In the previous lesson we traced the order of hishtalshelus (the chain of progressive descent) from the world of Atzilus to the world of Beriah. To understand it properly, let us begin with an analogy. And first, let us translate the terms of the sefiros as they exist within the soul of a human being:
Chochmah, Binah and Daas: the intellectual faculties of the soul.
Chesed, Gevurah and Tiferes: the middos, that is, the emotions of the soul.
Malchus: the faculty of speech, as the Patach Eliyahu puts it, «malchus peh» (malchus is the mouth).
Picture a teacher and a student. For the purposes of the analogy, the teacher stands in the position of the world of Atzilus and the student in the position of the world of Beriah. Everything the student possesses he received from his teacher: the ideas he grasped and the feelings he came to have. But through which channel does that influence pass? Through speech. Speech is the lowest level in the teacher, and into it he pours both his intellect and his emotion, and from that speech, from his very end point, the material enters the mind of the student.
And if the student now wishes to pass what he has received further on, and to create a circle around him that will benefit from it, he will go through exactly the same process. What he absorbed in his chochmah, binah and daas will descend into his own world of emotion, and only when he brings it out in his speech will there come into being an environment that belongs to the student's level, and so on down the line. This is precisely the order of hishtalshelus of the worlds.
The final sefirah of the world of Atzilus is the sefirah of malchus, which is called Shechinah, from the word shochen, to dwell and to become enclothed, for it is the divine life force from which the general life force is drawn down to all the worlds below it. This Shechinah, malchus of Atzilus, first becomes enclothed in the chochmah, binah and daas of the world of Beriah, which are called the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim of Beriah.
But at this stage the creatures of the world of Beriah have still not come into being. For them to be created, the illumination must descend within the world of Beriah itself, from chochmah, binah and daas into chesed, gevurah and tiferes, down to the sefirah of malchus of that world. In the words of the Alter Rebbe: "ובהתלבשותן במלכות דבריאה נבראו הנשמות והמלאכים שבבריאה" (and when they become enclothed in malchus of Beriah, the souls and angels of Beriah were created). All of them come from the power of the Shechinah, malchus of Atzilus, but only after it has passed through this entire process.
This is where we stopped last time. At the top of the second page the Alter Rebbe adds: "וגם משם" (and from there too), that is, from the sefirah of malchus of Beriah, in which the Shechinah that descended through hishtalshelus is now enclothed, "נמשך התלמוד שלפנינו" (the Talmud that we have before us is drawn down). The Shechinah is the Torah: there is the Shechinah as it stands above all the worlds, and there is the Shechinah as it relates to the world of Beriah. Once the Shechinah descended to the world of Beriah, the Torah descended there, and from there comes the Talmud as we know it.
Why should the Talmud belong specifically to the world of Beriah? A short introduction. Although all ten sefiros exist in every single world, in each of the worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah there are dominant sefiros that are the main thing in that world. In Beriah the main thing is chochmah, binah and daas; in Yetzirah it is chesed, gevurah and tiferes. It follows that the portion of Torah which descended and belongs to the world of Beriah is precisely that portion in which chochmah, binah and daas, understanding and comprehension, come to expression.
And what is the Talmud? The Mishnah is the book of law composed by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, and it contains no explanations or reasons, only rulings: kosher or invalid, impure or pure, forbidden or permitted. The Talmud takes the rulings of the mishnayos and supplies the reasoning and the intellect behind them. In it the divine chochmah, binah and daas are revealed, and it therefore belongs to the world of Beriah.
[A question was raised here: seemingly the Mishnah is higher than the Gemara, yet from this it would appear that the Mishnah is lower than the Talmud. This question does not affect our understanding of the order of hishtalshelus itself, and we will return to it, G-d willing, at the end of the lesson.]
What we have explained until now orally, let us now read inside the text: "וכמו שנתבאר לעיל בשם התיקונים" (as was explained above in the name of the Tikunim), which we already learned in Tanya in chapter 39, "שבעולם הבריאה מאירות ומשפיעות שם חכמתו ובינתו ודעתו של אין סוף ברוך הוא" (that in the world of Beriah the chochmah, binah and daas of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, shine and bestow). Although the essential chochmah, binah and daas are far higher than Beriah and are found in Atzilus, nevertheless in the world of Beriah they shine "בבחינת צמצום עצום" (in a state of immense tzimtzum, contraction).
And why were they contracted this way? "בכדי שיוכלו הנשמות והמלאכים שהם בעלי גבול ותכלית לקבל השפעה מבחינת חב"ד אלו" (so that the souls and the angels, which are limited and finite, should be able to receive influence from these levels of Chabad). For had the sefiros not contracted themselves in a manner suited to the world of Beriah, the souls and angels belonging to that world could never have been created at all, since the illumination would have been far too overwhelming for their capacity. From the chochmah, binah and daas of Atzilus, the souls and angels of Beriah are simply not created.
And immediately the Alter Rebbe returns to our subject: "ולכן נמשך משם התלמוד שהוא גם כן בחינת חב"ד, שהתלמוד הוא טעמי ההלכות על בוריין" (and therefore the Talmud, which is likewise an expression of Chabad, is drawn down from there, for the Talmud is the reasons behind the halachos, clarified to their fullest). The entire manner of learning Talmud is chochmah, binah and daas: a person studies the reasons behind the laws in order to know them thoroughly and clearly. "והטעמים" (and the reasons), that is, the understanding and intellect within the matter, "הם בחינת חכמה בינה ודעת" (are an expression of chochmah, binah and daas).
And so that we should understand in contrast to what the Talmud is called Chabad, he continues at once: "וההלכות עצמן הן ממדותיו של אין סוף ברוך הוא, שהן חסד דין רחמים כו'" (and the halachos themselves derive from the middos of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, which are chesed, din and rachamim, and so forth). In the Mishnah, where the halachos are found, chochmah, binah and daas do not shine, for one who studies the law there does not understand the reason behind it. What is revealed there are the divine middos, which shine primarily in the world of Yetzirah. "שמהן נמשך ההיתר והאיסור והכשר והפסול והחיוב והפטור כמו שכתוב בתיקונים" (from which are drawn the permitted and the forbidden, the fit and the unfit, the liable and the exempt, as is written in the Tikunim). The permitted, the fit and the exempt belong to chesed; the forbidden, the unfit and the liable belong to gevurah.
So it emerges that from the descent of the Shechinah, malchus of Atzilus, into the world of Beriah, from the chochmah, binah and daas of that world down to its sefirah of malchus, two things came about:
The souls and angels of the world of Beriah were created.
The portion of Torah called Talmud was drawn down and revealed.
Now we descend to a lower world. The descent of the Shechinah into the world of Yetzirah is a far greater descent and contraction for it, and this is what the Alter Rebbe writes: "ובהתלבשות מלכות דאצילות במלכות דבריאה" (and through the enclothement of malchus of Atzilus in malchus of Beriah), a further enclothement and a more intense descent into malchus of Beriah, which makes the next contraction possible, and then it "מתלבשת בהיכל קודש הקודשים דיצירה, שהוא חכמה בינה ודעת דיצירה" (becomes enclothed in the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim of Yetzirah, which is the chochmah, binah and daas of Yetzirah), since the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim in every world is the Chabad of that world.
So in the world of Yetzirah there is an illumination from malchus of Atzilus, by way of the world of Beriah and in a far more intense contraction. And here too, as long as the illumination remains in the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim of Yetzirah, the creatures of Yetzirah have still not come into being. For that, it must descend through all ten sefiros of Yetzirah down to its sefirah of malchus: "ובהתלבשותן במלכות דיצירה, נוצרו הרוחות והמלאכים שביצירה" (and when they become enclothed in malchus of Yetzirah, the ruchos and the angels of Yetzirah were formed).
To summarize: in this section we translated the sefiros as they appear in the soul: chochmah, binah and daas are the intellect, the middos are the emotions, and malchus is speech. Through the analogy of teacher and student we saw how influence descends by way of the speech of the giver into the mind of the receiver. We saw that malchus of Atzilus, which is the Shechinah, becomes enclothed in the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim of Beriah and descends to malchus of Beriah, and from there the souls and angels of Beriah were created and the Talmud that we have was drawn down, the Talmud being an expression of Chabad, the reasons behind the halachos clarified to their fullest, as opposed to the halachos themselves, which derive from the middos of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. And we saw the further enclothement in the heichal of Kodesh HaKodashim of Yetzirah and down to malchus of Yetzirah, from which the ruchos and angels of Yetzirah were created.
In the next section we will continue along the order of hishtalshelus, and we will return to the question that was raised about the superiority of the Mishnah over the Gemara.