Last time we stopped in the middle of chapter 43, on folio 62a (page 123). Let us review briefly what has been explained until now, and from there continue on, with God's help.
Beginning with chapter 41, and really even before that, the Alter Rebbe opened his explanation of yiras Hashem, the fear and awe of God. This is not merely one topic among the many in avodas Hashem; as he puts it at the start of chapter 41, it is the beginning of one's service, its essence and its root. It is the central matter, the whole of it, and without it a person's service does not count as service at all, and without yirah no holiness rests upon a person. The Alter Rebbe used unusually sharp and forceful expressions on this point, and with them he opened chapter 41. Over the course of these chapters, up to the place where we now stand in the middle of chapter 43, he explained a number of different levels of yiras Hashem.
The two general levels of yirah are these:
Yirah tata'ah (the lower fear), which is bound up with the chitzoniyus, the external dimension, of Elokus (Godliness).
Yirah ila'ah (the higher fear), which is bound up with the pnimiyus, the inner dimension, of Elokus.
What do we mean by external and internal with regard to Elokus? All the worlds, the entire seder hishtalshelus (the chain of descending worlds) down to this physical world, live and exist in every single moment from the Creator who brings them into being, watches over them and occupies Himself with them. But the Divine vitality that occupies itself with the world and with running it is a contracted, limited vitality, a vitality in which the Creator constricted Himself in order to bring a world into existence. This involvement with the creation of the world is called the chitzoniyus of Elokus, as it were the external matter in which He occupies Himself with a world and with created beings. As one of the maamarim puts it: the fact that worlds come into being from Him is not the essence of Elokus; that is only the tzimtzum, the contraction, and the external dimension.
The pnimiyus of Elokus, by contrast, is contemplating the greatness of the Creator, His loftiness and His wondrousness, each matter according to its own content, as He is above any involvement with creation and with the world, in a way in which the world occupies no place whatsoever.
Therefore: when a person contemplates the chitzoniyus of Elokus, the result is yirah tata'ah; and when he contemplates the pnimiyus of Elokus, the result is yirah ila'ah.
And here is the point of difference between them:
Yirah tata'ah: the person who fears still feels his own existence. He is not ashamed of the fact that he exists; he senses that his existence is real, that it has a right to exist and even has virtues. It is only that he fears the King, and there is yiras shamayim in him.
Yirah ila'ah: a fear so inward that the person feels the force of Elokus to such a wondrous degree that he is ashamed of his very existence: who am I and what am I. He feels his own nothingness absolutely.
The Alter Rebbe himself gives an illustration of this in one place, in the difference between fearing a king and fearing a tzaddik:
Fear of a king: the king's entire standing depends on the people, «there is no king without a nation», and it is the people who, by their numbers, make up the king's greatness. It is therefore impossible for the nation to be so nullified before the king that they feel shame at their own existence, since they are the very ones who grant him his kingship. Even when the people are nullified before the king, this is not a true, inner bittul that reaches a sense of absolute nothingness. This is yirah tata'ah.
Fear of a tzaddik: the greatness of the great tzaddik of the generation does not come from those around him; he is great in his very essence. Therefore the fear of one who stands before him is yiras boshes, a fear of shame. He is embarrassed and recognizes his own nothingness before the power of that great man. This is the inner fear, yirah ila'ah.
The fear of reward and punishment is also included in yirah tata'ah, and it is a very low level. Within yirah tata'ah itself there are gradations as well, yiras cheit, yiras Elokim and the like, and we already went through them in detail when we studied the subject. But fear of punishment is lower still, because in the end such a person is an egotist: he does not fear the Creator but himself, and is afraid of what will happen to him. The higher levels are a fear that comes not from worry for oneself but from awe of the King's command. And even within that: if all his contemplation is of the contracted Divine level, the level that constricted itself for the sake of creation, the result will be yirah tata'ah; but when his contemplation is of the Divine as it is above the world, the result will be yirah ila'ah, which is on an incomparably higher plane.
In the last lesson we went into the particulars: what it means to contemplate the nothingness of the world, and to contemplate the Divine power in relation to which the world is utterly null and void. This was brought by way of the analogy of sunlight, in which there are two ways of looking:
The light outside the sun: one can look at the sunlight as it already is, having emerged from the sun and warming the world, and understand that the light exists only because the sun exists and is dependent on it. But in this contemplation one still attributes to the light its own power and importance: the light really is significant, only that one grasps that it does not exist on its own; the moment the clouds cover the sun it will disappear. At this level of contemplation one does not arrive at the light being utterly null: it gives energy and warmth and makes plants grow, it is only that its power is not independent but dependent on its source. The nimshal: a person contemplates that the entire world is brought into being at every single moment by the Divine power that creates it, and that without that Divine power it does not exist. But the conclusion of such contemplation is not that it is nothing; after all, it is a fact that the Creator occupies Himself with it, brings it into being and gives it life, so it is indeed a reality.
The light within the body of the sun itself: just as there is light outside the sun, there is light within the globe of the sun, and necessarily so, for if the light shines to such distances, it certainly shines within its own source. And nevertheless, there the light has no standing and no reality at all, because the only reality that exists there is the reality of the sun. The nimshal: there is a way of seeing in which the world is so utterly nullified, so completely null and void and absorbed in its source, that it has no standing and no reality at all. Such contemplation gives birth in a person to yiras boshes and to absolute bittul.
From here we continue with the Alter Rebbe's own words, on the second line from the top of folio 62, in the passage that begins: «אך אי אפשר להשיג יראה וחכמה זו», «But it is impossible to attain this fear and this wisdom».
How can a person reach such a level? On the face of it we are asking of him a thing and its opposite: to come to the understanding and recognition that he himself does not exist, that he is utterly null, and that the entire reality of the world is null and void. And who is it that arrives at this recognition? He himself. What will give a person the strength to grasp, to feel, and to connect to such a power?
To this the Alter Rebbe answers that it is impossible to attain this fear and this wisdom «אלא בקיום התורה והמצות על ידי יראה תתאה החיצונית», «except through the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos by means of the lower, external fear». To reach the higher level there is an order: first a person must have yirah tata'ah, from the alef-beis, from the ground up.
This is what Rabbi Yochanan told his students: may the fear of Heaven be upon you like the fear of flesh and blood. A person refrains from sin because he sees that people are watching him, and that awareness alone already works on him. So too, first a person should know that there is an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and that knowledge will produce in him a basic yiras shamayim, out of which he will want to keep Torah and mitzvos. Afterward he can rise higher, for the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos turns a person into a vessel through which he can reach the higher level of yiras Hashem: yirah ila'ah, yiras boshes.
To summarize: we reviewed the two general levels of yirah. Yirah tata'ah comes from contemplating the chitzoniyus of Elokus, and in it a person still feels his own existence; yirah ila'ah comes from contemplating the pnimiyus of Elokus, and in it he reaches yiras boshes and absolute bittul. This was illustrated by the fear of a king as against the fear of a tzaddik, and by the analogy of the sunlight outside the sun as against the light within the body of the sun itself. And we learned that this fear and this wisdom cannot be attained except through the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos out of the external, lower fear, for it is they that make a person into a vessel for yirah ila'ah.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words and see just how Torah and mitzvos turn a person into a vessel for yirah ila'ah.