We have arrived at chapter 53, the final chapter, with which, please G-d, we complete the first section of the Tanya, Likkutei Amarim.
The Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, relates that when his father, the Rebbe Rashab, learned this chapter with him, the study stretched over three weeks. During that same period his father told him to study, alongside it, all the communal services of the Beis HaMikdash (there were services of communal offerings and services of individual offerings), and he explained to him each and every service and what it accomplishes within the soul. At the conclusion he told him that the avodah of the Kohen Gadol is performed by the Rebbe.
We too now merit to begin learning chapter 53, and may it be His will that in studying this chapter we not only learn about the Beis HaMikdash, but that we merit to see it literally, in physical reality, together with the Kohen Gadol, and as the Rebbe Rashab said, that the avodah of the Kohen Gadol is performed by the Rebbe, that we merit to see him immediately, literally now.
A reminder of the foundation laid out from chapter 51:
The Alter Rebbe sets out to explain the concept of hashroas haShechinah, the resting of the Divine Presence, as an answer to a question: how do we reconcile the words of Chazal that the Holy One is found everywhere, “leis asar panui minei”, there is no place devoid of Him, with the expression that the Shechinah dwells in the Holy of Holies? If He is everywhere, why single out one place? The core of the answer, explained at length, is that both statements are true, because we are speaking of different levels:
His Atzmus u'Mahus, the Essence of the Creator Himself. Of this it is certainly said that He is found in every place, “leis asar panui minei”.
The contracted Divine life-force. This is the other extreme: in every place there is a tzimtzum'dike, contracted, Divine vitality, present and revealed in accordance with the particular place where it is found.
The intermediate stage, “Shechinah”. This is the source that contains the general life-force of the entire order of hishtalshelus, the chain of worlds, of all creation: the life-force as it is revealed in order to enliven the worlds, yet still in a general concentration that includes all the details that will later emerge.
By way of analogy from the soul of a person:
The essence of the soul, which is present and revealed in every limb, in every detail, in every cell of the body.
The individual limbs: in each particular limb there shines the particular, contracted life-force belonging to that limb.
The brain in the head, the intermediate stage: one place that contains, in a single point, the general life-force of all the limbs together.
So too in the nimshal: “Shechinah” is the general life-force that includes all the details that will later unfold, and just as in the analogy it rests in the brain in the head, so this level rests in the mochin, in the level of chochmah, binah and daas, and this is what is called “Holy of Holies”.
And from here to the levels within the Shechinah itself (chapter 52):
We learned in the previous chapter that within the Shechinah itself there are a number of levels. The first and most general level, which includes the life-force of the entire order of hishtalshelus together, is what is called simply “Shechinah”, and its precise “address” is the sefirah of malchus of the world of Atzilus. From there it comes and reveals itself in each and every world, in Beriah, in Yetzirah and in Asiyah, each according to the measure of that world.
And where within each world is the Shechinah revealed? In the mochin, in the Holy of Holies of that world, and this revelation is the Torah. The Torah is the source of the general life-force of all the worlds, and in its own source it is loftier than all the worlds, while in each and every world the portion of Torah belonging to that world is revealed:
The world of Beriah: malchus of Atzilus is revealed in the Holy of Holies of Beriah, the chochmah, binah and daas of the world of Beriah, and it contains within it the general life-force of the entire world of Beriah. From there it descends and unfolds down to the sefirah of malchus of Beriah, and from that are created the souls and angels of the world of Beriah. The portion of Torah revealed in the world of Beriah is Talmud.
The world of Yetzirah: malchus of Atzilus is revealed in the Holy of Holies of Yetzirah, in the mochin of the world of Yetzirah, containing the general life-force of all of Yetzirah; from there it unfolds down to the sefirah of malchus of Yetzirah, and from that are created the angels and souls belonging to the world of Yetzirah. The portion of Torah revealed there is Mishnah.
The spiritual world of Asiyah: in exactly the same order.
Chapter 53 comes to explain how the Shechinah is revealed in the physical world of Asiyah, in our world, and here there is a tremendous chiddush. According to the entire process described until now, the descent of the Shechinah into the world of Beriah is a descent relative to the intensity it has in Atzilus; its descent into Yetzirah is a greater descent; and its descent into the spiritual Asiyah is greater still. By the logic of this process of descent, the resting of the Shechinah in the Holy of Holies of the physical world of Asiyah, in the Beis HaMikdash, should have been the lowest of them all. And precisely here comes the chiddush.
The chapter is divided into three stages, explaining where the Shechinah rests in this physical world:
How it was in the Holy of Holies of the First Temple.
How it was in the Second Temple, which is a lower level than the First.
Where it is found today, in the time of exile.
והנה כשהיה בית ראשון קיים שבו היה הארון והלוחות בבית קדשי הקדשים, היתה השכינה שהיא מלכות דאצילות שהיא בחינת גילוי אור אין סוף ברוך הוא שורה שם ומלובשת בעשרת הדברות ביתר שאת ויתר עז, בגילוי רב ועצום יותר מגילויה בהיכלות קדשי הקדשים שלמעלה בעולמות עליונים
“Now, when the First Temple stood, in which the Ark and the Tablets were in the Holy of Holies, the Shechinah, which is malchus of Atzilus, the level of the revelation of the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He, rested there, clothed in the Ten Commandments, with greater intensity and greater power, in a revelation far greater and mightier than its revelation in the chambers of the Holy of Holies above, in the upper worlds.”
The Holy of Holies of every world is the Torah of that world, which is the place where the Shechinah is revealed. So too here, in the physical world of Asiyah: its Holy of Holies is the Torah that was in it, the Tablets of the Covenant and the Ark in the chamber of the Holy of Holies. That is the place where the Shechinah rests.
And what is “Shechinah”? As the verse says, “v'shachanti besocham”, I will dwell among them: the revelation of the Divine light as it comes to dwell and be revealed in the lower realm. When the light is in its source it is not in a state of revelation and created beings cannot receive from it; only at the level of Shechinah is there a revelation that creatures are able to receive.
And this is the great chiddush: the revelation of malchus of Atzilus here, in the Holy of Holies below, is greater and mightier than its revelation in the spiritual world of Asiyah, in Yetzirah and in Beriah, greater than in all the upper worlds.
The Rebbe analyzes this chapter in a lengthy explanation, and what emerges from it is that the Alter Rebbe describes what took place in the Holy of Holies in two stages:
What intensity of light shone there.
In what manner that light became clothed and revealed, so that the creation could grasp it, in a lower manner, though still exceedingly lofty.
The first stage, the intensity of the light:
The phrase “greater than its revelation in the chambers of the Holy of Holies above” is stated in a sweeping way, without specifying any particular world, and it means all three levels above: greater than in the spiritual Asiyah, greater than in Yetzirah, and greater than in Beriah. Here, in the physical world, the light shining in the Holy of Holies was loftier than in all the worlds.
And the reason: the revelation in the Holy of Holies of every world is the revelation of the Shechinah within the Torah of that world, and here we had the loftiest Torah content of all, the Ten Commandments, in which the entire Torah is contained. From the simplest level, the plain meaning of the Commandments, all the way to the number of their letters: six hundred and twenty letters corresponding to the 613 mitzvos plus the seven mitzvos of the Rabbis. Through hints such as these and others, everything is contained in the Ten Commandments.
In the words of the chapter, כי עשרת הדיברות הן כללות התורה כולה דנפקא מגו חכמה עילאה דלעילא לעילא מעלמא דאתגליא, “for the Ten Commandments are the entirety of the whole Torah, which issues from supernal chochmah, which is far, far above the 'world of revelation'”, a revelation of Divine chochmah. “Alma d'isgalya”, as we learned in the previous chapter, is one of the names of the Shechinah, the sefirah of malchus, so called because it is already in a state of revelation; and here we are speaking of a revelation from the sefirah of chochmah, which is “l'eila l'eila”, far, far above alma d'isgalya. (And although netzach and hod too are above malchus, chochmah is incomparably loftier than they are.)
It emerges that the greatest revelation within Torah is the Ten Commandments, and accordingly the intensity of the light that shone there has no parallel in any world: the angels, the serafim and the loftiest souls do not reach the spiritual, Divine intensity of the light that shone in the Holy of Holies of the First Temple.
The second stage, the manner in which it became clothed:
The light does not remain as it is; it becomes held within a specific thing. The Ten Commandments in the Holy of Holies were not letters floating in the air; they were held within the Tablets. And once they have a grip within the Tablets, within a particular physical object, there is a descent involved. This descent brings about, as the Alter Rebbe immediately explains, that the sefirah of malchus, that is, the Shechinah, descends to the level of the world of Beriah, and in that manner it shines in the Holy of Holies; yet even so, this revelation is still above the spiritual world of Asiyah and above the world of Yetzirah.
In the words of the chapter: וכדי לחקקן בלוחות אבנים, in order to engrave the Ten Commandments into the physical stone, the Torah לא ירדה, did not descend, ממדרגה למדרגה כדרך השתלשלות העולמות עד עולם הזה הגשמי, כי עולם הזה הגשמי מתנהג בהתלבשות הטבע הגשמי, “from level to level in the manner of the unfolding of the worlds down to this physical world, for this physical world conducts itself through the garment of physical nature.” For anything in the physical world, in order to come into being and take on material form, requires descent and tzimtzum until it becomes inanimate stone.
But the Tablets were not ordinary inanimate stone like all the stones of the world. Every physical thing in the world, once the Divine light has descended and contracted and clothed itself within it, conducts itself through the garment of physical nature and according to nature's rules; yet in the Tablets the rules of nature did not apply, for והלוחות מעשה אלוקים המה והמכתב מכתב אלקים הוא - למעלה מהטבע של עולם הזה הגשמי, “and the Tablets were the work of G-d, and the writing was the writing of G-d, above the nature of this physical world.”
And indeed, the Tablets were not two stones with words inscribed on them like an ordinary inscription; they were miraculous Tablets:
Of the first Tablets it is said that they were among the ten things created at twilight on the eve of Shabbos: the script, the writing and the Tablets. A great miracle was in them, that they could be read through from side to side. Not like the image in a mirror, where the letter appears reversed from the other side, but the very same letter appeared correctly from every side.
The letters mem and samech, in which the stone of the letter encircles and holds the hollow space in the middle, stood miraculously in the air with nothing holding them, physical stone that was not bound by the nature of physicality.
Even regarding the second Tablets, which Moshe Rabbeinu hewed from the quarry that was in his tent, and upon which the Holy One again wrote the Ten Commandments, the verse states explicitly that He wrote upon them like the first writing, meaning that in them too there was that same revelation of Divine intensity described regarding the first Tablets.
And the same miracle was seen in the Ark in which the Tablets rested, as Chazal say, “the place of the Ark was not included in the measurement.” The Gemara describes that the Ark occupied volume and stood in its place in the Holy of Holies, and the Torah specified its dimensions precisely, two and a half amos long and an amah and a half wide, and nonetheless it took up no space: when they measured from the wall to the Ark, they found on each side the very same area and the very same empty space, as though the Ark were not there at all, even though the Ark was in fact there.
For this reason it is explained elsewhere, and in other maamarim, with precision, in terms even loftier than what is written here in Tanya: that the revelation was not only from the level of chochmah, but from the level of oneg, Divine delight, which is far higher. And the reason is this: there is nature in the world, one track; and there is the miraculous, another track; but the fusion of both together is above everything. An area that occupies space is nature; something that occupies no space is above nature; but a place that occupies volume and at the same time occupies no space, with both coming together as one, that is above every category. Such was the Ark, and such were the Tablets.
In summary: in this portion we opened chapter 53, the final chapter of Likkutei Amarim, and reviewed the foundation laid out from chapter 51, the three levels: Atzmus u'Mahus, which is found in every place; the contracted life-force present in each place; and the Shechinah, the general life-force that rests in the mochin, in the Holy of Holies. We also reviewed the levels within the Shechinah, malchus of Atzilus as it is revealed in the Holy of Holies of each world and in the portion of Torah belonging to it (Talmud in Beriah, Mishnah in Yetzirah). From there we moved to the great chiddush of this chapter: the Shechinah rested in the Holy of Holies of the First Temple, clothed in the Ten Commandments, in a revelation far greater and mightier than in all the upper worlds, because the Ten Commandments contain the entire Torah and issue from supernal chochmah, which is far, far above alma d'isgalya. And in the second stage, in order to be engraved in Tablets of stone, it descended and became clothed at the level of Beriah, and even so the Tablets and the Ark were not subject to the rules of nature, but were the work of G-d, above nature.
In the next portion we will continue in chapter 53 and learn about the resting of the Shechinah in the Second Temple, and about where the Shechinah rests today, in the time of exile.