We have reached the middle of chapter 39 of Tanya. We stopped on page 52b (page 104), at the fifth line from the top, the line that begins with the words «כיתרון האור» and ends with «כנ"ל», and now we continue from the words «והנה כל זה». First, let us review what we have learned until now, so that we can enter into the subject properly.
A review of what we have learned:
Chapter 39 continues a theme the Alter Rebbe began to explain in the middle of chapter 38: the tremendous importance of kavanah, the inner intention, during prayer, during Torah study, and during the performance of a mitzvah. At first glance, since the main thing is the deed, and the Holy One's desire is that He have a dirah betachtonim, a dwelling place in this lowly physical world, it should be enough that a Jew simply perform the practical mitzvos. What difference do the kavanah and the feeling behind them make? But the Alter Rebbe explained at length that the kavanah actually changes the deed itself.
Kavanah is like a soul that enters a body, in the language of our Sages: «תפילה בלא כוונה כגוף בלא נשמה», prayer without kavanah is like a body without a soul. The Alter Rebbe showed that this is not a loose comparison; every single detail of the analogy, body and soul, is precise in the nimshal, in the deed and in the kavanah. We also learned that just as within the soul itself there are two levels, the soul of an animal and the soul of a speaking being, so too within kavanah:
The soul of the animal: everything an animal does flows purely from its nature; it has nothing but natural behavior. In the nimshal, this is a Jew who, in his avodah, arouses the natural love for the Creator that exists in the innate nature of the inner soul of every Jew. There is vitality and arousal in this avodah, but it is only the revealing of what is already present in his nature. This is also the level of the angels, who are called «חיות הקודש», holy animals, for they too serve according to their nature.
The soul of the speaking being: the distinction of a human being is that he possesses intellect and free choice; he does not act on instinct but on thought. In the nimshal, this is a Jew whose kavanah arouses love of G-d and fear of G-d that come through contemplation, depth, and study, where the mind rules over the heart, acts upon it, and draws it out. He is not merely revealing the nature already within him; he arouses something far loftier, something that comes from the power of understanding and hisbonenus, contemplation. This is a far higher level.
Beriah and Yetzirah:
At the beginning of chapter 39 we learned that this very distinction is also the difference between the world of Beriah and the world of Yetzirah: in Beriah it is binah, understanding, that shines, while in Yetzirah it is emotion that shines. Therefore:
One who serves G-d through the «soul of the animal» within him, by arousing the natural love and fear already present in him, elevates himself and his Torah and mitzvos to the world of Yetzirah.
One who serves G-d with love and fear that come from contemplation and from his own labor, which is loftier even than an angel, elevates himself to the world of Beriah.
The point is this: the Torah exists even before a Jew studies it, for it is G-d's Torah, and the divine command exists whether he fulfills it or not. But when a Jew learns Torah and performs mitzvos, he connects himself to that Torah and those mitzvos, and he even effects an elevation in them. And his power here is enormous: the measure to which the Torah and mitzvos are elevated corresponds to the level of his avodah and to the feeling with which he performs them.
As we will see in the chapters ahead, a person who studies Torah with no feeling and no arousal at all, in a flat and indifferent way, and all the more so one who studies out of a feeling of personal ego, meaning that he is not learning out of any feeling for the Holy One, neither an intellectual feeling nor a natural one, but rather so that people should honor him and for his own benefit, in such a state the Torah he studies is not elevated at all; it remains here below. In other words, it is the Jew himself who determines whether the Torah he has learned will ascend, and how far, or G-d forbid the opposite.
As is told of the holy Baal Shem Tov, who once entered a beis midrash where Jews were studying Torah, but their learning was not for its own sake, only for themselves. He told them that the room was packed and full of words of Torah. At first they thought this was a great compliment, until he clarified: «It all stayed here. Nothing went up.» For the Torah a Jew studies to rise and be elevated, it is the inner feeling that lifts it. And here we have learned to which level it is elevated, in accordance with what the Jew himself accomplishes.
An introduction from chapter 35:
Before we read the next passage, let us recall a fundamental idea we learned in chapter 35: the soul of a Jew is something holy, «חלק אלוקה ממעל», a part of G-d above. And nevertheless, a soul filled with love for the Creator and filled with feeling, which does not actually fulfill or study anything, cannot reach true attachment to G-dliness. Why? Because the soul, with all its loftiness, is a created being. Not a physical creation, and not simply a spiritual creation, but a divine creation, yet a creation. And between Creator and creation there is an infinite distance.
What, then, connects a Jew to the Creator? Torah and mitzvos. The Torah he studies is not his own wisdom but G-d's wisdom, and when he performs a mitzvah he is carrying out the divine command, His blessed will. Therefore, when a Jew learns Torah and performs mitzvos he becomes connected to the Creator with a boundless connection, and without them, even the loftiest feeling connects him to nothing at all.
And as was mentioned there in the words of the yenuka in the Zohar on parshas Balak: for a candle to burn and give light, fuel is required, and that fuel is the mitzvos. So too with a Jew: if he wants the Shechinah, which is like fire, to rest upon him, he needs fuel to feed that fire, and that fuel is the mitzvos. From here the question was raised: why is the soul itself not sufficient? And the answer is that since the soul is a created being, it cannot serve as the fuel that brings about the resting of the Shechinah. Only the Torah and mitzvos that a Jew studies and fulfills are the fuel that causes the Shechinah to rest.
The difference between the elevation of the soul and the elevation of the Torah and mitzvos:
Along the lines of this very point, we will now see in the coming lines: we said that a Jew who studies Torah with feeling experiences an elevation; with natural feeling, to the world of Yetzirah, and with feeling that comes from contemplation, to the world of Beriah. Here the Alter Rebbe draws a distinction between the elevation of the soul and the elevation of the Torah and mitzvos that he fulfills.
Which is loftier, the soul or the Torah? The Torah is G-dliness itself, His blessed wisdom, and the mitzvos are G-d's will, whereas the soul, as explained, is a creation. Therefore, although the soul is elevated when a Jew learns Torah and performs mitzvos, and that elevation is to the world of Beriah or the world of Yetzirah, within the world itself we must distinguish between the world and the G-dliness within the world: the Torah and mitzvos are elevated and become connected to the G-dliness within the world, while the soul is elevated and becomes connected to the world itself.
In other words, this follows the same lines as what was explained in chapter 35 regarding this world in which we find ourselves, that there is a difference between the soul, which is a created being, and the Torah that it studies.
In summary: in this section we reviewed the foundations of chapters 38 and 39: kavanah is like a soul to the body of the deed, and it has two levels, kavanah as the «soul of the animal», stemming from natural love and fear, which elevates to the world of Yetzirah, and kavanah as the «soul of the speaking being», which comes from hisbonenus and from the mind ruling over the heart, and elevates to the world of Beriah. We saw that it is the Jew who brings about the ascent of the Torah and mitzvos he studies and fulfills, and that study without feeling, or study driven by personal ego, is not elevated at all, as in the story of the Baal Shem Tov and the beis midrash packed with words of Torah. We recalled from chapter 35 that the soul is a created being, and that only Torah and mitzvos are the fuel that connects a Jew to the Creator and causes the Shechinah to rest. And from here comes the distinction before us: the Torah and mitzvos are elevated to the G-dliness within the world, while the soul is elevated to the world itself.
In the next section we will continue in the words of the Alter Rebbe from «והנה כל זה», and go deeper into the difference between the ascent of the soul and the ascent of the Torah and mitzvos.