In the previous section we brought the Tzemach Tzedek's note about love, and there is a letter in which the Rebbe addresses this note and explains what it means.
If a Jew had only the hidden love that exists in him on his own, we would be speaking of the first and lower level of love: he loves the Creator by nature, because he wants to be close to Him, like a son who wants to be close to his father. But since this love, as the Alter Rebbe stresses again and again in chapter 18, is an inheritance from the Avos, and the Avos were a merkavah (a chariot), there is a higher level contained within it.
And what is a merkavah? A chariot carries out the will of the rider not because it stands to gain from it, but because this is what the rider wants and what is good for him. The rider wishes to travel to a certain place, and the chariot obeys. It is not thinking about itself at all, only about the rider (and of course, all this is said by way of analogy).
Therefore, when we emphasize that every Jew's love comes from the Avos, we are saying something new: deep within every Jew there is not only the lower level of love, loving the Creator because he wants to be close to Him, but also the desire to give the Creator nachas ruach, satisfaction. And what is the practical difference between the two levels? We will see it in the Alter Rebbe's own words.
The Alter Rebbe first speaks of the lower level: «לזכור אהבתו לה' אחד במחשבתו וברצונו לדבקה בו יתברך», to call to mind his love for the one G-d, in his thought and in his will to cleave to Him. His whole desire is to be attached to the Creator. «וזאת תהיה כוונתו בעסק התורה או המצוה הזו», and this shall be his intention in this study of Torah or in this mitzvah. So every time he learns Torah or performs a mitzvah out of love, the reason he does so is in order to be connected to the Holy One: he loves Hashem and wants to be bound to Him, and therefore he learns and fulfills the mitzvah.
«לדבקה בו נפשו האלקית והחיונית ולבושיהן כנ"ל», to cleave to Him with his divine soul and his animating soul and their garments, as explained above. Through the learning and the mitzvah he attaches his nefesh ha'elokis and its garments to Hashem: his mouth, his heart, his hands, and when he runs to do a mitzvah, his feet as well. He wants to bind every one of his limbs to the Creator. This is a fine and excellent level, that a Jew is thinking about the simple fact that he wants to be attached to the Creator.
But the Alter Rebbe adds that one must remember there is a higher level of love: not to think only of the good that will come to him from it, but to think also of the nachas ruach that the Creator desires. «אך אמנם אמרו רז"ל לעולם אל יוציא אדם עצמו מן הכלל», but indeed our Sages said, a person should never separate himself from the community. One must not think only about himself, about how much he will gain from the bond, the connection and the dveikus. Even when he is learning Torah alone in his room and nobody knows about it, the truth is that he is drawing down kedushah and helping not only himself but the entire Jewish people, assisting the whole of them.
In this he is thinking about the Father's nachas ruach: since the Father wishes to dwell in the world, through learning Torah he brings about His revelation here below. This is a deeper level of love, not thinking of his own personal closeness alone, but of the klal, the whole.
And therefore, «לכן יתכוין ליחד ולדבקה בו יתברך מקור נפשו האלקית ומקור נפשות כל ישראל», therefore let him intend to unite and attach to Him the source of his divine soul and the source of the souls of all Israel. This should be the true, inner intention of every Jew as he performs a mitzvah: not to think only of the personal benefit he will receive, but to connect to the Creator the source of his soul and the source of the souls of all Israel, so that through the mitzvah and the learning he is doing right now, all the souls of Israel should be bound to the Creator, «שהוא רוח פיו יתברך הנקרא בשם שכינה», which is the breath of His mouth, called by the name Shechinah.
«Shechintei» is a name for the divine light, from the word shochen, dwelling: light that clothes itself, descends, contracts itself and shines below. This is the divine light found in the private soul of each and every person. True, the Shechinah does not rest openly upon everyone, but upon every Jew there rests a Shechinah. As we have already mentioned in our study, when there are ten Jews the Shechinah rests in a revealed way, and if each individual had nothing, then ten times zero would still be zero. From the fact that ten Jews bring about a revelation of the Shechinah, it is a sign that every Jew has, in a private way, his own point of Shechinah belonging to him.
«Kudsha brich Hu» is from the word kadosh, holy, which means separate and elevated. This is a level of G-dliness that is not contracted or limited, and does not dwell in a private way inside each individual. It is revealed generally through Torah and mitzvos, for Torah is the wisdom of the Holy One and the mitzvos are His will.
The Jew as he stands is «Shechintei». And when a Jew, a soul in a body, performs a mitzvah, he unites and joins «Kudsha brich Hu» with «Shechintei», and draws into his very self a lofty, unlimited divine light. In Torah and mitzvos the unlimited light is clothed, while within himself, as he is before performing the mitzvah, there is the limited divine light. The performance of the mitzvah is the connection between the two.
And «Shechintei» is not only the limited divine light within him, but, as the Alter Rebbe will say here, a name for the divine light that is the source of the souls of all Israel. Every time a Jew performs a mitzvah he joins Kudsha brich Hu with Shechintei, not for himself alone but «in the name of all Israel». And this comes from a true love of the Creator: not thinking about what he will gain, but thinking about the klal. And it is not enough to recite the words «leshem yichud Kudsha brich Hu u'Shechintei»; one has to understand what is being said in them and connect to it.
Let us read the Alter Rebbe's words: «אך אמנם אמרו רז"ל לעולם אל יוציא אדם עצמו מן הכלל, לכן יתכוין לייחד ולדבקה בו יתברך מקור נפשו האלוקית ומקור נפשות כל ישראל», but indeed our Sages said that a person should never separate himself from the community, therefore let him intend to unite and attach to Him the source of his divine soul and the source of the souls of all Israel. And what is the source of the souls of all Israel? «שהוא רוח פיו יתברך הנקרא בשם שכינה», it is the breath of His mouth, called by the name Shechinah. And why is it called Shechinah? «על שם ששוכנת ומתלבשת תוך כל עלמין להחיותן ולקיימן», because it dwells and clothes itself within all the worlds to give them life and sustain them. Shechinah is a name for the divine light that dwells, shines and clothes itself in a way that limits itself and enters into the inner reality of the world, and not only into a person but into the entire world.
«והיא היא המשפעת בו כח הדבור הזה», and it is this that bestows upon him this very power of speech. The power of speech is a limited power, and the divine power that contracted itself in order to grant a person the faculty of speech is the Shechinah; and the same with the power of action. «Shechinah», then, is a general term for the divine power that limits and contracts itself in order to enter into particulars. Obviously, the revelation in a table is not like the revelation in the soul of a Jew, yet all these levels share this: they are all called by the general name Shechinah.
[As for the statement that the Shechinah departs from a person: as we said, there are different degrees of revelation, but this level as a whole is called Shechinah, and the departure is never absolute. As long as he is a Jew he has a divine soul, and he cannot sever himself from it even if he wanted to. What departs is the awareness, the revelation and the potential, but the inner point remains. Even if a person were to walk on all fours and eat grass for eighty years in a barn together with the animals, he would not turn into an animal. He would behave like an animal, and his daas would leave him, but he would remain a human being. The essence cannot be uprooted.]
Back to our subject: the power called Shechinah is the power that bestows the life force, the faculty of speech «שמדבר בדברי תורה ואת כח המעשה לעשות מצוה זו», with which he speaks words of Torah, and the power of action to do this mitzvah. «Kudsha brich Hu» is the divine light above all this, holy and separate. And who joins the two? The mitzvah: «ויחוד זה הוא על ידי המשכת אור אין סוף ברוך הוא למטה על ידי עסק התורה והמצות שהוא מלובש בהן», and this union comes about by drawing down the Or Ein Sof below through the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvos, in which He is clothed. In Torah and mitzvos the unlimited divine light, Kudsha brich Hu, is clothed, and in the Jew there is the limited divine light called Shechinah, and the moment a Jew performs a mitzvah he effects the union between them.
This is why a person is told: do not think only of yourself, and do not think only of the personal pleasure of drawing that great divine light down to you in every mitzvah. «ויתכוין להמשיך אורו יתברך על מקור נפשו ונפשות כל ישראל לייחדן», and let him intend to draw His light upon the source of his soul and upon the souls of all Israel, to unite them. If his level of love for the Father is only on account of the good he gains from being close to Him, he will think about himself alone. But if his love for the Father is such that he thinks about what the Father wants, he will not think only of himself but also of those around him, for the Father wants all His children to live in love and affection and for all of them to receive the very best. And so each son will think also of his brother, and of another brother, and of one more Jew, and so on.
«וכמו שיתבאר לקמן פירוש יחוד זה באריכות עיין שם», as the meaning of this union will be explained at length later on. And this is the meaning of the words «leshem yichud Kudsha brich Hu u'Shechintei b'shem kol Yisrael».
To summarize: in this section we learned about two levels of love. The first level is that his entire intention in Torah and mitzvos is to cleave to Him and to attach his divine soul and his animating soul and their garments to the Creator. The higher level is «a person should never separate himself from the community», that he should intend to unite the source of his own soul together with the source of the souls of all Israel, out of a love whose content is giving nachas ruach to the Creator, and by the strength of the love we inherited from the Avos who were a merkavah. We also explained the terms: «Shechintei», the divine light that contracts itself and dwells and clothes itself in all the worlds to give them life and sustain them, and «Kudsha brich Hu», the holy, separate light that is revealed in Torah and mitzvos. Through engaging in Torah and mitzvos the Jew unites the two, and this is the meaning of «leshem yichud Kudsha brich Hu u'Shechintei b'shem kol Yisrael».
In the next section we will continue with the explanation of the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 41.