In the previous section we dealt with the relationship between the body of a mitzvah and its kavanah, its intention: mitzvah and kavanah, body and soul. Now we turn to the gloss that the Alter Rebbe wrote in the margin of the chapter, where this very same idea is presented in the language of Kabbalah.
The Alter Rebbe cites «וכמו שכתוב בעץ חיים» (as it is written in Eitz Chaim), the sefer written by Rabbi Chaim Vital, the disciple of the Arizal. There it is stated that the kavanah of the mitzvos and of Torah study are on the level of or (light), while the body of the mitzvos is on the level of keilim (vessels). As is known in Kabbalah, the entire order of hishtalshelus, the chain-like descent of the divine flow that we have already discussed, comes down in the form of or and keli: the mitzvah is the aspect of the vessel, and the kavanah is the aspect of the light.
But both of them are revelation: the revelation of the Creator's power of limitation and the revelation of His power of limitlessness, and both are His own powers. The keilim are a matter of tzimtzum, contraction: through the contraction of the light the vessels became coarse and dense, as is known. But this is a contraction of that very same light, that very same divine power. It is not that the light is a divine power while the vessel is something else entirely. It is all Him.
The four levels within the mitzvos:
In general terms, mitzvah and kavanah are body and soul. In particular terms: just as in the physical world there are four categories, domem (inanimate), tzomeiach (vegetative), chai (animal) and medaber (speaker), where domem and tzomeiach belong to the world of the body while chai and medaber belong to the world of the soul, as we learned at length, so too in the nimshal, in what the parable comes to teach: there are four levels within the mitzvos. Within the body of the mitzvah there are two levels corresponding to domem and tzomeiach, and within the kavanah of the mitzvah two levels corresponding to chai and medaber.
The body of the mitzvos themselves divides into two:
«מצוות מעשיות ממש» (mitzvos that are purely action), corresponding to domem: putting on tefillin, affixing a mezuzah to the doorpost, and the like.
«מצוות התלויות בדיבור ומחשבה» (mitzvos that depend on speech and thought), corresponding to tzomeiach: Torah study, Krias Shema, davening, bentching and the other brachos. This is a higher level, since it involves speech and even thought, and nevertheless it is all included in one general category called «body».
And so too with the kavanah: «וכוונת המצוות לדבקה בו יתברך, שהיא כנשמה לגוף» (and the kavanah of the mitzvos, to cleave to Him, which is like the soul to the body). This too divides into two levels, paralleling the two levels of soul within the physical body, which are chai and medaber. In other words: there is a kavanah that is in the category of «chai», in the category of an animal, and there is a kavanah that is in the category of «medaber», in the category of a human being.
And let us immediately say a word of reassurance: the label «animal» here is not a label of inferiority. Even the angels are called «chayos», the holy chayos, and the prophet Yechezkel saw in the supernal Merkavah the face of an ox, which belongs to the category of domesticated animals, and the face of a lion, which belongs to the category of chai. Clearly, then, the label is only a mashal, a parable, and this point will be expanded upon in the next chapter.
What is man's advantage over the animal?
To understand the difference, let us first take a parable from the world around us: what is the advantage of something spiritual over something physical? (For a fuller treatment, see the Rebbe's sicha in Likkutei Sichos vol. 6, the first sicha on Parshas Yisro.) There are two main characteristics:
A spiritual thing is not defined and fixed in one place or one matter; it is abstract and unbounded. Therefore one spiritual thing does not contradict another, whereas two physical things cannot occupy the same space.
A spiritual thing always strives to rise and become more abstract and more elevated, while something physical and bodily is drawn downward, in the words of Shlomo HaMelech: «רוח הבהמה יורדת למטה ורוח האדם עולה למעלה» (the spirit of the animal descends downward and the spirit of man ascends upward). This is why the most refined element in this physical world, the one that serves as a parable for spirituality, is fire, which is always drawn upward.
One can say that an animal has a nature and has emotions: there are compassionate animals and there are cruel ones. But its emotions are not subject to change. That is how it was created, that is where it leans, and it has no capacity to take on anything else; and it is always drawn toward earthly, physical, low things. A human being, by contrast, even though he is born with a leaning toward a particular character (there are people of chesed and people of gevurah), since he possesses intellect, and his intellect is the vessel for the freedom of choice that the Creator gave him, by the force of his own understanding he can decide to change: to overcome himself, to lift himself up, to make himself into something else. It is not easy, but he is capable of it, and he is capable of rising upward.
A person whose nature is cruel: is he obligated to remain that way? He can overcome himself and choose differently, because the Torah says that he must be a person of chesed, and because this is the divine will. And even though it is terribly hard for him and his character pulls him in the opposite direction, he overcomes, he rises above, and he does the very opposite. Who is capable of this? Only one who possesses intellect, who understands upward what the goal is, and who is not stuck in a character that pulls downward.
[It is worth adding: there is no such thing as a «will that is not divine». The path a person is meant to walk is the path of Torah and mitzvos, and the free choice is whether he will walk it or not. The Holy One gave a person both options in order to make the decision to go the right way precious to him, so that there would be a battle here, a struggle. Like the story of the man who had one shul that he never once set foot in: so that he would have somewhere not to go, and something to wrestle with.]
Two kinds of kavanah: a natural emotion and a created emotion:
What is kavanah in a mitzvah? To be connected. And how does one connect? Through hisbonenus, contemplating the greatness of the Creator. The mind rules the heart, and the contemplation works on a person and affects him, until he arouses in his heart the emotion of love of Hashem and awe of Him, an emotion that he himself created. In physical matters this is easy: a person contemplates some physical thing, how good it is, and immediately he begins to be moved by it and to love it. But in matters of G-dliness, to arrive at a genuine emotion of love in the plain sense of the word is not simple at all.
An illustration: during the Ten Days of Teshuvah there is the person who cries because the sefarim say one should cry, and so he cries; and there is the person who cannot hold himself back, whose tears come down of their own accord, and who tries to make sure nobody sees. The difference between them is enormous. To arrive at an inner, genuine emotion is not simple, and the one capable of it is a person with a broad mind able to contemplate, for the hisbonenus connects him to the matter and internalizes it in him, until it becomes one with him, and then it acts upon him.
In our generations we barely know this concept. What we do have is this: every Jew has a feeling for Torah and mitzvos, except that it is a feeling we did not labor to produce. We were born with it, the Holy One embedded it in us and it comes as an inheritance from our forefathers, like «Jewish genes» that tell a person he is a Jew and that Torah and mitzvos are a part of him. From time to time one can scratch at it and arouse it, and say: I have to be a Jew, I have to keep mitzvos. This is not an emotion a person created through his contemplation; it is the arousal of the Jewish feeling that already exists in him, imprinted from birth.
And the difference between these two kinds of feeling is like the difference between a human being and an animal:
Kavanah in the category of «animal»: when a person arouses what already exists within him. An animal has a nature that the Holy One created in it, and with that nature it simply flows. True, a human being has free choice and can even suppress his nature and act against it, which an animal cannot do, since it was created that way and will remain that way. But someone who is not battling his nature and is merely letting the Jewish nature within him burst forth, it will not burst forth in grand dimensions. At the very least he will have, in performing the mitzvah, an awareness, in his mind or in his will: «I want to do this.» That too is a certain feeling, something stirs in him, but it is the Jewish nature that already lives in him. This is a lofty level, and nevertheless, because the feeling is natural, in the language of the parable it is called «animal».
Kavanah in the category of «medaber»: people of great stature, rare individuals, who are capable of arriving at genuine emotional arousal that they themselves produced through the power of deep hisbonenus. It is their own creation, like a human being who need not remain stuck in his nature: one whose nature is cruel is able, through the power of contemplation, to arrive at a great love for his fellow, because his intellect kindles in him even things that run contrary to his nature. So too in spiritual matters: a Jew who arouses in his heart an emotion that he created, that is a lofty level, and that is the kavanah in the category of «medaber».
In the overwhelming majority of cases in our generations the feeling is a feeling in the category of «animal», and to be in the category of «man» is a very rare level. And even simple people who are easily moved and melt with feeling: this comes because they are Jews, and the Jewish nature in them bursts out more quickly, since they have fewer clever calculations and fewer coverings and masks holding it back, so the Jewish nature flows in them without obstruction. But what is flowing there is the Jewish nature.
The advantage of man over the animal:
If so, where does man's advantage over the animal lie? In the nimshal there certainly is an advantage for man over the animal: the animal has no capacity whatsoever to change, to conceal, to overcome. It is like a robot. You can predict in advance exactly what its reaction will be if you treat it this way or that way, and it all runs as programmed. It certainly has emotions, but they are confined within a given boundary and a given ceiling, and there is no changing them.
And here is the well known illustration: it is told of one of the great Torah sages (some tell it about the Rambam) that he was in a debate over whether animals can be trained and their nature changed. He argued that it is impossible, and they argued that it is possible. For the test they brought a cat and trained it with painstaking effort to be a waiter, and indeed it went around serving as a thoroughly serious waiter. Shortly before the time of the test, as he sat over his learning, a little mouse jumped out in front of him and disturbed him; he shut it into the snuff box on his table, slipped the box into his pocket, and forgot about the whole matter. When he arrived at the place of the test, with many people present, and there was the cat going about as a waiter, he remembered that he had a mouse in his pocket. He opened the snuff box, and the mouse leaped out. That same second the cat abandoned the entire enterprise and chased after the mouse.
And what emerges from this? That however much you train an animal, it is all nothing but external cosmetics, and the instincts remain exactly where they were, and the animal cannot stop them. A human being, by contrast, can overcome his instincts: even though he feels a deep inner drive, he is not obligated to act on it. If he possesses intellect, he has free choice and he understands the divine purpose of his life, he can overcome and say to himself: I feel like it, and I am not going to.
And nevertheless, in the spiritual sense, a person in this situation is, in terms of the level of his feeling, in the category of the «animal» of the parable, since his emotion is the Jewish nature within him. This is in contrast to one who stands on a higher level, who is in the category of «medaber», a far rarer level.
In summary: in this section we learned the gloss from the sefer Eitz Chaim: the kavanah of the mitzvos and of Torah study are on the level of or, light, and the body of the mitzvos is on the level of keilim, vessels, and both are a revelation of His powers, the power of limitation and the power of limitlessness, the vessels having become dense through the tzimtzum of that very same light. We examined the four levels within the mitzvos corresponding to domem, tzomeiach, chai and medaber: within the body of the mitzvah, mitzvos that are purely action and mitzvos that depend on speech and thought; and within the kavanah, kavanah in the category of «animal», which is the arousal of the natural Jewish feeling, and kavanah in the category of «medaber», which is a feeling a person created through the power of his contemplation. We also examined the advantage of the spiritual over the physical, and the advantage of man over the animal: the power of intellect and choice to overcome one's nature.
In the next section we will read the Alter Rebbe's own words inside the text and examine the difference between the two levels of kavanah.