In the previous section we learned about the three impure kelipos and how they express themselves in the various categories of creation. Now let us go back over the actual wording of the Tanya and note a few fascinating precisions in it, for every single expression in the sefer is exact down to the last word.
"ונקראו במרכבת יחזקאל" - "and they are called, in the Chariot of Yechezkel...":
The Alter Rebbe could simply have written, "and they are called a stormy wind and a great cloud." Why did he take the trouble to supply the reference? After all, not every verse quoted in the Tanya comes with a citation of where it is written; very often the verse alone is given, and the reader is invited to go look up the source himself.
The answer is that something is being taught here. Much like what we learned earlier about the staff that turned into a snake, here too the Alter Rebbe is telling us that the three impure kelipos are not some detached phenomenon with no root in holiness, G-d forbid. Yechezkel sees in his vision the Divine powers and the holy Merkavah, and out of that very same holy Merkavah he also sees the three impure kelipos. Even though they come down through an enormous hishtalshelus, a chain of descents, their source and root are in that same place. The words "in the Chariot of Yechezkel" are not there merely so that we should know where to look for the phrase "a stormy wind and a great cloud" and not confuse it with some other verse in Tanach; they are there to teach us that even the source of the kelipos is in holiness.
Why are only two of the names mentioned?
Notice that the Alter Rebbe does not list all three names of the kelipos. He writes "רוח סערה וענן גדול וגומר" - "a stormy wind and a great cloud, etc." - and the third he does not mention at all. Seemingly he should either have spelled out all three, or else relied on our looking the verse up and written simply "a wind, etc." The verse in Yechezkel reads: "וארא והנה רוח סערה באה מן הצפון ענן גדול ואש מתלקחת ונוגה לו סביב" - "And I looked, and behold, a stormy wind came from the north, a great cloud, and a flaming fire, and a brightness (nogah) round about it" (klipas nogah we will discuss, with G-d's help, in chapter 7).
From this his precision becomes clear. Had he written only "a wind, etc.," two mistakes would have been possible:
Taking "wind" and "storm" as two separate kelipos: some might assume that "wind" is one thing and "storm" is another. The Alter Rebbe therefore makes it clear that the phrase "a stormy wind" is one kelipah and not two.
Taking "from the north" as the name of a kelipah: one might have thought that "a stormy wind" is the first, "the north" is a second kelipah, and "a great cloud" is the third. He therefore skipped the words "came from the north," to teach us that they are nothing more than an indication of place, and are not counted among the kelipos.
And once it has been made clear that "a stormy wind" is the first and "a great cloud" is the second, there is no longer any need to spell out the third. "Etc." is enough, and whoever looks at the verse will find on his own that it is "a flaming fire."
Why specifically three kelipos?
There are explanations of this in Kabbalah, and one point can be learned from what the Rebbe writes in one place: the three kelipos correspond to the three lines - right, left and middle - and to the three yesodos, the three elements. Although we know of four elements (fire, air, water and earth), and seemingly earth is the primary element out of which everything came, Kabbalah explains that the primary elements are fire, air and water, with earth included within them. And so it is with the names of the kelipos as well: "wind" corresponds to the element of air, "cloud" to water, and "fire" to the element of fire.
"כל בעלי חיים הטמאים ואסורים באכילה" - "all impure animals that are forbidden to be eaten":
Look at the examples given of what represents the kelipos. In the category of medaber, the speaking creature: the souls of the nations of the world and the sustaining of their bodies. And in the category of chai, living creatures: "all impure animals that are forbidden to be eaten." Seemingly the Alter Rebbe could have shortened this and written only "all impure animals," or only "all animals forbidden to be eaten." Why are both descriptions needed together? Here the Rebbe makes a beautiful precision:
Had he written only "forbidden to be eaten": there are animals forbidden to be eaten that are not from the three impure kelipos from the very beginning of their creation. A kosher animal that was rendered treifah in the shechitah is forbidden to eat, yet in its essence it never belonged to the impure kelipos, for such an animal could have gone up as a korban on the mizbeiach and become kodshei kodashim, whereas anything belonging to the three impure kelipos has no capacity whatsoever to rise to holiness. Only at the moment it became treifah did it fall to a low level and become forbidden. The Alter Rebbe wants to bring examples of things that were this way from the very beginning of their creation, not things that fell through a human act.
Had he written only "impure": we would have understood him to mean animals that are tamei and convey tumah with regard to the laws of tumah and taharah, since only the eight sheratzim whose names the Torah spells out convey tumah by contact when they die, whereas other creeping things - a snake, a scorpion, a frog - do not convey tumah when dead. And then there would have been room to say that the law of those that do not convey tumah is different. He therefore used both descriptions together, so that no doubt would remain: he means animals that are impure with regard to eating.
Why is no example brought from the inanimate?
The example from the category of tzomeach, plant life, is "such as orlah." And now that we have seen that the Alter Rebbe is speaking only of things that were this way from the very beginning of their creation, we also understand why he brings no example from domem, the inanimate: there is nothing inanimate in the world that was created from the outset from the three impure kelipos. An inanimate object that belongs to them is only one that a person turned into such, for example someone who takes a statue and makes it into avodah zarah.
The reason for this: domem in its very essence is bittul. It does not move, it does not grow or expand, and it certainly does not speak; the Holy One, blessed be He, created it in a state of bittul, of self-nullification. In a certain respect, then, it is closer to the realm of holiness, and it is not created from the outset in a manner belonging to the three impure kelipos. (It is worth noting that the Rambam writes that at the borders between the categories there is an overlap, so that part of the inanimate becomes plant and part of the plant becomes animal, such as petrified forms and corals.)
"קיום וחיות" - "existence and vitality" - and not "the existence of their bodies":
Another precision in the wording of the Tanya. Regarding the nations it says "נפשות כל אומות עובדי גילולים וקיום גופם" - "the souls of all the idol-worshipping nations and the sustaining of their bodies" - and likewise regarding the impure and forbidden animals, their souls and the sustaining of their bodies are mentioned. But by orlah the Alter Rebbe switches his language to "קיום וחיות," "existence and vitality," without saying "of their bodies." An apple that grew in the first three years belongs to the three impure kelipos - but which part of it belongs to them?
Here is an interesting point. The physical part of anything was created once, and the Holy One, blessed be He, continues to sustain it; the chayus, the life-energy within it, however, is renewed and replaced constantly. The apple tree itself, its trunk and its physical body, is not from the three impure kelipos, for after three years that very same tree will produce fruit that is permitted to eat. It follows that the body of the fruit too is not from the three impure kelipos; rather, the chayus it receives during the first three years is what comes from there. The fruit is forbidden to eat because its chayus is from the three impure kelipos, not because its body is. That is why the Alter Rebbe is precise and writes only "existence and vitality."
At the close of the chapter the Alter Rebbe adds: "וכן קיום וחיות כל המעשה דיבור ומחשבה של כל שס"ה לא תעשה וענפיהן" - "and likewise the existence and vitality of every deed, word and thought of all 365 prohibitions and their offshoots." With each one of the 365 prohibitions in the Torah, whoever performs it in deed, speaks it, or thinks it, is at that moment drawing his chayus from the three impure kelipos. "And their offshoots": even a prohibition that is only rabbinic is a branch growing out of the 365 prohibitions, and one who transgresses it draws chayus onto his act from the three impure kelipos. Included in these lines are also the prohibitions of shemittah.
How, then, does a gentile convert?
According to all this, the soul and the body of a non-Jew receive their chayus from the three impure kelipos, which are absolute evil with no capacity to rise to holiness. How, then, can there be such a thing as conversion? Has his body changed?
The Chida answers this with a beautiful precision. Wherever converts are discussed, the phrase used is not "a gentile who converted" but "a ger who converted" - and what is "a ger who converted" supposed to mean? The answer is that a gentile does not convert. If he did convert, that is a sign that a spark was already in him beforehand, and at the moment of conversion that spark was merely clarified and revealed. Someone who does not have such a spark cannot convert at all. Conversion, then, is a gift that this person received in advance; it is not something available to anyone at all.
And from here there is also a practical lesson, very much of our times. Those who want to turn conversion into a wholesale, easy affair are like someone who would take a pig, dip it in a mikveh, and from then on market it as kosher meat, or like someone who would shorten the years of orlah from three years to a year and a half. Just as there is no possibility whatsoever of changing those things, so too there is no possibility of changing the process of conversion from the way halachah has fixed it. One who changes the process is deceiving the gentile: that person thinks he has converted, while in fact he has remained exactly as he was. Had he known that it was a fraud, he would not have wanted it at all.
In summary: in this section we examined the precision of the Alter Rebbe's language: the citation "in the Chariot of Yechezkel," which teaches that even the root of the impure kelipos is in holiness; the way the verse "a stormy wind and a great cloud, etc." is quoted; the reason for the number three, corresponding to the three lines and to the three elements of fire, air and water; the double expression "impure and forbidden to be eaten," which teaches that he means things that are so from the very beginning of their creation; the absence of any example from domem, whose very essence is bittul; and the precise wording "existence and vitality" by orlah, indicating that its body is not from the kelipos but only its chayus. We also learned that every deed, word and thought of the prohibitions and their offshoots receives its chayus from the three impure kelipos. Once kedushah has been defined as bittul to G-dliness, it follows that whatever does not meet that criterion belongs to the side of kelipah, which receives a Divine chayus so constricted and so lowered that it is in a state of exile; and in the three impure kelipos the concealment is so great that they have no capacity, in the ordinary way, to be transformed and rise to holiness.
In the next section we will turn to chapter 7 and to klipas nogah, and to what is unique about this level, that it does have the capacity to be refined and to rise to holiness.