After the summary we made of what we have learned so far in chapter 37, let us continue with the chapter itself.
The Alter Rebbe writes: שכח נפש החיונית המתלבשת באותיות הדיבור בתלמוד תורה ותפילה וכיוצא בהן, או מצוות מעשיות, « the power of the nefesh hachiyunis (the vitalizing, animal-level soul) which clothes itself in the letters of speech in Torah study and prayer and the like, or in practical mitzvos ». When a person learns Torah with his mouth or performs a physical mitzvah, there is a power, an energy, that gave him the ability to do it.
And where does that power come from? הרי כל גידולו וחיותו מהדם, שהוא מקליפת נוגה ממש, « for all its growth and vitality come from the blood, which is literally from kelipas nogah ». The blood flowing through the body has its source in kelipas nogah.
What is kelipas nogah?
As was already explained at the beginning of the Tanya, anything in the world that is not holiness is kelipah, a « shell » that conceals. But within kelipah itself there are two categories:
Kelipas nogah: « nogah » means a glow, a light. This is a kelipah that has within it the ability, when handled in the right way, to be turned around and absorbed into holiness.
The three impure kelipos: forbidden foods and the like, which have no ability whatsoever to rise to holiness.
The blood flowing in a person, so long as it has not been put to use for holiness, is not holiness, and therefore it is kelipah. But it is kelipas nogah, because it carries within it the capacity to be elevated.
The Alter Rebbe continues: שהן כל אוכלין ומשקין שאכל ושתה ונעשו דם, שהיו תחת ממשלתה וינקו חיותם ממנה, « these are all the foods and drinks that he ate and drank and which became blood, which were under its dominion and drew their vitality from it ». The food a person ate was, before that, an animal, a calf or a chicken, and it is kelipas nogah. The energy that flowed through those foods before he ate them came from kelipas nogah, and now he has brought it into his own body, and it is still kelipas nogah. From this point on it depends on the person: if he uses that energy, Heaven forbid, to transgress the will of the Creator, he drags it further down. But here we are speaking of a case where he used it for something good, for a mitzvah.
And then: ועתה היא מתהפכת מרע לטוב ונכללת בקדושה, « now it is transformed from evil to good and absorbed into holiness ». Kelipas nogah is evil, for as was explained at the beginning of the Tanya there is no « parve », neutral, state: either holiness or kelipah. And if it is kelipah, then it is evil, only that it is an evil capable of becoming good.
And all of this comes about על ידי כח נפש החיונית הגדל ממנה, שנתלבש באותיות אלו או בעשייה זו, « through the power of the vitalizing soul which grows from it, which has become clothed in these letters or in this act ». The energy became clothed in the letters of prayer and study, or in the performance of the mitzvah. It turns out that all those animals, all those fields and waters that eventually produced that slice of bread and that bottle of water, all of it was kelipas nogah, and by using it for good the person has drawn every bit of it upward.
The responsibility that comes with using our energy to do the will of the Creator is therefore not a responsibility toward ourselves alone. It is a responsibility toward an entire system that is waiting for precisely this act, and with one small deed a person lifts up a whole world.
And regarding the mitzvah itself: אשר הן הן פנימיות רצונו יתברך בלי שום הסתר פנים, « for these are the inner dimension of His blessed will, with no concealment of the Divine countenance at all », meaning that in a mitzvah one sees the Divine will revealed. וחיותן נכלל גם כן באור אין סוף ברוך הוא שהוא רצונו יתברך, « and their vitality too becomes absorbed in the Ohr Ein Sof, which is His blessed will »: the vitality of all those foods that enabled the person to do the Creator's will is absorbed into the Divine will. ובחיותן נכלל ועולה גם כן כח נפש החיונית, ועל ידי זה תעלה גם כן כללות קליפת נוגה, שהיא כללות החיות של עולם הזה הגשמי והחומרי, « and with their vitality the power of the vitalizing soul is also absorbed and rises, and through this the whole of kelipas nogah rises as well, which is the general vitality of this physical, material world ». When all of Israel will fulfill all the mitzvos and use all the energy they received for good, the entire physical and material world will rise.
The personal portion of every Jew:
Let no one say: who am I, one small person, to repair so vast a world? To this the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos answers: « It is not upon you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. » Ever since the sin of Adam HaRishon, when contamination entered the world, the task of repairing it rests upon us, and every single Jew has his own portion in that task, a portion he is obligated to repair and which no one else in the world can repair in his place.
And as the saying goes, « no man touches what is set aside for his fellow ». Just as we believe that no one can take away his friend's livelihood, and that the parnassah the Creator designated for a person belongs to him alone, and he will never earn one coin more than what was allotted to him, so it is with spiritual parnassah as well: no one encroaches on what is assigned to his fellow.
But how is a person to know where his repair is meant to take place? Perhaps his portion lies in some distant plot of land in Australia, and he is here? To this the verse says, « מה׳ מצעדי גבר כוננו », « a man's steps are established by Hashem ». The Holy One, blessed be He, leads every person to the place he needs to reach. And even when it seems to a person that he took a wrong turn, that he ended up somewhere he never planned, or got stuck on an unexpected stopover, he did not go wrong at all: he arrived at a place where he has a task. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that the very presence of a Jew in a place already brings holiness into it, and if he says a blessing there, prays, says a verse, or does some act of holiness, it may well be that with this he has completed his mission in that place, and that is why he was sent there. And if he does not do it this time, he will come back there another time, because the task assigned to him must be done. When each person does his own part, that is the repair and the completion of the entire world.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: כאשר כל הנשמה ונפש האלוקית שבכל ישראל, המתחלקת בפרטות לשישים ריבוא, « when the entire neshamah and nefesh ha'Elokis in all of Israel, which divides in detail into six hundred thousand ». When Israel left Egypt the Torah recorded their number: six hundred thousand men (and in detail, another three thousand and fifty). This division is not accidental but by Divine providence: these are general souls, and the Creator sent these six hundred thousand to repair a world that has six hundred thousand portions, each soul with its own portion.
And if a person wonders: surely the population registry lists far more than six hundred thousand Jews? On this the Alter Rebbe will explain further on that there are six hundred thousand general souls, and each one of them divides into branches, into particulars, and into particulars of particulars. And so it is with the portions of the world that need refining: there are large general portions, and there are particulars and particulars of particulars.
An illustration of general and particular: the 288 sparks
Kabbalah explains that the quantity of sparks that must be gathered in order to repair the world is a counted number: every spark has its number, and every spark must return to its place. The total of the sparks scattered through the world is רפ״ח, two hundred and eighty eight, and there is a hint to this at the very beginning of the Torah: « ורוח אלוקים מרחפת על פני המים », « and the spirit of G-d hovered over the face of the waters ». The letters of מרחפת spell מ״ת רפ״ח, for the 288 sparks, as it were, fell and scattered, and they lie hidden in every single thing in the world, in every bit of kelipas nogah in the world.
And more than that: of those 288, during the time Israel were in Egypt those six hundred thousand men already managed to gather most of them, ר״ב sparks, two hundred and two. This is hinted at in the verse « וגם ערב רב עלה אתם », « and a mixed multitude went up with them », for רב has the numerical value of 202, corresponding to what they had gathered. That leaves only eighty six sparks. And the question is asked: if two hundred and two sparks were gathered within two hundred and ten years, why should the gathering of the remaining eighty six take thousands of years? The answer is that here too there are large, general sparks, each one of which scatters into particulars and particulars of particulars. There are general sparks, such as the sparks of David HaMelech, Shlomo and the prophets, and there are individual, particular sparks.
The 613 mitzvos: clearing out the filth and bringing in the furnishings
And how does each soul complete its portion? תקיים כל נפש פרטית כל תרי״ג מצוות התורה, « each individual soul will fulfill all 613 mitzvos of the Torah ». By keeping all 613 mitzvos a person completes what is incumbent upon him. And the 613 divide into two groups: three hundred and sixty five prohibitions, mitzvos lo saaseh, and two hundred and forty eight positive mitzvos, mitzvos aseh.
The Alter Rebbe brings a parable in Likkutei Torah: in order to bring a king into a palace or an apartment, two things must be done. First, the filth has to be removed; and second, beautiful vessels and furnishings have to be brought in. Neither one can be skipped: one does not bring fine furnishings into a filthy place, and clearing out the filth is not enough on its own without bringing in the fine furnishings.
The same is true of bringing in the King, the Holy One, blessed be He, into our home, into our own portion of the world:
The three hundred and sixty five prohibitions: keeping the boundaries so that there will be no filth in the home. In each of the three hundred and sixty five channels a kelipah lies waiting, the yetzer hara, whose whole aim is to draw nourishment: to suck the blood, to seize the Divine energy within the person and pull it toward evil. Every fall, in which a person channels his energy there, Heaven forbid, is a soiling of the King's palace, taking the energy of a Jew and filling it with contamination.
The two hundred and forty eight positive mitzvos: bringing in furniture, light and beautiful vessels, to adorn the place and sanctify it.
To summarize: in this section we learned that the power of the vitalizing soul which clothes itself in the letters of speech of Torah and prayer or in the performance of mitzvos draws all its growth and vitality from the blood, whose source is kelipas nogah, the kelipah that has the capacity to turn from evil to good and be absorbed into holiness. We saw that in performing a mitzvah the vitality of the foods is absorbed into His blessed will, and together with them the whole of kelipas nogah rises, which is the general vitality of the physical world. We also learned that every Jew has a personal portion in the repair of the world, that no one encroaches on what is assigned to his fellow, and that the Holy One, blessed be He, directs a person's steps to the place where his portion lies. We discussed the division of the six hundred thousand general souls into particulars and particulars of particulars, the 288 sparks, and the two halves of the 613 mitzvos as in the parable of clearing out the filth and bringing the beautiful vessels into the King's palace.
In the next section we will continue with the words of the Alter Rebbe, who expands on the explanation of each Jew's personal portion in the repair of the world.