In the previous part we traced the hishtalshelus of the worlds, their chain-like descent from level to level. Now we arrive at a surprising point, and from there to the heart of chapter 36: what is the purpose of the creation of all the worlds.
The world most connected to the Creator:
The truth is that the world most connected to the Creator is specifically this lowest world, more than all the higher worlds. Understanding this takes some thought: where does a created being get its strange sense that it exists on its own? Who planted that sense in it? By rights, a creature ought to feel bound to its Maker. Light streaming out of the sun cannot imagine for even a moment that it is a reality in its own right: the moment the sun moves, the light moves along with it. The light is forever crying out that it has a luminary, that it has a source. And here, something has come into being that cries out the opposite: «I have no source, I am on my own». That is the reality of this world: it does not cry out «I have a source». Where does that sense come from?
The answer is that it receives this very sense from the Creator Himself. For the only one who can say «I have no source, I Myself am the source» is the Holy One blessed be He alone, and no other level can say it. And when we arrive at the very lowest world, it cries out that identical thing that the Holy One blessed be He says, except that it cries it out from the farthest, darkest, lowest side of all.
And why does this sense exist in the world? Because with it the Creator is preparing the ground for the place that will ultimately be His dwelling, the place where He will be revealed in full force: here, in this lowest world. Today this sense comes out of concealment and darkness; but when the Creator will truly be revealed in the world, the sense will remain, only that it will no longer be the yeshus (the sense of independent self-existence) of darkness, but the revelation of the true yeshus, the self-existence of the Creator. This is a deep point, discussed at great length in chassidus, and mentioned here only in brief.
From here we turn to the body of the chapter. The whole idea of the chapter is compressed into its opening lines: what is the purpose of the creation of the worlds? This lowest world. The Alter Rebbe comes to prove, on logical grounds, that the purpose is specifically this lowest world.
How this was explained in the generations before chassidus:
So that the Alter Rebbe's chiddush should come out sharper, let us first see how this was understood before chassidus was revealed in the world. The question has always been asked, even by the greatest minds: why did the Holy One blessed be He make this whole descent? There is a lofty world, the world of atzilus; why descend to the world of beriah, and all the more so to the world of yetzirah? If what He seeks is a place of revelation, above the revelation is greater.
In the generations before chassidus it was explained that the lower a thing descends, the higher the grade the upper one receives. An analogy: a person has intellect, and with his intellect he understands and learns.
Intellect that stays in the world of intellect: if the understanding gets stuck there and nothing is ever done with it, it may be interesting, he may even make a fine lecturer, but it remains nothing more than intellect.
Intellect that seeps into the heart: if he manages to have the intellect penetrate the heart as well and arouse feeling there, that is already finer.
Intellect that comes all the way down into action: and if it descends lower still, until it actually changes the way he conducts himself, that is finer yet.
Who gets the higher grade when things come down into action? The man's intellect. People say of him: here is a man whose intellect reached its purpose, his intellect was worth something. And how is it seen that his intellect was worth something? In that it managed to affect his middos, and to bring things all the way down into deed. The lower the thing descends, who in the end receives the resonance and the glory? The upper one.
It is told of Aristotle, who was a great scholar and a great lecturer, that once his students caught him in a shameful act after one of his lectures. They asked him: «What is this?» He answered: «Right now I am not Aristotle; right now I am an ordinary man. When I am Aristotle, I am Aristotle.» In other words, a person can occupy himself with matters of intellect without any requirement that it affect him: one can lecture against smoking and, in the break between one lecture and the next, ask for a cigarette. For a person who behaves that way, his intellect is detached from him, and it is worth nothing. When does intellect become purposeful and finer? When it manages to seep through.
Another example: the Gemara debates which is greater, study or action, and «they counted and concluded» that study is greater, because it brings to action. At first glance, from that very statement a person could argue that in the end action is greater, for without it study would have no merit whatsoever, and its entire merit lies in its bringing to action. Nevertheless it says «study is greater», and according to what we have said this is understood: if the study brings to action, then it is the study that has become great, for it succeeded in carrying itself all the way into deed.
This was how earlier generations explained the advantage contained in the descent: the lower one goes, the one who ends up elevated is the upper one. According to this explanation, it is worth bringing a thing lower not because the lower realm is what we are after, but because what we are after is to elevate the upper one.
The chiddush of chassidus:
Then chassidus comes and places the emphasis somewhere else entirely: the purpose is not the upper realm, and it is not the intellect that becomes finer the lower it descends. The purpose is the lower. The lower is the goal and the essence, and the upper is a servant of the lower. And not just any lower, but the lower than which there is nothing lower, the very lowest of all: that is the goal of everything.
In the Alter Rebbe's own words: «והנה תכלית השתלשלות העולמות וירידתם ממדרגה למדרגה אינו בשביל עולמות העליונים» (The purpose of the chaining down of the worlds and their descent from level to level is not for the sake of the higher worlds). It cannot be said that the goal is the higher worlds. Why? Because if what you want is to elevate the upper one, then before that upper one was created it was higher still. And if what you want is quality, refinement and loftiness, we have already said that the very first world is itself a covering, and before it the revelation was greater; if so, why make it at all? You would have stayed in a higher and purer place.
«הואיל ולהם ירידה מאור פניו יתברך» (since for them this is a descent from the light of His blessed countenance). All the higher worlds are in the minus, for every world, even the highest, needs a covering in order to be what it is, and so it stands in the minus relative to what preceded it. Where, then, is the one world that is not in the minus? Here things run exactly against logic: seemingly, now that we have come down below, here is the greatest covering of all.
«אלא התכלית הוא עולם הזה התחתון» (rather, the purpose is this lowest world). And the reason: the Holy One blessed be He wants a chiddush, that darkness be turned into light. And as long as you have not come down to the darkest place, you have not yet managed to accomplish that chiddush. A higher world is not a purpose, because in a higher world there is no darkness: every link in the chain cries out that there is a G-d, in a faint voice if it is a lower world, or in a stronger voice if it is a higher world, but all the worlds in the chain are crying out at every moment that there is a G-d, that there is Someone above us. In such a world there is no transforming of darkness into light, no avodah and no purpose.
In this lowest world, however, where even the very first point is already helem and hester, concealment and hiddenness, the world cries out that there is no G-d and there is nothing at all. And about this the Holy One blessed be He says: this is what I want. You, the Jews here in this world, turn the whole thing on its head, turn the darkness into light and reveal Me here, so that precisely in the place that looks like a place of darkness, here I am to be found. And where can such a thing be done? Only here, since all the worlds above this lowest world say of themselves that there is a G-d.
In the words of the chapter: «שכך עלה ברצונו יתברך להיות נחת רוח לפניו יתברך כד אתכפיא סטרא אחרא ואתהפך חשוכא לנהורא, שיאיר אור ה' אין סוף ברוך הוא במקום החושך והסטרא אחרא של כל עולם הזה כולו» (for so it arose in His blessed will, that He should have satisfaction when the sitra achra is subdued and darkness is transformed into light, so that the light of Hashem, the Ein Sof, should shine in the place of the darkness and sitra achra of this entire world). The Holy One blessed be He wants the avodah of the Jew who turns darkness into light, and that can be done in no other world, only here.
The souls and the angels above have no avodah: they are in a particular state, and within the state they are in they feel the Elokus. Beyond that they cannot feel, for then they would be utterly nullified; and whatever they are capable of feeling, they feel with full intensity. There is no darkness or concealment for them relative to what they can grasp, and although they are limited and stand in a certain helem and hester because there is a level higher than theirs, they are simply what they are. But in this lowest world, which in itself has no revelation whatsoever, only darkness and concealment, here it is man who, through his avodah, brings it about that there be revelation and that there be a G-d. This is the purpose of everything.
Here a question arises that is worth raising: if so, why did the Holy One blessed be He create this entire chain? He could have created this physical world immediately, without the whole hishtalshelus. What do the higher worlds contribute to us? This is a subject that needs understanding, and we will deal with it in the coming lessons; but first one has to grasp that the purpose is this matter itself.
The Alter Rebbe continues: «ביתר שאת ויתר עז ויתרון אור מן החשך מהארתו בעולמות עליונים» (with greater intensity and greater strength, with the advantage of light that comes out of darkness, more than His illumination in the higher worlds). Here there will be a greater advantage of light, and that advantage comes precisely from the darkness: it is out of the darkness that He is revealed, and therefore the advantage is greater. Such a revelation will be greater than the illumination found in the higher worlds.
And from this a question arises that we will take up further on: we said that in a higher world there is no capacity for any additional revelation, since were there a bit more revelation there, the world would be utterly nullified. How, then, can it be that here, in this physical world, there will be a revelation greater than His illumination in the higher worlds, and we will not be nullified? How do these two opposites come together? This will be explained in the second half of the chapter.
And what is the minus of the higher worlds? That they are not His dwelling. And why are they not His dwelling? «שמאיר שם על ידי לבושים והסתר פנים המסתירים ומעלימים אור אין סוף ברוך הוא» (for there He shines by means of garments and hester panim, which hide and conceal the light of the Ein Sof). In every world He hides Himself in accordance with the level of that world, in hester panim; even the world of atzilus is hester panim, and all the worlds are hester panim. And why must there be hester panim in the higher worlds? «שלא יבטלו במציאות» (so that they not be nullified out of existence). Whereas here in this physical world, which seemingly contains the greatest and most absolute darkness, here the Jew, through his avodah and through doing the will of Hashem, accomplishes the purpose of everything: that here will be the dwelling of the Creator.
A story to close:
Let us finish with a small story that brings out the point, that the lower and darker a place is, the greater the revelation that must ultimately come there, for that is the very purpose of the darkness, that there be revelation. I heard this story at one of the farbrengens I merited to be at by the Rebbe, where he connected it to a story that happened with the Rebbe Rayatz.
As is known, the Rebbe Rayatz once visited Eretz Yisrael, in the year 5689 (1929), and after he left the land by ship in the month of Av, word reached the ship in mid-journey of the riots of 5689 in Chevron, where the Arabs murdered, G-d spare us, many Jews. The news caused him tremendous anguish, and it pained him so deeply that on the ship he suffered a kidney attack from sheer pain and grief.
On that same ship, by hashgacha protis, there also happened to be a well-known physician, Dr. Wallach (who later founded a hospital in Jerusalem; I believe it is Bikur Cholim), and he immediately treated him and gave him whatever medicines and means were at his disposal, until the Rebbe recovered his strength.
After he recovered, Dr. Wallach came in to the Rebbe and said to him: «Rebbe, I ask the Rebbe to give me a tikkun.» It is worth knowing that when a person comes to the Rebbe and asks for a tikkun, he means a rectification for something improper that he has done. The Rebbe asked him: a tikkun for what? Here Dr. Wallach's delicacy came to light. He said: since the Rebbe recovered, it is clear that the Rebbe was meant to be healthy; if so, why did the Rebbe fall ill at all? Why was there even a possibility of the Rebbe becoming ill? Only because I was here on the ship, for had there been no doctor aboard he would never have fallen ill. It turns out, then, that the illness came on my account, and therefore I am asking for a tikkun. That is genuinely how he felt. What the Rebbe answered him is not known, but the first half of the story is known to us.
And what do we learn from this? That when there is an illness, the cure must already be present before the illness ever comes: the remedy precedes the wound. So too in our subject: when there is a descent, the possibility of rectifying it necessarily exists beforehand. As the Rebbe said: in order for there to be the loftiness of dirah betachtonim, a dwelling for Him in the lower realms, there must first be a descent to the lower realms, there must be a reality of lower realms; otherwise there can be no dirah betachtonim. And once we see a reality of lower realms, we must know that all of it is only so that there be an ascent out of all of it.
In summary: in this part we learned that the world most connected to the Creator is specifically this lowest world, and that its sense of yeshus stems from the fact that only the Creator can say «I Myself am the source». We saw how the generations before chassidus explained the value of the descent, that it comes in order to elevate the upper one (the analogy of intellect that comes down into action, and «study is greater» because it brings to action), and what the chiddush of chassidus is: the lower realm itself is the purpose. We examined the language of the Alter Rebbe, that the purpose of the hishtalshelus is not for the sake of the higher worlds, since for them it is a descent from the light of His blessed countenance, but for the sake of this lowest world, in which the chiddush of «כד אתכפיא סטרא אחרא ויתהפך חשוכא לנהורא» is accomplished, and in which the light will shine «ביתר שאת ויתר עז», with greater intensity and greater strength than its illumination in the higher worlds, where it shines through garments and hester panim so that they not be nullified out of existence.
In the next part we will take up the question that arose: how can it be that precisely in this lowest world there will be a greater revelation than in the higher worlds, without the world being nullified out of existence.