We have arrived at chapter 52 of Likkutei Amarim in the Tanya, found on folio 72b (page 144). We are in the middle of a run of chapters that all deal with one subject, so let us first review briefly the main point of chapter 51, and from there we will understand how chapter 52 continues.
Chapter 51 opened with a question. On the one hand, there are places where the Shechinah rests and is revealed: the Holy of Holies, and every place of which it is said that the Shechinah dwells there, such as ten Jews who, by gathering together, draw down the Shechinah. On the other hand, there is the familiar expression «מלוא כל הארץ כבודו» (the whole earth is filled with His glory), meaning there is no place where He is not found. How do we resolve this apparent contradiction?
To answer this, the Alter Rebbe developed at length a mashal (an analogy) drawn from the soul of man: the relationship between the soul and the body, and the way the soul enlivens the body. There too the very same question arises. Where is the soul located? On the one hand, as long as a person is alive, the soul is present in every single cell of his body. On the other hand, the brain is the center of vitality, and the command over all the limbs, faculties and senses issues from one single point. So is the soul in the brain, or is it in every cell?
The three levels within the mashal:
The upper extreme, the essence of the soul: the soul's own essence and being, which is not defined by this faculty or that at all, and which is utterly abstract. The essence of the soul is present everywhere equally.
The lower extreme, the particular faculties: the power of movement, the power of speech, the power of sight, the power of hearing and so on. Each faculty is found in the specific limb that belongs to it, in the 248 limbs and 365 sinews.
The intermediate stage, the essence of the life-force: the center from which all the particular faculties that are distributed among the limbs then emerge. Of the essence of the soul itself one cannot say at all that it is a source for sight or for hearing, since it is abstract and not defined by any definition whatsoever. But at the intermediate stage, although matters have not yet descended into particulars and there is as yet no sight and no hearing each according to its own character, all the faculties are concentrated in one point of which one can already say that it is the source of the particulars that issue from it.
To what may this be compared? To the relationship between the sun and the light that shines in the world. The light we see, feel and benefit from is nothing more than a radiance, and that radiance has a source: the sun itself. That same radiance, as it exists within its source, is on a far higher and more abstract level, and from there it descends and spreads through all of creation. So too with the vitality that descends from the soul: there is a source, and there is the spreading forth into all the limbs.
And where is this intermediate stage located in the relationship between the soul and the body? In the brain.
The three levels within the nimshal:
The upper extreme: the essence of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, the very essence of the Ohr, which is not defined as being here or as being there. Of this it is fitting to say «מלוא כל הארץ כבודו» (the whole earth is filled with His glory) and «לית אתר פנוי מיניה» (there is no place devoid of Him).
The third level: the particular vitality in each and every world and in each and every creature, inanimate, vegetative, animal and speaking; the worlds of Atzilus, Beriah and Yetzirah; angels and souls. Each one receives according to its own manner and its own capacity, as though the divine light contracted itself in order to descend to each one according to its kind. These two levels were the subject of chapter 51.
The intermediate stage: that which is called by the name Shechinah. And this is precisely the subject on whose account the whole discussion began: how is it that on the one hand «the whole earth is filled with His glory», and on the other hand there is a particular place in which the Shechinah rests? Its explanation is what we reach in chapter 52.
The Alter Rebbe's words at the opening of chapter 52: «וכמו שבנשמת האדם עיקר גילוי כללות החיות הוא במוחין» (and just as in the soul of man the main revelation of the general life-force is in the mochin, the brain). The three stages we mentioned divide, broadly speaking, into two. There is the essence of the soul, which cannot be called a revelation of a faculty, nor even the source of the revelation of the faculties, since it is abstract and above all that. And set against it is the revelation of the faculties, which itself divides in two: the center and the particulars. This is why the Alter Rebbe is precise and writes «the main revelation of the general life-force». The intermediate stage is the first level that can be called a revelation, for from it begins the revelation that afterwards descends into particulars. And it is «במוחין», in the mochin: the brain is the first to receive the general life-force that will afterwards descend into all the limbs in a particularized way.
«וכל האברים» (and all the limbs), the 248 limbs and 365 sinews, «מקבלים אור וכח לבד המאיר להם ממקור גילוי החיות שבמוחין» (receive only a light and a power that shines to them from the source of the revelation of vitality in the brain), each limb according to its own character: sight, hearing and the like. [In previous lessons we noted that the Alter Rebbe calls the general vitality «ohr», light, and the particular vitality «koach», power; we will not enter here into those fine distinctions.]
For in the brain itself there is no sight and no hearing and no speech as distinct particulars. There all the vitality is found concentrated in its source, and it is the source from which the particularized vitality in each of the limbs will afterwards come.
And in precisely the same way in the nimshal, which is our main subject: «ככה ממש על דרך משל עיקר גילוי כללות המשכת החיות להחיות העולמות והברואים שבהם» (so too, by way of analogy, the main revelation of the general drawing down of vitality to enliven the worlds and the creatures within them). There are infinite worlds, and within them creatures beyond number with endless variation in quantity and in quality. So where is that general drawing down of vitality from which the particulars and the division into all the worlds afterwards come? There is a counterpart to the «mochin» of the mashal of soul and body, and there the vitality of all the worlds is found: «מלובש ונכלל ברצונו וחכמתו ובינתו ודעתו יתברך הנקראים בשם מוחין» (it is clothed and contained in His blessed Will, Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which are called by the name mochin). In other words, the term «mochin» is a heading that contains within it four particulars: Ratzon (Will), Chochmah, Binah and Daas.
And the Alter Rebbe immediately explains where those mochin are clothed: «והן הן המלובשים בתורה ומצותיה» (and these are the very ones that are clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos):
[The Torah is the Chochmah, Binah and Daas of the Holy One, blessed be He. The mitzvos are His blessed Will; the 613 mitzvos are His Will.]
It emerges that the Torah and the mitzvos are the divine mochin, and they are the center and the source of the divine vitality for the entire order of hishtalshelus (the chain of worlds) and for all created beings. The world draws its vitality from the Torah and from the mitzvos: as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, brought down from His own infinite Essence and Being the general vitality of all the worlds and all the creatures, into the Torah and into the mitzvos. And even though within the Torah and the mitzvos themselves there are many levels, Torah as it is in the upper worlds and Torah as it is down here, within that very entity called Torah and mitzvos lies hidden the vitality of every created being. As the Midrash puts it: «אסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא» (He looked into the Torah and created the world). The Torah is the source of vitality of the entire world, and everything was created for the sake of the Torah.
The Alter Rebbe continues: «וגילוי כללות המשכה זו הוא מקור החיות אשר העולמות מקבלים כל אחד בפרטות רק הארה מתפשטת ומאירה ממקור זה, כדמיון אור המתפשט מהשמש, על דרך משל וכחות אברי הגוף מהמוח הנזכר לעיל» (and the revelation of the general drawing down of this is the source of vitality, from which the worlds each receive, in a particular way, only a radiance that spreads forth and shines from this source, like light spreading forth from the sun, by way of analogy, and like the faculties of the body's limbs from the brain mentioned above). Every world and every creature receives nothing more than a radiance that spreads forth from the source within the Torah and its mitzvos, just as each limb receives from the brain nothing more than a radiance that spreads forth and is suited to it: the power of sight in the eye is no more than a radiance of the general vitality contained in the mochin.
[From this we can understand something further. Even if something is lacking in a particular limb, for example a person who cannot see, God forbid, the deficiency is not in the intermediate stage, in the mochin of the head, for there all the faculties are included and nothing at all is lacking. The deficiency is in the radiance that, for one reason or another, did not descend to the eye. This is why it is entirely possible for parents who cannot see to have children who see perfectly, lacking nothing.]
To summarize: in this section we reviewed the question of chapter 51, how «the whole earth is filled with His glory» can be reconciled with the existence of places where the Shechinah rests, and we set out the three levels in the mashal of soul and body: the essence of the soul, the particular faculties in the limbs, and the intermediate stage in the mochin. In the nimshal, the intermediate stage is the Will, Chochmah, Binah and Daas of the Holy One, blessed be He, clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos, and these are the source of vitality from which every world and every creature receives only a radiance that spreads forth, like the light that spreads forth from the sun and like the faculties of the limbs that spread forth from the brain.
In the next section we will take up the names that the Alter Rebbe gives to this level: first four names, and afterwards two more, together with the explanation of why this level is called by each one of those names.