In the previous section we brought the language of Tikkunei Zohar (Tikkun 45) that is cited in chapter 40, where the matter is compared to a bird. Let us first lay out the parts of the bird as they appear in the Tikkun, in which the four letters of the name Havayah are hinted at:
«רישא דיליה» (its head) - corresponding to the letter yud.
«וגופא» (and the body) - corresponding to the letter vov.
«ותרין גדפין» (and the two wings) - corresponding to the two letters hei and hei.
Up to here are the words of Tikkunei Zohar. From here the Alter Rebbe explains in a hagahah (a gloss) what these words mean: the bird spoken of is Mattatron, «והיינו עולם היצירה שנקרא מט"ט, ובו» (that is, the world of Yetzirah, which is called Mattat), and in it, in the world of Yetzirah, «הן גופי הלכות שבמשנה» (are the bodies of the halachos of the Mishnah).
It is known that Torah divides into three parts: Mikra (the Chumash and all of Tanach, the Written Torah), Mishnah and Gemara. Each of the three corresponds to a different world: Mikra to the world of Asiyah, Mishnah to the world of Yetzirah, and Gemara to the world of Beriah. (In the next hagahah this will be developed at length; here we mention it only briefly.)
The Mishnah, which corresponds to the world of Yetzirah, was the first book of halachah ever written, the work of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi. After it came the Gemara, which explains the Mishnah, and after that the Shulchan Aruch, which extracts from the Gemara the halachah in practice. The overwhelming bulk of the Mishnah is halachos, with the reasons for the halachos appearing here and there; the Gemara, by contrast, is the reasons, the pilpul, the explanations and the fine distinctions.
Since the Mishnah is bound up with the world of Yetzirah, the Alter Rebbe now explains where the four letters of the name Havayah are hinted at within the Mishnah. One correction noted by the Rebbe should be mentioned first: the text «ובו» is not accurate; it should read «ואו», the name of the letter vov spelled out in full (vov-alef-vov), and the alef was mistakenly replaced by a beis. And so the passage reads:
«ואו - הן גופי הלכות שבמשנה» (the vov is the bodies of the halachos of the Mishnah). Just as most of the bird's substance is its body, so too most of the Mishnah is the bodies of the halachos.
«ורישא דיליה - הן המוחין ובחינת חכמה בינה ודעת שהם פנימיות ההלכות וסודן וטעמיהן» (and its head is the mochin, the level of Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which are the inner dimension of the halachos, their secret and their reasons). Every halachah has a reason and a secret, and that is the head; in the Gemara this is set out at much greater length.
«ותרין גדפין - דחילו ורחימו» (and the two wings are fear and love). When a person fulfills the halachah, he fulfills it with love and with awe.
«הן ה' עילאה שהיא רחימו וה' תתאה היא יראה תתאה» (these are the upper hei, which is love, and the lower hei, which is lower-level fear). The name Havayah contains two heis: the first is called hei ila'ah (the upper hei) and the second hei tata'ah (the lower hei), and each alludes to different matters. Generally speaking love is higher than fear, and therefore the upper hei is rechimu, love, while the lower hei is fear. The Alter Rebbe immediately adds a precise qualification as to which fear is meant: «יראה תתאה», lower-level fear.
Within fear itself there are levels: yirah tata'ah and yirah ila'ah, and yirah ila'ah is higher even than love. What is the difference between them?
Yirah tata'ah is the fear of dread: a man who sees the king, his rule, his soldiers, his weapons and all the terror and dread he commands, and stands before him trembling with fright. This is an external, revealed fear, drawn from the visible trappings of royalty, without any recognition of the king's inner greatness or the depth of who he is. In the Alter Rebbe's words: «עול מלכות שמיים ופחד ה' כפחד המלך דרך משל, שהיא יראה חיצנית ונגלית» (the yoke of the kingdom of heaven and the dread of G-d, like the dread of a king by way of analogy, which is an external and revealed fear).
«מה שאין כן יראה עילאה - ירא בושת» (whereas yirah ila'ah is the fear of shame): a man who recognizes the king's inner greatness, his stature and his power, and is ashamed to do anything unseemly in his presence. Even if the king were to come alone, without soldiers and without any trappings, he would be ashamed before him, for he needs no contemplation of externals in order to fear; his shame flows from his recognition of the king's true greatness. This is the fear born of reverence, and it is incomparably higher.
This yirah ila'ah is not counted among the four letters mentioned above, for the two wings are love and lower-level fear. So where is its place? «היא מהנסתרות לה' אלוקינו, והיא בחכמה עילאה - י' של שם הוי"ה ברוך הוא, כמו שכתוב ברעיא מהימנא» (it is of «the hidden things belonging to the L-rd our G-d,» and it is in Chochmah Ila'ah, the yud of the name Havayah, as is written in Raaya Mehemna).
Back to the body of the chapter:
This entire hagahah comes to fill out what is said in the body of the chapter. The prophet Yeshayahu says of the angel that it has two wings with which it flies. What is flight in the nimshal? When a Jew is told to fly, the intent is that he should use his «arms»: that he should not fulfill the mitzvah in deed alone, but should invest in it his soul, his feeling, his love of G-d and his fear of G-d. These are the two wings.
But why are they called specifically «wings»? If love and fear lift up everything, why are they compared to wings alone?
The answer: «כי כמו שכנפי העוף אינם עיקר העוף ואין חיותו תלוי בהם כלל» (for just as a bird's wings are not the essence of the bird, and its life does not depend on them at all).
And the proof: we do not turn to a zoologist with the question of whether the wings are vital or not, but to halachah and to Shulchan Aruch. The Mishnah in Maseches Chullin devotes an entire chapter to tereifos: even a kosher species of bird becomes a tereifah when one of its important, vital organs is missing or damaged, such as a defect in the lung. Yet there are defects which require treatment and nevertheless do not render the bird a tereifah, as the Mishnah states: «נשתברו אגפיה - כשרה» (its wings were broken: it is kosher). A bird that fell and was struck and its wings broke remains kosher, which shows that the breaking of the wings is no defect in its vitality.
The Taz cites the Mishnah and adds a discussion: the Mishnah spoke of wings that were broken, but what is the law if they were not broken but rather removed by a person, that his wings were cut off, without any damage to the lung or the internal organs? The Taz infers from the wording «נשתברו אגפיה כשרה» that even if its wings were taken off by a person, it is kosher. And this is the wording the Alter Rebbe quotes: «כדתנן ניטלו אגפיה כשרה» (as we learned, its wings were taken off and it is kosher). He is not quoting the Mishnah's own wording («נשתברו»), but the conclusion drawn from it as it is brought in Shulchan Aruch.
From here it is clear that the wings are not the essence of the bird; rather «והעיקר הוא ראשו וכל גופו» (the essence is its head and its whole body), «והכנפיים אינן רק משמשים לראשו וגופו לפרחא להון» (and the wings merely serve its head and body, to make them fly), so that it can take off and fly; and if it cannot fly, it is still kosher.
The nimshal: «וכך דרך משל התורה והמצוות הן עיקר היחוד העליון» (and so too, by way of analogy, Torah and mitzvos are the essence of the supernal union). When a person fulfills Torah and mitzvos, even without feeling, the very act accomplishes those supernal unions we dwelt on in the previous section, «על ידי גילוי הרצון העליון המתגלה על ידיהם» (through the revelation of the supernal Will that is revealed by means of them).
In summary: in this section we learned the hagahah in which the Alter Rebbe explains the language of Tikkunei Zohar: Mattatron is the world of Yetzirah, which corresponds to the Mishnah (Mikra to Asiyah, Mishnah to Yetzirah, Gemara to Beriah), and within it the four letters of the name Havayah are hinted at: vov, the bodies of the halachos in the Mishnah; yud, the mochin, the level of Chochmah, Binah and Daas, the inner dimension of the halachos with their secret and their reason; and the two heis, love and fear. We dwelt on the difference between yirah tata'ah, the external fear of dread, and yirah ila'ah, the fear of shame, whose place is in Chochmah Ila'ah, which belongs to «the hidden things belonging to the L-rd our G-d.» We also learned from halachah («its wings were broken: it is kosher,» and from the Taz's inference, «its wings were taken off: it is kosher») that the wings are not the essence of the bird but serve its head and body; and in the nimshal: the essence of the supernal union is Torah and mitzvos themselves, which act through the revelation of the supernal Will.
In the next section we will complete the nimshal and dwell on the great virtue of love and fear: how they act with respect to Torah and mitzvos and raise them on high.