In the previous section we examined the garments through which the divine light shines into the worlds, and the two kinds of light: the light that is unlimited and the light that is undefined. Now the Alter Rebbe turns to describe what the revelation of le'asid lavo, the future era, will be.
In the future era there will be no garment at all. There will be the King Himself, Elokus with no measure and no limitation whatsoever. In the world of Atzilus there is indeed a garment, but it is a revealing garment; in the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah the garment is a concealing one; and in the future era there will be no garment at all, neither a revealing garment nor a concealing one.
“ולא יכנף עוד מוריך” (“your Teacher will no longer hide Himself”):
From where do we know that there will be no garment at all? From the verse in Yeshayahu chapter 30, which in full reads: “ונתן לכם ה' לחם צר ומים לחץ ולא יכנף עוד מוריך והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך” (“And Hashem will give you bread of adversity and water of affliction, and your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, and your eyes will behold your Teacher”). The Alter Rebbe cites the second half of the verse and inserts the explanation into the middle of it in parentheses: “ולא יכנף עוד מוריך [פירוש, שלא יתכסה ממך בכנף ולבוש] והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך” (“and your Teacher will no longer hide Himself [meaning, He will not cover Himself from you with a corner of a garment and a garment] and your eyes will behold your Teacher”).
Why did the Alter Rebbe find it necessary to add that explanation? Because among the commentators there are two directions in understanding the verse:
The Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi) reads “מוריך” as an expression of rain (as in “יורה ומלקוש”, the early and late rains), and “יכנף” as an expression of gathering and collecting (as in the word “knufya”, a gathering, a group). That is: the Holy One will not gather the rain back to Himself, but will give you rain in abundance.
Rashi reads “יכנף” as the corner of a garment (as in “על כנפי בגדיהם”, on the corners of their garments), and “מוריך” as the Holy One, your Teacher. That is: He will not cover Himself with the corner of His garment in order to conceal Himself, but will reveal Himself to you with no covering at all.
The Alter Rebbe wants to highlight precisely Rashi's reading, and therefore, the moment he brings the verse, he adds the explanation in parentheses, and then continues “והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך” (“and your eyes will behold your Teacher”). In the future era there will be an undefined revelation, and created beings will be given a special power to receive that revelation without being nullified out of existence, so that they can stand their ground.
The Alter Rebbe then brings further verses that speak of the wondrous revelation of the future era:
“כי עין בעין יראו” (“for they shall see eye to eye”).
“לא יהיה לך עוד השמש לאור יום... כי ה' יהיה לך לאור עולם” (“the sun shall no longer be your light by day... for Hashem shall be an eternal light for you”).
The days of Moshiach and the resurrection: the purpose of creation
In the Alter Rebbe's words: “ונודע שימות המשיח ובפרט כשיחיו המתים הם תכלית ושלימות בריאת עולם הזה שלכך נברא מתחילתו” (“and it is known that the days of Moshiach, and especially when the dead will live again, are the purpose and completion of the creation of this world, for which it was created from the very beginning”). Today we do not see the revelation of dirah betachtonim, a dwelling place for Hashem in the lowest world. But when Moshiach comes, and when the dead rise, the revelation will be right here, in this world. The world was created from its very beginning, in the six days of creation, in order to arrive at the days of Moshiach and the resurrection of the dead. That is its destination.
From here we also understand why the dead must rise again. The souls are in Gan Eden: Avraham Avinu, David HaMelech and all the great ones of the world have been there for thousands of years already. So why should they have to come back and enter a body down here? Because precisely here, in this world, the greatest revelation of all will take place, and here is the purpose of creation. That is also why in the future era the soul will be nourished from the body, rather than as it is today, when the body is nourished from the soul.
“וגם כבר היה לעולמים”: at the giving of the Torah
The Alter Rebbe adds that a revelation of this kind has already occurred once: “וגם כבר היה לעולמים מעין זה בשעת מתן תורה” (“and something of this nature has already been in the world, at the time of the giving of the Torah”). Those two kinds of light we examined, the unlimited light and the undefined light, were actually revealed at matan Torah, in two stages.
The first stage: The Holy One revealed the Torah, and the Jewish people heard “אנוכי ה' אלוקיך” (“I am Hashem your G-d”), which is the whole purpose of Torah. Of this the Alter Rebbe writes: “כדכתיב אתה הראת לדעת כי ה' הוא האלוקים אין עוד מלבדו” (“as it is written, you have been shown to know that Hashem is G-d, there is nothing else besides Him”), and he stresses: “‘הראת' ממש בראיה חושית” (“‘you have been shown' literally, with physical sight”).
What does “with physical sight” mean? “Hearing is not comparable to seeing.” When a person sees something, the matter is established in him with absolute certainty, and it simply cannot be otherwise, since he saw it himself. What is absorbed through hearing does not become one with the person: he heard and he understood, but if someone else comes along and tells him it is not quite accurate, he begins to waver. What he saw with his own eyes, by contrast, no one can take away from him; a thousand questions will not change the fact that he saw. At matan Torah the certainty in the divine revelation was not on the level of hearing but on the level of seeing, and every single Jew who stood there felt it and became one with it, not like someone who was told about it or read about it in a book.
And in the words of the verse, “וכל העם רואים את הקולות” (“and all the people saw the sounds”), which our Sages explained as “רואין את הנשמע” (“they saw what is normally heard”). What is ordinarily absorbed through hearing, they saw with their eyes. And they explained further: “מסתכלים למזרח ושומעין את הדיבור יוצא אנוכי וכו', וכן לארבע רוחות ולמעלה ולמטה” (“they would look to the east and hear the word going forth, ‘Anochi...', and so too to all four directions, and upward and downward”). The revelation came from every side and every corner, and this is proof that it was an unlimited light: a limited thing has a defined path, from east to west or from north to south, but here, wherever a person looked, from there he heard. Every part of the world cried out “אנוכי ה' אלוקיך”, as it is written in Tikkunei Zohar: “דלית אתר דלא מליל מיניה עמהון” (“there is no place from which He did not speak with them”). There was no place and no corner from which the word “Anochi” did not emerge.
And what brought about such an immense revelation? “והיינו מפני גילוי רצונו יתברך בעשרת הדברות שהן כללות התורה” (“and this was because of the revelation of His blessed will in the Ten Commandments, which are the whole of the Torah in general”). The Ten Commandments contain the entire Torah, and all of it is concentrated in “Anochi” and “Lo yihyeh lecha”, which they heard directly from the mouth of the Almighty. “שהיא פנימיות רצונו יתברך וחכמתו ואין שם הסתר פנים כלל” (“which is the innermost dimension of His will and His wisdom, and there is no hiding of the countenance there at all”), an absolute revelation, with no covering and no garment, “כדכתיב כי באור פניך נתת לנו תורת חיים” (“as it is written, for in the light of Your countenance You gave us the Torah of life”).
And how does a created being react when it receives an unlimited light? “ולכן היו בטלים במציאות ממש, כמאמר רז"ל שעל כל דיבור פרחה נשמתם” (“and therefore they were literally nullified out of existence, as our Sages said, that with each utterance their souls flew out of them”). The light does indeed descend all the way down, since it is unlimited, but the created being cannot contain such intensity and is nullified out of its own existence.
The second stage: “אלא שהחזירה להם הקב"ה בטל שעתיד להחיות בו את המתים, והוא טל תורה שנקרא עוז” (“but the Holy One returned their souls to them with the dew with which He will one day revive the dead, and that is the dew of Torah, which is called ‘oz', strength”). Here the Holy One gave them a still loftier revelation: not an unlimited light, but an undefined light. And precisely because it is undefined, it can come all the way down in its full intensity without shattering the lower realm, and the lower realm can hold it. It is as if the Holy One said to them: until now you had an unlimited light and you could not receive it; now you will receive a higher light, and this one you will be able to contain.
And it is worth being precise: the second stage was not an entirely different matter. It came through that very same Torah, for the Torah contains both, the unlimited light and the undefined light, and it is the Torah that is called “oz”, as it says, “ה' עוז לעמו יתן” (“Hashem will give strength to His people”). And why is a special strength needed? In order to hold one's ground within such a great revelation, “כמאמר רז"ל כל העוסק בתורה טל תורה מחייהו” (“as our Sages said, whoever occupies himself with Torah, the dew of Torah revives him”).
[And in truth, even today, when a Jew learns Torah, the Torah holds within it that same unlimited and undefined intensity. It is only that we are sealed off and do not see or feel what is there inside it. What will happen in the days of Moshiach and at the resurrection of the dead is that everything already present in the Torah will be revealed upon us.]
“אך אחר כך גרם החטא” (“but afterwards the sin brought it about”):
Why did the intensity of matan Torah not continue? “אך אחר כך גרם החטא ונתגשמו הם והעולם” (“but afterwards the sin brought it about that they and the world became coarse and physical”). With the sin of the golden calf, the Jewish people and the world became coarsened, and from that moment on they were no longer able to receive the powerful light that is contained in the Torah. They did not lose the Torah; it was the vessels of reception that became coarse.
[And why in fact did that revelation not endure? Because it did not come out of their own work and investment; it was given to them as a gift, and something a person receives as a gift does not become part of him. The revelation of the future era, by contrast, will come after thousands of years of work and investment by the Jewish people, and therefore the part that is achieved through the avodah of created beings will remain forever.]
The Alter Rebbe continues: “עד קץ הימין” (“until the End of Days”), until the time comes when the Holy One will reveal His right hand, in the language of Shir HaShirim, “וימינו תחבקני” (“and His right hand embraces me”), and then “שיזוכך גשמיות הגוף והעולם” (“when the physicality of the body and of the world will be refined”). The physicality of the body will be even more refined than the soul, and the entire world too will be purer, “ויוכלו לקבל גילוי אור ה' שיאיר לישראל על ידי התורה שנקראת עוז” (“and they will be able to receive the revelation of the light of Hashem, which will shine for Israel by means of the Torah, which is called ‘oz'”). That same “oz” is present in the Torah today as well; it is only that then we will feel it and see it.
The illumination that reaches the nations of the world
Since when Moshiach comes it is not only Israel that will be refined but the entire world, the nations of the world too will be granted a great ascent in their level. But this illumination will come as a result of the Jewish people and through them: “ומיתרון ההארה לישראל יגיה (יאיר) חושך האומות גם כן” (“and from the overflow of the illumination given to Israel, the darkness of the nations will be lit up as well”). For Israel is the purpose of everything, and from the revelation given to Israel there will be an illumination for the whole world.
On this the Alter Rebbe brings several verses:
“והלכו גויים לאורך” (“and nations shall walk by your light”).
“בית יעקב לכו ונלכה באור ה'” (“house of Yaakov, come and let us walk in the light of Hashem”). The nations say to Israel: Moshiach has come, go, and we will go along with you in the light of Hashem.
“ונגלה כבוד ה' וראו כל בשר יחדיו” (“and the glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together shall see”). Even the nations of the world, who are “flesh”, will see.
“לבוא בנקרות הצורים ובסעיפי הסלעים מפני פחד ה' והדר גאונו” (“to enter into the clefts of the rocks and the crevices of the cliffs, from before the dread of Hashem and the splendor of His majesty”). The nations of the world will see and sense the revelation, but they will not be able to withstand it the way Israel will, and so they will have to hide from it, from the dread of Hashem and the splendor of His majesty as it is revealed upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
“והופע בהדר גאון עוזך על כל יושבי תבל ארצך” (“and appear in the splendid majesty of Your strength over all the inhabitants of the earth, Your world”).
In summary: In this section we learned that in the future era the revelation will come with no garment at all, neither a revealing garment nor a concealing one, as it says, “ולא יכנף עוד מוריך והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך”. For the days of Moshiach, and especially the resurrection of the dead, are the purpose and the completion of the creation of this world, and therefore precisely here below is where the great revelation will take place. We saw that a revelation of this kind already occurred at the giving of the Torah, in two stages: first an unlimited light, in which “היו בטלים במציאות ממש”, they were literally nullified out of existence and their souls flew out of them, and then an undefined light which was drawn down to them in the dew of Torah that is called “oz”, a light with the power to descend below and be received within a created being. The sin of the golden calf coarsened them and the world, and by the End of Days the body and the world will be refined and will be able to receive the revelation of the light of Hashem through the Torah; and from the sheer greatness of the illumination given to Israel, the darkness of the nations too will be lit up, and then there will be a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He, in the lowest realms, literally.
In the next section we will turn to our own avodah: how a person, through his work here below, brings about that very revelation.