In the previous section we examined the difference between learning lishmah and learning with no feeling in it at all. Learning lishmah has to come out of love and fear of G-d; but when the learning is done with an ulterior motive, when a person learns in order to profit from it, to receive a title, to gain something out of it, the kelipos do not allow it to rise, and it remains inside the kelipos. Now we turn to a brief addition that the Alter Rebbe slips into his next words.
After the Alter Rebbe cites Rabbi Chaim Vital, that from Torah angels are created in the world of Yetzirah and from mitzvos angels are created in the world of Asiyah, the subject would seem to be finished. Yet he adds one short sentence of six words that looks like a passing remark: «וכל המלאכים הם בעלי חומר וצורה» (and all angels are composed of matter and form). First let us understand what the words mean, and then what he is coming to teach us with them.
An angel has a body and a soul. The Ramban writes that even angels have a body and a soul, and these are what are called «chomer» (matter) and «tzurah» (form). But what, then, is the difference between physical creations, which also have matter and form, and an angel, which has a body and a soul?
The body of a physical human being: it is built from the four elements, fire, air, water and earth. Since water and earth are heavy, coarse elements, the bodies of creations in this world are physical and coarse, graspable and occupying space.
The body of an angel: it consists only of the two finer elements, air and fire, light and spiritual elements that do not really occupy space (fire less so, air even less). Of this it is said: «עושה מלאכיו רוחות משרתיו אש לוהט» (He makes His angels of winds, His ministers of flaming fire).
The Rebbe's father, the kabbalist Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, explains: had we been given only the words of Rabbi Chaim Vital, that Torah studied without intent creates angels in Yetzirah and mitzvos performed without intent create angels in Asiyah, we might have understood «without intent» to mean that the person is not thinking about what he is doing at all, like the «mis'asek be'alma» familiar from the laws of Shabbos, where a person performs a melachah without having had any intention toward the matter whatsoever. According to that reading, even someone who learned Torah or did a mitzvah with no intention at all, who does not even know what he is doing, would also produce angels.
[This is not referring to «shelo lishmah», for shelo lishmah is not an absence of intent but an opposite intent.]
Therefore the Alter Rebbe immediately adds, «and all angels are composed of matter and form»: since an angel has a body and a soul, it must be that the Jew's act which produces that angel also contains a body and a soul. Learning or a deed that has only a «body», done as sheer mechanical activity, cannot give birth to a complete angel, but only to a blemished one.
What, then, is the «soul» of the deed? (It cannot mean love and fear, for if his learning contains love and fear it is learning lishmah, and it becomes joined with G-dliness, as we have learned.) It means the simple awareness that he is doing a mitzvah right now: he knows that the Torah says to do this mitzvah and he is doing it, he knows there is a mitzvah to learn Torah and he is learning. There is no feeling of love of G-d in his heart, his heart is not stirred, but he knows what he is doing at this moment. It is not a dry «monkey act», it is the act of a human being who is aware of his own deed. This is the soul of the mitzvah that creates the soul of the angel:
That awareness is something spiritual, a vitality within the deed; and the deed itself is hardly a simple thing either, for it is the will of G-d. Out of this plain deed, together with the modest thought about what is taking place, are created angels possessing matter and form: the deed is the «chomer» and the bit of thought that accompanied it is the «tzurah». And nevertheless it is still considered shelo lishmah, because it contains no love and fear. Had it contained genuine love and fear of G-d, it would not have produced a mere angel; the act would have been joined with the G-dliness within the worlds. Since it was done without feeling, it is the general awareness of what is happening that creates the angels. This is the entire point of those six added words, «and all angels are composed of matter and form», which come to clarify Rabbi Chaim Vital's intent.
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Until now we have been speaking about learning that has no feeling in it, and about that Rabbi Chaim Vital was not speaking at all. «אבל תורה שלא לשמה ממש» (but Torah studied truly not for its own sake): here there is feeling in his learning, but it is a forbidden feeling that comes from kelipah, for he learns «כגון כדי להיות תלמיד חכם» (for example, in order to be a talmid chacham), so that everyone will honor him and he will have all the glory and splendor, status and possessions. He saw that so-and-so studied, was tested, received a title and gained all that, so he says it is worth it, and off he goes. His whole drive is to be a talmid chacham for his own honor. And although wanting to be a talmid chacham sounds like a positive desire, it is nevertheless for his own honor. We already spoke in the previous lesson about «out of shelo lishmah one comes to lishmah», and we will not repeat it here.
And what should a Jew's thinking be? Why is he learning? Because this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, and he wants to connect with Him. Whether anything comes out of it for him or nothing comes out of it, whether people honor him or do not honor him, makes no difference at all; that is not the point in the slightest.
But if he learns only for that, «וכהאי גוונא» (and the like), and similar lowly calculations, anything in which his ego is present and driving him, then «אינה עולה כלל למעלה» (it does not ascend above at all), not even «אפילו להיכלות ומדור המלאכים דקדושה» (even to the heichalos and the abode of the angels of holiness). No angel is created from it whatsoever, not in Asiyah and certainly not in Yetzirah, even if he becomes fluent in all of Shas; «אלא נשארת למטה בעולם הזה הגשמי שהוא מדור הקליפות» (rather it remains below in this physical world, which is the abode of the kelipos).
[And it is not lost, for it is known that every Jew will ultimately do teshuvah, and «the light within the Torah brings him back to good», and in the end the matter will be rectified. But as long as he has not done what is needed to rectify it, it remains in the abode of the kelipos.]
The gloss: the power of words
Alongside the text there appears a gloss, and it does not relate to the last words we read but to the passage as a whole: that when a Jew learns Torah it has an effect, and even when there is no love and fear in him an angel is created from it, and this is no small thing. More than that: every single word a person lets out of his mouth has an effect, and even words that are the opposite of Torah have an effect, except that what they accomplish is negative. On this the Alter Rebbe brings several sources from the Zohar:
«כמו שכתוב בזהר חלק ג', דף ל״א עמוד ב' ודף קכ״א עמוד ב' עיין שם ההיא מילה סלקא ובקעא רקיעין» (as is written in Zohar III, page 31b and page 121b, see there: that word ascends and splits the heavens): the word a person lets out of his mouth rises upward and breaks through all the heavens, «ואתער מה דאתער אי טב טב כו'» (and it arouses what it arouses, if good then good, etc.), it awakens whatever it awakens. If the words are good they bring about good things, and if the opposite, they bring about the opposite, «עיין שם» (see there).
«ודף ק״ה עמוד א' - מלה דאורייתא אתעביד מיניה קלא וסליק כו'» (and page 105a: from a word of Torah a sound is made, and it ascends, etc.): from the words a person speaks in Torah a voice is made, and that voice rises upward. Here too we see that a Jew's Torah study certainly accomplishes something.
«ודף קס״ח עמוד ב' - קלין דאורייתא וצלותא סלקין בקעין רקיעין כו'» (and page 168b: the sounds of Torah and of prayer ascend and split the heavens, etc.): the sounds of Torah and of tefillah rise and break through all the heavens (and in the text as we have it, a word needs to be filled in).
From all these sources it emerges that the words a Jew says in Torah and in tefillah have a real effect, and an angel is created from them; and if the proper feeling is in them as well, how much more so.
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«וכמ״ש בזהר על פסוק מה יתרון לאדם בכל עמלו שיעמול תחת השמש» (and as is written in the Zohar on the verse «What profit has a man in all his toil that he toils under the sun»). To close the subject the Alter Rebbe brings two more interesting sources, among them the words of the Zohar on the verse at the beginning of Koheles (1:3): «What profit has a man in all his toil that he toils under the sun». Simply understood: a person in this world has a great deal of toil, occupations and work, and these occupations fall into two categories. There is the toil of Torah and the service of G-d, which is also toil but toil of holiness, and there is all the physical, material toil that has nothing to do with it. Says King Solomon: all the toil a person toils «under the sun», what profit is there in it? «Under the sun» is a metaphor for something that does not rise above the sun, whereas Torah study and the toil of holiness are above the sun.
Recall the two verses we mentioned in the previous lesson, brought in that very debate: «כי גדול מעל שמים חסדך» (for Your kindness is great above the heavens) as against «עד שמים חסדך» (Your kindness reaches to the heavens). There are matters of holiness that rise upward, and there is toil that remains under the sun. That is the plain reading of the verse.
In summary: in this section we studied the Alter Rebbe's brief addition, «and all angels are composed of matter and form», that an angel has a body and a soul, its body consisting only of the finer elements, air and fire. [And Rabbi Levi Yitzchak's explanation that this addition comes to clarify Rabbi Chaim Vital's intent: «without intent» does not mean mis'asek be'alma, but learning and deeds that do contain awareness, where the deed is the «chomer» and the thought is the «tzurah». Such learning is still shelo lishmah, since it lacks love and fear; had it contained them, it would have been joined with the G-dliness within the worlds.] Torah studied truly not for its own sake, on the other hand, driven by a feeling of kelipah and self-glory, does not ascend at all, not even to the heichalos and the abode of the angels of holiness, but remains in this world, which is the abode of the kelipos. We also saw from the Alter Rebbe's gloss, from the sources in the Zohar, the power of the words of Torah and tefillah, which ascend and break through the heavens, and we began to explain the verse «What profit has a man in all his toil that he toils under the sun».
In the next section we will delve into the Zohar's explanation of the verse «What profit has a man in all his toil that he toils under the sun», and what it means for the question of learning Torah shelo lishmah.