will learn in the coming chapters.