מעט ביאור על זאת חנוכת המזבח

The heading introduces short notes on “This is the dedication of the altar,” the verses about the princes’ offerings when the altar of the Mishkan was dedicated, which the preceding maamar explains. The notes that follow fill in points about the anointing oil, the incense and the eating of the altar.

The Ramaz (Rabbi Moshe Zacuto), commenting on the Zohar, explains that the anointing oil comes from Mocha Stima’ah, the “hidden brain,” the Chochmah concealed within Keser, while its fragrance comes from the Gevurah of Atik Yomin (Atik being the innermost level of Keser), which is enclothed within that hidden brain. The Alter Rebbe then points to two places where he discusses oil and fragrance: the discourse on “For the fragrance of your oils” and the explanation of “If only you were as a brother to me” in Parshas Terumah.

Iggeres HaKodesh (the “Holy Epistle,” the fourth part of Tanya), epistle 28, explains that the offerings on the altar raise “feminine waters” (mayin nukvin), an arousal from below, and in response “masculine waters” (mayin duchrin), a flow from above, descend from the “man” upon the throne, which is Z’eir Anpin of Atzilus. The altar’s “eating” of the offerings is this exchange, and what it draws down is inner light (or pnimi), light that enters the vessels and is absorbed in them.

The incense is offered as fragrance, and fragrance rises to the level of the “nose” (chotma) of Atik, the innermost level of Keser; as the Alter Rebbe explains on “I have gathered My myrrh,” smell is higher than taste, as the nose is above the palate. So the incense raises mayin nukvin to the encompassing light (makif), described in the words of the morning blessing before the Shema as “the King who alone is exalted… and Who is uplifted since days of old.”

The anointing oil, by contrast, blends inner and encompassing light: like the oil “descending upon the beard,” it is drawn from the mazalos (from nozel, “to flow”), the channels of the supernal beard that issue from Mocha Stima’ah, in which the Gevurah of Atik Yomin is enclothed, as the opening note said.

To show how two opposite levels can blend, the Alter Rebbe turns to the seventh and highest firmament, which the Talmud calls Aravos. The name is read here as from the root that means “to mix.”

The Pardes (Pardes Rimonim of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero) explains that Aravos is so named because Chesed and Gevurah, kindness and restraint, blend together in it, and the Zohar says the same: the seventh firmament includes fire and water together, from the south and from the north. This recalls “He makes peace in His heights,” joining opposites, and the Midrash’s reading of King Shlomo as “the King to whom peace belongs.”

Aravos can unite opposites because it is the seventh chamber (heichal), the Holy of Holies, which includes the first three Sefiros, above the emotive attributes, as the Kabbalistic lexicon Me’orei Or records. So the verse says of G‑d that He “rides upon Aravos” with the Name Yah, whose letters yud and hei stand for Chochmah and Binah.

This level is above the emotive attributes (middos) altogether; G‑d Himself “is not of any of these attributes at all.” So there the attributes lose their separateness and “become one,” as in David’s blessing, “Yours, Havayah, is the greatness and the might,” where the attributes are all “Yours.”

In the same way, the blending of the inner and the encompassing comes from the level of “for He is exalted, exalted,” G‑d as exalted above all that is exalted. Before Him, light that enters the vessels and light that surrounds them from beyond are equal, so the two can be joined.

Earlier in this parsha, on “Lift up the head of the sons of Gershon,” the Alter Rebbe explains the three “hands” that established the Sanctuary: the great hand (Chesed) and the strong hand (Gevurah) are joined by the “high hand,” whose root is above both, and he compares it to “for He is exalted, exalted.” It is another level above two opposites that unites them.

The incense is described as “blended (memulach), pure, holy”: memulach is from the root of “salt,” and the Targum renders it me’arav, “mixed.” Rabbi Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz, rabbi of Frankfurt am Main and a disciple of the Maggid of Mezritch, the Alter Rebbe’s own teacher, explains the phrase in his Panim Yafos.

In his reading, “holy” is Chochmah and “pure” is Binah, the two that the Zohar calls “two companions that never part.” So “mixed, pure, holy” describes Chochmah and Binah joined together.

Elsewhere the Alter Rebbe explains the morning blessing “The soul that You have placed within me is pure”: in its source the soul is at the level of “pure,” and through the mitzvos, over which we say “Who has sanctified us with His commandments,” it rises to the level of “holy.” He gives two discourses for this, “And I will make your windows of kadkod” and “A Shabbos of complete rest.”

From that pair, “pure” rising to “holy,” one can understand the Targum’s “mixed, pure, holy,” which is close to the blending of inner and encompassing light described above.

This explains “on the day it was anointed” and “after it was anointed.” The incense and the bowls that the princes brought raise mayin nukvin to draw down the encompassing light, so of them it says “on the day it was anointed”: the anointing oil also comes from Mocha Stima’ah of Atik, so oil, incense and bowls are all one level.

The eating of the altar, the animal offerings, draws mayin duchrin from Z’eir Anpin, a lower and inner level, so it is said to come “after it was anointed.” In the Zohar on Va’eira, the twelve precious stones correspond to the twelve tribes and to the twelve oxen beneath the bronze sea of the Temple, and so the princes brought twelve oxen; the Alter Rebbe also points to a passage of the Zohar in Beha’aloscha.

The same phrase, “on the day he is anointed,” appears with the offering of Aharon and his sons, and the Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on that verse in Parshas Tzav for more on the subject.