With G-d's help we have reached the middle of chapter 51. We stopped at the end of page 71b, and now we begin page 72a, with the new passage that opens with the words «וככה ממש על דרך משל» (And exactly so, by way of analogy) (page 43). In the previous lessons we worked at length through the analogy of the soul and the body; in this section we will review the main point, and from there turn to the nimshal, the lesson itself.
The Alter Rebbe opened the chapter with a question: what exactly do we mean by «hashroas haShechinah», the resting of the Divine Presence? The expression is used about the Holy of Holies, and about other places of which we say that the Shechinah rests there. The question is this: on the other hand we are familiar with the phrase «מלוא כל הארץ כבודו» (the whole earth is filled with His glory), and with «לית אתר פנוי מיניה» (there is no place empty of Him). If so, what does it mean that the Shechinah rests specifically here, when it is present everywhere? To explain this, the Alter Rebbe brought an analogy from a person's own soul and body, based on the verse «מבשרי אחזה אלוקה» (from my flesh I behold G-d).
When we examine the relationship between the soul and the body, we find that the life-force present in every limb does not merely keep the limbs alive so that they should live and not die. It also gives each individual limb its particular qualities and functions: sight to the eye, hearing to the ear, speech to the mouth, walking to the legs, and so on. The way this life-force is drawn from the soul into the limbs of the body takes place in three stages, and these stages are a necessity; it cannot work any other way.
The three stages in the analogy:
The first stage, the essence of the soul: the neshamah as it is in its abstract state, about which one cannot say that it is clothed here or there, for it is above all of that entirely. It is present in all parts of the body equally, and there is no relationship at all between it and the limbs of the body, because the moment there is a relationship, immediately there is a higher limb and a lower limb. The essence of the soul is abstracted from any particular quality, and one cannot say of it that it shines more here and less there; one cannot even apply to it the concept of being clothed in these limbs or those places in order to enliven the body.
The second stage, the level called «chai be'etzem», alive in essence: this is the intermediate stage, and in the maamarim of chassidus that is its precise name. It is the source of life, yet it still contains no details and no divisions; one cannot say of it, this is eye and this is ear, this is walking and this is speech. And nevertheless, all the details and all the faculties are already present there, only that they are concentrated and held in a loftier, higher form. It is a kind of way-station: from the abstract essence of the soul the life-force has descended to a level that contains all the qualities, all the abilities and all the details, and it is the source from which sight, hearing, walking and the rest will later emerge. The very definition of it as a source for these things tells us that there is already a relationship between them, and from there things descend and contract into each individual limb.
The third stage, the individual limbs: when we look at the 248 limbs and 365 sinews, each limb in its place, we see defined qualities that function in this way and not another, qualities that are found specifically in this limb in this manner, and in that limb in a different manner. This is the stage that is visible in actual practice.
Where the intermediate stage reveals itself:
Of the first stage we said that it has no particular place; it is everywhere and it is undefined. The last stage we can define explicitly: where is it found, sight in the eye, hearing in the ear, and so on. But what about the intermediate stage, which holds all the qualities and all the powers concentrated together: does it have a place in which it is revealed? The answer is yes, and its place is the brain in the head. The brain is the first station that receives both the general life-force and the particular life-force that will afterwards descend to each limb and to each and every place. The brain is also what directs all the body's affairs, and it is what senses when a problem arises in one of the limbs after that limb has already received its specific power: the matter travels back to the central station from which everything came, and so things go out and come back.
For this reason the halachah rules that when a pile of stones has collapsed on people on Shabbos and we come to check whether they are alive or dead, we check up to his nose, and there we check whether the life-force is still present; and on that basis we know whether to continue desecrating Shabbos in order to save him. This is because that is the place most bound up and connected with that root point, where one is able to check whether the life-force is still there.
At the end of the previous page, when the Alter Rebbe described how the life-force is drawn from the brain to all the limbs and to all the particulars, he used this expression: that it is like the light of the sun that shines into the innermost chambers. In other words, the relationship between the second stage, the brain, and the limbs, is the relationship of a light that illuminates. What is the emphasis in comparing it specifically to light? This emphasis will return in the nimshal as well, but let us dwell on it already now.
This is a point discussed a great deal in the maamarim of chassidus, and we have already mentioned it on one occasion in earlier lessons: why do the mekubalim call the descent of Divine life-force by the name «ohr», light, «ohr ein sof», «the Divine light», and not by the name «shefa», flow or influx?
«Shefa» is a term for an influence that descends from a source to the destination it is meant to reach. Every shefa must detach itself from the place it came from, and in that way it passes over to the second place. For example, water descending from a well or a spring into the houses is called shefa, as in the expression «שפעת מים» (an abundance of water): the water that arrives in the houses is no longer present in the source it came from. It was there beforehand, and now it is missing there; it detached itself from the source and arrived at the place it was sent to. For this reason every descent of shefa is controlled and calculated: a flow of water descends through the appropriate pipe to the appropriate destination.
There is also a spiritual shefa: when a teacher conveys an intellectual idea to his student, that too is called shefa. On the face of it nothing is missing from the teacher's own knowledge, but in a certain sense, while he is engaged in teaching, in order to teach the student he is forced, as it were, to detach himself from his own world, from his own level and from the depth he normally belongs to, and to descend to the level of his student: to weigh which words will suit the student's level and which analogies to give him. At that moment he is cut off from his own world. He cannot remain on his own level and have the student somehow receive the material automatically; he must detach himself, involve himself in the matter and come down. That is «shefa».
In summary: in this section we reviewed the main point of the analogy of the soul and the body, the three necessary stages in the drawing down of the life-force: the abstract essence of the soul, which has no relationship and no place; the level of «chai be'etzem», in which all the details are concentrated in a loftier form, and which is revealed in the brain in the head; and the particular, defined qualities in each and every limb. We dwelt on the place of the intermediate stage in the brain, and on the halachah of checking up to the nose that follows from it. We also opened up the phrase «כדמיון האור המתפשט ומאיר מהשמש לחדרי חדרים» (like the light that spreads and shines from the sun into the innermost chambers), and the definition of «shefa»: an influence that detaches from its source, descends in a controlled manner, and is missing from the place it came from, both in physical shefa and in spiritual shefa.
In the next section we will define «ohr» as opposed to «shefa», and from there we will turn to the explanation of the nimshal: the matter of the resting of the Shechinah.