In the previous installment we laid out the fundamentals of how to contemplate the faculties of the soul. In chapter 51 the Alter Rebbe speaks also about the very highest level of the soul and explains how utterly abstract it is, but his main subject is the intermediate level between the two. What is that intermediate level?
There are three general levels in the soul:
The etzem hanefesh, the essence of the soul as it is in itself, entirely abstract.
Chai be'etzem, «living in essence», the first power to emerge from the essence of the soul. This is the intermediate stage between the abstract essence of the soul and the faculties as they come to expression in the limbs.
The faculties as they are vested in the limbs: the power of sight in the eye, the power of hearing in the ear, and so on.
Regarding the essence of the soul as it is in its highest, primary source, one cannot even attribute to it the life force that animates a body. Why not? Because the very capacity to animate a body is already a definition, and the soul in itself is so abstract that no definition fits it at all, not even this one. It is something completely abstract, which cannot be grasped and cannot be defined.
The first point about which anything at all can be said is the very lofty power that is drawn forth from it, called in chassidus chai be'etzem. This is an extremely abstract power, and in certain places it is even referred to as etzem hanefesh because of its great loftiness, as if it were called by the name of its own higher source. Why is it defined as chai be'etzem? Because it is already defined to the extent that from here onward nothing will issue from it except life force to animate a body, and not other things. From the primary source, which is entirely abstract, matters unrelated to animating a body can also emerge. But once it has contracted and descended to the level called chai be'etzem, this is a level from which only the life force that animates the body will come.
Within this level itself, in relation to the limbs, two kinds of life force are included:
General life force: every limb of the body is alive in a general way. The finger, the heart, the leg, the eye, all of it is alive, without yet entering into the differences between them.
Particular life force: as the life force descends and contracts still further, it no longer remains general but divides into each and every limb.
All of this is still at the upper station, while the life force is still in its source and has not yet descended into the eye, the ear and the mouth. Nevertheless, included in it already are both a general life force and a particular life force. Only afterward does there come from it a power in the eye, a power in the ear, and so on.
This brings us back to the question we touched on in the previous installment: the division into sight, hearing, speech, movement and the rest of the senses, where does it begin? Does it begin in the limbs, or does it already begin at that upper point which has not yet descended into the limbs? The answer is that the division begins at the upper point, in the soul itself.
At first glance one might compare this to a spring whose water is all one uniform color, flowing out into different pipes: a red pipe, a blue pipe, a green pipe. Each pipe lends the water flowing through it a different color, and an onlooker sees red water, green water and blue water. In this analogy the color did not begin in the mountain but in the pipe: at the spring the water is uniform, and only in the pipe does the change occur.
Accordingly, one might have said that the same is true of the soul: the power in the soul is an abstract, spiritual power with no definition at all, and only upon being vested in the body does it divide. The moment it enters the eye it expresses itself as sight, upon entering the ear as hearing, upon entering the mouth as speech. So from where do we know that this is not the case, but rather that the division already exists in the soul itself, and that the eye receives specifically a power of sight from the soul?
The proof the Tanya brings here is simple. Let us return to the analogy of the colored water in the pipes. When you pour the «colored» water back into the spring, colored in quotation marks, since it is not truly colored but only appears so because of the pipe, the water in the spring will take on one uniform color, its original color.
In the analogue: once the life force is in the limbs, there is a situation in which it returns from the limbs back to the source. And not only when the soul leaves the body, but all the time: a living person feels what is happening within him. When someone steps on his finger, the sensation travels back to the source, and from there he senses that there is a problem in that place. Now, if the division began only in the limbs, then at the moment the sensation returns to the soul it should have been registered there as one uniform sensation, and there would be no difference at all between being stepped on in the foot, pricked in the eye or struck in the ear. But in reality the sensation in the soul is different in each case: here a sensation of a problem in sight, here a sensation in hearing, and here a sensation in the power of movement.
This is a sign that the division of the faculties, the senses and the life force begins in the soul itself and not in the limbs. In other words, that intermediate level we spoke about, the power that contains within it the source for being a life force for the limbs, already contains within it the potential for the division into the different categories of senses and faculties. It is all included within it even before it descends below into the actual limbs, while it is still in the soul itself.
All of this sounds like philosophy about the soul, but the Tanya shows that these levels can also be located in the place where they reveal themselves in the body. The essence of the soul, the highest level we have discussed, is in itself abstract, and one cannot say of it «where it is» and «where it is not». But that level which has already descended, called chai be'etzem, from which come the general life force and the particular life force, is found in the body in a specific place: the brain in the head.
The brain in the head is a limb that houses intellect, just as the eye houses sight and the ear hearing. But beyond its particular role as a specific part of the body responsible for a certain kind of power and sense, it has another crucial role: it is the first station. The general power called chai be'etzem, which includes within it both general and particular life force, after it has divided within itself all the kinds of life force and faculties, is included in its entirety in the brain in the head, and from the brain in the head the life force is dispatched to all the various places.
This is why, when a person feels pain in his hand or pain in his eye, the sensation returns to the brain in the head, and it is the brain that receives the «report». That divided life force, which is already divided in the brain and was dispatched to the eye because the eye is a fitting vessel for it, when it returns to the brain because of the problem, the brain senses that in the power of sight that was sent out there is such and such a problem. And although we are speaking of abstract matters, it is evident even in the physical structure of a person: the nervous system and all these sensations are under the charge of the brain, to which the sensations are sent and from which they go out.
When we speak of the various faculties we speak in general terms, and we mentioned four of them: sight, hearing, speech and movement. But as the Alter Rebbe is precise here, we are not dealing with only 613 categories corresponding to the 248 limbs and 365 sinews. The 613 are general categories, and each one of them includes within it many particulars. This amounts to a multiplicity incomparably greater than 613.
Take the power of sight, for example. As it exists in its source, at that level called chai be'etzem from which the power of sight emerged, it is a «species of the power of sight» that includes within it countless particulars:
Distance and focus, and how far the sight reaches.
Physical sight and spiritual sight.
The sight of a good eye and the sight of an evil eye.
The sight of a tzaddik and the sight of a wicked person, up to and including the sight of which the Gemara says, «he set his eyes upon him and he became a heap of bones».
And likewise a person who becomes refined, whose power of sight begins to see things correctly, to see them with a positive eye, and so forth. All of this is contained in one single faculty of the soul called the «species of sight». It turns out that sight alone includes within it so many modes and varieties, and the same is true of hearing, and the same of speech.
In summary: in this installment we learned about the three levels in the soul: the abstract essence of the soul, which cannot be defined even by the definition of a life force that animates a body; the intermediate level called chai be'etzem, from which onward there issues only life force to animate a body, and which includes within it both general and particular life force; and the faculties as they are vested in the limbs. We saw that the division of the faculties and senses begins in the soul itself and not in the limbs, as proven from the fact that the sensation returning from the limb to the soul is not uniform but differs with each sense, unlike the analogy of the colored water returning to the spring. We also identified where this level is located in the body, the brain in the head, from which the life force is dispatched to all the limbs and to which the sensations return. And we saw the enormous multiplicity within the faculties, which does not stop at 613 general categories, since each faculty contains within it innumerable modes.
In the next installment we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's explanation in this chapter, and with the application of all this to the G-dly matter which this entire analogy was brought to illustrate.