In the previous lines we learned that binas haleiv, the heart's innate understanding, is a level that stands above time and is always present. What is it like? Like a flint stone that has the power to produce a spark of fire. Even if that stone lay buried in ice for many years, its nature and character have not changed in the slightest, and with a proper strike it will give off its spark, even after having been hidden away for so long.
So too with the binas haleiv that exists in every single Jew: this inner point needs nothing more than a way to be aroused and drawn out of its concealment.
A person must «להביאה לבחינת מחשבה ממש שבמוח», bring it into the realm of actual thought in the mind, so that the matter becomes a conscious awareness and does not remain a buried potential within the inner binas haleiv. And this is done by «להעמיק בה מחשבתו משך זמן מה ממש», by immersing his thought in it for a real stretch of time: to contemplate for a minute, two or three, that the Creator is looking at him and watching him at every single moment, as he said at the beginning of chapter 41, «הנה ה' נצב עליו ובוחן כליות ולב», behold, Hashem stands over him and searches his innermost being. Such contemplation is needed «עד שתצא פעולתה מהכוח אל הפועל ממש», until its effect emerges from potential into the actual, so that the yirah which exists in potential does not stay a potential matter but genuinely shapes how he conducts himself.
How does this effect on his conduct express itself? «דהיינו להיות סור מרע ועשה טוב במחשבה דבור ומעשה מפני ה'», that he turn from evil and do good in thought, speech and deed, because of Hashem. A person will have yiras shamayim because the Holy One «הצופה ומביט ומאזין ומקשיב אל כל מעשהו ובוחן כליותיו ולבו», watches and looks and listens and hears all that he does, and searches his heart and mind. At every moment Hashem is examining, looking and listening to every detail, every heartbeat, every matter, and this is what a person must contemplate: at this very moment the King is looking at me, hearing what I say and seeing what I do. Out of this, yiras shamayim is aroused.
On this the Alter Rebbe brings «כמאמר רבותינו ז"ל: הסתכל בשלושה דברים כו'», as our Sages said: reflect on three things and you will not come to sin, «עין רואה ואוזן שומעת כו'», an eye that sees and an ear that hears (Pirkei Avos).
It emerges that a person must know that yiras shamayim is certainly present within him, and he must relate to it as one relates to a treasure he knows for sure is there: just as someone searching for a treasure that he knows with certainty is buried in the field does not give up even though he has not yet found it, so too one must not give up even if he has not yet managed to arouse the yirah. In the end he will reach a state in which he thinks about the matter and contemplates it plainly, in actual thought and for a real stretch of time, and that contemplation will arouse yirah in him in thought, in speech and in deed, for after all there is an eye that sees and an ear that hears.
As an introduction to the next passage, the Alter Rebbe raises two questions:
How can one say about Hashem that there is «an eye that sees and an ear that hears»? Eyes and ears are concepts that belong to a human being of flesh and blood, and with regard to Hashem it is not appropriate to use human terms at all, for He has no bodily form. This is a question in the substance of the matter itself.
The second question is even more pressing. When a flesh and blood king stands before a person and sees him, that gaze affects him and he refrains from forbidden things. But Hashem has no bodily form and a person does not see Him, so all he has in front of him is an intellectual contemplation. Is a contemplation in the mind strong enough to affect him? Seemingly something more tangible is needed, something that will actually work on him. What is that tangible thing?
These two matters are what the Alter Rebbe deals with from here almost until the end of the chapter.
On a basic level there is the principle that «the Torah speaks in the language of human beings», on the strength of which we use human expressions such as «merciful and gracious». But here the Alter Rebbe is not satisfied with saying that we have no choice but to use such expressions. He explains that the terms «eye» and «ear» are in fact precise, and that the statement of Chazal «an eye that sees and an ear that hears» is true in its own right. Why?
Two introductory points will help us understand this:
Who is the one who sees. When we say «an eye that sees», it is not the flesh that sees; it is the soul that sees by means of the eye, and the same with the ear, and so on. In a person's physical eye there is a tremendous quality, the power of sight, but every human quality carries limitation along with it: he sees only physical things and not spiritual ones, only up to a certain distance, only in the light and not in the dark, and one person's vision is sharper and another's weaker. In every human being there is both the quality of the thing and the limitation of the thing. With Hashem, however, there is only the quality of seeing, without the limitation that goes with it. He certainly sees, but it is not a limited sight like ours; it is unlimited sight. And so too with hearing: human hearing is limited to a certain distance and a certain volume of sound, whereas in Divine hearing there is only the quality and not the deficiency.
Seeing and hearing apply to what is outside a person. Beyond that, seeing and hearing are needed only for objects and things that are outside a person. Something outside him is not his and is not himself, and therefore he needs to see it or hear it in order for it to enter his awareness. But when it comes to himself, a person who has a slight itch on the little toe of his foot does not need to see it in order to feel that it is there, since this is he himself, and he knows himself from within himself. And although a person has other senses through which he perceives the world (such as the sense of touch), his awareness of what is happening to himself does not arrive from the outside and does not depend on any particular sense; it comes from within.
In the words of the Tanya: the Alter Rebbe first states the question, «וגם כי אין לו דמות הגוף», and also, since He has no bodily form, how can the terms «eye» and «ear» be used of Him? To this he answers, «הרי אדרבה, הכל גלוי וידוע לפניו ביתר שאת לאין קץ מראיית העין ושמיעת האוזן», on the contrary, everything is revealed and known before Him in a way infinitely higher than the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear. Our seeing and hearing are a seeing and hearing that have a limit, whereas with Him the seeing and hearing are «in a way infinitely higher», because they do not carry the limitation that ours do.
But how, in practical terms, is this so? Here the Alter Rebbe brings a mashal: «על דרך משל, כמו אדם היודע ומרגיש בעצמו כל מה שנעשה ונפעל באחד מכל רמ"ח איבריו», by way of analogy, like a person who knows and feels within himself everything that happens in any one of his two hundred and forty eight limbs, «כמו קור או חום ואפילו חום שבציפורני רגליו על דרך משל אם נכווה באור», such as cold or heat, and even heat in the nails of his feet, if, for example, he is burned by fire. The novelty lies specifically in the nail: even though sensation there is the lowest of all, as we see from the fact that a person cuts his nails and feels no pain, nevertheless if a source of heat is placed on it, he feels it at once.
And not only that, but «וכן מהותם ועצמותם», and so too their very essence and being. A person feels not only what is happening in his limbs, but the limbs themselves. Even if nothing external has occurred to disturb the functioning of his two hundred and forty eight limbs, the very existence of his limbs requires no information from the outside, since they are he himself and they are a part of him.
[And indeed, even someone whose hand has been amputated sometimes continues to feel as though the hand were still there.]
To summarize: We learned that binas haleiv is eternal and not bound by time, like a flint stone buried in ice whose nature is in no way changed, and that a person must bring it from potential into the actual through genuine thought and contemplation for a real stretch of time, until he turns from evil and does good in thought, speech and deed, because of Hashem. We set out the two questions on the expression «an eye that sees and an ear that hears» as applied to Hashem, and we began the explanation of the first: with Hashem there is the quality of seeing and hearing without their limitation, and more than that, a person's knowledge of himself does not come from the outside but from within. From here comes the mashal for «everything is revealed and known before Him in a way infinitely higher», like a person who knows and feels within himself the very essence of his limbs and all that takes place in them.
In the next section we will take up the second question: what is that tangible thing that will actually work on a person, when he does not see the King with his physical eyes but only contemplates Him in his mind.