In the previous section we established that every act of contemplation runs through the faculty of binah, and we met the particular kind of contemplation that the Alter Rebbe calls «gevuros elyonos d'binah», the higher gevuros of binah. Now we turn to the content of that contemplation, and to what sets it apart from the contemplation of the right line.
There is a contemplation whose very subject matter leads a person toward fire, ascent, the left side; and there is a contemplation whose subject matter leads toward water, descent, the right side. Here is how the Alter Rebbe lays it out:
Contemplation of the right line (water, chesed): a person reflects on the power and the beauty of the world, «מה רבו מעשיך ה', מה גדלו מעשיך ה'», how manifold and how great are Your works, Hashem. And because he has learned pnimiyus haTorah, he knows that this vast and beautiful world does not exist on its own, God forbid; a divine power brings it into being and gives it life out of nothing at every single moment, as the verse says, «לעולם ה' דברך ניצב בשמים», forever, Hashem, Your word stands firm in the heavens: the divine speech stands there and creates anew every moment. When he dwells on this at length and trains himself in it, he no longer sees a world that exists by itself, but a world that the Almighty is keeping alive, and he is moved and aroused to be bound up with the Creator who brings everything into being and sustains it. This contemplation is true, necessary and important, but it does not lead to the conclusion that one must flee the world and step out of its order. On the contrary: its whole structure assumes that there is a reality, there is a world, there is an order, only that the Almighty is the one conducting it all. And its conclusion is to connect to the Creator, to live in an orderly way, and to keep the Torah and mitzvos that are His will.
Contemplation of the left line (fire, gevurah): this is the contemplation our chapter is speaking about, and in general the chapter is describing a person whose spiritual level is extremely lofty. He is not contemplating the world and how the Creator contracts Himself in order to create it. He is contemplating the greatness of the Creator Himself, who is the one true reality, next to whom the whole existence of the world takes up no space at all and is simply nothing. And what does he conclude? What is there to busy myself with the world, which is nothing? Why should I occupy myself with the footnote of a footnote when I could turn directly to the Ein Sof, to the one true reality? More than that: the world gets in his way. It is like a man standing at the wedding of his only son and getting excited about the ice cream being served in the hall. Once there is a main thing, one does not make a fuss over the trivial. The conclusion of such a person is to run away from this reality, from this world, and to have nothing to do with it at all.
In the Alter Rebbe's words: «דהיינו שעל ידי התבוננות בגדולת אין סוף ברוך הוא דכולא קמיה כלא ממש חשיב», that is, through contemplating the greatness of the Ein Sof, before whom everything is considered as literally nothing. The entire vast world that the eye beholds counts for nothing in relation to Him, utterly null. And if he has a broad mind and a broad heart to grasp this, then «תתלהט ותתלהב הנפש ליקר תפארת גדולתו ולהסתכל ביקרא דמלכא», the soul blazes and flames toward the precious splendor of His greatness, to gaze upon the glory of the King. The soul catches fire to attach itself to the preciousness and beauty of the Creator's greatness, and not to the world, which for her is nothing but an obstruction. And «gazing» here means an inner bonding with the glory of the King.
«כרשפי אש שלהבת העולה למעלה ונפרדת מהפתילה והעצים שנאחזת בהן», like sparks of fire, a flame rising upward and separating itself from the wick and the wood it has taken hold of. This is the nature of fire, the left line: a force of ascent, of escape, of separation. Fire in nature always rises upward, and if it is found down here it is only because it has been held in place by a wick or by logs. Even after it has taken hold of them it does not rest for a moment but keeps leaping, because it has never given up its true desire to rise upward.
And the analogue: «נר ה' נשמת אדם», the lamp of Hashem is the soul of man. The neshamah is fire, and her constant desire is to rise upward; it is only the wick and the wood, the physical body and the like, that hold her down. (In Likkutei Torah the Alter Rebbe explains the difference between a wick and wood: fire that takes hold of a wick is a finer fire, while fire that takes hold of logs is coarser, and so too with whatever it is that holds the neshamah down here.) The fire is always burning in him; he simply does not feel it. But when he engages in the kinds of contemplation that fan that fire, the fire in his heart is revealed, and it demands of him that he flee this reality, flee the wick and the wood. «והיינו על ידי תגבורת יסוד האש אלקי שבנפש האלקית», and this comes about through the intensifying of the divine element of fire within the divine soul: a person strengthens the fire element of his soul in the manner of gevurah, to break out, to ascend, to be lifted upward.
We mentioned that gold belongs to the left line and silver to the right line, and this needs explanation. In practical terms, one does not buy bread and milk at the grocery with gold; someone who shows up to pay in gold will be sent home. Gold is certainly more precious, but precisely because it is more precious it is not «current with the merchant», it is not used for trade, whereas silver is current with the merchant.
There is a striking statement in the Midrash: the world was not worthy of using gold, so why was it created? For the sake of the Beis HaMikdash. In other words, the world as it was originally created had no business containing gold at all, and the Almighty created it thousands of years in advance only so that there would be gold in the Mishkan and in the Mikdash.
Chassidus asks: surely everything in the world was created to be used for Torah and mitzvos, so why is it said specifically about gold that the world is not worthy of using it? The answer is that gold, even now that it is here, does not really belong to the world. It is not a useful item in the day to day life of creation; it is something special and precious that is kept in a safe. Even today the world is not worthy of using gold, because gold does not belong to the reality of the world.
And the same is true in spiritual terms: a love that is in the category of gold does not produce a world, it produces flight from the world. This love says: I cannot get along with the world, the world is in my way, the world is as nothing. This is «the world was not worthy of using gold»: the line of gevurah, the quality of fire, from below upward.
In Maseches Bava Metzia there is an entire chapter called «Perek HaZahav», the chapter of gold, which deals with the laws of kinyanim, acquisitions. We are not going to learn the Gemara here in detail, and whoever wants the fine points should look inside, but a brief background is in order. What is a kinyan? When a person wishes to buy an object from his fellow, there are set ways in which the acquisition is made. And what is its function? A kinyan is the demonstration that the seller has made up his mind and truly resolved to transfer the object into the buyer's possession. It is a kind of proof that reveals what the seller's intent was.
So what is the law when a person hands his fellow money? He comes to his fellow and asks to buy the wheat in his field for a certain sum, and he puts the money in his hand. Seemingly the wheat is already his. But the Gemara concludes that the Sages instituted that money does not effect the acquisition until the buyer actually lifts up the wheat. Why? For a very practical reason: if money did acquire, then when a fire breaks out the seller would say to himself, I already have my money, the wheat is not mine, it belongs to so and so, what do I care if it burns, and he would not rush to save it. But when he knows that the money he received has not yet made the wheat the buyer's and it is still his, and that he could even back out of the deal, he will run and do everything he can to save it.
And there is another type, kinyan chalifin, acquisition by exchange. Many people have seen at a simchah or an engagement how someone lifts up an object, a handkerchief, a yarmulke, a gartel, and everyone calls out «mazel tov». Its source is in Megillas Rus, where the kinyan was made by removing a shoe. The idea is this: when one of the parties lifts up the object, he thereby demonstrates that he has made up his mind and resolved on the matter, and so the Torah established that the lifting of the object effects the acquisition.
Now to our subject. If a person wants to buy a sack of silver coins from his fellow and says to him, I will give you gold, and by your lifting the gold you will acquire the sack of silver for me, the acquisition is valid. But the reverse, wanting to buy a sack of gold from his fellow by having the fellow lift up the silver, is not a valid acquisition. In the language of the Mishnah in Perek HaZahav: «הזהב קונה את הכסף, והכסף אינו קונה את הזהב», gold acquires silver, and silver does not acquire gold.
And the upshot is fascinating: gold is not regarded as money but as a precious commodity, while silver is regarded as money. And the rule is that kinyan chalifin is not made with money, only with a commodity. One never makes this kind of acquisition with coin; one lifts a handkerchief, a gartel, a sefer or some other object, but one does not lift money. And why is gold considered a precious commodity rather than money? Because it is not current with the merchant and one does not make purchases with it.
The point for our subject is this: gold is exceedingly precious, and precisely because of its preciousness it flees the world and exits ordinary reality. So too the love that is in the category of gold, whose conclusion is ascent from below upward.
The Alter Rebbe continues: «ומזה באה לידי צמאון», and from this one comes to thirst. The contemplation whose conclusion is the quality of fire brings a person to thirst, which belongs to fire, to heat and to dryness. When he wants something with everything he has and cannot attain it, he arrives at a burning thirst, «וכמו שכתוב צמאה לך נפשי», as it is written, my soul thirsts for You. And when the thirst persists and he still has not attained what he seeks, he comes «ואחר כך לבחינת חולת אהבה», and afterward to the state of being lovesick, for one who wants something so badly and does not attain it becomes ill from it. And finally, «ואחר כך בא לידי כלות הנפש ממש, כמו שכתוב גם כלתה נפשי», and afterward he comes to an actual expiring of the soul, as it is written, my soul has also pined away: he wants to leave the body entirely and give himself over completely.
Here a precise point is worth noting. For thirst the Alter Rebbe brought a verse, and for the expiring of the soul he brought a verse, but for «lovesick» he brought no verse, even though there are verses on the subject. Why?
The Rebbe explains: the chapter is speaking about a person on an extremely lofty level, and about such a person one could well ask how thirst applies to him at all. Thirst comes from a lack, whereas the divine soul is, in the language of chapter two of Tanya, «חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש», literally a part of God above. What could she be lacking? The Alter Rebbe therefore had to bring proof that even on such a level thirst does apply. Dovid HaMelech, of whom it is said «וליבי חלל בקרבי», my heart is slain within me, and who was a tzaddik, is the one who said «צמאה לך נפשי», my soul thirsts for You. And where did he say it? In the wilderness of Yehudah, as the opening of the psalm states, and just before that he says that he is «בארץ ציה ועייף בלי מים», in a parched and weary land without water. Dovid HaMelech had only just left Yerushalayim, the holy city, for the desert, and already he felt the lack there. From here we learn that even one whose divine soul is lifted up can experience thirst, because the higher level is not in his grasp.
For «lovesick» he needed no verse, since it is simply a fact of life that one who feels thirst and does not attain what he seeks becomes lovesick.
But for the expiring of the soul he brought a verse, and was precise in citing the words «גם כלתה נפשי», my soul has also pined away. And what comes just before it? «נכספה וגם כלתה נפשי», my soul longed and also pined away. «נכספה», from the word kesef, silver, alludes to the level of love that is in the category of silver, and after it «וגם כלתה נפשי», the love that is in the category of gold. That is why he cited the inclusive wording with its «also», to teach us that even one who stands on a lofty level arrives at such a thirst.
«והנה מכאן יצא שורש הלוים למטה», and from this emerged the root of the Leviim below. The Leviim belong to the line of gevurah, as opposed to the Kohanim, who belong to the line of chesed.
And here a question presents itself. According to everything we have said, the love that is in the category of fire is like gold, and gold is more precious than silver; yet in practice the Kohanim stand higher than the Leviim. How do these two fit together?
To summarize: in this section we learned about the contemplation that comes from the side of «gevuros elyonos d'binah». As against the contemplation of the right line, which brings a person to recognize that the Almighty brings the world into being and sustains it at every moment, and which strengthens one's avodas Hashem within the world's order, the contemplation of the left line is a contemplation of the greatness of the Ein Sof, before whom everything is considered as literally nothing, and it brings the soul to blaze like sparks of fire, to rise and separate itself from the wick and the wood. We examined the difference between silver and gold, both in the Midrash, that the world is not worthy of using gold, and in the ruling of the Mishnah in Perek HaZahav that «gold acquires silver and silver does not acquire gold», and we learned that a love in the category of gold is so precious that it does not belong to the reality of the world at all. We also saw the unfolding of the levels: thirst, lovesickness, and the actual expiring of the soul, along with the Rebbe's explanation of the precise verses the Alter Rebbe chose to cite.
In the next section we will deal with the root of the Leviim below, and with resolving the question of how the superiority of the love in the category of gold fits with the superiority of the Kohanim over the Leviim.