We are in the middle of chapter 39 of Tanya. We stopped on daf 52b (page 104), in the last third of the page, at the line beginning with the words «עם מצוה עצמה», and we will begin from the words «ועולם האצילות». Let us first review what we have learned until now, and then continue, with G-d's help.
From the beginning of the chapter we have been learning about different levels in avodas Hashem, and in particular about the dividing line between an avodah that belongs to the world of Yetzirah and an avodah that belongs to the world of Beriah. The difference lies in the source of the avodah:
The world of Yetzirah: the avodah of Jews, even of beinonim, who serve Hashem out of their natural middos, the love and fear that exist naturally in the heart of every Jew. They arouse these feelings and act upon them through their natural emotion. Such avodah resembles the character of the world of Yetzirah, where the avodah of the angel is something natural, much like animals and beasts, with whom everything runs by nature.
The world of Beriah: the avodah of higher tzaddikim, whose love and fear were born out of hisbonenus, out of understanding and grasping G-dliness. Understanding and grasping are the distinction of a human being, who has free choice and intellect, «בדעת ידבר», as the Tanya put it in the previous chapter, chapter 38. His avodah is therefore loftier, and it rises to the world of Beriah.
The four rungs of the ladder of prayer:
In certain siddurim you will find printed alongside the sections of the davening: the world of Asiyah, the world of Yetzirah, the world of Beriah, the world of Atzilus. It is known that prayer is called a «ladder», based on the verse «והנה סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה», «and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and its top reaching the heavens». This ladder has four rungs:
«Hodu» - the beginning of davening, corresponding to the world of Asiyah.
«Boruch She'amar» and Pesukei Dezimra - corresponding to the world of Yetzirah.
The brachos of Krias Shema and Krias Shema itself - corresponding to the world of Beriah.
Shemoneh Esrei - corresponding to the world of Atzilus.
What is behind this division? The difference between Beriah and Yetzirah is precisely the difference between Pesukei Dezimra and Krias Shema with its brachos. In Pesukei Dezimra a Jew recounts the greatness of Hashem and of the whole of creation (and in the brachos of Krias Shema, the matter of the angels as well), and that recounting arouses his emotion. In Krias Shema, however, the avodah is the avodah of hisbonenus: «Shema Yisrael», shema in the sense of understanding. An avodah bound up with the world of feeling belongs to Yetzirah, while an avodah of contemplation and understanding belongs to Beriah, and this fits beautifully with what we have learned in the chapter so far.
Which avodah belongs to the world of Atzilus?
If avodah out of natural emotion belongs to the world of Yetzirah, and avodah out of emotion born from contemplation and understanding belongs to the higher world of Beriah, then what is the special avodah that belongs to the world of Atzilus, which is higher still than Beriah?
This is what we will learn in the coming passage. It is the avodah of the great tzaddikim, who are called a «merkavah», a chariot, for the Shechinah. Merkavah means that the Jew is bottul to Hashem not because his nature directs him that way, and not even because his understanding compels him, but because this is simply what he is, and nothing else is possible. There is no room to ask a chariot why it is bottul to the one who drives it, and it does not answer that it is bottul because of its nature or because it came to understand that it ought to be bottul, since from the outset it has no personality of its own, no opinion of its own and no will of its own. This is the level of the world of Atzilus, and this is where the great tzaddikim stand.
With this we can also understand, as the Tanya will mention here, why Shemoneh Esrei corresponds to the world of Atzilus: the bittul of a Jew in Shemoneh Esrei, and the manner of prayer that flows from that bittul, are on this high level. And in the words of the Tanya itself:
«ועולם האצילות שהוא למעלה מהשכל וההשגה וההבנה לשכל נברא», «and the world of Atzilus, which is above the intellect, the grasp and the understanding of a created mind». The world of Atzilus is a G-dly world so lofty that it is simply not applicable for a created being to grasp and understand the level and the intensity that shine within it. In the world of Beriah we are speaking of tzaddikim who possess understanding, contemplation and grasp, and as a result emotion as well. But the world of Atzilus is a level above the intellect, above the grasp and above the understanding of any created mind.
At first glance one could ask: how can we say that the world of Atzilus is above intellect and grasp? After all, the ten revealed sefiros begin in the world of Atzilus, and the first three of them are Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which means that understanding and grasp are found there.
The Alter Rebbe answers this immediately: «כי חכמתו ובינתו ודעתו של אין סוף ברוך הוא מיוחדות שם בו בתכלית היחוד», «for the Chochmah, Binah and Daas of the Ein Sof boruch Hu are united there with Him in perfect union». In the language of Pasach Eliyahu concerning the ten sefiros of Atzilus: «אנת הוא חכים ולא בחכמה ידיעא, אנת הוא מבין ולא בבינה ידיעא», «You are wise, but not with a known wisdom; You are understanding, but not with a known understanding». That is, in the world of Atzilus there is Chochmah and there is Binah, but not in the way they exist in the world of Beriah, and certainly not as they are in Yetzirah, and surely not as they are in Asiyah, for in all the worlds below Atzilus the Chochmah, Binah and Daas are constricted in a way that a created being can grasp them.
It is understood that a created being who grasps the level of the world of Beriah has to be a great tzaddik, and even one who grasps the level of the world of Yetzirah has to be a lofty person, since we barely manage to grasp the Chochmah and Binah of the physical world of Asiyah. But the world of Atzilus is not within the category of a created being's grasp at all. There is Chochmah and Binah there, except that they are united in perfect union, in an awesome and wondrous unity with the Essence of the Creator, and therefore it is not a matter of grasp at all, and this is «ביתר שאת ויתר עז לאין קץ מבעולם הבריאה», «in infinitely greater measure and strength than in the world of Beriah». The union of the Chochmah, Binah and Daas of Atzilus with the Creator is incomparably greater than that of the world of Beriah.
It is worth noting, as will be mentioned further on in the first line of the next page, that even the world of Atzilus is after the tzimtzum, since the tzimtzum through which the Creator constricted His G-dly lights is far above the world of Atzilus. It is only that in Atzilus the tzimtzum is not so noticeable. In chassidus the world of Atzilus is called «the world of unity», because the union of the sefiros with G-dliness, with the simple Essence of the Creator, is so absolute that it is beyond any created being's grasp.
From the world of Beriah and downward:
In the world of Beriah, by contrast, which is a more constricted world, the sefiros «ירדו להאיר בבחינת צמצום כדי שיוכלו שכלים נבראים לקבל מהן חכמה בינה ודעת, לידע את ה' ולהבין ולהשיג איזו השגה באור אין סוף ברוך הוא כפי כוח שכלים הנבראים», «descended to illuminate in a manner of tzimtzum, so that created intellects would be able to receive from them Chochmah, Binah and Daas, to know Hashem and to understand and grasp some measure of grasp in the Ein Sof boruch Hu, according to the capacity of created intellects». From Beriah downward the sefiros became constricted in a way that a created being can grasp something of them, according to the strength of his own capacity to grasp.
And the reason for this: «שהם בעלי גבול ותכלית», «for they are limited and finite». All the creations of the lower worlds are bounded and finite, and therefore the Creator had to constrict the intensity of the sefiros so that a created being would be able to grasp them.
Even among physical creations it is obvious that a large thing does not enter into a small thing: an elephant does not pass through the eye of a needle, and a person is not even shown such a thing in a dream. Why not? The elephant is physical and the needle is physical, and they do share common ground in that both belong to the same world. But since the elephant's dimensions are greater than the needle's, the elephant cannot enter the needle's eye even in the imagination of a dream. How much more so when the great one is great because it is unlimited, and the small one is small because it is limited. The distance between them is not merely the distance between large and small; they are two entirely different categories, one without limit and one with limit, and it is certainly impossible to join them.
An illustration of this: take a deep intellectual idea. Even though the idea itself is limited, and a person of broad intellect is capable of understanding what is being discussed, if you say these deep words to a small child or to a simple person, he will not understand at all what is being spoken about, because his vessels are too small to contain such a deep concept. And even though the simple person's intellect is also intellect, and the deep idea is also intellect, since it is intellect just slightly higher than his own, he already loses his head and cannot manage to understand.
To summarize: in this section we learned that avodah out of natural emotion belongs to the world of Yetzirah, avodah out of contemplation and understanding belongs to the world of Beriah, and the avodah of the great tzaddikim, who are a merkavah for the Shechinah, belongs to the world of Atzilus; and corresponding to these three levels stand the rungs of the ladder of prayer. We examined the Tanya's wording that the world of Atzilus is above the intellect and grasp of a created mind, because the Chochmah, Binah and Daas of the Ein Sof boruch Hu are united there with Him in perfect union, whereas from the world of Beriah downward the sefiros descended in a manner of tzimtzum so that created intellects, which are limited and finite, would be able to receive from them.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words and with the explanation of the avodah of the great tzaddikim, whose Torah and avodah rise to the world of Atzilus.