In the previous section we looked at the words of the Gemara, «The Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world but the four cubits of halachah.» From this we understand that in our times, wherever the matter of halachah is revealed and wherever Torah is centered in an elevated way, that is where the Shechinah rests in a more concentrated way than anywhere else. Let us introduce this with a story.
The Baal Shem Tov, as is known, made his home in the town of Mezhibuzh. Even before the Baal Shem Tov settled there, the town had a rav and maggid by the name of Reb Zev Kitzes, who was devoted to the Baal Shem Tov already from before, listening to his counsel and accepting his guidance. This Reb Zev was seized by a tremendous longing to leave Russia and go up to Eretz Yisrael, and he would constantly ask the Baal Shem Tov for a blessing for the journey and for permission to take this step, and the Baal Shem Tov kept holding him back and telling him to remain where he was.
Once the longing overwhelmed him, he could no longer restrain himself, and he decided to travel to the Holy Land. He gathered together the little money he had, penny by penny, and set out on a Friday. At the first station outside the town he met the Baal Shem Tov coming toward him. The Baal Shem Tov asked him: «Where is his honor traveling?» He answered: «I have decided that I can hold back no longer. I am going to Eretz Yisrael.» Said the Baal Shem Tov: «I am returning now to the town, and I ask you, out of respect for me, that you at least come back and spend Shabbos in the town.» Reb Zev replied: «Let me tell you the truth: I do not even have the fare to pay the wagon driver for the return trip. Every bit of my money is counted and measured.» Said the Baal Shem Tov: «It is on me. I will pay for your way back to town, and even for the bathhouse in honor of Shabbos.» (In those days not everyone had washing facilities at home; there was a public bathhouse and mikveh for the whole town.)
He had no further argument, and Reb Zev returned with the Baal Shem Tov to the town. They came together to the bathhouse, the Baal Shem Tov paid for him as he had promised, and the two of them went in to bathe in honor of Shabbos. After the bath came the immersion in the mikveh, and the Baal Shem Tov motioned to Reb Zev to immerse first. After he immersed, dressed, and the two of them left the bathhouse, Reb Zev said to the Baal Shem Tov: «I have decided that I am not traveling after all. I am staying here.» The Baal Shem Tov asked him: «What happened? What changed?» He answered: «When I immersed in the mikveh I immersed with my eyes open, and I saw in a vision the entire course of my journey. I saw myself arriving in Eretz Yisrael, and arriving in Yerushalayim, and arriving at the place of the Beis HaMikdash; I saw myself entering the Beis HaMikdash, and entering the Kodesh HaKodashim, and approaching the Aron. I opened the Aron, and I saw that the Luchos were not inside. I asked: Where are the Luchos? They answered me: Today the Luchos are in Mezhibuzh. I understood that I must stay here.»
This is really what the Gemara is saying in other words: from the day the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the reality of the Kodesh HaKodashim continues to exist, only that the Shechinah no longer rests in a revealed way in that place in Yerushalayim, and it is instead found in the four cubits of halachah.
Let us read the words of the Alter Rebbe: «ואפילו אחד שיושב ועוסק בתורה שכינה עמו», «And even one person who sits and occupies himself with Torah, the Shechinah is with him.» That very same Shechinah which rested in the Kodesh HaKodashim rests with each and every individual in his own home, at the time that he sits and occupies himself with Torah. On this the Alter Rebbe notes «כדאיתא בברכות פרק קמא», «as it is stated in Berachos, chapter one», a citation from the Gemara in tractate Berachos, where this quality of the Shechinah resting in the four cubits of halachah is discussed.
At first glance we have suffered a loss: we have no Beis HaMikdash, we await its rebuilding, and consequently we do not have the revelation of the Kodesh HaKodashim. But in the meantime something positive has come of it: instead of the Kodesh HaKodashim being found in one particular place in Yerushalayim alone, it is now found with each and every individual. (Admittedly, from the standpoint of the light itself there is no difference between the levels; the difference lies in the manner in which the light becomes clothed, as will be explained shortly.)
Here we must draw attention to a question: it seems that we have before us two quotations that contradict one another. On the one hand it says, «The Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world but the four cubits of halachah», and on the other hand it says, «one who sits and occupies himself with Torah», in Torah, meaning in any portion of Torah whatsoever. If so, why was halachah in particular singled out earlier? This question will be clarified in the lines that follow.
«פירוש שכינה עמו», «the meaning of 'the Shechinah is with him'»: what exactly is this level of «the Shechinah is with him»?
It is certainly not the Shechinah as it was in the first Beis HaMikdash, nor even as it was in the second:
In the first Beis HaMikdash: the Divine light was clothed in the sefirah of malchus of Beriah.
In the second Beis HaMikdash: the clothing was lower, in the sefirah of malchus of Yetzirah, as it shines within the mochin of Asiyah.
With each and every individual who sits and occupies himself with Torah: the clothing is lower still, and it is «כדרך השתלשלות והתלבשות מלכות דאצילות במלכות דבריאה יצירה ועשיה», «in the manner of the hishtalshelus and clothing of malchus of Atzilus within malchus of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah», a clothing that passes through all the worlds down to malchus of Asiyah, and it is that which shines and is present with him. This is the meaning of «the Shechinah is with him.»
And what, then, is the difference between a Jew occupied with Torah and all other created beings?
After all, the table and the chair and every inanimate object in the world also receive their vitality from malchus of Asiyah, which is the final sefirah of the lowest world, and from it all created beings receive their vitality. What, then, is novel about the Shechinah resting with a Jew who occupies himself with Torah? The difference is simple, and it was already presented through the analogy of the soul and the body: the energy of the soul is present in every single finger, and the energy of the soul is present in the brain as well, except that in the brain the vitality is found in its totality, while in each individual limb there is only a glimmer of that total vitality. So too here: every created being in the world receives only a glimmer from malchus of Asiyah, whereas with the Jew occupied with Torah, malchus of Asiyah itself shines and becomes clothed, just as it is, like the brain itself.
The same is true of the mitzvos: every mitzvah is the will of His very Essence, and the light within it is the loftiest light of all, except that it becomes clothed and contained through the order of hishtalshelus until it is clothed in physicality, in actual physical tefillin and tzitzis, objects with real material substance, and this happens not miraculously but by way of nature. And certainly the Shechinah rests upon them, and not only upon the tefillin but upon the Jew himself who sits and occupies himself with Torah. (And the greatest level of all is when ten sit together and occupy themselves with Torah.)
Why is it not enough to say that this is clothed only as far as the world of Yetzirah? The reason is that the fulfillment of all the mitzvos takes place by means of the world of Asiyah: «כי תרי"ג מצות התורה רובן ככולן הן מצות מעשיות», «for the 613 mitzvos of the Torah are, in the overwhelming majority, mitzvos of action», their fulfillment comes about through practical, physical things, and consequently the clothing of the Shechinah in their fulfillment is in physical action, in the world of Asiyah.
«וגם התלויות בדבור ומחשבה», «and even those that depend on speech and thought», those mitzvos whose fulfillment is on a higher plane, in speech or in thought: mitzvos of speech, such as Torah study, bircas hamazon, krias shema and tefillah, and even mitzvos of thought, such as faith and the love of G-d. Even so, regarding the mitzvos of speech, «הא קיימא לן דהרהור לאו כדבור דמי ואינו יוצא ידי חובתו בהרהור וכוונה לבד עד שיוציא בשפתיו», «we have an established ruling that thinking is not equivalent to speaking, and one does not fulfill his obligation through thought and intention alone until he articulates the words with his lips.» A person who has eaten and must recite bircas hamazon cannot simply look into the bentcher and think the written words in his mind; he has not fulfilled his obligation. And the same applies to Torah study.
And what is the distinction of speech, seeing that it is not actual deed? On this the Alter Rebbe brings the language of halachah: «וקיימא לן דעקימת שפתיו הוי מעשה», «and we have an established ruling that the movement of one's lips constitutes an act.» The «movement of the lips» is a term referring to the organs of articulation, for a person must move his lips, his teeth and his tongue, physical limbs, in order to bring the words out of his mouth. It emerges that this too is an act, a more refined act, but an act.
And since this is so, it follows that the fulfillment of all the mitzvos comes about through the instruments of the world of action, and consequently the Shechinah that shines in the fulfillment of the things a Jew carries out here in this world descends and becomes clothed all the way down to malchus of Asiyah.
To summarize: in this section we learned, by way of the story of the Baal Shem Tov and Reb Zev Kitzes, that after the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash the place where the Shechinah is revealed is in the four cubits of halachah. We saw the Alter Rebbe's words, «And even one person who sits and occupies himself with Torah, the Shechinah is with him», and the level at which it is clothed: not as in the first Beis HaMikdash (malchus of Beriah), and not as in the second (malchus of Yetzirah), but through the hishtalshelus of malchus of Atzilus down to malchus of Asiyah. We clarified the difference between the Jew occupied with Torah, with whom malchus of Asiyah itself shines, and all other created beings, which receive only a glimmer, as well as the reason the clothing reaches all the way down to the world of Asiyah: most mitzvos are mitzvos of action, and even those that depend on speech, «the movement of one's lips constitutes an act.»
In the next section we will return to the question we left open: why was it specifically the four cubits of halachah that were singled out, when it also says, «one who sits and occupies himself with Torah, the Shechinah is with him»?