In the previous section we learned about the three garments of the soul, thought, speech and action, and about the remarkable idea that it is precisely through them that a Jew becomes joined to the will and wisdom of the Creator, which are literally Ein Sof, without end. Now we continue and see why the Torah can be grasped specifically here in this world and not in some loftier place, and we will learn this from the analogy the Alter Rebbe uses: the analogy of water.
From this it follows that a person has to value actual practice, and not settle for feelings, for various contemplations and for meditations of one sort or another. The garment of thought is fulfilled when a person grasps everything there is to grasp of the pardes of Torah, not when he sinks into imaginings. When he sits and studies the pardes of Torah, the garment of thought joins his mind to the Creator of the world. But someone who does not use the garments, and leans on emotion alone or on contemplation alone, will indeed arrive at something, but not at the Creator of the world and not at the Ein Sof. Only the garments connect.
“And this is why the Torah is compared to water”:
The Gemara in many places compares Torah to water, and the Alter Rebbe brings this in order to sharpen the point that it is here, in this world, that Torah can be grasped, and nowhere else. Whenever an analogy is given, it means there is an emphasis here that without it we would not have appreciated the full force of the matter. So what, in fact, does water add to our understanding of the power of Torah?
In the Alter Rebbe's words: “מה מים יורדים ממקום גבוה למקום נמוך, כך התורה ירדה ממקום כבודה, שהיא רצונו וחכמתו יתברך”, “just as water descends from a high place to a low place, so too the Torah descended from its place of glory, which is His blessed will and wisdom.” The Torah came down from above, and even though the Torah and the Holy One, blessed be He, are entirely one, and no thought can grasp Him at all, the Torah nevertheless came down below.
So what exactly does the analogy of water add?
The water itself descends: With the sun, it is the radiance and the light that come down and illuminate the world, while the sun itself stays where it is. With water it is different. When water seeps down from the neighbor's apartment above into the apartment below, it is the water itself that has come down, not a radiance of water. So too with Torah: it is not that the Torah remained above and sent us only feelings and a glimmer of itself. The Torah itself came down here below.
The natural place of water is below: In one of his maamarim the Rebbe adds a beautiful point. Water's descent from a high place to a low place is its very nature. If you could ask the water where its true place is, it would answer: below, since that is where it is always drawn by its own nature. And so it is in the nimshal. Do not think that the Torah really wants to be above, and that its being here below is a kind of imposition, as though the Holy One, blessed be He, “poured” it downward while in itself it is spiritual and lofty. It is not so. The Torah's true place is specifically down here.
This is what lies behind the request of the angels, “תנה הודך על השמים”, “place Your glory upon the heavens,” and the Holy One, blessed be He, did not want to give them the Torah, because the Torah's place is here below. Had we only been told that the Torah was above and came down below, we would have assumed that even after descending, this is not its natural place. It is the analogy of water that teaches us otherwise.
The precision of the phrase “from its place of glory”:
In that same maamar the Rebbe points out a fascinating precision in the wording. The Alter Rebbe writes that “the Torah descended ממקום כבודה, from its place of glory,” and not “descended ממקומה, from its place,” because above is not its place. Had he written “from its place,” it would have implied that its place is above. Its place of glory is indeed above: there it shines, there there are revelations, and there the tzaddikim sit in Gan Eden and study Torah. But its true place is below.
The wording continues: “ומשם נסעה וירדה בסתר המדרגות”, “and from there it journeyed and descended through the concealment of the levels.” The Torah traveled from its place of glory and came down through levels that conceal it and conceal its beauty. From its own standpoint this is mesirus nefesh, for above it is given its due honor, while here below we are speaking of the concealment of the levels. And so it descended from level to level in the hishtalshelus, the chain of worlds, until it clothed itself in physical things and in the affairs of this world, which are almost all of the mitzvos of the Torah and their halachos. Even a mitzvah that is not physical, such as “you shall love your fellow as yourself,” has halachos that are physical. And so too it clothed itself in literally physical letter combinations in the twenty four books of Torah, Nevi'im and Kesuvim.
The purpose of the descent:
Why did the Torah come down here below? “כדי שתהא כל מחשבה תפיסא בהן”, “so that every thought should be able to grasp them.” The entire reason for the descent is that here we can take hold of the Torah with our thought, “ואפילו בחינת דיבור ומעשה שלמטה ממדרגת מחשבה תפיסה בהן ומתלבשת בהן”, “and even the level of speech and action, which is below the level of thought, grasps them and the Torah clothes itself in them.” Here below, and only here, do we take hold of the Torah.
This also brings us back to the matter of tikkun that we learned earlier. The Torah descends from the highest place to the very lowest place so that every single person should be able to receive it, since the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to bestow upon each and every one. True, it says “your sins have separated between you and your G‑d,” and sins do indeed separate. But the Torah itself the Holy One, blessed be He, brought all the way down, so that it should be within reach of every Jew.
The three stages we learned in this chapter:
What the garments of the soul are: thought, speech and action.
The novel idea that the level of the garments is incomparably higher than the level of the soul itself, because it is through them that a Jew connects to the Ein Sof.
How it is possible for the Ein Sof to be found inside limited frameworks. This is an immense tzimtzum, a contraction, in which the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His wisdom and His will and brought them all the way down here.
In summary: In this section we learned why the Torah is compared to water. Just as the water itself descends from a high place to a low place, and its natural place is below, so too the Torah itself descended from its place of glory, and its true place is specifically in this world. We noted the precision of the phrase “from its place of glory” rather than “from its place”; its descent through the concealment of the levels until it clothed itself in physical things, in the halachos of the mitzvos and in the letter combinations of the twenty four books; and the purpose of the descent, that thought, and even speech and action, should be able to grasp it. All of this is so that a Jew, through the three garments, should be joined to the Supernal Will, and this connection is the very purpose for which the soul came down here below. That is why every single moment of life must be used.
In the next section we will continue with the words of the Alter Rebbe and go deeper into the explanation of the greatness of Torah and mitzvos, and of how the soul and its garments become bound up with the Supernal Will.