In the previous section we finished chapter 3, where the Alter Rebbe laid out his map of the soul: the soul contains two main elements, the element of intellect and the element of emotion. He explained at length the role of chochmah, binah and daas and the differences between them, and he detailed the types of emotion: yirah and fear, love, and the love that is like a thirst, together with their offshoots. Chapter 3, then, defines what a person's soul contains and how all of this expresses itself in the nefesh ha'elokis, the divine soul. Now we open chapter 4 and encounter further dimensions of the soul, dimensions even more important than those of the previous chapter.
Chapter 4: The Three Garments of the Soul
The Alter Rebbe opens: "ועוד, יש לכל נפש אלוקית שלושה לבושים", "Furthermore, every divine soul has three garments." Beyond the levels within the soul, the ten faculties enumerated in chapter 3, it also possesses three levushim, three garments. What exactly does a garment do? As with physical clothing, we can offer several definitions:
A garment can be put on and taken off. It is not permanently attached to the person; he is free to remove it or exchange it for another.
A garment beautifies the person. The beauty does not belong to the garment itself, a suit hanging on a hanger stirs nothing in anyone. The beauty belongs to the person, but without a fitting, attractive garment it never comes to expression.
A garment seems external, yet without it there is no functioning. On the face of it clothing is a technical, marginal matter, but without it a person cannot step out into the street and accomplish anything. That seemingly external item is precisely what gives him the ability to function and to act.
All three of these apply to the soul as well. Its three garments are thought, speech and action: they can be exchanged, one can be with them or without them, and they are what reveal the soul's beauty and its capacity to act.
Why are thought, speech and action called "garments"?
Let us begin with the first definition, that a garment is something a person can be with or without:
Action: As Shlomo HaMelech says in the twenty eight "times" (Koheles chapter 3), there is a time to do and a time to refrain from doing. It is in a person's hands to act or not to act, exactly like a garment that can be put on and taken off.
Speech: "A time to speak and a time to be silent." He can speak and he can hold his tongue.
Thought requires some consideration: in what sense is it called a garment? There is no such thing as a person who is not thinking. From the day he is born until the day he dies there is not one second, day or night, in which thought is inactive; even in his sleep he dreams and thinks. In the language of the maamarim, "thought roams constantly." There is a hint to this in the names of Yaakov's wives: Leah is bound up with the world of thought and Rochel with the world of speech. One explanation of the name "Leah" is from the word for weariness, since the one faculty in a person that grows weary because it never rests for a moment is the faculty of thought, whereas all the other faculties have their stopping point and their rest.
So how can thought be called a garment?
The explanation is that the choice of which thought to think is in a person's hands. Any thought that arises in his mind he can strip off and replace with a different one. When foreign thoughts intrude, it is in his power to master them and raise up good thoughts in their place: a mishnah, a chapter of Tanya, a page of gemara that he knows by heart. For this reason thought too is called a garment.
Thought is, however, a more inner and more closely fitted garment. Even among physical garments there are levels: a jacket a person slips off easily, as opposed to close fitting clothing that he does not remove very often. So too with the garments of the soul, some cling more tightly and some are easier to do without, but what all three have in common is that they are all called garments.
The garments of the divine soul
What is being discussed here is the divine soul; the second soul, mentioned in chapter 1, will be dealt with in chapter 6. Accordingly, the thoughts, words and deeds of the divine soul are occupied with matters that are holy, pure and good. In his words: "שהן מחשבה, דיבור ומעשה של תרי"ג מצוות התורה", "which are the thought, speech and action of the 613 mitzvos of the Torah." The divine soul has nothing to think, say or do outside that framework, since whatever does not fall within the definition of the 613 mitzvos has no connection to it.
It is worth noting the precise wording, "כשהאדם", "when the adam..." Why does he say adam rather than ish? The word adam alludes to the three garments: the letter alef is the first and highest faculty, thought; daled is dibbur, speech; mem is maaseh, action.
From here the Alter Rebbe details what each garment is occupied with:
Action: "מקיים במעשה כל מצוות מעשיות", "he fulfills in action all the mitzvos that are performed by action." A person uses his power of action to fulfill all the practical mitzvos, tefillin, tzitzis and the like, for the overwhelming majority of the mitzvos are bound up with the dimension of action.
Speech: "הוא עוסק בפירוש כל תרי"ג מצוות והלכותיהן", "he occupies himself with expounding all 613 mitzvos and their laws." With the power of speech he studies all 613 mitzvos and all their halachos.
Thought: "הוא משיג כל מה שאפשר לו להשיג", "he grasps whatever he is able to grasp." He immerses himself in everything within his capacity to comprehend "בפרדס התורה", "in the PaRDeS of Torah": pshat, remez, drush and sod.
An important observation: the Alter Rebbe is not describing here the order of hishtalshelus among them, how speech is drawn from thought, as was explained in earlier chapters. He is defining the domain of each garment in its own right.
Another interesting nuance: why, regarding action, does he write "all the mitzvos that are performed by action" without the word 613, while regarding speech he writes "all 613 mitzvos"? The difference is clear: in speech a person can engage with all 613 mitzvos, but in action he cannot fulfill them all. Some mitzvos depend on the Beis HaMikdash and do not apply nowadays, and some depend on the Land and do not apply outside of Eretz Yisroel. He was therefore precise and did not write 613.
The Rebbe's question on the division
One would have expected a far simpler division: action would deal with the mitzvos performed by action, speech with the mitzvos that depend on speech, birchas hamazon and reciting Shema twice daily, which are positive commandments from the Torah, and thought with the mitzvos that depend on thought: faith, love of Hashem and fear of Hashem. But the Alter Rebbe does not put it that way. Regarding speech he does not mention the mitzvos of speech at all, but rather the expounding of all 613 mitzvos, and regarding thought he does not mention the mitzvos of thought, but the act of comprehension itself. Why?
The Rebbe raises this question in one of his letters and gives a straightforward answer (though he himself writes that it is somewhat forced, and something the Rebbe calls forced is for us a very wide open door...): the Alter Rebbe wants to bring out that each garment has something unique that the others do not have. Had he listed for each garment only the mitzvos that depend on it, all three would look alike, each one simply taking its own designated portion. Therefore, in addition to what they share, that speech also takes the mitzvos that depend on speech just as action takes the mitzvos of action, the Alter Rebbe points out what is unique to each garment:
The uniqueness of speech: it can study all 613 mitzvos, something action cannot do.
The uniqueness of thought: it can grasp pshat, remez, drush and sod, and even matters a person cannot articulate in speech he can apprehend in his thought.
The Alter Rebbe concludes: "הרי כללות תרי"ג איברי נפשו מלובשים בתרי"ג מצוות התורה", "thus the totality of the 613 limbs of his soul are clothed in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah." The Torah has 613 mitzvos, 248 positive commandments and 365 prohibitions, corresponding to the 248 limbs and 365 sinews of the body, and in the same way there are 613 limbs in the soul. This is why the number of mitzvos corresponds precisely to the body and the soul of a Jew. When a person uses all his garments to the fullest, his entire being connects, like a completed puzzle, essentially and perfectly, to every detail of Torah and mitzvos. Up to here the matter has been stated in general terms.
To summarize: In this section we learned that in addition to the ten faculties of the soul, the divine soul has three garments: thought, speech and action. A garment is something that can be put on and taken off, it reveals the beauty of the person, and although it appears external, without it there is no ability to function. We saw how this definition applies to action and speech, and how it applies to thought as well, for even though thought roams constantly, it is in a person's hands to choose which thought he will clothe himself in. We defined the domain of each garment: the mitzvos of action, the expounding of all 613 mitzvos and their laws, and comprehension in the PaRDeS of Torah. We noted the omission of the word 613 in connection with action, and the Rebbe's answer that each garment has a uniqueness the others lack. And we arrived at the conclusion: the totality of the 613 limbs of the soul are clothed in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.
In the next section we will go into greater detail: how each of the garments takes hold of a different portion of the soul and connects to it in an inner way.