In this chapter the Alter Rebbe completes a subject he already explained at length in chapters 38 and 39, so we will not dwell on it here. Still, in order to follow the lines that come next, let us review it briefly. We learned that emotion arouses spiritual energy and draws it into the deed, and in this way it lifts a physical mitzvah up to lofty levels. In chapter 39 the Alter Rebbe went into detail: where exactly does the deed rise to, and how far does it reach.
As is known in Kabbalah, and at length in Chassidus, we speak in general terms of four worlds: Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. Although Shir HaShirim says «ve'alamos ein mispar», that there are worlds beyond number, the general framework is four. We will not expand on this, since here it appears only in passing; we will cover only what is needed to understand the worlds that are relevant to us, from the bottom upward.
The world of Asiyah is exactly what its name says, the world of «doing». A Jew who performs a practical mitzvah and actually does it, even with no intention and no feeling at all, has fulfilled the mitzvah, but his deed remains in the world of Asiyah. When he invests feeling into it, the mitzvah rises higher than that.
Within the realm of feeling there are two possibilities: natural emotion, the arousal of what already exists by nature in the soul, and emotion that comes through hisbonenus (contemplation), an intellectual emotion. To illustrate the difference: an animal has emotions and a human being has emotions, so what separates them? The animal's emotions are emotions without intellect, a fixed nature that never changes. The raven is cruel and the eagle is compassionate, and that is simply how they behave. A human being also has natural emotions, but he is capable of something higher: emotion born of contemplation, an intellectual emotion, which is on a far higher level.
In this respect even the angels resemble beasts and animals, and this is no insult. The prophet Yechezkel saw in the supernal chariot four faces, among them the face of an ox, a beast, and the face of a lion, an animal, and they are called «chayos hakodesh», the holy creatures. Their limitation is that their love and fear are natural. The soul of a human being, by contrast, is higher than an angel, and he can reach an emotion that comes from contemplation, and thereby lift his service to a world higher than where the angels stand. Most angels are situated in the world of Yetzirah; there are angels on higher levels as well, but they are rare.
From here follows the division of the worlds:
The world of Asiyah: a person who fulfills the mitzvah in deed alone, with no feeling and no intention, remains in the world of Asiyah.
The world of Yetzirah: a person who fulfills a mitzvah and arouses a natural feeling within it raises his deed to the world of Yetzirah.
The world of Beriah: a person who arouses the feeling through contemplation and depth of thought raises his deed to the world of Beriah.
All of this we covered at length in chapter 39, and here we have mentioned only what is needed. Now let us turn to the Alter Rebbe's own words:
«והנה ב' בחינות אהבות אלו, אף שהן ירושה לנו מאבותינו וכמו טבע בנפשותינו», “these two levels of love, even though they are an inheritance to us from our forefathers and are like a nature within our souls”: the two levels of love we studied in the previous section, the level of «nafshi ivisicha», and the level of a son who exerts himself for his father. These loves are an inheritance from our forefathers and are like a nature in our souls. If so, it would seem that when a person arouses them they can lift the mitzvah only to the world of Yetzirah, since this is a natural love.
«וכן היראה הכלולה בהן, שהיא לירא מליפרד ח"ו ממקור חיינו ואבינו האמיתי ב"ה», “and likewise the fear included within them, which is to fear being separated, G-d forbid, from the Source of our life and our true Father, blessed be He”: within that same natural love there is also a fear included, for a person is not only drawn to fulfill the mitzvah, he also does not want to be cut off from it. The desire to be drawn toward the mitzvah is the love; the sense that he cannot bear to be parted from it is the fear.
«אעפ"כ אינן נקראות בשם דחילו ורחימו טבעיים אלא כשהן במוחו ומחשבתו לבד ותעלומות לבו, ואז מקומן ביו"ד ספירות דיצירה, ולשם הן מעלות עמהן התורה והמצות הבאות מחמתן ובסיבתן», “nevertheless they are called natural dechilu urechimu only when they are in his mind and thought alone and in the hidden recesses of his heart, and then their place is in the ten sefiros of Yetzirah, and there they elevate with them the Torah and mitzvos that come on their account and through them”: when a person did not succeed in arousing the feeling openly, but only spoke and thought about the matter and it stayed in his mind, in his thought and in the hidden recesses of his heart, then even though «a good thought the Holy One joins to the deed», the matter remains within the bounds of his natural level and not an actual felt emotion. This is what is called natural dechilu urechimu (fear and love), whose place is in the world of Yetzirah, and there they raise with them the Torah and mitzvos performed on their account.
«אבל כשהן בהתגלות לבו נקרא רעותא דלבא בזוהר», “but when they are revealed in his heart, this is called re'usa delibba in the Zohar”: if the Jew succeeded in reaching a revealed feeling in his heart, the feeling of a son toward his father, and even more than that, as in the parable brought in the previous section from the Rebbe's words to a Jew at a yechidus, a son who has not seen his father and simply yearns to embrace him, and out of that yearning he goes to learn Torah. Then this is not merely the arousal of something natural; he has succeeded in contemplating and arriving at a feeling revealed in the heart.
And what is «re'usa delibba»? «Re'usa» in Aramaic means will, as in «yehei ra'ava kadamach» that we say in Brich Shmei, which means “may it be Your will”. «Re'usa delibba» means the will of the heart: the heart wants. When the matter exists in the heart only by nature, a person does not feel that he wants; and when he does want, that is a sign that the matter is active and aroused within him. This is what the Zohar calls it.
«ומקומן ביו"ד ספירות דבריאה, ולשם הן מעלות עמהן התורה והמצות הבאות מחמתן», “and their place is in the ten sefiros of Beriah, and there they elevate with them the Torah and mitzvos that come on their account”: when a person has reached a revealed feeling, he lifts the mitzvos he performs up to the world of Beriah. And why does it rise to so lofty a world? «מפני שיציאתן מההעלם והסתר הלב אל בחינת גילוי היא על ידי הדעת ותקיעת המחשבה בחוזק והתבוננות עצומה מעומקא דלבא יתיר ותדיר בא"ס ב"ה איך הוא חיינו ממש ואבינו האמיתי ב"ה», “because their emergence from concealment and hiddenness of the heart into revelation comes about through daas, fixing the thought firmly, and intense contemplation from the depth of the heart, abundantly and constantly, upon the blessed Ein Sof, how He is literally our life and our true Father”: reaching a revealed feeling is extremely difficult, and the path to it is a great deal of intellectual contemplation, depth, concentration and sustained thought, from the depth of the heart, in a constant and consistent way that does not let up («yasir vesadir»), contemplating the blessed Ein Sof, how He is literally our life and our true Father. And since this comes as the result of contemplation, it belongs to the world of Beriah.
And why specifically the world of Beriah? «ומודעת זאת מה שכתוב בתיקונים כי בעולם הבריאה מקננא תמן אימא עילאה», “and it is known what is written in the Tikkunim, that in the world of Beriah the supernal mother nests”: «imma ila'ah», the supernal mother, is the Kabbalistic term for the sefirah of Binah. Chochmah and Binah are called «abba» and «imma», father and mother (as was already mentioned in chapter 3): abba is Chochmah and imma is Binah. They are called so quite simply because the middos, the emotions, are the «children», and what gives birth to the children is a father and a mother. Binah expands the matter, much as an embryo over nine months receives the full development of its 248 limbs and 365 sinews.
«שהיא ההתבוננות באור אין סוף חיי החיים ברוך הוא», “which is the contemplation of the Ein Sof light, the Life of life, blessed be He”, and it is this that shines in the world of Beriah. «וכמאמר אליהו: בינה לבא, ובה הלב מבין», “and as Eliyahu said: Binah is the heart, and with it the heart understands”, in the words of Eliyahu HaNavi in Pesach Eliyahu. The heart connects to the understanding of the matter through the depth of daas.
In summary: in this section we completed the subject of the garments. Although the loves we mentioned, «ki Hu chayeinu», «nafshi ivisicha» and «ki Hu Avinu», are an inheritance from our forefathers and are like a nature within our souls, it is in a person's hands to elevate them and turn them into intellectual emotions. If the loves remained merely natural, or remained only in the mind and in thought, their place, and the place of the Torah and mitzvos which are the garments of the soul that come on their account, is the world of Yetzirah. If they were raised into a revealed feeling through intense contemplation and firmly fixing the thought, they elevate the Torah and mitzvos to the world of Beriah, where «imma ila'ah», Binah, shines.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words and complete the explanation of the subject.