In the previous section we looked at the inner sense through which the soul knows everything happening in the limbs of the body, a knowledge that does not come from outside information but from the soul's union with the body. [So much so, that a person whose hand has been amputated may still feel sensation in it, because this is not an external perception but an internal one.]
In the text as it stands before us a printer's error crept in, and the Rebbe wrote a lengthy note on the matter: instead of וכל מה שמתפעל בהם it should read וכל מה שמתפעל מהם (everything he is affected by them, rather than in them). Two reasons for this. First, what happens in the limbs themselves he has already mentioned: כל מה שנעשה בהם, everything done in them, cold and heat and the like. Second, if the subject were what is done in the limbs, the word מתפעל (is affected) would not fit; the word would be נפעל (is acted upon). So the intent is what a person is affected by from the limbs themselves: not what some outside factor does to the hand, but what the hand itself brings about. If he has been carrying packages for a long time, he becomes tired; if he has been running his limbs at a rapid pace, it immediately affects the rest of his functioning. The limbs have an effect on him.
It emerges, then, that the Alter Rebbe is counting three distinct items in the soul's knowledge of the body:
What is done to the limb itself: cold, heat and so on.
The very existence of the limb: the soul senses the limb and knows that it has such a limb.
What the limb does to the person: fatigue and the like.
This entire system he knows and feels in his brain, with no information arriving from outside at all, only information that comes from within.
From the mashal to the nimshal: from here the Alter Rebbe returns to the question with which he opened. How can we say of the Holy One, blessed be He, עין רואה ואוזן שומעת, an eye that sees and an ear that hears? To this he says: וכעין ידיעה זו, על דרך משל, יודע הקב"ה כל הנפעל בכל הנבראים עליונים ותחתונים (and with a knowledge of this kind, by way of analogy, the Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything that occurs in all created beings, upper and lower). He knows all that happens in all the worlds, the higher ones and the lower ones.
And this is a kal vachomer. The soul did not create the body or its limbs; it was placed into the body, and once it entered, it became so united with it that whatever happens in every single detail of the body is known to it and felt by it immediately. How much more so the Holy One, blessed be He, who created everything and gives life to everything, who certainly knows all that happens in every single detail of creation, להיות כולם מושפעים ממנו יתברך (since all of them receive their flow from Him), as in the verse כי ממך הכל, for everything is from You. The entire world draws from Him, and therefore there is in the Creator a constant awareness, at every single moment, of everything that happens.
Accordingly, when we tell a Jew עין רואה ואוזן שומעת, this is not a seeing and hearing like that of a physical eye and ear, for it carries none of their limitations. In truth it is far more than an eye and an ear: seeing and hearing are external knowledge, while here the knowledge is internal and constant, at every single moment. This is כמו שכתוב וגם כל היצור לא נכחד ממך (as it is written, and no creature is hidden from You). There is no detail in creation that is forgotten or that slips out of the Creator's constant awareness.
This principle is brought as follows: וכמו שכתב הרמב"ם, והסכימו לזה חכמי הקבלה, כמו שכתב הרב משה קורדוברו בפרדס (as the Rambam wrote, and the masters of Kabbalah agreed with this, as Rabbi Moshe Cordovero wrote in the Pardes), meaning that the Kabbalists too concurred with the Rambam's words: שבידיעת עצמו כביכול יודע כל הנבראים הנמצאים ממציאותו אמיתית (that by knowing Himself, as it were, He knows all created beings that derive their existence from His true existence). Since all creatures come from the Creator's true existence, He being the only true existence, the knowledge with which He knows Himself includes the knowledge of all created beings, just as in the mashal, where the soul knows and feels every detail in the limbs.
Immediately afterwards the Alter Rebbe stresses: רק שמשל זה אינו אלא לשכך את האזן (but this analogy is only meant to soothe the ear). The mashal he drew from the relationship of soul and body is given only to make the idea bearable to the ear, since the words of Torah are expressed in human terms and we have no other way to explain. אבל באמת אין המשל דומה לנמשל כלל (but in truth the analogy bears no resemblance whatsoever to the subject it illustrates). The precision is in the word כלל, at all: he does not merely say that the mashal is not similar to the nimshal, but that it is not similar at all, because not all the details of the mashal exist in the nimshal. The third item (the limb's effect on the person) does not exist in the nimshal at all, and even the first two are not present in the same way.
And here is the explanation of the difference: כי נפש האדם, אפילו השכלית והאלקית, היא מתפעלת ממאורעי הגוף וצערו, מחמת התלבשותה ממש בנפש החיונית המלובשת בגוף ממש (for a person's soul, even the intellectual soul and the divine soul, is affected by what befalls the body and by its pain, because it is literally clothed in the vital soul, which is literally clothed in the body). In broad terms there is a nefesh haElokis and a nefesh habahamis, which is the vital soul; in more detailed terms we divide it into three: the vital soul, the intellectual soul and the divine soul. All these levels are affected by the body. The body affects the vital soul that enlivens it, and it affects even the divine soul: when the divine soul wants to learn and to daven and the body is tired, troubled or confused, the body gets in its way. Every soul that is clothed in the body is affected by it.
The reason for this is that the Holy One, blessed be He, made such a union between soul and body that the soul does not merely influence the body from a distance but is literally clothed in it, and the meaning of a garment is total adherence in both directions. Take it literally: a person wearing a torn garment, or a fine and dignified garment, feels differently in each case. If there is a small stain on his shirt and someone points it out to him, he is uncomfortable the whole time, and when he changes his shirt he feels relieved. The garment affects the one wearing it, precisely because it clothes him. So too with the relationship between body and soul: the soul is clothed in the body, the body is its garment, and therefore the body affects it.
But in the nimshal, אבל קב"ה אינו מתפעל ח"ו ממאורעי העולם ושינוייו (but the Holy One, blessed be He, is not affected, Heaven forbid, by the events of the world or its changes), and furthermore ולא מן העולם עצמו, שכולם אינם פועלים בו שום שינוי ח"ו (nor by the world itself, for none of them produce any change in Him, Heaven forbid). He is affected neither by the events of the world, nor by its changes, nor by the very fact that a world exists. [A person who has bought a car walks around his house in a good mood over the very acquisition, even while the car is parked outside and he is at home. With the Holy One, blessed be He, the existence of a great and wondrous world produces no change in Him whatsoever.] And with all this He knows, senses and watches over, and nothing is hidden from Him, exactly as in all the expressions used earlier: He looks, He listens, He gives ear.
This, then, is the difference between the mashal and the nimshal. Between body and soul the influence is mutual: not only does the soul enliven the body, but the body causes weakness and distraction to the soul. In the nimshal the influence runs in one direction only: He creates everything and knows everything, and the world neither disturbs Him nor limits Him. The mashal, therefore, helps us only with the first of the three items.
והנה כדי להשכיל זה היטב בשכלנו (now, in order to grasp this well with our intellect), that is, to understand intellectually how the world has no effect on Him at all and yet He watches over every single detail, כבר האריכו חכמי האמת בספריהם (the masters of truth have already discussed this at length in their books). חכמי האמת, the masters of truth, is a title for the Kabbalists. For in our frame of reference, whoever is aware of what is happening is also affected by it, and here we are asked to understand a matter of two opposites.
And immediately afterwards he adds: אך כל ישראל מאמינים בני מאמינים בלי שום חקירת שכל אנושי (but all Israel are believers, the children of believers, without any investigation of the human intellect). Every Jew believes this with certainty and simplicity, as we say every morning: אתה הוא עד שלא נברא העולם, אתה הוא משנברא העולם, You are the same before the world was created, You are the same since the world was created. The very same description, with the world and without it, as mentioned above.
At first glance this is puzzling. On the one hand he went to length with an explanation, with a mashal, and with a clarification of why the mashal does not resemble the nimshal, and he referred us to the books of the masters of truth for further explanation; and then immediately he says that all Israel simply believe. If so, why not open with that from the very start, and answer the question of how such a thing can be by saying that all Israel believe it and that is enough? Why go to length with the explanation and then conclude by stating that one can essentially remain with faith?
In summary: in this section we looked at the textual correction וכל מה שמתפעל מהם, and at the three items in the soul's knowledge of the body: what is done to the limb, the very existence of the limb, and the limb's effect on the person. From here we learn the nimshal, וכעין ידיעה זו יודע הקב"ה כל הנפעל בכל הנבראים, with a kal vachomer from the soul, which did not even create the body, and on the basis of the words of the Rambam and the Ramak that by knowing Himself He knows all created beings that derive their existence from His true existence. We also saw that אין המשל דומה לנמשל כלל, the analogy bears no resemblance at all, since the soul, even the intellectual and the divine soul, is affected by what befalls the body because it is clothed in it as in a garment, whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, is not affected by the events of the world, by its changes, or by its very existence, and yet not a single detail is hidden from Him.
In the next section we will take up this very question: what is the combination of intellectual explanation and simple faith, as the Alter Rebbe addresses it in the continuation of the chapter.