In the previous section we looked at the parable of the servants. The first servant, who had to be told every single detail, was sent away by the king, who told him plainly that he was not suited to him: a king needs servants who understand on their own, who do not have to be instructed afresh each time. With the limbs of the body, though, the thing happens on a far deeper level, because they are completely nullified to the will of the soul.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כי מיד שעולה ברצונו של אדם לפשוט ידו או רגלו - הן נשמעות לרצונו תכף ומיד, בלי שום ציווי ואמירה להן, ובלי שום שהייה כלל, אלא כרגע ממש כשעלה ברצונו" - the moment it arises in a person's will to stretch out his hand or his foot, they obey his will instantly, with no command or instruction given to them, and with no delay whatsoever, but at the very instant the will arose.
The added words "and with no delay whatsoever" come to rule out the notion that the will sits in the brain, and that the brain then relays an order to the limbs. The will is present in every place, and therefore there is no delay at all: in the same split second in which the will arose, the limb has already received it, and if nothing external interferes, the limb carries it out immediately.
From the parable to what it illustrates: what are the king's "limbs"? The mitzvos, as the Zohar puts it: "רמ"ח פיקודין אינון רמ"ח איברין דמלכא" - the 248 commandments are the 248 limbs of the King. And why are the mitzvos called limbs? In the parable, the limbs of the body are what reveal the will of the soul. When a person moves his hand, it is understood that his will was to move the hand; when he turns his eyes in a certain direction, it is understood that this is where his will was directed. The limbs are what express the will of the soul.
When a person sees a hand, he does not say, "Here is a piece of flesh of such and such a weight, made up of flesh, sinews and bones." A hand is a limb, and in a limb one does not see the material component at all, but rather an expression of the soul and of its will. Exactly so when one sees the vitality of a mitzvah: a Jew who is living, right now, in putting on tefillin, in reciting Shema, in giving tzedakah. That vitality is an expression of the Divine will, and it is itself an "eiver d'malka," a limb of the King.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "כך דרך משל החיות של מעשה המצות וקיומן הוא בטל לגמרי לגבי רצון העליון המלובש בו, ונעשה לו ממש כגוף לנשמה" - so too, by way of analogy, the vitality of the performance of the mitzvos and their fulfillment is completely nullified to the Supernal Will clothed within it, and becomes to it literally like a body to a soul.
"וכן הלבוש החיצון של נפש האלוקית שבאדם המקיים ועושה המצווה, שהוא כח ובחינת המעשה שלה, הוא מתלבש בחיות של מעשה המצווה, ונעשה גם כן כגוף לנשמה לרצון העליון ובטל אליו לגמרי" - and likewise the outermost garment of the Divine soul of the person who fulfills and performs the mitzvah, namely its faculty of action, clothes itself in the vitality of the act of the mitzvah, and it too becomes like a body to a soul for the Supernal Will, and is completely nullified to it.
What is the "outermost garment"? The soul has three garments - thought, speech and action - and the outermost of them is the garment of action, that is, the power of doing that is at this moment clothed in the hand laying tefillin or in the hand placing a coin in the tzedakah box. This energy, which a person invests at the moment he fulfills the mitzvah, is an expression of the Divine will, just as a person's limb expresses the will of his soul.
A person talking with his friend moves his hands without paying attention, and yet these are not random motions: had there been a piece of iron there he would not have struck it, and had someone been standing beside him he would not have hit him on the head. It emerges that even though he gave the matter no thought at all, the actions are performed willfully and precisely. How? Because the will is not confined to any one place. It does not need a relay station from which it goes out to the limb; rather, it has direct extensions to every single place.
In one of the maamarim the expression "the sinews of the will" appears, and when the sinews of the will are damaged, a person wants very much and the limb does not move. Sometimes a person comes to a doctor and the doctor finds no problem at all, everything looks to be in order, and yet the will does not take effect. Certainly the will that comes from the soul makes use of additional systems that operate so that it will be carried out in practice, but the source of the will runs from the soul directly to that limb.
And indeed, "will" is a synonym for "soul." When Avraham Avinu came to bury Sarah and to meet with Efron, he said to the children of Ches: "אם יש את נפשכם לקבור את מתי מלפני" - if it is your soul's wish to bury my dead from before me - and Rashi explains: "your will." Why did he say "your soul" and not "your will"? Of the intellect one would not say "your soul," and of sight one would not say "your soul," but of the will one would, because the will is the soul itself.
Until now we have been speaking of the vitality and of the power of action. But what about the physical hand itself, which performs the mitzvah? On this the Alter Rebbe continues: "ועל כן גם אברי גוף האדם המקיימים המצוה, שכח ובחינת המעשה של נפש האלקית מלובש בהם בשעת מעשה וקיום המצוה - הם נעשו מרכבה ממש לרצון העליון" - therefore the very limbs of a person's body that fulfill the mitzvah, in which the faculty of action of the Divine soul is clothed at the time of performing and fulfilling the mitzvah, become a literal chariot for the Supernal Will.
The physical hand can also serve the opposite purpose, God forbid, to raise a hand against another person, and then the power of the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul, is clothed in it. But when the power of the Divine soul is clothed in it, the hand performs a mitzvah, and at the moment of the act it is nullified like a chariot to the Supernal Will. So we have here two levels of bittul, of nullification:
The vitality and the power of action of the Divine soul that are invested at the time of fulfilling the mitzvah: their bittul is "like a body to a soul." This vitality cannot be the vitality of anything else at all, only the vitality of the performance of the mitzvah, and therefore its nullification to the Supernal Will is complete.
The physical limbs of the body that perform the mitzvah: their bittul is that of "a literal chariot," like a chariot to its rider or a car to its driver. For the hand and the foot are physical, and they can be steered in the opposite direction as well; and when they are steered in the right direction, they are nullified at the moment of the act to the Supernal Will.
Certainly the two come combined, since at the time a mitzvah is performed the power of action and the physical limb work together. But the levels of bittul differ from one another, as explained.
The Alter Rebbe continues and lists examples: "כגון היד המחלקת צדקה לעניים או עושה מצוה אחרת, ורגליים המהלכות לדבר מצוה, וכן הפה והלשון שמדברים דברי תורה, והמוח שמהרהר בדברי תורה וביראת שמיים ובגדולת ה' ברוך הוא" - such as the hand that distributes tzedakah to the poor or performs another mitzvah, and the feet that walk toward a matter of a mitzvah, and likewise the mouth and tongue that speak words of Torah, and the brain that contemplates words of Torah, and fear of Heaven, and the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He. Even the physical hand, and even the physical foot that goes running to shul, become at the moment of the act a chariot for the Supernal Will.
In summary: in this section we learned that just as the limbs of the body obey the will of the soul immediately and without any delay, because the will is not confined to any one place but is present everywhere, so too the mitzvos are the "248 limbs of the King," expressing the Divine will. We identified two levels of bittul: the vitality and the power of action of the Divine soul are nullified to the Supernal Will "like a body to a soul," while the physical limbs of the body become "a literal chariot" for the Supernal Will, like a chariot to its rider. We also saw that "will" is a synonym for "soul," as in Avraham Avinu's words "אם יש את נפשכם," which mean "your will."
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words and look at the distinction of the mouth and tongue that speak words of Torah, and of the brain that contemplates it.