In the previous section we learned how the mochin, the intellect of the soul, become clothed in the garment of thought. Now we turn to the second, lower part of the soul: the middos, a person's emotions. Where do a Jew's emotions connect with the Holy One, blessed be He?
The place of the middos: in action and in speech
The Alter Rebbe writes: "והמידות שהן יראה ואהבה וענפיהן ותולדותיהן... מלובשות בקיום המצוות במעשה ובדיבור" ("and the middos, which are fear and love and their offshoots and derivatives... are clothed in the fulfillment of the mitzvos in action and in speech"). Fear and love and their offshoots were already explained at length at the end of chapter 3. All of the middos, love of G-d, fear of G-d, and the branches that emerge from them such as netzach and hod, are clothed in the two lower garments: the garment of action and the garment of speech. That is, in the fulfillment of all 613 mitzvos and their derivatives, and in the speech of Torah study, which is equal to them all.
Why specifically in action and speech?
The next words open with "כי" ("for"), which tells us that the Alter Rebbe is coming to resolve a difficulty. That intellect is clothed in thought is self-evident: someone who wants to contemplate has no way to do it other than through the garment of thought, and his hands or his speech are of no help at all. But what is the connection between emotion and speech and action? On the face of it, a person can love the Creator without doing anything, and the reverse is also possible: he can act without any love. There are different levels in doing: one person acts out of habit from childhood, "מצוות אנשים מלומדה" (a commandment learned by rote), and another acts out of kabbolas ol, accepting the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven. Why, then, does the Alter Rebbe determine that the middos are clothed specifically in action and speech?
The intention is not that it is impossible to perform a mitzvah in deed, or to say words of Torah, without middos. It is possible, but such an act will be a dry act, one that has no true, lasting existence. "True" means something that endures without fluctuation and in its full force, something a person will do everything to hold on to. When the emotion is missing, the act stands equally poised between "it will happen" and "it will not happen"...
In his words: "כי האהבה היא שורש כל רמ"ח מצוות עשה, וממנה הן נמשכות, ובלעדה אין להם קיום אמיתי" ("for love is the root of all 248 positive commandments, and from it they are drawn, and without it they have no true existence"). The emotion of love of G-d is what drives all 248 positive commandments of the Torah, and they flow and come as a result of it. Note the precision: the Alter Rebbe does not say they have no existence at all, but that they have no true existence.
Where is the difference felt?
Fulfillment out of habit: A Jew knows that when Sukkos arrives he has to take the four species. He goes to the market, buys them, and performs the mitzvah, "מצות אנשים מלומדה," a commandment done by rote.
Fulfillment out of love: A Jew searches and is particular to have the most beautiful, most mehudar esrog and lulav he can find, seeking hiddur in the performance of the mitzvah.
Fulfillment out of a sense of mission: Some feel that the mitzvah is their "business." And just as a business owner does not keep his business to himself but wants more and more people to come to him and his name to be known everywhere, so too this Jew is not satisfied with doing the mitzvah himself. He makes sure another Jew does it too, and travels from place to place for that purpose.
Everything depends on the love. When the mitzvah flows from the soul within it, when a person loves the Creator and out of that love performs the mitzvah, he does it with full force, with vitality, with hiddur and with running, as Pirkei Avos puts it, "הוי רץ למצווה" ("run to a mitzvah"). It is like a person who loves another and wants to give him a gift: he does not rush into a store and grab something. He stands and considers what the most beautiful gift would be, chooses the wrapping, is careful about the timing of the giving, and invests his whole self in it. And the recipient, in the very act of holding the gift, feels all the soul that was invested in it. So it is with the performance of a mitzvah.
"And it is impossible to truly cleave to Him"
"כי המקיימם באמת הוא האוהב את שם ה' וחפץ לדבקה בו באמת" ("for one who fulfills them truly is he who loves the Name of G-d and desires to cleave to Him in truth"). The one who fulfills the mitzvos truly, with vitality, with hiddur and with running, is the one who loves the Name of G-d and wants to be attached to the Creator, and who knows that the only path to that is the mitzvos. In the Alter Rebbe's words: "אי אפשר לדבקה בו באמת כי אם בקיום רמ"ח פיקודין" ("it is impossible to cleave to Him in truth except through the fulfillment of the 248 commandments"). There is no way whatsoever, under any circumstances, to attach oneself to the Creator of the world in a genuine way other than through the actual performance of the mitzvos. Someone who claims he has his own private channel, his own personal path through which he connects to the Creator, may well be connecting to something, but he is not connecting to the Creator of the world. There is no ability to connect with the Holy One, blessed be He, except through the ways that He established.
"The 248 limbs of the King"
The mitzvos are called "רמ"ח איברים דמלכא", "the 248 limbs of the King," as it were, just as the physical body of a person has 248 limbs. Obviously we cannot speak of limbs literally with regard to the Holy One, blessed be He; it is said by way of analogy. And what is the idea in the analogy? When we look at a physical limb, the hand for example, we find that it is not merely flesh, bones, sinews and skin. That form carries content and function: the hand writes, draws, gives. And so every single limb has its content and its meaning. So too with the "limbs of the King": every mitzvah a Jew performs is a channel and a means to draw G-dly vitality upon himself. Tefillin have their vitality, tzitzis have theirs, and every mitzvah has its own. That is why they are called limbs, because they fill the role that a limb fills.
Fear: the root of the prohibitive commandments
After love, which is the root of the positive commandments, the Alter Rebbe explains the role of the opposite emotion: "והיראה היא שורש לשס"ה לא תעשה" ("and fear is the root of the 365 prohibitions"). Yiras Shamayim, fear of Heaven, is the root of the 365 prohibitive mitzvos, for one who has fear of Heaven will be careful not to stumble in any of them. Here he outlines in general terms two levels of fear, called in chassidus yirah tata'ah (lower fear) and yirah ila'ah (higher fear):
Yirah tata'ah: fear of rebelling against the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. This is the basic fear: a person is afraid to rebel against the King and does not want to be a rebel against the kingdom. One who lacks this basic fear lacks everything, and therefore it must be there.
Yirah ila'ah, "יראה פנימית מזו" ("an inner fear beyond this"): on a higher level this is not fear of rebelling, but rather "שמתבושש מגדולתו" ("that he is ashamed before His greatness"). A person is embarrassed before the King, ashamed to defy Him in the presence of His glory and to do the opposite of His will, what is evil in His eyes.
Broadly speaking, the fear of the first level expresses distance: a person is far from the King and therefore afraid to rebel against Him. The fear of the higher level expresses closeness: precisely because he is near the King and senses His greatness, he is ashamed before Him. Once a person has both love and fear, he has the middos, and they are what lead him: love toward the positive commandments, fear toward the prohibitions.
A precision in the word "clothed"
With both love and fear the Alter Rebbe used the term "root." Now, the root of a tree stays in the ground; it is not found in the branches and the fruit, it only causes them to grow and develop. Based on that, one might mistakenly think that the love remains in the heart while the mitzvah itself is dry, as if the love influences it from a distance by "remote control." To rule out this understanding, already in the first sentence where he introduced the concept he used the wording "מלובשות בקיום המצוות" ("clothed in the fulfillment of the mitzvos"): the emotion is inside the deed itself. Even though afterward he used other expressions, he opened by establishing that the middah is clothed within the act itself, for the act with love and the act without it are two entirely different acts.
In summary: in this section we learned that the middos, fear and love and their offshoots, are clothed in the fulfillment of the mitzvos in action and in speech, which is Torah study that is equal to them all. Love is the root of the 248 positive commandments, and without it they have no true existence, meaning existence with vitality, hiddur and force. Fear is the root of the 365 prohibitions, in its two levels: fear of rebelling against the King (which expresses distance) and an inner fear beyond it, shame before His greatness (which expresses closeness). We also learned that there is no way to truly cleave to the Creator except through the fulfillment of the 248 commandments, which are called the 248 limbs of the King, because each mitzvah draws its own particular G-dly vitality upon the person. And finally we were precise in the word "clothed": the emotion does not remain in the heart, it is found within the deed itself.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter 4 and with the explanation of the place of Torah and mitzvos as the garments of the soul.