We have reached the closing section of chapter 37, on daf 49a (page 97), the third line from the top, the passage that opens with the words «ומה שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל שתלמוד תורה כנגד כולם» (and as for what our Sages said, that Talmud Torah is equal to them all). Let us first review briefly what came before, so that the continuation will be clear.
We are in the middle of a run of chapters in which the Alter Rebbe develops one clear, orderly idea: the purpose of creation is that the Holy One desires a dirah betachtonim, a dwelling place in the lower worlds. That is the foundation of everything. Precisely here, in this physical world, a Jew refines the world and turns it into a dwelling for the Holy One.
How does this happen? In the last few lessons we learned how every action a Jew performs refines and sanctifies the things he is involved with, and this works in two circles:
The inner circle: the things a person comes into direct contact with, and the energy he actively and immediately invests in that particular matter.
The wider circle: it is not only the specific act he performs or the specific food he eats. It is all the other parts of the world that contributed to bringing that item into being and completing it. They all brought it to his hand and helped in one measure or another; so when a mitzvah is done with it and loftiness and holiness enter it, all those circles are elevated along with it.
From here we arrived at the question with which we closed: which action elevates, sanctifies and refines the widest circles of all? The mitzvah of tzedakah. A person gives away his money, and in the very act of giving he has fulfilled a mitzvah. And when we consider what is bound up in that money, how much energy was invested in order to earn that coin, and what he could have received for it (after all, a single coin can sustain a person's very life), we find that in giving it to tzedakah he elevates and refines the broadest portions of the world. This is why our Sages spoke of the greatness of tzedakah, that it brings the redemption closer.
To conclude the chapter, the Alter Rebbe asks: «ומה שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל שתלמוד תורה כנגד כולם», and as for what our Sages said, that Talmud Torah is equal to them all. On the simple level there is a contradiction here: we have just said that tzedakah is greater than all the mitzvos, and yet the Mishnah teaches that Talmud Torah is equal to them all. This is how it is explained simply in the Sefer HaShiurim on Tanya.
But on a deeper level the question is far broader. It is not only a contradiction to the previous statement of our Sages; it is a question on the entire chapter and on the entire run of chapters. We have learned that the main thing is the lower realms, that the main thing is action. The Alter Rebbe stressed in this chapter, and on earlier occasions as well, that the essential thing is deed, and at most speech too, and even speech counts only because it contains an aspect of deed. But Talmud Torah, in which faculty is it carried out? In thought and in speech, and principally in the inner faculty. What does that have to do with a dirah betachtonim, whose whole point is mitzvos performed in actual deed? Even the yenuka whom we mentioned in chapter 35 used the expression «ma'asim tovim», good deeds. How, then, can it be said that Talmud Torah is equal to them all? On the face of it, this contradicts everything we have been discussing until now.
To this question the Alter Rebbe gives two answers:
The first answer: Talmud Torah fits precisely into the very principle of dirah betachtonim. Within the making of a dwelling below there are stages, and there is one particular portion of the work that only Torah study can accomplish, and nothing else can do it.
The second answer: the superiority of Talmud Torah is not on account of dirah betachtonim at all; rather, Torah study carries an additional distinction, as we shall see further on.
The first answer:
In the previous lesson we mentioned that the soul descended below primarily in order to refine the body and the nefesh habahamis, the animal soul. And the nefesh habahamis is made up of two layers:
The inner part: its essence and being, its intellect and emotions.
The outer part: the levushim, the garments, which are thought, speech and action. And within the garments themselves there are levels: action is the truly external garment, speech stands in the middle, and thought is a far more inward garment.
It follows that mitzvos performed in deed refine only the external part. They do not touch the soul itself, neither its emotions nor its intellect, and among the garments they touch mainly action and somewhat speech. But the completeness of dirah betachtonim is not satisfied with the external part; it demands that the entire nefesh habahamis be refined, including its inner layers. And that refinement can be achieved by Talmud Torah alone.
In the words of the text: «היינו מפני שתלמוד תורה היא בדיבור ומחשבה שהם לבושים הפנימיים של נפש החיונית», that is, because Torah study is in speech and thought, which are the inner garments of the vitalizing soul. Torah is learned with speech or with thought, which are the soul's inner garments, and deed cannot reach them.
And not only that. It is not only the inner garments that are refined through Torah study, but the very essence of the soul itself: «וגם מהותן ועצמותן של בחינות חב"ד מקליפת נוגה שבנפש החיונית נכללות בקדושה ממש כשעוסק בתורה בעיון ושכל», and also the very essence and being of the faculties of ChaBaD of the kelipas nogah within the vitalizing soul are absorbed into actual holiness when one occupies himself with Torah with concentration and intellect.
When a person learns Torah and probes into it, who is it that understands? His animal soul grasps the reasoning of the Gemara, delves into it and takes pleasure in it. Consequently the chochmah, binah and daas of the animal soul are wondrously purified, since at that moment they are bound up with holiness, and this only Torah study can accomplish. It emerges that when a Jew learns Torah he changes even his essence.
A note: change of essence in the beinoni:
In the opening chapters of Tanya, in explaining the difference between the tzaddik and the beinoni, we learned that the dividing line is this: the tzaddik changes his essence, while the beinoni cannot change his essence. The beinoni rules only over thought, speech and action; his essence is not within his power and does not depend on him. And here we are saying that one who learns Torah affects even his essence, and that his essence becomes bound up with holiness. And even beyond that: there is such a thing as a person's mind becoming so refined from much Torah study that he begins to think the way the Torah wants him to think. His head is straightened out, so that when he comes to consider some other matter, or to decide a dilemma in his own life, his thinking runs true.
Here the Alter Rebbe makes a distinction: it depends which part we are speaking about, the middos or the intellect. The middos the beinoni indeed cannot change, but upon the intellect he can act and he can change it. To transform the middos so that no desire is aroused in him at all, that is the level of the tzaddik alone; in the beinoni desires are always being aroused and he does battle with them. But the mind, the chochmah, binah and daas, that he does have the power to change. In his words: «ואף שמהותן ועצמותן של המדות חסד גבורה תפארת כו' לא יוכלו להם הבינונים להפכם לקדושה», and although the essence and being of the middos, chesed, gevurah, tiferes and so on, the beinonim cannot prevail over them to transform them into holiness.
Why should there be such a difference between the middos and the intellect? On this the Alter Rebbe offers one short sentence without elaborating, sending those who learn Kabbalah to probe the depth of the matter: «היינו משום שהרע חזק יותר במידות מבחכמה בינה ודעת, מפני יניקתן שם מהקדושה יותר, כידוע ליודעי חן», this is because the evil is stronger in the middos than in chochmah, binah and daas, since there it draws more nourishment from holiness, as is known to those versed in the hidden wisdom. The beinoni cannot transform his essence because the evil within the middos stands with full force, and this is beyond his power; whereas in the mind, in chochmah, binah and daas, the evil does not hold with such force.
The concept the Alter Rebbe is pointing to with «as is known to those who know» is the matter of shevirat hakelim, the breaking of the vessels, familiar from Kabbalah, through which sparks fell down into the places of impurity. Now, the breaking occurred in the seven middos, chesed, gevurah, tiferes and so on, the seven kings, while in chochmah, binah and daas there was no breaking, and there the forces of impurity have no such great grip. And since this is how it is in the upper worlds, so it is in practice in a person's soul as well: his intellect he can change, his middos he cannot.
And so it is in actual life: a person may come from any background and any character, and if he will open a page of Gemara and learn, he will understand. His mind will grasp the matter, connect to it, and be changed. And if he learns all day long, his mind is immersed in goodness the whole time and other matters and thoughts do not enter it at all. But the middos, there nothing will help; they will always confuse him and arouse in him desires, doubts and disturbances, for the middos truly cannot be changed, while chochmah, binah and daas can be changed.
In summary: in this section we examined the Alter Rebbe's question on «Talmud Torah is equal to them all», both as a contradiction to the greatness of tzedakah and as a question on the whole run of chapters in which it was stressed that the essence of dirah betachtonim is deed. In the first answer we learned that Talmud Torah fits into that very principle: the practical mitzvos refine only the external garments, whereas Torah, which is learned in speech and thought, the inner garments, refines even the essence and being of the vitalizing soul, and draws its chochmah, binah and daas into actual holiness. We also noted that a change of essence is possible for the beinoni in the intellect but not in the middos, because the evil is stronger in the middos, in keeping with what is known in Kabbalah, that the breaking of the vessels took place in the seven middos and not in chochmah, binah and daas.
In the next section we will take up the Alter Rebbe's second answer, in which he explains a further distinction that Torah study possesses, one that is not on account of dirah betachtonim.