Before we continue with the Alter Rebbe's words, let us briefly sum up the great principle we have learned so far about what the tzimtzum (the divine contraction) accomplishes. Before the tzimtzum, the divine light was unlimited; the tzimtzum brought it about that the light should be limited. It follows that the light the tzimtzum concealed is the unlimited light, whereas the limited light was not concealed at all: it is precisely this light that gives the world its life and sustains it.
Now, if the limited light is not concealed, and it is what animates the world, we would expect the world to reveal and proclaim the divine light that gives it life. Yet when we look at the world we see the very opposite: the world cries out «I am, and there is nothing besides me», as though nothing were giving it life at all. How are we to reconcile this?
The answer lies in understanding the concept of helem, concealment. When we say that something is concealed, this can be understood in two ways:
Concealment because the thing never arrives: the thing remains where it is and has not come here, and therefore it is hidden from here.
Concealment because the lower party does not feel it: the thing has indeed arrived and is right here, only that the lower one is not prepared to see it; it shuts its eyes and does not sense it.
An example of the first kind: the letters of thought. The letters of speech are heard by every ear, but a person's thought is hidden from anyone else, and no one knows what his fellow is thinking. Why is another's thought hidden from him? Because the thought never reached him at all; it remained in the thinker's head and never came out, and since it never came out, it is concealed. This is concealment because the thing does not arrive.
An example of the second kind: the soul that animates the body. The maamarim of chassidus ask: how do we know that the life in the body comes from the soul? Perhaps the body is alive on its own? And several proofs are brought: when a person sleeps, a large part of his senses is withdrawn, and at death the life force departs entirely, from which we see that the vitality comes from the soul.
The very fact that such a question can be asked, and that a proof is needed for it, is itself revealing: it is a sign that the matter is not obvious at all, and that without the proof a person might well err and suppose that the body lives of itself. And since the truth is that the soul animates the body, we must ask: how could such a notion even enter one's mind, even as a mere fantasy?
The answer is that the body conceals the life force, and the reason for this concealment is especially striking: the soul's vitality entered the body with such force, and became so united with the body's innermost being, that the body is able to imagine it is alive on its own. This is not a concealment stemming from the life force being absent from the body; on the contrary, it is present in it with the greatest intensity. Rather, the body's eyes are sealed shut, and so it can become confused and think that it lives all by itself.
The two modes of concealment in the divine light:
The unlimited light: its concealment is of the first kind. The tzimtzum brought it about that it should not arrive and not shine in the world.
The limited light: its concealment is of the second kind. It does arrive, it is present, and it animates every single detail; only that the world has become so united with the light that it does not feel at all that its vitality comes from the divine light, and it can imagine that it lives of itself.
From here follows the conclusion: the Holy One contracted His light so that the divine light should not reach the world in a revealed way, for had it shone revealed, the world could not exist as an entity at all. In order for there to be a world in its limited form, there is, as it were, no alternative: the light must be in a state of concealment and tzimtzum, and only then can a world exist.
Until now the Alter Rebbe has been speaking in terms of the analogy; now he moves to the nimshal, the subject itself:
וכך ממש היא בחינת ההארה מועטת זו המתלבשת בעולמות עליונים ותחתונים להשפיע בהם להחיותם«And exactly so it is with this diminished radiance that clothes itself in the upper and lower worlds, to flow into them and give them life.» The radiance became diminished through the tzimtzum, and it is this radiance that clothes itself in all the worlds, from the highest of them to the lowest (all of which exist only after the tzimtzum), bestowing upon them their existence and giving them life.
לגבי ערך אור הגנוז ונעלם שהוא בבחינת אין סוף«in comparison with the value of the light that is stored away and hidden, which is in the category of Ein Sof.» This is the unlimited light, which as a result of the tzimtzum became stored away and hidden, and its concealment is of the first kind: as it were, it never arrived here at all. Relative to this light, the diminished radiance has no value whatsoever and takes up no place at all.
ואינו מתלבש ומשפיע בעולמות בבחינת גילוי להחיותם, אלא מקיף עליהם מלמעלה ונקרא סובב כל עלמין«and it does not clothe itself and flow into the worlds in a revealed way to give them life, but rather encompasses them from above, and is called sovev kol almin.» The infinite light was not erased and did not cease to be; it exists in the mode of Ein Sof. It is only that in relation to all the created beings that came into existence after the tzimtzum, it exists over them in the mode of makif, an encompassing light, and its name in the teachings of chassidus is sovev kol almin, that which encircles all worlds.
The limited light: it is present in a revealed way within the creature itself, in the inanimate in the manner of the inanimate, in the vegetative in the manner of the vegetative, and in the animal in the manner of the animal.
The unlimited light: it too is present in the world, but not in a revealed way, rather in the mode of makif, sovev kol almin.
What is this mode of sovev kol almin? This is a very great principle that must be understood well and firmly absorbed, so that one does not err in it, neither with a crude error nor even with a subtle one. And indeed, the Alter Rebbe goes on to rule out a mistaken understanding: «And the meaning is not...», that is to say, let the student not mistakenly understand it in such and such a way, but rather in such and such a way.
In summary: In this section we summed up what the tzimtzum accomplished: the unlimited light became hidden, while the limited light is what gives the world its life. We examined two modes of concealment: concealment because the thing does not arrive (like the letters of thought, which are hidden from another person), and concealment because the lower one does not feel it even though the thing is present within it with full force (like the soul's vitality, which the body conceals). Accordingly, the unlimited light is concealed because it does not arrive, while the limited light is concealed because the world has become so united with it that it does not feel it. From this we learned that the tzimtzum took place so that a limited world could come into being, and we began the nimshal: the diminished radiance that clothes itself in the worlds has no value whatsoever compared with the stored away light that is in the category of Ein Sof, which does not clothe itself in a revealed way but encompasses them from above and is called sovev kol almin.
In the next section we will first try to understand the expression sovev kol almin as it would be understood without the teachings of chassidus. There is a crude error that does not even need to be refuted, and there is an understanding that the Alter Rebbe does come to reject, and from this we will see what chassidus adds in explaining the matter.