The small world that a person is charged with setting right is his own world: his mind and his awareness. His task is to bring the G-dly recognition contained in this emunah into his own consciousness, and to make the Holy One the master of the house over him, until he knows that in his own private domain the Holy One is the one in charge. In this way he fulfills the verse we quoted earlier, «וצדיק באמונתו יחיה», which can be read in two ways: «יִחְיֶה», he lives by his emunah, meaning that he works on himself from within and lives his emunah; and «יְחַיֶּה», he gives life, meaning that in the end he enlivens his surroundings as well, becoming a lamp that illuminates and transforms the environment closest to him, and from there onward. And there is no doubt that in the end darkness will come to its end, and in the complete Geulah the G-dly light will shine through the entire world.
We have arrived at chapter 34, which begins on page 43a. In the previous chapter, chapter 33, one of the themes was the great simchah that is meant to accompany a person constantly.
What is he so joyful about? About the fact that he knows, or more precisely, that he believes, in the oneness of Hashem: that the one and only reality is the Holy One, and that the entire world is nothing at all. The very privilege that a small creature is able to take into himself an emunah in something so wondrous, and to grasp such a lofty G-dly matter, fills him with simchah.
Another point was raised there as well: who makes it possible for a created being to grasp something infinite like this? After all, it runs against nature, for a person's nature is to guard his own existence and his own being. To tell a person that he must recognize that he is nothing at all and does not truly exist is the very opposite of the nature of reality. And here a Jew is asked not only to believe that the Holy One is the exclusive and only reality and that he himself is nothing at all, but even to rejoice in having been granted such an emunah. How is that possible?
The answer given in that chapter is that this is an inheritance in our hands from our Avos, and it is about this that we say every day, «אשרינו מה טוב חלקנו ומה נעים גורלנו ומה יפה ירושתנו», happy are we, how good is our portion, how pleasant our lot, and how beautiful our inheritance. We received this as an inheritance from Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Were it to depend on our own nature, we would be utterly incapable of arriving at such a recognition; it is only that our Avos bequeathed us this great gift, the ability to believe in the oneness of Hashem.
Mentioned there too were the words of Chavakuk, who placed the gateway into Torah and mitzvos on emunah. Through his emunah itself a Jew turns his very being into a Mishkan and a dwelling for the Holy One, for the Holy One comes to dwell with him, as in the mashal brought there of a great king who leaves everything behind and comes to live in the home of a simple person. The greatest simchah of all is the very fact of having been given the great secret of the oneness of Hashem, and that in itself is an enormous gift to rejoice in.
The question that carries us into our chapter:
Someone might say: by believing, I have brought the Creator into my emunah alone. But what about all my other faculties and limbs? What about my awareness, what about my movement? Where do I bring the Creator in there? How does this wondrous thing, the emunah that every Jew possesses as a «מאמין בן מאמין», a believer the son of a believer, which he has even without any avodah, connect to the day to day, to the daily work of the powers of the soul? How is the bridge built between emunah in the G-dly Infinite and a person's everyday reality?
What is the difference between awareness and emunah?
Awareness means intellectual grasp, the recognition and understanding of the mind. Emunah is not a function of the intellect but above it: a person knows that this is how it is and not otherwise, even though he has no logical explanation for it. On the contrary, logic demands of him that he explain how his own existence is not real, which is the very opposite of logic, and yet it rests within him as a simple given that so it is. And from where does it rest within him? From his being a son of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who received it as an inheritance.
A gentile has no such capacity. Even if you explain it to him for years on end, it is not possible for him to arrive at a recognition that the world is nothing at all and that the only reality is the Creator. To understand and believe that the world has a Creator, that he can do, for recognizing that a Creator exists does not nullify the existence of the world; on the contrary, nothing makes itself, and therefore there must be a Creator who brought the world into being. But the deeper recognition, that not only does the world have a Creator, but that He alone is the only and exclusive reality and everything else is utterly nullified, belongs to a Jew alone, by force of the inheritance from our Avos. It is about this that we say every morning, «אשרינו... ומה יפה ירושתנו».
Continuing from here we will understand how this connects to all the powers of the soul, and what the difference is between the way this stood by our Avos and the way it stands by us.
The words of the Alter Rebbe:
«והנה מודעת זאת שהאבות הן הן המרכבה», it is well known that the Avos are themselves the Divine chariot. Our holy Avos Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov are called a merkavah, a chariot. The chariot is the image of absolute bittul, the complete nullification of one's own existence. Unlike a horse, which does indeed gallop in the direction its rider points it, but which has desires of its own, so that if you do not hold the reins it will go wherever it pleases and at times will even overpower you, a carriage has no existence of its own whatsoever. It is entirely nullified to the driver, and wherever it is led, there it goes. That is the measure of the Avos' bittul before the Holy One, like a chariot wholly nullified before the king.
«שכל ימיהם לעולם לא הפסיקו אפילו שעה אחת מלקשר דעתם ונשמתם לרבון העולמים בביטול הנ"ל לייחודו יתברך», for all their days they never interrupted even for a single hour their binding of their mind and soul to the Master of the worlds, in the aforementioned bittul to His blessed oneness. The bittul of the Avos was absolute, total and constant; there simply was no other state with them (and in certain places it is brought that even in their sleep this bittul did not cease). The absolute recognition that Hashem is One and His name is One, and that He is the only and exclusive reality, was with them at every moment, and anything else was not a possibility for them. That is the level of the Avos.
The Nevi'im: «ואחריהם כל הנביאים כל אחד לפי מדרגת נשמתו והשגתו», and after them all the prophets, each one according to the level of his soul and his comprehension. What is a navi? On the one hand, flesh and blood, a human being like all people. On the other hand, he has been chosen by the Creator for the word of Hashem to issue from his mouth. And why was he chosen? Because he is nullified to the Creator of the world, and out of that bittul he can serve as a channel. As in the well known mashal: when a king wishes to remove his crown for a moment and set it down, he will place it on a hook hanging on the wall and not on the head of one of his servants, since the servant is liable to think for a moment that he is a king, whereas the hook feels nothing and remains a hook just as it was. So too the Holy One, as it were, rests His crown upon the navi, as the verse says that Hashem revealed His secret to His servants the prophets. The prophets are not all on one level, the Gemara distinguishes between the prophecy of Yechezkel and the prophecy of Yeshayahu, but rather each according to the level of his soul and his comprehension, and what they share is that their bittul is on a very high plane.
Moshe Rabbeinu: «ומדרגת משה רבנו עליו השלום היא העולה על כולנה», and the level of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, surpasses them all. As we say among the principles of faith, that there never arose in Israel a prophet like Moshe. Of him Chazal said, «שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו של משה», the Shechinah speaks from within Moshe's throat. In every person the throat is an instrument through which the voice emerges, but it is nullified to its owner, to his mind and to his emotions, and it serves as a channel to bring out what is in his head and in his heart. With Moshe Rabbeinu, however, his physical throat was an instrument not for himself but for the Shechinah, a channel through which the prophecy of the Creator came forth.
So we have had giants of the world whose bittul to the Creator was absolute and unceasing, in all their limbs and in full measure: the Avos, all the Nevi'im, and at their head Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him.
And something of this revelation, something of this intensity of utter self nullification before the Holy One, was granted to Israel at Mount Sinai. When they stood at the foot of the mountain and heard «אנוכי ה' אלוקיך», the revelation penetrated their entire being and in that moment they became completely nullified to the Creator, «רק שלא יכלו לסבול», except that they could not bear it.
And here is the difference: with the Avos and the Nevi'im the physical body became an instrument for the revelation. The throat remained a throat with all its properties, and precisely as a throat it became a channel through which the Shechinah passed. With Israel, however, once such a revelation penetrated their physical bodies, the body could not withstand the intensity, «כמאמר רז"ל שעל כל דיבור פרחה נשמתן», as Chazal said, that at every utterance their souls flew out of them, which is the matter of bittul bimetzius mentioned above, the full and absolute nullification of their body and their soul.
And this is precisely the point the Alter Rebbe is driving at. A Jew possesses emunah in the oneness of Hashem, but it is not enough for it to remain in the category of emunah alone; we want it to penetrate his very being. With the Avos it penetrated their entire being, and that is why they were a merkavah. With the Nevi'im and with Moshe Rabbeinu it penetrated inwardly. But Israel, the moment the matter penetrated into their being, could not hold up and their souls flew out of them. How, then, is it possible on the one hand to hold up and remain a soul within a body, and on the other hand for the bittul to the Creator not to stay confined to the awareness of emunah but to penetrate one's inner being?
To this the Alter Rebbe says: «ולכן מיד אמר להם לעשות משכן», therefore He immediately told them to make a Mishkan. Since with Israel their souls flew out of them and the body could not contain the intensity, immediately after Mattan Torah the Holy One told Moshe Rabbeinu to tell the Jewish people to build a Mishkan.
A note on the word «immediately»:
Among the commentators on the Torah we find differing views as to at which stage the command was given regarding the donations that Israel were to bring for the building of the Mishkan, and at which stage they actually brought them. According to the order of the parshiyos: Yisro contains Mattan Torah, after it Mishpatim, and after those Terumah and Tetzaveh, which contain the command to bring donations for the Mishkan; then comes parshas Ki Sisa with the sin of the golden calf; and finally Vayakhel and Pekudei, in which the Jewish people actually bring the donations. But is this the chronological order of events? On this they differ:
The view of the Zohar: both the command to Moshe and the command to the Jewish people regarding the Mishkan came before the sin of the golden calf.
The view of the Ramban: the matter is split. The command to Moshe was before the sin of the golden calf, but before he managed to convey it to the Jewish people the sin of the golden calf occurred, and Moshe told it to them afterward.
The view of Rashi: all of it was after the sin of the golden calf.
In summary: in this section we reviewed the foundations of chapter 33, the simchah contained in emunah in the oneness of Hashem, which is an inheritance from our Avos and is not within a person's nature at all, and we clarified the difference between intellectual awareness and emunah that is above intellect, and that this recognition belongs to a Jew alone. From there we moved to the question of how emunah penetrates from the faculty of emunah into all the powers of the soul and into everyday reality. We learned that the Avos are themselves the merkavah, who never interrupted even for a single hour their binding of their mind and soul to the Master of the worlds; that after them came the Nevi'im, each according to the level of his soul and his comprehension; and that the level of Moshe Rabbeinu surpasses them all, for the Shechinah spoke from within his throat. Israel were granted something of this at Mount Sinai, except that they could not bear it and at every utterance their souls flew out of them, and therefore they were immediately commanded regarding the making of the Mishkan. We also noted the differing views of the Zohar, the Ramban and Rashi on the timing of the command of the Mishkan relative to the sin of the golden calf.
In the next section we will take up the matter of the Mishkan: how it is the solution for drawing bittul down into a person's physical reality without his ceasing to exist, and how every Jew becomes a Mikdash and a Mishkan for Him, blessed be He.