There is great depth in this subject. In chapter 48, which we will learn with G-d's help and come through safely, we will work out every one of its stages. But throughout, we have to keep the main point in view and tie it to what we actually do: the whole purpose of all of this is that a person should remember to give himself over to the will of the Creator.
Let us review what we have said and then move on: «ואילו היתה השתלשלות העולמות מאור אין סוף ברוך הוא בלי צמצומים רק כסדר המדרגות ממדרגה למדרגה בדרך עלה ועלול לא היה העולם הזה נברא כלל כמו שהוא עתה בבחינת גבול ותכלית», that is: had the hishtalshelus (the chain of descent) of the worlds from the Ohr Ein Sof come about without tzimtzumim, through an orderly series of levels alone, one level after the next in the manner of cause and effect, this world would never have been created at all as it is now, as something limited and finite.
Where do we see limit and finitude in this world? The truth is, where do we not see it! The world is full of boundaries and limits, and every single thing has an end and a border. But the sources the Alter Rebbe brings from the Gemara speak of a limitation that is not only in our physical world, but even in the spiritual worlds: Gan Eden, the World to Come, the world of the angels, the angels themselves, and the souls. Everything is limited.
And within limitation itself there are many grades and kinds, just as in our world there are different kinds of limit: the limit of inanimate matter, the limit of vegetation (higher than the inanimate, yet still limited), then animal life, then the human being who speaks, and further levels beyond. Everything sits inside a framework of limit, and not one detail of all this limited existence could have come into being were it not for the concept of tzimtzum.
Even the loftiest spiritual world could not have been created without tzimtzum. The very fact that we define it and say about it that it is a world containing such and such sefiros and such and such matters means we have already drawn its borders and given it a definition. Had there been no tzimtzum, everything would simply be infinite.
The Alter Rebbe lists the levels from below upward. The Gemara says that «מהארץ לרקיע מהלך ת"ק שנה», from the earth to the firmament is a journey of five hundred years. Obviously this is not meant physically; the Gemara is, as it were, defining a measure of five hundred years. «וכן בין כל רקיע ורקיע», and so too between each firmament and the next (and there are seven firmaments), the same distance and the same elevation of a journey of five hundred years, «וכן עובי כל רקיע ורקיע», and likewise the thickness of each firmament. The Alter Rebbe does not elaborate on what these terms mean; he brings them only to teach that even the very highest levels are bounded.
«ואפילו עולם הבא», the World to Come, to which the soul ascends, «וגן עדן העליון - מדור נשמות הצדיקים הגדולים», the upper Gan Eden, the abode of the souls of the great tzaddikim, even that is limited. Even in the abode of the great tzaddikim, the place of one tzaddik differs from the place of another, and what one soul grasps differs from what another soul grasps. That is limitation.
Relative to us, of course, this kind of limitation is as good as limitless. Think of a small child who hears a classmate speaking, or hears a bochur in yeshivah: he understands nothing, and to him these are concepts without end. Relative to him it is infinite, while in truth what the older one says is itself limited, and so on up the ladder. So too the grasp of the souls in Gan Eden is limited when measured against true infinity.
The purpose of it all is the creation of this physical world with a physical human being in it, so that precisely here, within this narrow limit, a person should carry out the will of the Infinite and merit to connect to the Infinite from inside the boundaries, and refine the world. The goal is to arrive at the time to come, at the coming of Moshiach, when this very limited world will host the loftiest revelation of the Infinite. That is the orderly plan behind the whole matter.
Even «והנשמות עצמן», the souls themselves, are limited. On the one hand a soul is something unlimited, but the very fact that we speak of «this soul» and «that soul», that one is different from the other, means that each has a definition of its own. «ואין צריך לומר המלאכים - הם בבחינת גבול ותכלית», and it goes without saying that the angels are in a state of limit and finitude.
It is worth noting that the Gemara, even though these concepts are entirely abstract, uses language that limits and defines the angels' size, as it were, in bodily terms (for it is known that they do have a body of sorts), and even assigns them a kind of space. One example: of Yaakov Avinu's dream it says «והנה סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה», a ladder set on the ground with its top reaching the heavens, «והנה מלאכי אלוקים עולים ויורדים בו», and angels of G-d ascending and descending on it. The Gemara asks: how wide was the ladder? And it answers: eight thousand parsa'os, since each angel measures two thousand parsa'os, and two angels were ascending and two descending, so that four angels stood on it at one time. All of this is the language of aggadah, concepts given entirely by way of parable and hint, meant only to make the idea graspable. The very fact that it is spoken of in terms of dimension and measure comes to teach us that the whole concept of an angel is a limit: a limit to its greatness and a limit to its grasp.
The soul too has a limit. In Gan Eden the soul grasps and derives pleasure from the Infinity of the Creator, and yet, «כי יש גבול להשגתן באור אין סוף ברוך הוא המאיר עליהן בהתלבשות חכמה בינה ודעת כו'», there is a limit to their grasp of the Ohr Ein Sof that shines upon them clothed in chochmah, binah and daas. There is a measure to how much the soul can take in.
It is brought that the souls in Gan Eden are in a state where every single tzaddik has, as it were, a chuppah, a divine radiance that encircles him (a concept that will become clearer later in the chapter), and each tzaddik is scorched by the chuppah of his fellow, he receives a burn from his fellow's chuppah. What does this mean?
One of the explanations is this. A tzaddik occupies himself here in this world with the wisdom of Torah and delves into it, and Torah has many layers: pshat, remez, drush and sod, Kabbalah and Chassidus, a great many approaches. There are tzaddikim who merit to learn one area of Torah, others who merit a different area, and some who merit all of them. And when the soul rises above, «fortunate is the one who arrives here with his learning in hand»: the divine delight it has there corresponds to what it occupied itself with down here.
Therefore, someone who down here did not merit to engage in a particular area, say in Kabbalah or in the teachings of Chassidus, for whatever reason (because he thought it was not for him, or that he had no need of it), and instead learned the other parts, finds that when he comes above, where the truth of everything is revealed, it suddenly becomes clear to him that there is tremendous power also in those parts of Torah that he never reached. He wants to reach them, and he sees another tzaddik, another soul, that possesses the divine radiance that belongs to it, and he cannot get there, because he did not engage in it. That pain, the pain of a desire that cannot be fulfilled, is what the Gemara describes as being «scorched by the chuppah of his fellow». All these descriptions come to teach that there is a certain limit even in Gan Eden.
So limitation exists on every single level, and its source is the Ohr Ein Sof. Had the Infinite descended without tzimtzum, nothing at all would have been created: not this world, not the World to Come, not Gan Eden, not angels and not souls. For they too have a limit, and consequently there is a limit to their pleasure as well.
And this is why, regarding the souls in Gan Eden, «ולכן יש גבול להנאתן שנהנים מזיו השכינה ומתענגים באור ה'», there is a limit to the pleasure they take in the radiance of the Shechinah and the delight they find in the light of Hashem. Their pleasure is indeed immense, but it is bounded, «כי אין יכולים לקבל הנאה ותענוג בבחינת אין סוף ממש, שלא יתבטלו ממציאותן ויחזרו למקורן», because they cannot receive pleasure and delight that is literally infinite without losing their very existence and returning to their source. You cannot pour into a vessel more force than it is able to hold; all the more so you cannot put into an angel more force than it can hold, and even into a soul you cannot put more than it can contain. And so everything is bounded.
The answer to the question of why everything is limited is one word: tzimtzum. An immense tzimtzum took place in order to produce this limit, and its purpose is that the Creator's infinity should not be felt by the created being. The Creator's infinity is present within the creation at every moment; the function of the tzimtzum is to place a very heavy shutter over the creation's eyes, so that it does not sense that infinity. And this is possible only through the One who «does wonders»: to be fully present here, and at the same time to give the creation the sense that it does not perceive Him.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: «והנה פרטיות הצמצומים איך ומה אין כאן מקום ביאורם», the particulars of the tzimtzumim, how and what they are, this is not the place to explain. Note that it is not one tzimtzum but many tzimtzumim, and here is not the place to detail all their aspects. «אך דרך כלל הן הם בחינת הסתר והעלם המשכת האור והחיות», but in general terms they are a concealing and hiding of the flow of the light and the life-force, so that the infinite light should be in a state of concealment, «שלא יאיר ויומשך לתחתונים בבחינת גילוי להתלבש ולהשפיע בהם ולהחיותם להיות יש מאין», that it should not shine and flow down to the lower beings in a revealed way, to clothe itself in them, to give to them and to enliven them so that they exist as yesh me'ayin, something from nothing.
For if the light were revealed within them, there would be no «yesh» at all, only «ayin», always: a creature that constantly feels its source is not itself, and it becomes itself only when it does not feel its source. Hence there must be tzimtzum, and that is the only way the creature will not sense its source, even though its source is with it at every moment.
It is worth pointing out that none of this denies revelation. Even within the tzimtzum there are very great revelations. The revelation experienced by the souls in Gan Eden also comes after tzimtzumim, and yet that revelation is as good as infinite relative to our perception and our concepts. But there must be a concept of tzimtzum, and that is what defines and bounds the whole matter.
To summarize: in this section we learned that had the flow of influence come by way of cause and effect and not by way of tzimtzum, this world would never have been created as something limited and finite. We saw that every level is bounded: this world in its grades of inanimate, vegetative, animal and human; the firmaments and their measures; Gan Eden, the World to Come and the abodes of the tzaddikim; the angels, of whom the Gemara speaks in terms of measure and size; and even the souls, whose grasp and whose pleasure are limited, since they cannot receive pleasure and delight that is literally infinite without losing their very existence. The purpose of it all is the creation of this physical world, in which a person fulfills the will of the Infinite from within the limit, leading up to the lofty revelation that will take place in this world in the time to come. And the only way this is possible is through tzimtzum, the concealing and hiding of the flow of light and life-force, so that there can be yesh me'ayin.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 48 and go deeper into the matter of tzimtzum and limit.