We have reached chapter 44, which begins on folio 62 (page 124). Let us open with a brief review of what we learned in the previous chapter, chapter 43, and that review will serve as the introduction and the doorway into the chapter before us.
In chapters 41 and 42, and in the first part of chapter 43, we dealt at length with yiras Hashem, the fear of G-d, and its various levels. From there we moved, in the last lesson, to the concept of ahavas Hashem, the love of G-d. We mentioned that in love of G-d there are two general levels: ahavas olam, and a higher level than it, ahavah rabbah.
Ahavas olam: the term does not mean that a person loves the world. He loves the Holy One, blessed be He, except that the revelation of this love was reached by means of the framework of the world. A person uses his intellect, which is one of the most wondrous things within the framework of the world, and contemplates the world and the greatness of the Creator who creates and enlivens the world and everything that happens in it at every single moment, and that contemplation gives birth within him to a love of the Creator. Even if he should reach a far deeper level of contemplation, until he recognizes the divine revelation that is above the world, and senses that the world is nullified, naught and nothing, even then his point of departure is still the world: he contemplates the divine power that enlivens the world and concludes that all of it is naught and nothing. It turns out that he has built story upon story upon a foundation of the world, and that is why this love is called ahavas olam, a love drawn from the world.
Ahavah rabbah: a revelation of love for the Creator that appears in a Jew not because he contemplated, labored and arrived at conclusions, but as a gift from Above. The Holy One, blessed be He, grants him a revelation as a gift, so that he should have feeling and attraction to G-dliness. (As we mentioned in the previous chapter, this gift is not handed over sight unseen, as merchandise passed to a dealer. There has to be a preparation beforehand, so that there should be vessels and so that there should be someone to whom to give the gift. But the gift itself comes from Above.)
Each of these two levels has an advantage and a shortcoming:
The shortcoming of ahavas olam: it is limited. We should all be worthy of attaining ahavas olam, and not everyone reaches it, but since he arrived at it through contemplation within the framework of nature and the framework of the world, the maximum emotion that can be born of it is extremely limited. It is similar to what the Zohar says about the difference between the first and second Batei Mikdash and the third: the first and second were a «binyana de bar nash», a building built by human beings, and therefore they did not endure eternally; whereas the third Beis HaMikdash is a «binyana de Kudsha Brich Hu», a building built from Above, and therefore it stands eternally. So too ahavas olam is like a building built by a human being, a structure that a person erected through his own contemplation and his own conclusions, and therefore it has a limit, and the intensities it can reach are bounded.
The advantage of ahavas olam: when a person loves and is drawn, he knows exactly about what and why. It is defined for him: he contemplated a particular level and a particular matter, and that led him to a clear love. Things sit settled and orderly within him.
The advantage of ahavah rabbah: it is «rabbah», great, an arousal that a person received as a gift from Above, and therefore it is without measure and without limitation. It is like the «binyana de Kudsha Brich Hu», received as a gift from Above.
The shortcoming of ahavah rabbah: the person himself does not feel order and structure within it. He has attraction, arousal and excitement, but things are not defined and arranged within him as they are in ahavas olam.
Let us turn to the words of the chapter: «והנה כל מדרגת אהבה מב' מדרגות אלו אהבה רבה ואהבת עולם נחלקת לכמה בחינות ומדרגות לאין קץ, כל חד וחד לפום שיעורא דיליה», every level of love among these two levels, ahavah rabbah and ahavas olam, divides into countless aspects and gradations, each one according to his own measure. In other words, each of the two levels we mentioned is not one single stamp. When we say «ahavas olam», many levels are included in it, and they have no end and no boundary. The reason is simple: each and every person according to his own measure and according to his own capacity.
And this depends on the many personal factors that shape the result:
The basic factors, which are not up to the person at all: from which level his soul is drawn, nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah; and within each of these there is a nefesh of nefesh, a ruach of nefesh, and so on without end.
The personal factors: what intellectual capacity he has, what power of contemplation he is able to reach, what level of concentration, what depth and what refinement of thought.
No two people are identical to one another, and it therefore follows that the result is not the same in everyone; it corresponds to who he is. That is why every level divides into aspects and gradations without end and without boundary: as many Jews as there are, that is how many ways there are for a person to arrive at understanding, and consequently at the arousal of feeling in the heart that flows from it.
«כמו שכתוב בזהר הקדוש על פסוק נודע בשערים בעלה», as is written in the holy Zohar on the verse «her husband is known in the gates». The Alter Rebbe brings the words of the holy Zohar on the verse in Mishlei, «nodah bashearim baalah». The «husband» is a metaphor: the Holy One, blessed be He, is called, as it were, the husband, the master of the house of Israel, and the Jewish people are in the aspect of the wife. The verse comes to tell us that we can know the «husband», the Holy One, blessed be He. And how is He made known to us? «Bashearim», in the gates, which is also read from the word shiurim, measures: every person has his own measure and his own capacity, and likewise his own «gate», his own direction and his own path, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, becomes known to each person in the manner suited to him. And if we were to ask how many levels there are in love of G-d, the answer is without end and without measure, as many as the number of gates that exist, which is boundless.
And in the language of the Zohar: «בעלה דא קודשא בריך הוא דאיהו אתידע ואתדבק לפום מה דמשער בליביה וכו'», «her husband, this is the Holy One, blessed be He, who is known and attached according to what one measures in his heart». «Baalah», her husband, this refers to the Holy One, blessed be He; «de ihu isyeda», that He is known. And there is a precision to note here: the word «isyeda» comes to render the verse's word «nodah», known. But the Zohar adds a further word, «ve'isdabak», attached, meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, is also bound up with every single Jew, «lefum mah dimsha'er belibeih», according to what he gauges and estimates in his heart, according to what he is able to reach.
Why does the Zohar add the word «ve'isdabak»? After all, it comes to explain the verse «nodah bashearim baalah», and seemingly it should have stayed with the wording of the verse and rendered «nodah» as «isyeda». The answer is that the Zohar takes a step forward: when the greatness of the Creator becomes known to a Jew, that knowledge works upon him to draw him close to the Creator, and closeness in our context means love, for love is closeness and attachment. The knowledge does not remain mere knowledge; it is the opening and the means that lead to feeling and to love. The Zohar therefore includes both: «isyeda», and together with it «ve'isdabak», which is the result contained within the knowledge, the love that is born of the knowledge. And all of this in each and every person according to his own measure.
This idea is hinted at as well, as one of the sefarim brings, in the words of Dovid HaMelech in Tehillim (chapter 135): «כי אני ידעתי כי גדול ה' ואדונינו מכל אלוקים», «For I know that the L-rd is great, and our L-rd is above all gods». Seemingly, what does the word «ani», I, add here? By saying «I know», the «I» is already included. The explanation is: «ani yadati», I know, no one else in the world knows the way I know, and I too do not know what he knows. The «yadati» is personal, and each and every person knows in accordance with his own level and his own feeling.
This is true even in physical matters. When a person says «I had a wonderful feeling», can anyone gauge exactly what it was that he felt? Every person feels according to his own makeup, his habits, his knowledge and his own assumptions; it depends on many factors, and in the end he says «I felt such and such», but the next person will feel otherwise. Two people can eat the same food and each will have a different sensation, or hear the same music and react in a different way. So it is in spiritual matters as well, and all the more so: the more abstract and spiritual the matter, the more utterly personal each person's grasp of it becomes.
Therefore all the levels of love we have been discussing are deeply personal. In ahavas olam this is obvious, since it is built through a person's own labor of contemplation and immersion in a personal way. But even in ahavah rabbah, which is a gift from Above and which seemingly should be identical in everyone, it is not so, because even a gift that comes from Above is received into a person's vessels and becomes clothed in them, and that depends on his state, on his relationship to the matter and on the way he feels it.
Since all the existing levels of love differ from person to person, «ולכן נקראים דחילו ורחימו», therefore fear and love, dechilu urechimu, which is the Aramaic for yirah and ahavah, the world of feeling, are called in the language of the verse «the hidden things»: «הנסתרות לה' אלקינו», «the hidden things belong to the L-rd our G-d». And why hidden? Because no person can gauge the feeling that exists in his fellow, and he will never be able to gauge it, for he will never be that other person. You are you and he is he, and you cannot know precisely what is happening within him and how he experiences the matter. Only «to the L-rd our G-d», who knows in each and every person what is taking place inside him. (And although great tzaddikim may well know, for they are included in «to the L-rd our G-d», in itself the matter is hidden and inward, and is not in the category of something revealed.)
And what, then, is revealed? «ותורה ומצות הן הנגלות לנו ולבנינו לעשות כו'», «and the Torah and mitzvos are the revealed things, for us and for our children, to do». The intent is the fulfillment of the practical mitzvos: putting on tefillin, affixing a mezuzah and the like. The tefillin that Moshe Rabbeinu puts on are, in principle, the very same tefillin that the simplest person puts on. We are not speaking of the intentions he has while putting them on, nor of his thoughts and feelings, but of the physical, material thing, of the deed itself, and in the deed there is no difference between them. The deed is something revealed; one can see whether it was done or not. And the reason is: «כי תורה אחת ומשפט אחד לכולנו», «for there is one Torah and one law for us all». For all of Israel there is one Torah and one law, and in practical matters there is no difference between one person and another, «בקיום כל התורה והמצוות בבחינת מעשה. מה שאין כן בדחילו ורחימו, שהם לפי הדעת את ה' שבמוח ולב כנ"ל», «in the fulfillment of the entire Torah and the mitzvos in the aspect of deed. This is not so with fear and love, which are according to the knowledge of G-d in the mind and heart, as above». The realm of feeling is a result of knowledge, and knowledge is in each and every person according to his gate and according to what he «measures in his heart».
After all of the above, the Alter Rebbe arrives at the point with which this chapter deals: «אך אחת היא אהבה הכלולה מכל בחינות ומדרגות», «but there is one love that is composed of all the aspects and gradations». There exists one level of love that is blended of and includes all the levels that exist, that is, that contains both «אהבה רבה ואהבת עולם», ahavah rabbah and ahavas olam, the two of them together. And seemingly, how can they be joined? Ahavas olam is a love that a person generated through his own work, while ahavah rabbah comes as a gift from Above. The answer is that there is one love which exists in such a way that it is composed of all the aspects and gradations of both ahavah rabbah and ahavas olam.
In summary: in this section we reviewed the two general levels in love of G-d. Ahavas olam, which is built through contemplation from within the framework of the world, is defined and orderly but limited, a «binyana de bar nash», a building made by man. Ahavah rabbah, which comes as a gift from Above, is without measure and without limitation but lacks order and structure. We learned at the opening of chapter 44 that each of the two levels divides into countless aspects and gradations, «each one according to his own measure», as the Zohar says on «nodah bashearim baalah», that He «is known and attached according to what one measures in his heart», for knowledge gives birth to love, and each person according to his own gate and his own measure. For this reason dechilu urechimu are called «the hidden things that belong to the L-rd our G-d», as opposed to the practical mitzvos, which are «the revealed things», in which «there is one Torah and one law for us all».
In the next section we will take up that one love which is composed of all the aspects and gradations, and the two levels that the Alter Rebbe describes within it.