In the previous sections we mapped out the three stages. Everything in the division now before us belongs to stage three: here there is a division both in quantity and in quality, and here the concealment is far greater. Let us return to the words of the Tanya itself.
“להחיות העולמות והברואים שבהם, שהעולמות העליונים מקבלים כל אחד כפי כחו ותכונתו את בחינת ותכונת ההמשכה הפרטית אשר אין סוף ברוך הוא ממשיך ומאיר לו” (“to give life to the worlds and the creatures in them, for the upper worlds each receive, according to its own capacity and character, the particular quality and character of the flow which the Ein Sof, blessed be He, draws down and shines to it”). Every creature, and likewise every single limb, receives the divine life force according to its own makeup. The “Ein Sof, blessed be He” spoken of here refers to stage two, that level called Shechinah, which draws life force to each and every creature and transmits it down into stage three.
“והתחתונים אפילו הרוחניים אינם מקבלים מבחינת גילוי כל כך, רק בלבושים רבים אשר אין סוף ברוך הוא מלביש בהם החיות והאור אשר ממשיך ומאיר להם להחיותם” (“while the lower ones, even the spiritual among them, do not receive in a revealed way to the same degree, but only through many garments in which the Ein Sof, blessed be He, clothes the life force and the light that He draws and shines to them in order to give them life”). There are upper worlds that receive a greater life force, and there are lower worlds. And within the lower worlds themselves there are gradations: more spiritual and more physical, just as we see in this physical world a division between higher creatures and lower ones.
The whole function of a garment is to cover. On the one hand it conceals, and on the other hand it reveals a little: from a person’s clothing you can tell whether he is rich or poor, tall or short, but you cannot see through it into the inner qualities of his soul. A garment conceals far more than it reveals.
In the upper worlds there are no garments at all, and the only thing distinguishing one world from another is “according to its capacity and character.” In the lower worlds there is already a garment, and even among garments there are levels: there is a thin, transparent garment that hides only a little, and there is a thick garment that hides a great deal, all the way to a sack that a person is placed into and tied up in, so that nobody knows whether it holds potatoes or a human being. That is a garment that conceals completely.
So it is with the worlds: the Holy One lowered and concealed, adding covering upon covering and garment upon garment, “וכל כך עצמו וגברו הלבושים אשר אין סוף ברוך הוא מלביש ומסתיר בהם האור והחיות, עד אשר ברא בהם עולם הזה החומרי והגשמי ממש” (“and so powerful and overwhelming did the garments become in which the Ein Sof, blessed be He, clothes and conceals the light and the life force, that with them He created this world, material and physical in the fullest sense”). Even within this world itself there are levels: speaking creatures, living creatures and growing things, and “physical in the fullest sense” refers to the inanimate.
[It is worth noting that the inanimate has an extremely great virtue precisely because of what seems to be its deficiency: it endures for thousands of years, even though it too undergoes changes, since the Rambam writes that everything in the world comes into being and passes away. But here we are dealing specifically with the deficiency of the inanimate.]
What is that deficiency? The covering over it is absolute. And yet the inanimate is alive and contains energy. The proof: in a living creature, had there been no energy in it, it would be dead; in a growing thing, had there been no energy, it would not grow; and in the inanimate, had there been no energy, it would not exist at all. The very fact that it exists proves that there is a life force within it bringing it into being at every single moment.
“ומהווהו ומחיהו בחיות ואור אשר ממשיך ומאיר לו, אור המלובש ומכוסה ומוסתר בתוך הלבושים הרבים והעצומים המעלימים ומסתירים האור והחיות, עד אשר אין נראה ונגלה שום אור וחיות, רק דברים חומריים וגשמיים ונראים מתים” (“and He brings it into being and gives it life with the life force and light that He draws and shines to it, a light clothed and covered and hidden within the many mighty garments that veil and conceal the light and the life force, until no light or life force is seen or revealed at all, only material and physical things that appear to be dead”). In the higher parts of the world we see something: growth, movement, intelligence. In the material inanimate we see nothing at all; it is utterly static and looks dead.
From here it follows that every person is called upon to clarify the matter with himself and with his nefesh habahamis, the animal soul: does the material world exist on its own, or is there a divine life force enlivening it at every moment, such that if the life force ceased it would revert to being null and nothing? The truth is as the Alter Rebbe writes: “אך בתוכם יש אור וחיות המהווה אותם מאין ליש תמיד, שלא יחזרו להיות אין ואפס כשהיו” (“but within them there is a light and life force that brings them into being from nothing into something constantly, so that they will not revert to being null and nothing as they were”). The inanimate exists only because there is, right now, a life force bringing it into being and holding it in existence.
In Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah, the next part of the sefer, which we are approaching, the Alter Rebbe cites the Arizal that even in stones there is a soul that gives them life. Many people who meet this expression for the first time raise an eyebrow: where is there a soul in an inanimate object, when it looks dead? Indeed it looks dead, but inside it there is life.
[Certainly the inanimate has properties that are tangibly recognizable, and endless variations: different minerals, precious stones and pearls, sand and the like. Every stone has its own character and its own segulah, like the stones of the choshen on the garments of the Kohen Gadol, each of which had a different quality and a different energy. But here we are speaking of the stage prior to all that: even before “a stone will cry out from the wall,” in the very being of the inanimate itself, there too is a life force bringing it into existence.]
“ואור זה נמשך מאין סוף ברוך הוא, רק שנתלבש בלבושים רבים” (“and this light is drawn from the Ein Sof, blessed be He, only that it has become clothed in many garments”). Here too, “Ein Sof, blessed be He” refers to stage two, since regarding stage one we said that it is so utterly abstract that one cannot even relate it to anything or say of it that it is the source of something. And because it has become clothed in so many garments, in the inanimate we see neither its energy nor any motion, and nevertheless a divine life force is present within it.
“וכמו שכתוב בעץ חיים” (“as is written in Etz Chaim”). At the close of the chapter the Alter Rebbe brings a quotation teaching that even in the lowest of the low there is a life force whose origin is in the very highest, in the words of Rabbi Chaim Vital in Etz Chaim: “שאור וחיות כדור הארץ החומרי הנראה לעיני בשר הוא ממלכות דמלכות דעשייה, ובתוכה מלכות דיצירה וכו׳, עד שבתוך כולם עשר ספירות דאצילות המיוחדות במאצילן אין סוף ברוך הוא” (“that the light and life force of the material globe of the earth which is seen by eyes of flesh comes from malchus of malchus of Asiyah, and within it is malchus of Yetzirah, and so on, until within them all are the ten sefiros of Atzilus, which are united with their Emanator, the Ein Sof, blessed be He”).
Note the precision of the phrase “which is seen by eyes of flesh”: the life force itself we do not see. Even in a growing thing we do not see the life force, only its result; from the fact that it grows we understand that there is life in it. And here the subject is the very lowest thing of all, in which only the materiality is visible to our eyes.
To understand this we need the order of the worlds. There are four worlds: Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. In each world there are ten sefiros, and each sefirah is itself composed of ten: within chesed itself there is chesed of chesed, gevurah of chesed, and so on.
Accordingly, the lowest world is the world of Asiyah, and the lowest sefirah within it is malchus; and since the sefirah of malchus includes everything, “malchus of malchus of Asiyah” is the most constricted divine level of all, and that is our world. The physical, material world receives its life force only after tzimtzum after tzimtzum, from what shines within malchus of malchus of Asiyah.
But everything is included within everything: within malchus of Asiyah is included malchus of Yetzirah, and within that malchus of Beriah, and within that malchus of Atzilus, which contains all ten sefiros of Atzilus that are united with their Emanator, the supernal source we have been calling stage two. It emerges that even in an inanimate stone, at its innermost core, the very highest life force is present.
An analogy from the human body: even a fingernail and a hair have a life force that comes from the brain, although it bears no comparison to the life force in the heart or in the eye. By the time that life force reaches the fingernail it has traveled a very long road.
The same is true of the sequence the Alter Rebbe mentioned in chapter two regarding the birth of a child: in a fetus in its mother’s womb, the primary organs are formed already in the first weeks, while the nails and the hair come at the end of the process. And the end of the road in terms of time is also the end of the road in terms of level, since the energy descends and descends until it materializes in something as low as fingernails. And nevertheless, it all comes from that very same root, from that very same drop from which the brain and the heart came into being.
So too in the analogue: even the lowest of all worlds has its source in that same first point from which, through tzimtzum, the world of angels and seraphim came into being; it simply descended through so many stages until it arrived down here.
At the end of this chain stands man. We are the last in the chain, and therefore also the first, for “the last in deed is the first in thought.” Man was created last in the order of creation, on the sixth day, and the Gemara says that this placed the decision in his hands: if he sins, he is told, you are the last, even the gnat preceded you; and if he does what is asked of him, he is told, you are like a king, who does not enter the palace until everything is ready. He does not enter last because he is the lowest, but because everything was prepared for him. The choice is his and depends on his conduct: to enter last like a gnat, or last like a king.
In summary: in this section we studied stage three of the pattern, the quantitative and qualitative division among created beings, in which each one receives according to its own capacity and character. We examined the matter of the garments: in the upper worlds there are no garments, while in the lower worlds the garments multiply and intensify until no light or life force is visible at all, only material things that appear dead, chief among them the inanimate. Nevertheless, within them there is a light and life force bringing them into being from nothing into something constantly. We saw from the words of Etz Chaim that within malchus of malchus of Asiyah all the levels are contained, up to the ten sefiros of Atzilus that are united with their Emanator; and just as the fingernail has a life force from the brain, so too in the lowest of the low the source of the very highest is to be found.
In the next section we will turn to stage two, the level of Shechinah, which was not explained here at length, and which is the goal of the entire matter.