In the previous section we learned that everything permitted for eating, kosher animals, beasts, birds and fish, belongs to klipas nogah. In this section we will go deeper: what klipas nogah actually is, its standing as an intermediate rung between kedushah and the three entirely impure klipos, and its capacity either to rise up into kedushah or to fall, all depending on a person's intention.
A person who eats kosher food out of taavah, out of sheer physical craving, drags that food down into the three impure klipos. But since the food is in its essence kosher, it is easy enough for him to raise it back out of there. One who ate forbidden food, by contrast, brought it down into the three impure klipos in such a way that prying it loose from there is a difficult matter, demanding special powers, as will be explained later in the chapter.
How does one eat "lshem shomayim":
The act itself, eating and drinking, is a physical act; what determines its standing is the thought and the intention that accompany it. A person has to ask himself why he is doing this: why he just walked over to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out something to drink. This does not mean reciting a stock formula, a note in the pocket that reads "I hereby eat and drink lshem shomayim," but real attentiveness, a genuine inner awareness accompanying the act. Saying it is not enough; one has to live it. This may sound like the level of tzaddikim, yet it is demanded of the beinoni as well, and in every single thing he does.
Can eating ice cream be called lshem shomayim? There can indeed be such situations, and as we will see later in the chapter, the Alter Rebbe brings an example of precisely this sort.
From this it emerges that staying within the framework of klipas nogah is a difficult and rare accomplishment, since any act with some taavah mixed into it immediately falls to the three impure klipos and goes downward.
What is klipas nogah:
In the previous section we brought the verses at the beginning of the book of Yechezkel, where the prophet describes the vision of the supernal merkavah: "a stormy wind coming from the north, a great cloud, and a flaming fire, and a nogah (glow) around it." Yechezkel saw the three impure klipos, and he also saw the nogah. Klipas nogah does not exist in this physical, material world alone, but in higher worlds as well.
The character of nogah: a klipah that is not entirely good, and has rah, evil, in it as well. The measure of the rah and the degree to which it is blended into the good vary from level to level. In this world, the lowest of all the worlds, there are two deficiencies:
The ratio of good to evil: it is almost entirely rah, and the good in klipas nogah in this world is minimal in the extreme.
Even the little good that is here is so mixed into the rah that it is hard to detect it and separate it out. In this world there is no clean division between good and evil, only a mixture of the two.
These are the Alter Rebbe's words: this klipah is called "קליפת נוגה", klipas nogah, meaning the klipas nogah of this world, "הנקרא עולם העשייה" ("which is called the world of Asiyah"), for as noted, klipas nogah exists in higher worlds too. And its standing here: "רובו ככולו רע, רק מעט טוב מעורב בתוכה" ("it is almost entirely evil, with only a little good mixed into it"), both that the good is scant, and that it is blended into the rah.
"שממנה באות מידות טובות שבנפש הבהמית של ישראל" ("from which come the good middos that are in the nefesh habahamis of a Jew"): as we learned at the end of chapter 1, a Jew has good character traits even from the side of his nefesh habahamis, his animal soul. He is compassionate, he does acts of kindness. The source of those middos is the bit of good within the nefesh habahamis, and that is klipas nogah, as explained above.
"A bechinah memutza":
The Alter Rebbe continues and defines it: "והיא בחינה ממוצעת בין שלוש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי ובין בחינת ומדרגת הקדושה" ("and it is an intermediate category between the three entirely impure klipos and the category and level of kedushah"). It does not mean, as one might have imagined, that a bit of the pure good of kedushah and a bit of the outright evil of the three klipos were taken and stirred together. "Memutza," intermediate, means something deeper than that:
The rah in nogah is not like the rah of the three impure klipos. The rah of the three klipos cannot rise and be elevated; it stays down below. The rah in nogah can be lifted up.
The good in nogah is not like the good of kedushah. The good of kedushah is absolute good and cannot turn into rah. The good in nogah is liable to fall downward and turn into rah.
Since its rah is not absolute rah, it can be raised; and since its good is not absolute good, it can fall. That is what it means to be a bechinah memutza, an intermediate category resembling neither the good above it nor the evil below it. And for this reason "פעמים שהיא נכללת בשלוש קליפות הטמאות" ("sometimes it is absorbed into the three impure klipos"), as is written in Eitz Chaim, Shaar 49, beginning of ch. 4, in the name of the Zohar, "ופעמים שהיא נכללת ועולה בבחינת ומדרגת הקדושה" ("and sometimes it is absorbed and rises into the category and level of kedushah").
The kosher animal, between rising and falling:
We learned that animals, beasts, birds and fish that are permitted for eating belong to klipas nogah. As long as a person does not get involved, while the cow is wandering around the barn, its status is static: it does not belong to the three impure klipos, and it has the capacity to go up or to go down. The moment a person takes hold of it, the change begins:
While the Beis Hamikdash stands, he can bring it as a korban, even a korban of kodshei kodashim. And likewise in the time of exile, he can have it slaughtered according to halachah and eat it in honor of Shabbos Kodesh or at a seudas mitzvah, and then it becomes holy.
But if he slaughters it with an invalid shechitah, it becomes forbidden food. And likewise if he slaughtered it properly but eats it out of taavah, he himself is the one pulling it downward.
It is worth pausing on the relationship between taavah and a seudas mitzvah. Halachically a person is obligated to have oneg, pleasure, on Shabbos and Yom Tov, and oneg means what it says, actually to feel the enjoyment. And still, chassidim have a saying that they were not especially eager for mitzvos that the body enjoys. Even though there is such a thing as a mitzvah from which the body derives pleasure, something of the body's enjoyment clings to it nonetheless, and that can cause damage further down the road.
"Bisra shamina d'sora":
How does nogah rise up into kedushah? The Alter Rebbe continues: "דהיינו כשהטוב המעורב בה נתברר מהרע וגובר ועולה ונכלל בקדושה" ("that is, when the good mixed into it is refined out from the rah, and prevails, and rises and is absorbed into kedushah"). Just as the smith draws the dross and waste out of the metal and leaves refined gold behind, so a person manages to refine out the small measure of good within the thing; and once that good prevails over the rah it had been mixed with, it rises and is absorbed into kedushah itself.
The example the Alter Rebbe brings is not one anyone would have thought to call kedushah: "כגון דרך משל האוכל בישרא שמינא דתורא ושותה יין מבושם" ("for instance, one who eats rich beef and drinks fragrant wine"). A man walks into the butcher shop and asks not for plain beef, but for good, fatty meat; and he drinks wine, not just any wine, but yayin mevusam, aged fine wine that has every virtue wine can have. On the face of it there is taavah here, and any act with taavah mixed into it falls, as we said, to the three impure klipos. More than that, this may well be an ordinary weekday.
And why is he doing it? "להרחיב דעתו לה' ולתורתו" ("to broaden his mind for Hashem and for His Torah"): so that his daas in learning Torah should be expansive, and to gladden his heart and make it fit for matters of kedushah, and he recognizes about himself that this is what helps him and that without it he will not get there. If that is the sole reason he is doing it, then this is kedushah itself.
In summary: in this section we learned that the standing of an act of eating is determined by the intention that accompanies it, and that eating lshem shomayim means inner awareness, not a recited formula. We examined what klipas nogah of the world of Asiyah is, almost entirely rah with only a little good mixed into it, and that from that little good come the good middos of the nefesh habahamis of a Jew. We saw why it is a bechinah memutza: its rah is not absolute rah, and therefore it can be lifted up; its good is not absolute good, and therefore it is liable to fall. We saw how a kosher animal rises into kedushah as a korban, at a Shabbos meal and at a seudas mitzvah, and falls when it is eaten out of taavah, and we learned the example of "bisra shamina d'sora" and the fragrant wine, eaten and drunk "to broaden his mind for Hashem and for His Torah."
In the next section we will take up a further example the Alter Rebbe brings, from the realm of speech, which likewise can rise or fall, and also the case in which even what has fallen into the three impure klipos can come back up again, a matter that demands special powers and whose completion belongs to the time to come.