In the previous section we studied the many tzimtzumim through which the Holy One, as it were, constricted Himself for the sake of creating man, and the principle of «כמים הפנים לפנים» (as water reflects a face back to a face). From here the Alter Rebbe moves on, and asks a person to act toward his Creator with the very same measure:
"כי ראוי לאדם גם כן להניח ולעזוב כל אשר לו" (it is fitting that a person too should set aside and abandon all that he has) - when a person comes to matters of Torah and mitzvos, he must put aside every calculation and every consideration.
"מנפש ועד בשר" (from soul to flesh) - whether it is something emotional that touches him in his very soul, or a physical craving that touches his flesh: when it stands against Torah and mitzvos, its place is off to the side.
"ולהפקיר הכל" (and to renounce everything) - everything, with nothing held back.
These three expressions are exact. The Rebbe's father, the mekubal Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, explains that the Alter Rebbe is hinting with them at the three tzimtzumim on the side of the Holy One, in the three worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. Just as the Holy One constricted Himself in all of them, so is a person asked to constrict himself in every one of these kinds of tzimtzum.
And all of this for what purpose? "בשביל לדבקה בו יתברך" (in order to cleave to Him) - for the sake of attachment to the Creator and the fulfillment of His will, in a way that nothing in the world stands as an obstacle or a delay. Here too, on the positive side, the Alter Rebbe uses three expressions, "בדביקה חשיקה וחפיצה" (with cleaving, yearning and desire), corresponding to those same three worlds, just as he used three expressions on the side of the pressure and the constriction. A person leaves soul, flesh and everything, and arrives at cleaving, yearning and desire.
"ולא יהיה שום מונע מבית ומחוץ" (and there will be no hindrance from within or from without) - not inner hindrances, such as his thoughts and his emotional concerns, and not outer hindrances of any kind. "לא גוף ולא נפש ולא ממון ולא אשה ובנים" (not body, not soul, not money, not wife and children) - when a thing runs against Torah and mitzvos, there is nothing in the world that may be allowed to interfere. A person has to set the right proportion and the right order of priorities in every single matter, and all of it is measure for measure: «כמים הפנים לפנים».
With this the Alter Rebbe brings to a close the idea he opened at the beginning of chapter 46: explaining to a Jew how he can reach love of G-d by an easy and quick path, on the basis of the concept «כמים הפנים לפנים כן לב האדם אל האדם» (as water reflects a face back to a face, so the heart of man to man).
And from here the Alter Rebbe says: "ובזה יובן טוב טעם ודעת לתקנת חכמים שתיקנו ברכות קריאת שמע" (with this one will understand well the reason and sense in the enactment of the Sages, who instituted the berachos of Krias Shema) - on the basis of what has been said, we will come to a beautiful understanding of a most interesting matter. There is a positive mitzvah from the Torah to recite Krias Shema twice a day, morning and evening, and the Sages of Israel, the Men of the Great Assembly, came and instituted the «berachos of Krias Shema», "שתיים לפניה כו'" (two before it, etc.): in the morning the beracha of «Yotzer Or» and the beracha of «Ahavas Olam», and in the evening the beracha of «Maariv Aravim» and the beracha of «Ohev Amo Yisrael». It is the two berachos before Shema, morning and evening, that the Alter Rebbe is dealing with here.
And the question is: "דלכאורה אין להם שייכות כלל עם קריאת שמע" (for seemingly they have no connection at all with Krias Shema) - what is the link between these berachos and Krias Shema? After all, the beracha on tefillin reads «who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to put on tefillin», and so too the beracha on Torah and the beracha on mezuzah. By rights, a beracha that is called «the beracha of Krias Shema» should have been formulated about Krias Shema: «and commanded us to recite the Shema», or something of the sort. Yet no such beracha exists at all, while on the other hand we say two berachos that do not mention Krias Shema in the slightest, and instead speak of angels and serafim, of the exodus from Egypt and of the love of G-d.
And this is indeed proven from the poskim, as the Alter Rebbe notes: "כמו שכתב הרשב"א ושאר פוסקים" (as the Rashba and other poskim have written):
The view of the Rashba, brought in the Beis Yosef as halacha: someone who recited the entire Krias Shema at its proper time, from «Shema Yisrael» until «Emes», and afterwards comes to daven once the time for Krias Shema has already passed, recites the berachos of Krias Shema without Krias Shema. Now if these berachos were berachos on the mitzvah of Krias Shema, what sense would there be in saying them after he has already recited the Shema? [Rather, they clearly carry a meaning of their own even without Krias Shema.]
The Mishnah in Berachos rules that the final time for the morning Krias Shema is until the third hour, and it adds: «one who reads from then on has not lost out, he is like a person reading in the Torah». The Bartenura explains that he has lost the Krias Shema itself, since its time has passed, but he has not lost the berachos of Krias Shema and he may still recite them. Once again it is proven that seemingly, on the level of nigleh and on the level of pshat, there is no connection between the berachos and Krias Shema.
So two questions sharpen: why are these berachos called «the berachos of Krias Shema»? And "ולמה תקנו אותן לפניה דווקא?" (and why were they instituted specifically before it?) - if they were berachos on a mitzvah, it is understandable that their place is before its fulfillment, like the beracha on tefillin; but if they have nothing to do with Krias Shema, why were they fixed specifically before it rather than after it?
The Alter Rebbe makes clear that the matter can be understood only in light of everything we have learned across chapters 46, 47, 48 and 49. Without them there is no understanding here at all: "אלא משום שעיקר קריאת שמע לקיים בכל לבבך כו'" (rather, because the essence of Krias Shema is to fulfill «with all your heart», etc.). The core and the purpose of Krias Shema is «and you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart».
And what is «with all your heart»? The Gemara at the end of Berachos says: «בשני יצריך כו'» (with both your inclinations, etc.).
The plain meaning in the Gemara: a person is obligated to bless over the bad just as he blesses over the good, to love the Creator both when things go well for him and when they go badly.
And on a deeper, more inward level, as it is usually explained: not only should the yetzer tov love the Holy One, but a person should succeed in turning over even his yetzer hara, so that it too loves the Holy One.
But here the Alter Rebbe brings a different explanation: "דהיינו לעמוד נגד כל מונע מאהבת ה'" (that is, to stand against anything that hinders the love of G-d). «With both your inclinations» means that a person takes his yetzer tov along with him on the way, and when the yetzer hara interferes and holds him back, he gives it no room, he pays it no attention, he carries on and loves his Creator.
And where did he derive this explanation from? From the continuation of the verse, «with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might», as the Sages expounded:
«With all your soul» - «even if He takes your soul», mesirus nefesh: even when the love of G-d collides with his very life, a person bids his life farewell and loves the Creator.
«With all your might» - «with all your money»: even when the love of G-d collides with his money, he bids his money farewell and loves the Holy One.
Consequently the same must be true of the first phrase as well: «with all your heart, with both your inclinations» means that when the yetzer hara interferes with the love of G-d, a person constricts himself, sets the yetzer hara aside, and loves the Holy One.
And still, when the yetzer hara digs in and storms, simply ignoring it is not enough, and here hisbonenus is called for: a person should reflect on just how far the «face to face» goes, how much the Holy One has done and continues to do for him, and how much He constricted Himself, as it were, for his sake in order to create him. In the way of the world, when a person knows that someone has done everything for him without limit, and now that same person asks something of him, while off to the side stands another who says «forget it, pay him no attention», to whom will he listen? Obviously he will do anything for the one who did everything for him. And exactly so with regard to the Holy One.
Alongside the Gemara's explanation that «your heart» means «both your inclinations», the Alter Rebbe brings a further explanation in the word "ולבבך" (and your heart), namely the thing a person loves with his whole heart: "הן האשה וילדיה, שלבבו של אדם קשורה בהן בטבעו" (these are his wife and her children, to whom a person's heart is bound by his very nature). And when the Torah says that something here runs against Torah and mitzvos, he must do the will of G-d.
And this nature itself is no accident, but rather "כמו שאמרו רז"ל על פסוק "כי הוא אמר ויהי" - זו אשה, "הוא צוה ויעמוד" - אלו בנים" (as our Sages said on the verse «for He spoke and it came to be» - this is a wife, «He commanded and it stood firm» - these are children). It is the Holy One Himself who established and implanted in a person the love for his wife and the love for his children (and one who lacks this love is going against the nature the Creator implanted in him). And that very same Holy One who placed this nature within him is the One who says, according to the Torah, that he must do everything for them without limit, and He is the One who says that when the matter runs against Torah and mitzvos, he must do the will of G-d.
"ונפשך ומאדך כמשמעו - חיי ומזוני" (and «your soul» and «your might» as they plainly mean: life and sustenance) - his own life and his own money. And this is «and you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might»: «להפקיר הכל בשביל אהבת השם» (to renounce everything for the love of G-d).
[An important clarification is needed here, so that these words are not taken simplistically. «To renounce» is not a license to be reckless. A person is biased in his own favor, and at times he imagines that he is giving up his wife and children «for the sake of the Holy One», when in truth it is nothing of the kind. This is why we are told «make for yourself a rav»: a person needs proper guidance as to when he should not go to a Torah shiur because of his wife and children, and when he should go to the shiur precisely and not listen to them. He should not act according to whatever rises in his mind, for if he follows his own will he will not necessarily be doing the right thing.
An example: a man heard at a shiur that one must wash his hands every time he gets up from sleep, and he came and told his wife, who gets up eight times a night to feed the baby, that from now on she must wash her hands at each and every rising before feeding him, thereby loading a heavy burden onto her in the name of «the rav said so». When she went to ask the rav, the rav said to the husband: «First of all, what I said is correct and one does need to wash his hands, but this is something the husband has to do.» Let him get up each time, bring the cup and wash her hands, and then she can feed the baby. Dumping the burden onto someone else in the name of halacha is not «renouncing everything», it is simply being reckless.
It is worth adding: in money matters a person is scrupulous and asks again and again, must I give up my money in this case too? Am I obligated to buy specifically the mehudar item and spend another few hundred shekels, or is the cheaper one enough for me? With exactly the same care, and at least as much as with his money, he must ask and be precise when it comes to his wife and children: is this really a place where something must be given up? But it is clear that when it is necessary, it is necessary, because that is what the Torah says.]
And now back to the question. This is the purpose of Krias Shema, and a person needs to know that this is the purpose. And how does one arrive at it? For this the berachos before Krias Shema were instituted. The entire content of the berachos of Krias Shema, as we will explain at length in what follows, is a description of the tzimtzumim by which the Holy One constricted Himself, as it were, for our sake, in order to create us and in order to help us. And that is precisely the subject of chapters 48 and 49 of Tanya.
Immediately after we have told, in these berachos, how the Holy One constricts Himself for our sake, we say «and you shall love Hashem your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might». This is why they are called «the berachos of Krias Shema», and this is why they were fixed specifically before it. For if not, what would suddenly move a person in the middle of the day to demand of himself that he dedicate and renounce everything? Therefore we preface it with a long introduction, the whole content of these chapters, that the Holy One does everything for us. And once we grasp that, we too will do more than everything for Him, in order to join and bind everything to the Holy One.
In summary: in this section we learned that just as the Holy One constricted Himself for the sake of man, so it is fitting that a person «set aside and abandon all that he has, from soul to flesh, and renounce everything», corresponding to those three tzimtzumim, and arrive at «cleaving, yearning and desire», with no hindrance from within or from without: not body, not soul, not money, not wife and children. With this the idea opened in chapter 46 comes to its conclusion. On this foundation the Alter Rebbe explained the enactment of the berachos of Krias Shema, which seemingly bear no connection to Krias Shema (as proven from the Rashba cited in the Beis Yosef and from the Mishnah «he has not lost out, he is like a person reading in the Torah»): the essence of Krias Shema is «with all your heart», and «with both your inclinations» means to stand against anything that hinders the love of G-d, in the same way as «with all your soul» and «with all your might». So too «and your heart» refers to his wife and children, to whom his heart is bound by his very nature, a nature the Creator Himself implanted in him. And for this reason the berachos were fixed specifically before it, as an introduction that tells how far the Holy One constricts Himself for our sake.
In the next section we will turn to the berachos of Krias Shema themselves and to their content, and we will see at length how they describe the tzimtzumim by which the Holy One constricted His light for our sake.