We have learned that every combination of letters in Tanach is the infinite wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He. It follows that whatever layer of Torah a person is learning, and it makes no difference which layer it is, at that moment he is absolutely bound up with the divine wisdom.
The simplest layer is a child reading from a Chumash with the vowels, having the meaning of the words explained to him. Above that lies a deeper layer: kri and ksiv, combinations of letters and combinations of words, and the methods of derash in the Gemara, where words are joined to one another not according to their plain sense. Even so, a person learning the very lowest layer is learning the wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, and is literally united with it. Nobody tells him, "You have grasped only the surface, and until you have learned the depth you have nothing in your hands." On the contrary: whatever layer a person grasps, he has grasped a complete Torah.
A parable: a person buys an electrical appliance in a store and knows what it is for, to record, to cook, to bake. That is true; that is the purpose of the appliance. That same appliance, in the hands of someone who understands electronics, looks entirely different. He does not see baking, recording and cooking; he sees circuits and connections, the wisdom invested in the device. And so on again, in the eyes of someone who looks at yet another layer. Is the first person's view mistaken? It is one hundred percent correct on his level, and the second person's view is one hundred percent correct on his level.
So it is, lehavdil, with Torah: every single layer is one hundred percent Torah.
It is worth noting that this very point, written here in Tanya, was one of the claims the opponents of Chassidus raised against the students of the Baal Shem Tov. For there was a widespread view that a person connects to the Holy One, blessed be He, specifically when he learns Torah in depth, sharpens his understanding of it and grasps its profundity, and occupies himself with it twenty four hours a day; whereas someone who reads Torah on a simple level, or only says Tehillim because that is all he is capable of, has nothing of value in his avodah. Along came the teaching of Chassidus and taught here in Tanya: the Torah is divine wisdom, and the combinations of letters of Tanach are included in that. A Jew who says Tehillim because that is all he knows is, at that very moment, through the power of speech in his mouth, united with the divine wisdom itself, fully and literally. This grated on the ears of the opponents, but that is exactly the point: a Jew has to know the greatness of Torah.
In the next line the Alter Rebbe concludes with the point with which he opened the chapter: "וזהו שכתוב דאורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא כולא חד", "and this is the meaning of what is written, that the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one." This is a far deeper expression than the one stated in Tikkunei Zohar regarding the mitzvos, "ולא אברין דמלכא לחוד כפיקודין", "and not merely limbs of the King, as are the mitzvos." The Torah is not only in the category of "limbs of the King"; it is "entirely one." With this he completed his explanation of the difference between Torah and mitzvos.
The revelation of the Supreme Will with no hiding of the face:
A reminder of what we learned in chapters 21 and 22: divine speech is not like the speech of a human being. When a person speaks, the speech leaves him and becomes detached from him; but the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, remains united with Him even after it has gone forth, as it were. Therefore in His speech the Creator is seen openly, with no hiding of the face. In the speech that created the creatures, "by the word of G-d the heavens were made," there is a state of hester panim, a hiding of the face, brought about by all the tzimtzumim, the contractions, that he explained at length in chapter 22. But the divine speech of the Torah is the revelation of the divine will with no hiding of the face at all.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: "ומאחר שרצון העליון המיוחד באין סוף ברוך הוא בתכלית היחוד הוא בגילוי לגמרי ולא בהסתר פנים כלל וכלל בנפש האלקית ולבושיה הפנימים שהם מחשבתה ודבורה באותה שעה שאדם עוסק בדברי תורה - הרי גם הנפש ולבושיה אלו מיוחדים ממש באין סוף ברוך הוא באותה שעה בתכלית היחוד, כיחוד דבורו ומחשבתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא במהותו ועצמותו כנ"ל". That is: since the Supreme Will, which is united with the blessed Ein Sof in absolute union, is completely revealed, with no hiding of the face whatsoever, in the divine soul and in its inner garments, which are its thought and its speech, at the time a person is engaged in words of Torah, then that soul and those garments of his are at that moment literally united with the blessed Ein Sof in absolute union, just like the union of the speech and thought of the Holy One, blessed be He, with His essence and being, as explained above.
When a Jew learns Torah in his thought, the divine will is revealed in his thought and in the contemplation of his mind; and when he says words of Torah with his mouth, the word of G-d is revealed in his mouth, with no hiding of the face. At that very moment that a person learns Torah, he is one with the Holy One, blessed be He, on the highest level. With mitzvos a person is not literally one, but rather one in bittul, in self nullification, like limbs of the body; whereas in learning Torah, He Himself is present in the mind of the one who learns.
From this we also understand the expression "out of doing it not for its own sake one comes to do it for its own sake." Within the "not for its own sake" itself the "for its own sake" is already contained, for "כי אין שום דבר נפרד", "for there is nothing that is separate," and there is no such thing as being separate from the Holy One, blessed be He, "כי אם בהסתר פנים כנ"ל", "except by way of a hiding of the face, as above." If a person sins, G-d forbid, a state of hester panim comes about in his deed; but insofar as right now he is not sinning but learning Torah, his learning is in revelation, with no hiding of the face in it at all.
"ולא עוד, אלא שיחודם הוא ביתר שאת ויתר עוז מיחוד אור אין סוף ברוך הוא בעולמות העליונים, מאחר שרצון העליון הוא בגילוי ממש בנפש ולבושיה העוסקים בתורה, שהרי הוא הוא התורה עצמה". And not only that, but their union is of a higher and mightier order than the union of the blessed Ein Sof light in the upper worlds, since the Supreme Will is literally revealed in the soul and its garments that are engaged in Torah, for He Himself is the Torah itself.
The divine revelation present in a person's mind or in his mouth while he is engaged in Torah is above the entire order of hishtalshelus, the chain of worlds, and even above the world of Atzilus. The upper worlds, the angels, the serafim, the chayos hakodesh and everything that takes place there, do not have even the faintest trace of that revelation and that intensity of connection with G-dliness that a Jew has while he learns Torah. The reason: all the worlds are in the category of the external will, and there is no union greater than the union found in Torah. And although we do not feel it, and the reason for that will be explained further on, factually this is what is taking place: in the power of the learner's speech, the Creator is present at the peak of revelation.
And the reason for this is "שהרי הוא התורה עצמה", "for He is the Torah itself." The Holy One, blessed be He, is the Torah itself. It does not mean that there is the Creator on His own and there is a Torah of His that He gave to man; rather, as the well known formulation has it, He is the Knower, He is the Known, and He is Knowledge itself. And as we mentioned, the Sages expound the word "Anochi" that opens the Ten Commandments: "Ana nafshi kesavis yehavis," I have written and given My very Self. The Torah is He Himself. If so, when a person learns Torah, the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself is present with him.
The upper worlds are unable to contain the revelation of the Creator Himself, and they receive it only through tzimtzumim and descent; while man specifically is able to, and precisely because of his deficiency: because he does not see and does not sense what is taking place, he has the capacity to bear it.
A parable: someone who wants to transfer a diamond worth a million dollars from country to country, or even from person to person in the same city, and wants it to arrive at its destination, hands it to a messenger who has no idea what is in the envelope, and gives it to him in the most offhand way, as one hands over a bag worth barely ten cents. The messenger will carry it quietly and go on his way. But if he explains to him that there is a diamond here worth a million dollars and warns him to guard it, then the whole way he will be taking it out and putting it back, checking whether it fell or did not fall, whether it is there or not there, and from sheer excitement at carrying a million dollars in his pocket he will end up not knowing where he is. It is precisely not knowing what you are holding that makes it possible for you to carry the greatest thing of all, a case of "his flaw is his remedy." That is our situation.
"וכל העולמות העליונים מקבלים חיותם מאור וחיות הנמשך מהתורה שהיא רצונו וחכמתו יתברך, כדכתיב כולם בחכמה עשית": all the upper worlds receive their vitality from the light and life that is drawn down from the Torah, which is His will and His wisdom, as it is written, "You have made them all with wisdom." They were all made from His wisdom, as in the expression "He looked into the Torah and created the world." And as we mentioned in earlier lessons, the Torah affects the worlds: King David said, "Your statutes were songs to me," from which we see that all the worlds are affected by Torah. So the world was created from Torah, lives from Torah, and is affected by Torah, and every hour that a person learns Torah he draws down abundance into all the worlds. This is the well known teaching in Pirkei Avos, "Know what is above you," together with the explanation of the Maggid of Mezritch: know that everything that happens above is from you, and that through your learning and your deeds you bring it all about.
"ואם כן החכמה שהיא התורה למעלה מכולם", "and if so, the wisdom that is the Torah is above them all." The Torah is above all the worlds. The worlds receive the result that is drawn down from the Torah, whereas a Jew receives in his mind the Torah itself, and that is incomparably higher than all the worlds.
In summary: in this section we learned that every single layer of Torah learning is fully divine wisdom, and that even saying Tehillim in utter simplicity unites a Jew with the divine wisdom, a point that was among the claims of the opponents of Chassidus. We looked at the language of the Zohar, "the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one," which is a higher expression than "limbs of the King" said regarding mitzvos; at the fact that the Supreme Will is revealed in the divine soul and its garments at the time of learning with no hiding of the face at all, so that their union is "of a higher and mightier order" than the union of the Ein Sof light in the upper worlds, since "He is the Torah itself" and "Ana nafshi kesavis yehavis." And we saw that precisely man, because of his lack of awareness, is able to bear this revelation, while the upper worlds receive their vitality from the light drawn down from the Torah, and the Torah is above them all.
In the next section we will take up the question of why a person does not feel this immense revelation at the time he is engaged in Torah.