In the previous section we learned that the souls of Israel "arose in thought," and we saw how the neshama is bound up with the innermost level of the Creator. In this section we will go deeper and clarify that the source of the neshama is literally from the innerness of the Creator Himself, and we will see that there is no separating between the Creator and His thought and His wisdom.
What does "in thought" mean? By way of analogy: just as in a person thought is the inner faculty relative to speech, so too the neshama is bound to thought. And the Alter Rebbe is precise in his wording: "עלו במחשבה" ("they arose in thought") - for within thought itself there are different levels, and the souls of Israel rose within it.
The two verses the Alter Rebbe brings:
"בני בכורי ישראל" ("Israel is My son, My firstborn") - a verse in Shemos, said when the Holy One, blessed be He, sends Moshe Rabbeinu to Pharaoh: "and you shall say to Pharaoh, so says Hashem: Israel is My son, My firstborn." This verse speaks of the nation as a whole - the entire Jewish people together, as one entity and one unit, are called "My son, My firstborn." The Rebbe points out in one of the sichos that the intent is not that there exist other sons who are not firstborn; rather, it comes to elevate their standing: just as a firstborn has a special distinction, so are they sons on the level of "firstborn" - and there are no other sons at all.
"בנים אתם לה' אלוקיכם" ("You are children to Hashem your G-d") - a verse in Devarim, stated as an introduction to one of the mitzvos: since you are children to Hashem your G-d, do not do such and such. This is a personal directive to each and every individual - every Jew is asked to conduct himself as a son of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore to behave in a way befitting a son.
Why does the Alter Rebbe bring two verses? Perhaps it follows the pattern of the two expressions he brought earlier, "ויפח באפיו" ("and He blew into his nostrils") and "ואתה נפחת בי" ("and You blew it into me"). "And He blew into his nostrils" was said of Adam, who is the all-inclusive soul of everyone, while "and You blew it into me" is what each individual says about himself. So too here: "Israel is My son, My firstborn" speaks of the nation as a single unit, the nation that had to be redeemed from Egypt and made into a people, whereas "You are children to Hashem your G-d" is a personal charge to each and every individual. One might have thought that only the nation as a collective is called "children" - therefore the second verse is brought, teaching that every single Jew is a son in his own personal right.
"הבן נמשך ממוח האב" ("the son is drawn from the father's brain"):
What is the image of a son? A child who is born has his physiological origin in the drop that comes from the father's brain. The emphasis here is specifically on "son," because a student too is drawn from the brain of his teacher - the teacher teaches his students intellectual matters that come from his own mind and transmits them to them.
So what is the difference, and where is the drawing down stronger?
There is a Yiddish saying: "א קאפ קען מען נישט ארויפשטעלן" - you cannot install a head on someone. If a student has no head, the teacher can talk until he runs out of breath and there will be nobody there to absorb it. The teacher takes an already existing mind and pours content into it; the father, however, produces the mind itself - and that is a far stronger drawing down. And not only the son's mind: his entire being originates in the father's brain. Therefore the image of a son drawn from his father's brain is incomparably stronger than the image of a student drawn from his teacher's mind. This analogy, which takes only four words in Hebrew - "the son is drawn from the father's brain" - the Alter Rebbe will unpack in all its details over the next page of Tanya.
And just as the son is drawn from the father's brain, so too, as it were, in the nimshal: the neshama of every Jew, every single "son," was drawn from His thought and His wisdom, may He be blessed. Up to this point the Alter Rebbe has brought several expressions - "חלק אלוק ממעל ממש" ("literally a part of G-d above"), "ואתה נפחת בי" ("and You blew it into me"), "בנים אתם לה' אלוקיכם" ("you are children to Hashem your G-d") and "עלו במחשבה" ("they arose in thought") - and all of them express one point: that the neshama is one essence with G-dliness.
A question in the precision of these expressions:
When you look closely at the wording, there is a difference between them. "Literally a part of G-d above" is the highest possible level, and "and You blew it into me" is also a lofty level, since the breath comes from within Him, from His innermost being. But once we moved to the level of "thought," we are no longer speaking of "literally a part of G-d above," nor of His inner essence, but of a certain level and rung called thought. The same applies to the last expression, "a son is drawn from the father's brain": in the nimshal the neshama was drawn from His thought and His wisdom - and that is no longer the exalted expression of the opening lines, that the neshama comes from His innerness and His inner essence.
Let us illustrate. A person has a brain and he has thought, but the brain is only one of his important organs; alongside it there is his very essence, which is deeper and higher than the brain. As long as we say "His innerness" and "His inner essence" without specifying a level, the words point to something deeper. Once it is specified that the neshama was drawn from His thought or from His wisdom, a particular source has been named, and seemingly we have come down a level.
In answer, the Alter Rebbe adds a single line: "דאיהו חכים ולא בחכמה ידיעא, אלא הוא וחכמתו אחד" ("for He is wise, but not with a knowable wisdom; rather, He and His wisdom are one"). In other words: even when we speak of the level of wisdom, thought or brain, we have remained within His innerness, His inner essence, "literally G-dliness." Why?
Here the Alter Rebbe says something we do not have the capacity to grasp fully, but let us see what is written. Of a physical human being it is indeed correct to say that he and his brain are two distinct points, and that he and his thought are two separate things. But regarding the Creator of the world it is not applicable to say that there is a "He" - His innerness and His inner essence - and separately there is His wisdom and His thought. One cannot divide Him up and say that He is composed of parts: His thought is Him, and He is His thought. And more than that: even the things He thinks about are Him.
The words of the Rambam:
The Alter Rebbe quotes only two sentences from the Rambam. In Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, chapter two, the Rambam writes: "הקדוש ברוך הוא מכיר אמיתו ויודע אותה כמות שהיא, ואינו יודע בדעה שהיא חוץ ממנו כמו שאנו יודעים" ("the Holy One, blessed be He, recognizes His truth and knows it as it is, and He does not know with a knowledge that is outside of Himself, the way we know"). The Creator's knowing is not like a person's knowing: when a person wants to study a certain subject, before he studies it he does not know it, and when he comes to study he takes his intellect and begins to think about the matter. So we have here a joining of three components:
The person who wants to learn.
The subject that he wants to learn about.
The intellect through which he connects himself with the subject.
The Rambam explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not know things with a knowledge like ours, for by us "אין אנו ודעתנו אחד" ("we and our knowledge are not one") - a person and his knowledge are not one, but a composite of parts. The Creator, however, is "הוא ודעתו וחייו אחד מכל צד ומכל פינה ובכל דרך יחוד, שאלמלא היה חי בחיים ויודע בדעה שהיא חוץ ממנו היו שם אלוקות הרבה" ("He and His knowledge and His life are one, from every side and every corner and in every manner of unity; for were He to live with life and know with a knowledge outside of Himself, there would be many deities"). If it were possible to separate between the Creator, His knowledge and His life, and then join them together, He would be composed of parts. But that is not so; rather He is one from every side and every corner.
And then comes the sentence the Alter Rebbe quotes in Tanya: "נמצאת אומר, הוא היודע והוא הידוע והוא הדעה עצמה" ("it turns out that He is the Knower, He is the Known, and He is the Knowledge itself") - it is all one. Not as it is with us, where there is the person, there is the object, and there is the intellect; with the Creator of the world, He is the Knower, and even the thing known is Him, for everything is Him. And how can this be understood? Says the Rambam: "ודבר זה אין כוח בפה לאומרו, ולא באוזן לשומעו, ולא בלב האדם להכירו על בוריו" ("this matter the mouth has no power to express, nor the ear to hear it, nor the heart of man to grasp it clearly"). It is not something that falls within comprehension, yet logic compels that it is so.
From here the Alter Rebbe returns to our subject: a Jew's neshama is drawn from the Creator's wisdom and thought. And to the question whether this drawing down is from Him or from His thought, from His inner essence or from His thought - the answer is that with the Creator of the world there is no separating between Him and His thought.
The wording of the Tanya itself:
"דאיהו חכים" - the Creator of the world is wise, but "ולא בחכמה ידיעא" - not with wisdom as we know it within our frame of reference, "אלא הוא וחכמתו אחד" ("rather, He and His wisdom are one"), as the Rambam says, that He is the knowledge and He is the Knower, and this is something a person has no ability to grasp clearly. The Alter Rebbe does not quote the Rambam's exact wording here, but this is the idea the Rambam is saying.
And from where do we learn that a person has no power to grasp the Creator of the world? From the words of Iyov: "החקר אלוק תמצא" ("can you by searching find G-d?") - can He be found through investigation? And it is written: "כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם" ("for My thoughts are not your thoughts"). One should not try to understand how He and His thought are one, but the conclusion must be known: the source of a Jew's neshama is drawn from the inner essence of the Creator of the world, from His innerness and His inner core, with all the lofty levels explained above.
In summary: in this section we learned that the neshama of every Jew was drawn from His thought and His wisdom, may He be blessed, like a son drawn from his father's brain - a far stronger drawing down than that of a student from his teacher's mind. We saw that even though the discussion speaks of "thought" and "wisdom," which seemingly are defined levels, this involves no descent, because with the Creator of the world there is no separating between Him and His thought and wisdom. As the Rambam says, He is the Knower, He is the Known, and He is the Knowledge itself - it is all one. Hence the conclusion: the source of the neshama is literally from the innerness and inner essence of the Creator.
In the next section we will discuss the different levels within the drawing down of the neshama, and we will see how there are various rungs in the way the neshama is drawn from the "father's brain" Above.