Likkutei Torah · Sefer Shemos · Shabbos July 31
פרשת מטות
Parshas Matos
7 maamarim of the Alter Rebbe on the parsha, in the Hebrew of the Kehot edition, with every marei makom opened right where it appears. Each small section with a faithful English translation and a short explanation.
Begin with maamar 1 ContinueThe parsha as a PDFPDF · 4.9 MBText onlyThe Hebrew and the translation · PDF · 1.2 MBThe parsha as an EPUBEPUB · 618 KB
Your progress in Parshas Matos
The maamarim 7
- וידבר משה אל ראשי המטות וגו׳ איש כי… And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes The mitzvos, done with lowly physical things whose root is higher than the soul, draw down G‑d’s holiness that is set apart from all worlds; this explains the Sages’ ladder of abstinence, holiness, humility and fear of sin, Moshe’s “This is the thing,” and why a vow must be tied to something consecrated.
- ביאור ע״פ וידבר משה אל ראשי המטות An explanation of the verse “And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes” The independent “somethings” of creation come from the shattered vessels of Tohu, whose root is higher than the orderly World of Tikkun; so man, though last in creation, can raise them to their lofty source through Torah, mitzvos and holy speech, and in doing so draw down the Supreme Will, beyond all limits, into Malchus of Atzilus and into himself.
- ואשה כי תדור נדר לה׳ כו׳ בנעוריה כו׳ “And a woman, when she vows a vow to Havayah” The Congregation of Israel, the “woman” of the vow, loves G‑d in two ways: the cool love of a son for his father, which in exile can only subdue the physical and so needs vows as a fence; and the fiery love of a wife for her husband, drawn from the Torah, which transforms the physical and so “annuls” the vow. That Torah love is Yaakov’s attribute of truth, constant self-nullification, through which the final, lasting redemption comes.
- ושמע אביה את נדרה “And her father hears her vow” The fences and stringencies of the Sages are an expression of G‑d’s great love, and a person who is exacting with himself beyond the law draws that love down from beyond all the worlds. “Her father,” who annuls the vow, is this great love, supernal Chochmah: a vow, like all restraint, only subdues evil, while the father’s love releases the soul’s bonds and turns darkness itself into light.
- עיני כל אליך ישברו וגו׳ “The eyes of all look to You with hope” Knowing G‑d becomes real when the mind’s contemplation passes through the “gates” of Binah into the heart and is absorbed there. The Congregation of Israel moves from kol, the betrothed who longs from afar, to kallah, the bride united with G‑d under the chuppah of the Supernal Will.
- החלצו מאתכם וגו׳ “Arm yourselves from among you” Midian, whose name means strife, is baseless hatred: the force of division, the direct opposite of the Name Havayah, in which even opposites become one. The war against it is “the vengeance of Havayah,” and it is won only through the two kinds of peace that the Torah makes, above and below, in the worlds and in the soul, until all Israel is one, “as one man.”
- ביאור ענין החלצו מאתכם יחלצו מיבעי ליה דהא… An explanation of “Arm yourselves from among you” Midian is rooted in Tohu itself, the primordial state in which the divine attributes stood back to back, each pure and unable to yield to its opposite. Such separateness is overcome only by inter-inclusion, the peace above and below that the Torah of Moshe draws down through Chochmah and Daas, and therefore only by all Israel together: “arm yourselves,” all of you.
Learn it in seven days Sunday to Shabbos
The Rebbe asked that all the maamarim of the week’s parsha be learned in that week, spread over its seven days. Here is the parsha in seven portions of about equal length.