Let us return to the Alter Rebbe's own words within the chapter:
"ומאחר שהתורה ומצוותיה מלבישים כל עשר בחינות הנפש" ("And since the Torah and its mitzvos clothe all ten faculties of the soul"): when we look at a Jew who is living Torah and mitzvos fully, the Torah and mitzvos are clothing his entire soul. He is not performing mitzvos dryly, mechanically; he does them with feeling, with love of Hashem and awe of Him. And the reason is this: if he performs them without any feeling, only the outer layer of himself is joined to the Torah, whereas when he performs them with feeling, his inner layers are joined to the Torah as well.
The phrase "clothing the entire soul" means that the Torah is the garment and the soul is, as it were, inside the Torah. As the Alter Rebbe continues, "וכל תרי"ג איבריה מראשה ועד רגלה" ("and all 613 of its limbs, from its head to its foot"): every part of the person is enclothed within the Torah. In such a state, where the Torah surrounds the whole person, "הרי כולה צרורה בצרור החיים את השם ממש" ("then it is entirely bound up in the bond of life with Hashem Himself"). The word tzror means a bond, a tie, as in the verse in this week's parsha, "איש צרור כספו" ("each man's bundle of money"). In other words, the soul is tied in a bond of life with G-dliness completely, because it is entirely surrounded by Torah and mitzvos, and "אור השם ממש" ("the very light of Hashem") surrounds and clothes the person's whole soul, "מראשה ועד רגלה" ("from its head to its foot").
The two verses the Alter Rebbe brings:
"צורי אחסה בו" ("my Rock, in Whom I take refuge"): the Holy One is called tzuri, my strength, my rock, and therefore "I take refuge in Him." A person who takes refuge enters into something, and the place he enters protects him. So too, one who keeps Torah and mitzvos enters into the Torah and becomes surrounded by mitzvos, and his protection is the Holy One Himself, as the verse says, "מגן הוא לכל החוסים בו" ("He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him").
"כצינה רצון תעטרנו" ("like a shield, [Your] favor encircles him"): a tzinah is a shield. Those who went out to battle would carry a shield that encompassed the person and kept the sword from reaching him. There are various kinds of shields, among them one that surrounds the whole person. Of this the verse says: like a tzinah, "רצון תעטרנו", the will of the Holy One crowns and encircles the person. "תעטרנו" is also from the word atarah, a crown, which is likewise something that encircles and protects. And what is Hashem's will? Torah and mitzvos: "רצונו וחכמתו יתברך המלובשים בתורתו ובמצוותיו" ("His blessed will and wisdom, which are clothed in His Torah and His mitzvos").
So Torah and mitzvos surround the person, and here is the point of it all: Torah and mitzvos are loftier than the soul itself. The soul on its own, however much delight and however much joy it may have, does not reach the level of connection to G-dliness found in simply carrying out the will of the Creator of the world, that is, Torah and mitzvos, which are fulfilled through the garments: thought, speech and action. It follows that the level of the soul's garments is greater than the level of the soul itself, and this is why the Sages say in Pirkei Avos: "יפה שעה אחת בתשובה ומעשים טובים בעולם הזה מכל חיי העולם הבא" ("Better one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come").
"Better one hour of koras ruach, of delight, in the World to Come":
There are in fact two statements. The first: "Better one hour of delight in the World to Come than all the life of this world." About this statement there is no argument at all; it is self-evident. Koras ruach means pleasure and joy, and it is obvious that delight in the World to Come is beyond any comparison to all the life of this world.
Even within this world itself one can discern a hierarchy of pleasures, as brought in Kuntres HaAvodah's companion, Kuntres HaMaayan, which in its opening chapters ranks the levels of pleasure:
A person who takes pleasure in animal-like pleasures, such as eating.
A person on a higher level, who takes pleasure in music. He looks at the one who delights in eating as a coarse person, and in his eyes a single niggun that he is immersed in is worth more than vast quantities of food.
A person who takes pleasure in a fine intellectual insight and in deep ideas.
With every pleasure that is higher, all the pleasures beneath it count for nothing in comparison. It follows naturally that regarding delight in the World to Come, an infinite spiritual pleasure in which the neshamah revels, all the life of this world and all its pleasures, from the lowest level to the highest, do not even register in relation to one hour of delight in the World to Come. This much is understandable.
In summary: in this section we reviewed the three garments of the soul, thought, speech and action, and their superiority over the soul itself, since they are occupied with Torah, of which it is said "אורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא כולא חד" ("the Torah and the Holy One are entirely one"). We completed the comparison between the greatness of the neshamah at its root and the greatness of the Torah, and we learned that here below the connection to G-dliness runs through Torah and mitzvos alone, and that this holds for ahavas Yisrael as well. We saw how Torah and mitzvos clothe all ten faculties of the soul and all 613 of its limbs, until the entire soul is bound up in the bond of life with Hashem Himself, as hinted in the verses "צורי אחסה בו" and "כצינה רצון תעטרנו". Finally we considered the hierarchy of pleasures, from which the statement "Better one hour of delight in the World to Come than all the life of this world" is self-evident.
In the next section we will take up the second statement, "Better one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come," and the great chiddush contained in it.