In the previous section we looked at the general hisbonenus (contemplation) that precedes the performance of a mitzvah: a person should reflect that the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over him and examines everything he does, and that in the very mitzvah he is about to perform the light of the Creator shines. This contemplation awakens in him yiras shomayim, awe of Heaven. Now we turn to the particular contemplation, the one unique to each individual mitzvah, and we begin with the mitzvah of tefillin.
The mind contains three faculties, chochmah, binah and daas, and daas itself includes two, chesed and gevurah. Corresponding to this, the tefillin contain four parshiyos:
«Kadesh» and «Vehayah ki yeviacha» correspond to chochmah and binah.
«Shema» and «Vehayah im shamoa» correspond to daas, which includes chesed and gevurah.
This was already explained in general terms in chapter 3 of Tanya. When a person contemplates any subject, the process of contemplation unfolds in stages:
Chochmah: the flash of insight, the initial idea that drops into a person's mind in a single burst.
Binah: the expansion, taking that idea and developing it: thinking through how it is applied, how it fits with everything one already knows, and how its difficulties are resolved. These two stages are a natural and healthy process.
Daas: the connection. There are people who study a subject, experience the flash and the expansion, and know it so thoroughly that they could deliver a full lecture on it, and yet they are not connected to it at all. The subject stays off to the side; it does not touch them. Daas means that the matter penetrates inward and becomes the person's own, descending into his very personality. And since connection gives birth to emotion, love on one side and fear on the other, daas includes two: chesed and gevurah.
A Jew who puts on tefillin should contemplate what the Holy One, blessed be He, is asking of him when he places the tefillin on the brain that is in his head: He is asking that he subjugate his chochmah and his binah to the Creator. The faculties of chochmah and binah were given to a person as part of his nature, and although he is able to use them on any subject in the world, he must know that they are not his. The purpose for which they were given is their true and proper use, in Torah and its study, where those very same stages of flash and expansion are also found. Bittul of one's chochmah and binah to the Creator means using them exclusively for the things that the Holy One, blessed be He, desires.
In the Alter Rebbe's words, the particular contemplation of tefillin is "ליבטל וליכלל בחינת חכמתו ובינתו שבנפשו האלקית בבחינת חכמתו ובינתו של אין סוף ברוך הוא המלובשות דרך פרט בפרשת קדש והיה כי יביאך", to nullify and absorb the chochmah and binah of his divine soul into the chochmah and binah of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, which are vested in a particular way in the sections of Kadesh and Vehayah ki yeviacha: his chochmah should be bound up with the Creator's chochmah, and his binah with His binah. And in practical terms: "דהיינו שלא להשתמש בחכמתו ובינתו שבנפשו בלתי להשם לבדו", that he not use the chochmah and binah of his soul for anything but Hashem alone.
"וכן", and likewise, he must "ליבטל ולכלול בחינת הדעת שבנפשו הכולל חסד וגבורה שהן יראה ואהבה שבלבו", nullify and absorb the daas of his soul, which includes chesed and gevurah, the fear and the love in his heart, and nullify them "בבחינת דעת העליון הכולל חסד וגבורה המלובש בפרשות שמע והיה אם שמוע", in the supernal daas, which includes chesed and gevurah and is vested in the sections of Shema and Vehayah im shamoa.
And this is not an innovation of chassidus and Kabbalah alone: anyone who opens the laws of tefillin in Shulchan Aruch finds it stated explicitly there that a person must have this intention when putting on tefillin, "והיינו כמו שכתוב בשולחן ערוך לשעבד הלב והמוח וכו'", as it is written in Shulchan Aruch, to subjugate the heart and the brain, and so on. And subjugating the heart and the brain to the Creator means subjugating one's chochmah, binah and daas to the Holy One, blessed be He.
The mitzvah of tzitzis too is a most general mitzvah, as is well known from the verse «And you shall see it and you shall remember all the commandments of Hashem.» And its particular intention: "ובעטיפת ציצית יכוין כמו שכתוב בזהר להמשיך עליו מלכותו יתברך אשר היא מלכות כל עולמים וכו' לייחדה עלינו מצוה זו, והוא כענין שום תשים עליך מלך", when wrapping oneself in tzitzis one should intend, as written in the Zohar, to draw down upon oneself His blessed sovereignty, which is the sovereignty of all worlds, this mitzvah being given to us to unify it upon ourselves, and this is of a piece with «You shall surely set a king over yourself.» It is striking that the particular intention of tzitzis resembles the general intention that applies to all the mitzvos.
The idea is this: a person wraps his entire body in the tallis, and all of him is held inside it. Just as one who is wrapped up submits himself to the one who wraps him, so too, in wrapping himself in tzitzis he accepts the King upon himself as the master of the house: from now on the Holy One, blessed be He, will rule over every last detail of his life, and he will do nothing except in accordance with the Supernal Will.
It emerges that the general contemplation, that the Creator's reality shines within the mitzvah and that the King is looking at him, is not sufficient. Every single mitzvah has its own unique point and its own particular theme that it comes to awaken: in tefillin, bittul of chochmah, binah and daas; in tzitzis, accepting His blessed sovereignty. And the goal of all of it is one: to awaken in the heart the emotion of yiras shomayim.
Now take a person who has contemplated all of the above, both the general contemplation that precedes the mitzvah and the particular intention of that specific mitzvah, and has told himself that he is now accepting upon himself the yoke of the King and resolves to subjugate his mind and his heart to Him. "ואזי אף אם בכל זאת לא תפול עליו אימה ופחד בהתגלות לבו", and then, even if despite all this no dread and fear falls upon him in his revealed heart. It may be that in his mind and in his thought the matter is firmly in place, and in his will he genuinely wants it, yet the heart feels no yirah. The heart is coarse, preoccupied with the matters that get in its way, and to be aroused with a spiritual emotion requires a certain refinement of soul.
On the one hand, we have learned that yiras shomayim is the beginning of avodah and its very core. But here the Alter Rebbe says: "מכל מקום, מאחר שמקבל עליו מלכות שמיים, וממשיך עליו יראתו יתברך בהתגלות מחשבתו ורצונו שבמוחו", nevertheless, since he accepts upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and draws His blessed fear upon himself in the revealed thought and will of his mind. He has decided to accept the Holy One, blessed be He, as his master and his King, that whatever He tells him he will do; and not only that, but he has also brought this into his thought and he desires it.
"וקבלה זו היא אמיתית", this acceptance is genuine, his acceptance of the Kingdom is entirely true, "בלי שום ספק", without any doubt. And how do we know? "שהרי היא טבע נפשות כל ישראל שלא למרוד במלך הקדוש יתברך", for it is the nature of the souls of all Israel not to rebel against the holy King, blessed be He. It is a Jew's nature that he does not rebel against the Creator, and when he sins he is acting against his own nature; it is only that the yetzer hara has overpowered him, as our Sages said: «A person does not commit a sin unless a spirit of folly has entered into him.» The sin is not who he is; in his true inner self a Jew has no wish to sin.
Therefore, "הרי התורה שלומד או המצווה שעושה מחמת קבלה זו ומחמת המשת היראה שבמוחו, נקראות בשם עבודה שלמה, ככל עבודת העבד לאדונו ומלכו", the Torah that he studies or the mitzvah that he performs on account of this acceptance and on account of the yirah he has drawn into his mind are called complete avodah, like all the service of a servant to his master and king. He puts on tefillin, he wraps himself in a tallis, he affixes a mezuzah, he guards himself from lashon hara and he makes a brachah before he eats, and all of it because he is constantly aware that the King is looking at him and that He is the Master, and because he wants to be in a state of bittul to Him.
It emerges that his avodah is complete from every side:
From the side of the truth within him: his acceptance of the Kingdom is genuine and rooted in his soul.
From the side of his thought: the matter is firmly in place in his mind.
From the side of his will: he genuinely desires it.
From the side of his actual deeds: he fulfills Torah and mitzvos on account of that very acceptance.
And the fact that the emotional enthusiasm is missing in the middle, because of the givens of who he is at present, does not detract from the completeness of his avodah. The Holy One, blessed be He, wants a Jew to serve Him as a servant, and the defining quality of a servant is yirah, and this is what is called avodas Hashem.
In summary: in this section we learned the particular contemplation found in each mitzvah. In tefillin, the four parshiyos correspond to chochmah, binah and daas (which includes chesed and gevurah), and a person must nullify and absorb his chochmah, binah and daas into the chochmah, binah and daas of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, so as to use his faculties for nothing but Hashem alone, in the language of the Shulchan Aruch, «to subjugate the heart and the brain.» In tzitzis, to draw down upon himself His blessed sovereignty, in the spirit of «You shall surely set a king over yourself.» And finally we learned that even someone in whose heart the yirah is not actually revealed, since he has accepted upon himself the Kingdom of Heaven in his thought and in his will, and this acceptance is genuine, for it is the nature of the souls of Israel not to rebel against the King, his Torah and his mitzvos are called complete avodah, like all the service of a servant to his master and king.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 41 and go deeper into what follows.