In the previous installment we began studying chapter 38 and reached the opening lines of page 50b (page 100). Let us review briefly what we have learned, and continue from there.
In the first part of the chapter the Alter Rebbe explained why, in the performance of mitzvos, where both the deed and the kavanah (intention) are needed for the mitzvah to be complete, the two components are nevertheless not equal. Kavanah without a deed does not count as a deed, for «הרהור לאו כדיבור דמי», thought is not the equivalent of speech; even in mitzvos that depend on speech, the words must actually be brought out with the lips. But a deed or a spoken word without kavanah does, in most mitzvos, fulfill one's obligation. And we asked: what is the reason for this?
The chapter's answer rests on everything learned in the three preceding chapters: the main purpose of the neshamah's descent below is not for its own sake, but in order to refine the body and the nefesh hachiyunis, the animating soul. And since the whole point of the descent is for the sake of the body and the vital soul, it is not enough to fulfill G-d's will through kavanos alone, for kavanah is the language of the soul. The matter has to be expressed in the language of the body: in the movement of the lips and in an actual physical deed.
But in the second part of the chapter, which opens the theme that continues to the end of the chapter, we seem to be told the very opposite. The Sages said that a prayer or a blessing without kavanah, and the same is understood from the source with regard to the performance of a mitzvah, is «כגוף בלא נשמה», like a body without a soul. This wording implies that it is precisely the kavanah that is the essential and higher element, while the deed is no more than a body, since in the relationship between body and soul, the soul is the spiritual, the important, the higher one. We began to explain this in the previous lesson; let us return to the main point.
Body and soul in every part of creation:
The world contains countless creations, which fall into four general categories: domem (inanimate), tzomeiach (vegetative), chai (animal) and medaber (the human being, the speaker). In each one of them there is a body and there is a soul. The body is the thing's sheer existence; the soul is the energy, the divine life force that brings it into being. This is true even of the inanimate: there must be within it a divine life force that creates it anew at every single moment, for if that life force were to cease, G-d forbid, for even one moment, the thing would revert to being null and nothing, exactly as before it was created. And the same holds for the vegetative, the animal and the human.
What do all four categories share, and what distinguishes them from one another?
Two concepts that must not be confused:
Revelation and concealment - whether the Creator and the divine light are revealed, or hidden.
Tzimtzum and expansion - the measure of divine life force present in the created thing: contracted and sparse, or expanded and abundant.
As for revelation and concealment: we already learned at the beginning of the Tanya that in the world in which we find ourselves, the divine life force is present in all created things in a state of concealment, by way of kelipas nogah, and some things derive from the three impure kelipos. Concealment, put simply, means this: a person looks at something and does not see the G-dliness that is enlivening it. It appears to him that the thing exists on its own, because the Creator has hidden Himself from creation. This is the meaning of the verse «אכן אתה א-ל מסתתר», «Indeed, You are a G-d who conceals Himself.»
This concealment is shared equally by every part of creation; there is no difference between the inanimate and the human being, who is the highest category. Even when we observe in a living creature its desires, its emotions and its activity, and we clearly perceive the life within it, the Creator Himself we do not see. The Creator hides Himself from the whole of creation: from the Jew and from the non-Jew, from the plant and from the animal. This is how He created His world, that a natural glance at it does not reveal the divine.
[There have been divine revelations from time to time, as at Mattan Torah, but that was a revelation for the moment, and afterward it vanished. And with the coming of Moshiach the revelation will be absolute, as it is written, «ביום ההוא יהיה ה' אחד ושמו אחד», «On that day G-d will be One and His Name One», and «וראו כל בשר יחדיו כי פי ה' דיבר», «And all flesh together will see that the mouth of G-d has spoken.» But in creation as we know it, the concealment is total in all four categories.]
The difference between the inanimate and the vegetative, the animal and the human is therefore not in concealment but in tzimtzum: the life force that the Creator invested in the created thing is in one case highly contracted, in another somewhat more evident, and in another more evident still.
Recall the analogy we brought: light entering through a pinhole, light entering through a window, and light shining out in the open. The difference between them is the degree to which the light expands, whether it is constricted and only a little enters, or whether it spreads out and enters in abundance. Yet in the abundant light and in the constricted light alike, one factor is common to both: the Creator is present in them in concealment.
In the Alter Rebbe's words:
«כי בגוף הגשמי והדומם ממש כאבנים ועפר», «For in a physical body, and in the truly inanimate such as stones and earth»: in the inanimate category of creation, the divine illumination that the Creator has invested in it is «בבחינת צמצום גדול אשר אין כמוהו עד שאין בו אפילו כח הצומח», «in a state of tzimtzum so great that there is none like it, to the point that it does not even contain the power of growth.» This is the most extreme contraction in the world: the life force within it is so slight and so constricted that it does not even possess the vegetative power.
It is worth stressing again: the concealment in the inanimate and in the animal is identical; the concealment in a stone is not greater. What is greater in the inanimate is the tzimtzum of the energy that the Creator placed within it. And this we can see tangibly: the life force in the inanimate is so contracted that no spiritual vitality is visible in it at all, no movement and no development.
And nevertheless there is life force within it, for without it the thing would not exist at all. Were there no divine energy bringing it into being at this very moment, it would not be in existence. Its very existence proves that there is an energy creating it; it is simply that the energy is present within it in a very great tzimtzum, and therefore nothing is visible in it beyond its bare existence: no development and no expansion of the energy. [And this is why people attach no importance to inanimate things, and even treat them with disdain, because the energy in them is contracted to the extreme. But energy is certainly there.]
To summarize: in this installment we reviewed the chapter's explanation of why speech and action in actual deed are specifically required, since the neshamah's descent is for the sake of the body and the vital soul, and we reviewed the question raised by the expression «prayer without kavanah is like a body without a soul.» As an introduction to understanding the matter, we established that every created thing has a body and a soul, and we distinguished between two concepts: «revelation and concealment», the Creator's concealment, which is equal in all parts of creation; and «tzimtzum and expansion», the measure of light within the created thing, in which the inanimate, the vegetative, the animal and the human differ from one another. And we learned in the Alter Rebbe's own words that in the inanimate the illumination is in the greatest tzimtzum of all, to the point that it does not even contain the power of growth.
In the next installment we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words and see how the divine illumination expresses itself in the remaining categories of creation.