In the previous sections we studied Torah learning and the value it holds even when the learner does not understand what he is saying. Now the Alter Rebbe turns to explain the unlimited superiority contained in the mitzvah of knowing the Torah and grasping it, a superiority over all the other mitzvos that literally has no end.
Superiority measured against what?
Mitzvos performed in action - mitzvos a person carries out physically, with a deed and with the limbs of his body.
Mitzvos fulfilled through speech - such as Krias Shema and Birkas Hamazon, Torah obligations whose fulfillment is with the mouth.
The mitzvah of Torah study as speech - a person who recites the blessings over the Torah and says words of Torah with his mouth, even though he does not understand the content of what he is saying.
Against all of these stands knowing the Torah and grasping it, where a person becomes one with the wisdom of the Torah inside his own mind, in an inner, penetrating way. That is a wonder of a different order than all the other forms.
A precise reading of the phrase "ידיעת התורה והשגתה":
The Rebbe pauses on the Alter Rebbe's wording here and directs us to Hilchos Talmud Torah, which the Alter Rebbe wrote in his Shulchan Aruch. There it is explained that the mitzvah of Torah study contains distinct levels:
The mitzvah of knowing the Torah: the very fact that portions of Torah are known to a person by heart and are present in his mind. Every single moment that he knows them and has not forgotten them, he is fulfilling a mitzvah.
The mitzvah of "והגית בו יומם ולילה" ("you shall meditate in it day and night"): reviewing Torah aloud. And within this there are two levels: rattling off the words quickly without stopping to understand, and reviewing them with understanding.
This is why the Alter Rebbe uses two expressions. "ידיעת התורה" ("knowledge of the Torah") is the mitzvah of knowing, which can include even a person who knows passages of Chumash by heart without understanding their content, or passages of Mishnah and Gemara with only the faintest grasp. "והשגתה" ("and grasping it") means that the person truly comprehends and understands what he is saying, and that is an entirely different level than one who says the words without understanding them.
None of this diminishes the worth of one who says the words without understanding. There is a mitzvah there and a great virtue in it, and it is certainly preferable to being occupied with other things. But to understand Torah in one's mind and to become one with the content of what one is learning - there is nothing among all the mitzvos that resembles this at all.
What takes place in the fulfillment of every mitzvah:
"על ידי כל המצוות" - through all the mitzvos, whether those fulfilled with the mouth or those fulfilled through action - "הקדוש ברוך הוא מלביש את הנפש ומקיפה אור השם מראשה ועד רגלה": the Holy One, blessed be He, clothes the soul and encompasses it with the light of Hashem from its head to its foot. With every mitzvah a person performs, he is filled with kedushah and wrapped in Divine light, like an outer garment that a person puts on which changes his entire appearance. The whole soul, from its highest part down to its lowest, is enveloped in holiness. If a person could see this with his own eyes, he would run every moment to do another mitzvah.
The Alter Rebbe explains at length in Torah Or that every level of perception the soul will merit in Gan Eden depends on the mitzvos the person performed in this world, because the mitzvos are the garments of the soul. It is like a sterile room into which no one is admitted without a gown: so too the neshamah cannot receive the Divine light and perception of Gan Eden without the garments of the mitzvos. Therefore a soul that has not completed all of its garments returns to complete them, even for the sake of a single garment, because it needs every one of them.
The two advantages in knowing the Torah:
Or makif, encompassing light: knowing the Torah also contains this clothing and encompassing of light, and on an even higher level, since the makif of Hashem's own wisdom is loftier than the makif of any other mitzvah. When a person is immersed in learning, the wisdom of the Torah surrounds him.
Or pnimi, inner light: "מלבד שהשכל מלובש בחוכמת השם, הנה גם חוכמת השם בקרבו" - besides the fact that his intellect is clothed in the wisdom of Hashem, the wisdom of Hashem is also within him. A person brings the wisdom and the knowledge into his own mind, the kedushah penetrates him inwardly, and his union with Elokus is incomparably more inner.
The difference between makif and pnimi: something that encompasses a person remains external to him, while something inner enters into him and becomes literally one with him.
Obviously this is measured "איש כפי שכלו וכוח ידיעתו והשגתו בפרד"ס", each person according to his intellect and his capacity for knowledge and comprehension in Pardes (the four levels of Torah: pshat, remez, drush, sod). Each person on his own level: one understands on a simple level, another grasps on far higher and deeper levels. As we learned at the beginning of chapter four, this depends on the root of each person's soul and on the portion of Torah allotted to him. Either way, every piece of understanding a person internalizes brings the wisdom of Hashem into him, and the union created by this is the greatest union that can possibly exist.
An analogy: a man is brought into a room full of diamonds, pearls and precious stones and is told, "Look and enjoy." Compare him to a man who is told, "Take it, it is yours." The distance between them is as great as the distance between heaven and earth. In the performance of all the mitzvos a person is surrounded by Divine light, but it is not his and it is not part of him. In knowing the Torah it becomes literally his own and penetrates his innermost self.
Why the Torah is called "bread":
The source is the verse in Mishlei: "אם רעב שונאך האכילהו לחם ואם צמא השקהו מים" ("If your enemy is hungry, feed him bread, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink"). On the simple level, as Rashi explains: even though this person hates you, you should not make calculations and leave him hungry, but rather give him bread and water.
Rashi then brings a second interpretation: "your enemy" is the yetzer hara, as in the verse "כי תראה חמור שונאך" ("when you see the donkey of the one who hates you"), meaning the chomer, the material self, the nefesh habahamis, which hates a person and seeks to knock him off the right path. And when it is "hungry," when the desires wake up and rumble inside him and he does not know how to calm himself down from the matter, "feed him bread": bring him into the beis midrash and let him occupy himself with Torah. As the Gemara puts it: if it is stone, it dissolves; if it is iron, it shatters.
The Zohar too calls the Torah the food of the soul, which is the very same idea: in the verse and the Gemara it is "bread," and in the Zohar it is "the nourishment of the soul."
From the analogy to the lesson:
Physical bread nourishes the body, and the body grows and becomes strong and healthy, but not while the bread is sitting on the table. Only when a person "מכניסו בתוכו ובקרבו ממש", brings it inside himself, literally into his innards, and it "נהפך שם להיות דם ובשר כבשרו", is transformed there into blood and flesh like his own flesh, does he then "יחיה ויתקיים", live and be sustained. And even getting it inside is not enough. Bread is made of flour and water, and if a person were to put raw dough into his body he would not be satisfied; it would only harm him. For it to become blood and flesh like his own flesh it has to be baked, and baked with proper heat.
So it is with knowing the Torah. As long as the Torah lies on the table or in the bookcase, like bread sitting on the table, nothing happens. When a person learns and understands, that is when it becomes "מכניסו בתוכו ובקרבו ממש", brought inside him, literally into his innards, and this is knowing the Torah and grasping it within the soul of the person.
But even understanding on its own is not enough for the Torah to become food for the soul, for Chazal taught: if one merits, the Torah becomes for him an elixir of life; if he does not merit, it becomes the opposite, and from that very same learning. How can this be? Because heat is needed in the baking. That is, learning out of love of Hashem and fear of Him, and out of pnimiyus haTorah. Learning without warmth, without the vitality of the Torah, will not turn into blood and flesh like his own flesh.
This is why the Alter Rebbe writes "לומדה היטב", that he learns it well. Just as eating properly means taking in food in the right measure and through the right process, so too in learning: "בעיון שכלו עד שנתפסת בשכלו ומתאחדת עמו והיו לאחדים" - with the concentration of his mind, until it is grasped by his intellect and becomes united with it and they become one. Then the Torah becomes food for the soul and life within it from "מחיה החיים אין סוף ברוך הוא", the Life of all life, the Ein Sof, blessed be He.
In summary: in this section we learned about the unlimited superiority of the mitzvah of knowing and grasping the Torah, over the mitzvos of action, over the mitzvos fulfilled through speech, and even over the mitzvah of Torah study when it is only speech. We looked closely at the phrase "ידיעת התורה והשגתה" in light of Hilchos Talmud Torah, and we saw that in every mitzvah the Holy One, blessed be He, clothes the soul and encompasses it with the light of Hashem from its head to its foot, while in knowing the Torah there is in addition an inner light: "וגם חוכמת השם בקרבו", the wisdom of Hashem is also within him. We explained why the Torah is called "bread" and "food of the soul": just as bread nourishes only after it enters the body and is transformed into blood and flesh, so the Torah nourishes the soul when it is learned with concentration, with understanding and with inner warmth, until it is grasped by the intellect and becomes one with it.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words in chapter five and go deeper into understanding the union between a person's intellect and the wisdom of the Torah.