We have reached chapter 24 of Likutei Amarim. This chapter flows directly out of the chapters before it, beginning with chapter 20, where the Alter Rebbe's goal is to explain to a Jew just how "קרוב אליך הדבר מאוד" ("the matter is very close to you") it is to fulfill everything the Torah asks of him. To step into the flow of the discussion, let us briefly review the foundational points established so far:
Chapter 19: It is clear that every Jew wants to be bound to the Almighty, and when he is tested in a matter of faith, even the lightest of the light gives up his life al kiddush Hashem. The whole problem begins when a person starts drawing distinctions between one transgression and another: this one is severe, and about this one he could never transgress, he would even give his life, while that one seems to him lighter and simpler. That distinction, as we will see today as well, is nothing but a confusion that the yetzer hara plants in a person's mind.
Chapters 20-21: A broad explanation of achdus Hashem, the unity of G-d. The only reality in all of creation, the sole and exclusive reality, is the Almighty Himself, while the entire world is nothing and naught, "כולא קמיה כלא חשיב" ("all before Him is considered as nothing"), and does not exist at all (as explained at length through the analogy of the world of speech).
Chapter 22: If all of creation is nothing and naught, how is there such a thing in the world as sitra achra, klipah and evil that stand opposed to G-d's will? The explanation: the Creator constricted His powers, and there are things in which He reveals Himself with a shining countenance (gilui panim) and things in which His countenance is hidden (hester panim), and whatever comes into being through hester panim comes into being feeling itself distant. That is why those forces are called "elokim acherim," other gods: they receive their vitality from the dimension of achorayim, the "back," and not from the "face," the inner will. There are things that are the very purpose for which everything was created, and there are things that exist only for the completeness of the system, things the Creator wants to be there but which are not the purpose.
Chapter 23: How closeness to the inner dimension of G-dliness is created through doing the Creator's will. In doing His will there are two levels: Torah and mitzvos. Regarding mitzvos the expression used is "איברים דמלכא" ("the limbs of the King"), and regarding Torah, "אורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא כולא חד" ("the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one"). The whole chapter explained at length the difference between the union created in the soul of a person performing a mitzvah, and the loftier union created in his soul when he studies G-d's Torah.
In chapter 24 we will learn the reverse side: what happens when a person transgresses the Creator's will. Chapter 23 dealt with one who unites with the Creator's will through mitzvos and Torah study, and with what level of union is involved; chapter 24 explains what happens when, G-d forbid, a person transgresses the Creator's will. And once a person takes to heart what actually occurs, he will have the strength to stand up to all those temptations.
Let us read the words of the chapter: "וזה לעומת זה" ("and this is opposite that"). The Almighty created the world in such a way that it contains forces that are balanced against each other, or at least appear balanced: whatever exists in holiness has its counterpart in klipah and sitra achra.
"הן שס"ה מצות לא תעשה דאורייתא וכל איסורי דרבנן" ("namely, the 365 Torah prohibitions and all the rabbinic prohibitions"). Three hundred and sixty five negative commandments written in the Torah, three hundred and sixty five situations about which the Almighty says that these things are forbidden, and layered on top of them a far greater number, hundreds of rabbinic prohibitions that the Sages added as safeguards around the Torah's commandments. It is a very long list, and what all these things have in common is "מאחר שהם נגד רצונו וחכמתו יתברך והפכם ממש" ("since they are against His blessed will and wisdom, and their very opposite"). Every one of them is the opposite of G-d's will. G-d's will is that Shabbos be kept, and so the very concept of chillul Shabbos is the opposite of G-d's will (and we are not yet speaking of the person who desecrates it, but of the thing itself). The Almighty writes in the Torah that one is to eat kosher food, and so the existence of the pig, the existence of non-kosher food, is a reality whose entire essence stands against G-d's will, its very opposite.
And therefore those things that represent the opposition "הם נפרדים מיחודו ואחדותו יתברך בתכלית הפירוד ממש" ("they are separated from His blessed unity and oneness in the ultimate degree of separation"). For what does achdus Hashem mean? That there is no reality other than the reality of the Creator and His will, and outside of that nothing exists and nothing is relevant. And here we have before us a situation of something whose entire content is opposition: there is the Creator, and this stands against G-d's will, which disturbs and opposes the unity of G-d.
"כמו הסטרא אחרא והקליפה הנקראת עבודה זרה ואלקים אחרים" ("like the sitra achra and the klipah which is called idolatry and other gods"). The Almighty formed and created a force called sitra achra and klipah: spiritual forces, evil angels, whose entire function is to conceal G-d's will and to stand in its way, and the Creator made them so that they should be. They disturb the unity of G-d, for achdus Hashem means that there is nothing that is not G-d's will, while klipah and sitra achra cry out, as it were: there is also a reality that stands against G-d's will.
And why are they called "elokim acherim"? "מחמת הסתר פנים של רצון העליון כנ"ל" ("because of the concealment of the countenance of the Supreme Will, as mentioned above"), as was explained in chapter 22: they receive their vitality from the side of achorayim and not from the inner will. There is idolatry in the world, there is a yetzer hara, there are klipah and sitra achra, and it is the Almighty who created them and who sustains them, and yet one cannot say that this is His inner will, that this is what He truly wants. He would want them not to be, except that the completeness of the system requires that these too should exist; in their essence they stand against His will, and that is why they receive their vitality in the manner of achorayim, and that is why they are called "other gods."
Until now we have not spoken of a person transgressing the Creator's will, but of the situation as it exists in itself: there are three hundred and sixty five situations that are Torah prohibitions, and hundreds of additional situations that are rabbinic prohibitions, and there exist in the world sitra achra and klipah, and what they all share is that they stand opposed to the unity of G-d. Now we will see what happens to a person who actually does one of these things.
In the previous chapter, on the positive side, we learned what happens to a Jew who performs a mitzvah: his body and its faculties become nullified to the Almighty, on various levels, up to the level of a merkavah, a chariot, since his garments, his thought, speech and action, are nullified to the Creator's will at the moment he performs the mitzvah. And here is the opposite side: a Jew who took his faculties, his talents and his time, and used them to commit one of the prohibitions that stand against the Creator's will. What happens then?
"וכן ג' לבושי הנפש שמקליפת נוגה שבישראל" ("and likewise the three garments of the soul of a Jew, which stem from klipas nogah"). Every Jew's animal soul stems from klipas nogah, as the Alter Rebbe wrote in chapter 1, unlike the soul of a gentile, which stems from the three completely impure klipos. And this soul has garments: "שהם מחשבה, דבור ומעשה" ("which are thought, speech and action"). And when a Jew takes one of these three garments, and they are "המלובשים בשס"ה לא תעשה דאורייתא ודרבנן" ("which are invested in the 365 prohibitions of the Torah and of the Rabbis"), meaning that he has clothed his faculties in things that stand against G-d's will: his power of thought, to think forbidden things, or his power of speech, or his power of action.
And it is not only the garments, but "וכן מהות הנפש עצמה המלובשת בלבושיה" ("and likewise the essence of the soul itself, which is clothed in its garments"). For when a person does something in thought, speech or deed, it is not speech or thought standing on its own; there is a soul invested inside it. He is the one thinking about it, he is the one doing it, he is invested in it. His soul, then, is invested in the sins he commits, and therefore "כולם מיוחדים ממש בסטרא אחרא וקליפה זו הנקראת עבודה זרה" ("they are all actually united with the sitra achra and this klipah which is called idolatry"). At the very moment a person transgresses the Creator's will, his soul becomes one single thing with the klipah and with the idolatry, and unites with that very klipah that cries out against the unity of G-d, as though he joins in and declares: I too am now against the unity of G-d, I too am part of this. For he has become an instrument in the hands of the klipah.
And the Alter Rebbe adds that the truth is that he becomes even worse than the klipah itself: "ולא עוד אלא שבטלים וטפלים אליה וגרועים ופחותים ממנה מאוד" ("and moreover they are nullified and subordinate to it, and far worse and lower than it"). A Jew who commits a sin becomes nullified to the klipah, and once he is nullified to it, that means the klipah is the main thing and he is secondary to it, and he is far worse and lower than it. All the forces of evil and impurity that the Almighty created in the world are not as bad as a Jew who transgresses G-d's will.
This can be understood through an analogy. A king summons a man and tells him: I want to test the loyalty of the people of my kingdom, and so I am asking you to organize a rebellion against me. I will give you money, manpower, advisors, whatever you need, and we will see how loyal the people are. Outwardly this man is organizing a rebellion against the king, but in truth he is carrying out the king's will (and woe to him that he was chosen to carry out the king's will in such a fashion). And every citizen of the land who gets drawn after him and goes against the king, he is the worse one, because he really is going against the king, whereas the organizer of the rebellion is the king's own emissary.
The same is true here. There are forces of evil in the world, forces of idolatry and forces of impurity, which the Almighty created. The Almighty created the yetzer hara, the angel of death and the satan, and He sends him out to confuse the Jew and entice him to transgress the Creator's will. The satan, in his essence and in his assignment, opposes the unity of the Creator, for he cries out, as it were: do not listen to the Creator's voice. He is just like that organizer of the rebellion who shouts against the king's sovereignty while in practice doing the king's will. But the Jew who stumbles is far worse than the forces of klipah that exist in the world.
And why? The Alter Rebbe gives two reasons:
"כי היא אינה מלובשת בגוף חומרי" ("for it is not clothed in a material body"). The evil spiritual forces that the Almighty created He did not clothe in a material body; a spiritual force simply exists and acts, and since it is not invested in a material body, it is not as coarse and lowly as that Jew who is in a material body.
"ויודעת את ריבונה ואינה מורדת בו לפעול פעולתה במשלחת מלאכי רעים שלה שלא בשליחותו של מקום ברוך הוא חס ושלום" ("and it knows its Master and does not rebel against Him, to carry out its activity through its dispatch of evil angels without being on a mission from the Omnipresent, blessed be He, G-d forbid"). The klipah knows and recognizes its Master, the Almighty, and it is incapable of rebelling against Him and dispatching its evil angels other than as a mission from the Omnipresent.
In summary: In this section we learned the opening of chapter 24, after surveying the thread running through chapters 20-23. "וזה לעומת זה" - just as there is holiness, so there is klipah and sitra achra set against it: the 365 negative commandments and all the rabbinic prohibitions, whose entire essence is against His blessed will and wisdom and which are therefore separated from His unity in the ultimate degree, like the forces of klipah that are called "avodah zarah" and "elokim acherim" because of hester panim and because they receive their vitality from the dimension of achorayim. And when a person transgresses the Creator's will, the three garments of his soul, and the essence of his soul invested within them, become actually united with that very klipah, and are even nullified and subordinate to it and worse than it: for it is not clothed in a material body, and it knows its Master and does not rebel against Him but acts only on His mission.
In the next section we will continue with the explanation of the words of the chapter.