We have arrived at chapter 49 of the Tanya, on page 68b (page 136). The whole run of chapters we have been learning now reaches its central point.
Let us first review where we have come from. From chapter 46 onward the Alter Rebbe has been explaining how every Jew can awaken and kindle in his heart a love of Hashem by a quick and easy route, in a way that truly is «very close to you.» The foundation he built on is the principle of «as water reflects a face back to a face, so does the heart of man to man»: contemplating what the Holy One does for a person awakens in him a great love to do, on his part, for Him.
Chapter 46: the parable of a person who sees what another is doing for him, especially when that other is a great king. Then he returns that love doubled and redoubled and does everything in his power, once he sees how great a love is being shown him. On this foundation came the long explanation of the Holy One's love for the Jewish people in taking us out of Egypt.
Chapter 47: a Jew has to know that the Exodus is not merely a historical event; it has to be lived every single day.
Chapter 48: we learned at length that the very existence of the world, at every moment, is an enormous descent and a tremendous tzimtzum (contraction) that the Holy One undergoes in order to create this world. For that purpose we dwelt at length on the concepts of «without limit» and «Ein Sof»: the divine power that is unbounded, as against the worlds we know, which are bounded and contracted. For in order for a finite world to exist at all, it cannot be receiving the infinite and still remain finite, and therefore a tzimtzum was necessary.
Now, here in chapter 49, the Alter Rebbe sums up in his opening lines several more kinds of tzimtzum, but he mentions them only briefly, since, as he says, this is not the place to elaborate. His whole aim is to sharpen for us just how many contractions there are before our physical reality comes into being, and from there we will arrive at the conclusion, which is the destination of this entire sequence of chapters.
Let us begin with the language of the chapter: «והנה אף כי פרטי בחינות ההסתר וההעלם אור אין סוף ברוך הוא», «And although the particular levels of concealment and hiddenness of the light of the Ein Sof.» These are the details of tzimtzum, in which the Creator, as it were, hides Himself. He is here, only that He conceals and hides Himself from our eyes so that we not perceive Him, for if we were to grasp Him we would not exist. And all these levels of hiddenness and concealment of the infinite light are «בהשתלשלות העולמות עד שנברא עולם הזה הגשמי», «in the hishtalshelus (chainlike descent) of the worlds until this physical world was created.» For there is a descent through a great many worlds, and each step down from world to world is a new and immense contraction.
There are two kinds of tzimtzum, quantitative and qualitative:
Quantitative tzimtzum: a wise man who wants to convey his wisdom to an ordinary person has to contract the force, the depth and the breadth of the intellectual idea so that it comes down to the level of an ordinary person. If he wants to explain it to a child, he contracts it further; to a toddler, further still (and King Solomon knew how to come down three thousand levels). All of these are quantitative contractions: everything remains within the realm of intellect, the distance from level to level can be measured, and even at the lowest level it is still an idea.
Qualitative tzimtzum: can you take an intellectual idea, even a very simple one, that one plus one equals two, and explain it to a cat? By gradual descent it will never reach the cat's level. If you want to bring something down to its level, you would first have to know the language of birds and palm trees and how to deal with them. And even if it were possible to bring something down to the level of an animal, that is not a quantitative descent but a qualitative one, an entirely different domain, a contraction of a completely different kind.
So it is with the worlds. The descent from world to world, from the world of Beriah to the world of Yetzirah to the world of Asiyah, is a contraction on a completely different plane, and within each individual world there are many further contractions. That is why the Alter Rebbe continues that the contractions leading up to the creation of this physical world «עצמו מספר», «are too numerous to count,» an enormous multiplicity that cannot be counted or itemized, «ומינים ממינים שונים», «and of many different kinds,» for even the contractions themselves are not all of one type. «כידוע לטועמים מעץ החיים», «as is known to those who have tasted of the Tree of Life.»
Who is familiar with these concepts and knows how to understand them? Those who have tasted of the Tree of Life. In general, «Tree of Life» is a name for the inner, mystical dimension of Torah: the entire body of Kabbalah and the hidden Torah is called «the Tree of Life,» while the revealed Torah is called «the Tree of Knowledge» (and later in Tanya, in Iggeres HaKodesh, which we learned in the previous cycle, it is explained at length why). More specifically, one can say that the reference is to the sefer Etz Chaim of Rabbi Chaim Vital, in which all these concepts of the contractions are explained at length. Those who have tasted of the Tree of Life, both in the specific sense of that sefer and in the general sense of the hidden Torah and Kabbalah, are familiar with these matters.
Three general categories of tzimtzum: «אך דרך כלל הם שלשה מיני צמצומים עצומים כלליים», «but in general terms there are three kinds of immense, general contractions.» Even though we are not familiar with the full multiplicity of contractions, since they «are too numerous to count,» in very broad terms there are three kinds. And even this broad outline the Alter Rebbe writes with the utmost brevity, in ten lines: three kinds qualitatively, and within each one a multitude of contractions quantitatively.
And why three? «לשלשה מיני עולמות כלליים», «corresponding to the three general categories of worlds.» In the order of the spiritual worlds there are three general categories, and the descent from world to world is a tremendous contraction. This is not comparable to the descent from a human being to an animal, but far greater, for a human being and an animal both exist within the same physical world. Here we are speaking of a descent from one world to another, and we have no conception or grasp at all of the magnitude of contraction that this requires.
«ובכל כלל יש ריבוא רבבות פרטים», «and within each general category there are myriads upon myriads of particulars.» Within each such world there is an enormous multiplicity of individual contractions, from level to level, like the descent from the level of an adult to a child, and from a child to a younger child. And this physical world stands at the very bottom of the entire ladder, after all that multiplicity of contractions. For the essence of a tzimtzum is that the Creator conceals and hides His infinite light, and every additional concealment and hiddenness makes the thing more and more limited.
«והם שלשה עולמות בי"ע», «and they are the three worlds of BY'A,» the initials of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. Immediately a question arises: are there not four worlds? What about the world of Atzilus? To this the Alter Rebbe answers: «כי עולם האצילות הוא אלקות ממש», «for the world of Atzilus is literally G-dliness.» Although it is called a «world,» it is not included in these contractions, because its entire essence is literally G-dliness. Hence its name, Atzilus, which means both «emanation» and, from the word etzlo, «with Him.» The worlds below Atzilus, by contrast, are called worlds of yeshus, of «somethingness»: yeshus means an independent existence, as it were, whereas elokus means He Himself.
An illustration to bring the idea closer, from the soul of man: when we hear a person speak on a given topic and deliver a lecture in some field, that is no proof of who he actually is. He may be reciting something that deep down he does not believe in at all and does not even understand, and he may say things he has no grasp of whatsoever. Like the story of the professor who lectured at length against smoking, and in the break between one lecture and the next went out for a cigarette, and in the following lecture again explained at length why one must never under any circumstances pick up a cigarette. And there is no contradiction, because what he says is not the man himself.
It emerges that a person's speech is an external layer of him and is not the person himself. As we learned at the beginning of Tanya, thought, speech and action are called garments, and even thought is counted among the garments. And what is the person himself, what is the soul itself? As the Alter Rebbe writes in chapter 3: the understanding and the emotions. If we could imagine having an instrument that shows us not what a person says but what he understands and what he loves, we would be touching his essence. A person's understanding and his love are already he himself, even though they are something defined and measured.
The same may be said of the world of Atzilus: although it is a world, and it contains ten sefiros, it is G-dliness; whereas the worlds below it are already an existence of yesh, of «something.» This is not the place to elaborate on the difference between Atzilus and Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, so we will leave it brief for now.
[And as for the souls that are from the world of Atzilus and are themselves G-dliness, and nevertheless are found within the realm of yesh: the soul is indeed a soul of Atzilus, only that being within a body, the body limits it and conceals it in a certain way.]
It is worth noting that everything said here is in very general terms. In other maamarim of chassidus it is explained that even for the world of Atzilus to exist a tzimtzum is required; it is just that here we are speaking only of the main, general levels. There is a concept whereby, from a very broad perspective, the world of Atzilus is already reckoned within the category of Beriah, and there is a difference between the general division into four worlds and the more detailed division, and this is not the place to enter into it. In the more precise reckoning, the world of Atzilus is called «the world of G-dliness.»
In any case, for the three worlds below Atzilus to come into being a tzimtzum is required, and since they are three worlds, there are three kinds of contraction, which the Alter Rebbe now details.
The first contraction: «וכדי לברוא עולם הבריאה, שהן», «and in order to create the world of Beriah, which consists of.» What is found in the world of Beriah?
«נשמות», «souls.» In general, souls are from the world of Beriah, apart from the special souls called souls of Atzilus.
«ומלאכים עליונים», «and the higher angels.» Most angels are from the world of Yetzirah, and only the higher angels are found in the world of Beriah. This point has already come up earlier in Tanya: in the gloss at the beginning of chapter 39 the Alter Rebbe said that there are very lofty angels who are in the world of Beriah, and therefore he mentions them here too.
In summary: at the opening of chapter 49 the Alter Rebbe sums up with the utmost brevity the many levels of concealment and hiddenness of the light of the Ein Sof in the hishtalshelus of the worlds, until this physical world was created, contractions that «are too numerous to count,» of many different kinds, known to those who have tasted of the Tree of Life. We clarified the difference between a quantitative tzimtzum and a qualitative one, and learned that in general terms there are three kinds of immense, general contractions corresponding to the three worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, and within each general category myriads upon myriads of particulars. The world of Atzilus is not counted among them, since it is literally G-dliness, as illustrated by the example from the soul of man, where the understanding and the emotion are the person himself, unlike the garments of thought, speech and action. Finally we began with the first contraction, through which the world of Beriah was created, which contains the souls and the higher angels.
In the next installment we will continue with the details of the contractions of the worlds of Yetzirah and Asiyah, and we will see where the Alter Rebbe is leading this entire sequence of chapters.