מעט ביאור ע״פ אני דפ׳ ציצית

This short piece adds to the maamar before it (Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach 14, on “I am Havayah your G‑d”), on the last verse of the section of tzitzis, where the words “I am Havayah your G‑d” come twice. It looks at the word “I” (Ani) itself and asks what each of its two appearances means.

After pointing to his explanation on “And He called” (in Likkutei Torah, Vayikra, “I am the first” is Ayin, the source of wisdom, and “I am the last” is G‑d’s Malchus), the Alter Rebbe offers a first answer: the two times “I” are two different levels. The first is Malchus, the last Sefirah of Atzilus, which becomes Atik (literally “the Ancient One”), the innermost and highest level, of the world below it, Beriah. As such it is the root of the upper and lower Gan Eden, where souls receive their reward after death.

The second “I” is in Keser, the level above intellect, called Ayin (nothingness) because it cannot be grasped; “from which Chochmah is found” echoes Job’s “wisdom, from where (me’ayin) shall it be found?”, read as “from Ayin.” It is also in Malchus of Atzilus, in what Malchus receives from “the river that goes out of Eden”: in Kabbalah Eden is Chochmah and the river that flows from it is Binah.

The Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation of the Song of the Well in Likkutei Torah, Chukas, where “a fountain of gardens” is Binah of Atzilus, which comes down into the lower worlds by first being clothed in Malchus.

In parentheses comes a second answer: both times “I” are in Keser, as Etz Chaim, Rabbi Chaim Vital’s record of the Arizal’s teachings, explains “I am the first and I am the last.” The Kehot note says that “Sha’ar 41, end of chapter 3” is the numbering of the Shklov printing of 5560 (1800); in current editions it is Sha’ar 42, end of chapter 1.

Etz Chaim says that Keser is both first and last, both Ayin and Ani, two Hebrew words written with the same letters (אין, אני). Keser stands between the Emanator, the Infinite One, and everything emanated: its upper side is the last level of the Emanator, His Malchus, and is called Ani, “I”; its lower side is the root and first of all that is emanated, and is called Ayin, “nothing.”

Applying this, the first “I am Havayah your G‑d” is Keser as Ayin, the root of the emanated levels. From there comes the revelation of Gan Eden, which passes through “the hair of His head like pure wool” in Daniel’s vision, which, as he says below, stands for the Torah.

The second, repeated “I am Havayah your G‑d” is the revelation of Malchus of the Infinite One itself, the true Ani, which will be revealed at the Resurrection of the Dead.

This revelation comes through the other image in Daniel’s vision, “His garment white as snow.” To explain it the Alter Rebbe quotes the Arizal from Mevo She’arim, Rabbi Chaim Vital’s systematic work on the Arizal’s Kabbalah, and from the Arizal’s comments on Scripture (his Likkutei Torah), in the omitted passages (Hashmatos) on Daniel: the “garment” is Arich Anpin, the outer level of Keser that clothes Atik Yomin, its inner level, and “the hair of His head” is the hair of that garment, the hair of Arich Anpin.

So the Torah, “the hair of His head,” comes from the hair of Arich Anpin, while the mitzvos, “His garment,” are Arich Anpin itself, the garment that clothes Atik Yomin. Through this garment Atik Yomin, which is Malchus of the Infinite One, will be drawn down and revealed, which fits the known teaching that the root of the mitzvos is in the Gulgalta, the “skull” of Arich Anpin.

The Talmud (Bava Basra 75a) tells that on Isaiah’s “I will make your windows of kadkod,” two angels disagreed whether the stone would be shoham or yashpeh, and G‑d said, “Let it be like this and like this” (kedin ukedin), a play on kadkod, as if kad-kad, “like this, like this.” In Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, the Alter Rebbe explains this as two modes of revelation, one drawn down from above to below and one rising from below to above; here he says the Time to Come will also have both.

Shoham and yashpeh are the last two stones of the High Priest’s breastplate, which bore the names of Yosef and Binyamin (the Kehot note points to Rashi and the Targumim on Exodus 28). Some hold that one who prays alone repeats “I am Havayah your G‑d” to bring the Shema, which has 245 words, to 248; he then says the second “I” twice, a hint that the revelation of the second “I” will itself come in two modes.

In the preceding maamar (Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach 14), the second “I” was explained as “faithful to pay reward,” the reward that comes chiefly at the Resurrection. Its doubling now means that this future revelation will itself have two modes, from above to below and from below to above, which come from the Torah and from the mitzvos respectively.

In Torah Ohr, Miketz, in the discourse “Who is enthroned on high,” the Alter Rebbe explains that all the mitzvos are called tzedakah, and “tzedakah exalts”: they raise up from below to above, while the Torah is drawn down from above to below. His discourse on the Talmud’s rule that the Chanukah lamp stands at the left of the doorway, “so that the mezuzah will be on the right,” makes the same point: the mezuzah on the right is the ascent of the mitzvos, and the Chanukah lamp the light of the Torah drawn down.

The Talmud tells of a man saved from sin by his tzitzis, who explained that “I am Havayah your G‑d” is written twice: “I am He who will exact punishment, and I am He who will pay reward.” The Alter Rebbe adds that the Zohar in Parshas Acharei says the same.

Reward and punishment correspond to Chesed (kindness) and Gevurah (restraint). The doubled “I” appears in tzitzis in particular because its white threads and its blue (techeles) thread hint at these two attributes; in Kabbalah white is the color of Chesed and blue of Gevurah.

The Midrash, in two places, learns the greatness of G‑d’s “I” from the “I” of a human king.

Pharaoh’s words to Yosef, “I am Pharaoh,” brought Yosef great honor; when G‑d’s “I” comes, the “I” of “I am the first and I am the last,” the honor will be greater by far. The Alter Rebbe will read this coming of G‑d’s “I” as the revelation of the Time to Come.

Now the Alter Rebbe explains the words “I am Havayah” themselves. Ani, “I,” is G‑d’s own Being and Essence, while Havayah, which shares its root with mehaveh, “brings into being,” is the power that creates through the contraction (tzimtzum) of the yud, the first letter of the Name, which is Chochmah. He explains “I am Havayah” the same way in Likkutei Torah, Behar, on “You shall revere My Sanctuary; I am Havayah.”

Job’s verse is read, “wisdom is found from Ayin”: Chochmah comes from Keser, called Ayin, whose letters are those of Ani, “the most hidden of all hidden.” It is called “nothing” not because it lacks being, but from our side, because it is too hidden to be grasped. In Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim (“I am black and comely”), the Alter Rebbe explains from the Sages’ “black fire on white fire” that even Keser is called darkness and “black fire” before the Infinite One, the “white fire,” and that this is “He made darkness His hiding place.”

The verse calls G‑d “a G‑d of knowledges,” in the plural, which is read as two ways of knowing. Seen from below, from our side, the created world is yesh, “something” real, and G‑d above is Ayin, “nothing,” because we cannot grasp Him; seen from above, from G‑d’s side, it is the reverse: He is the true yesh and the world is as nothing, as the Zohar says, “all before Him is accounted as nothing.”

In the Time to Come, when G‑dliness is revealed, what is now Ayin and hidden will become Ani, “I”: the same letters, now pointing to a presence that is revealed.

That is, the higher view, that G‑d alone is truly yesh, will be revealed below as well. In Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar (“When Israel put ‘we will do’ first”), the Alter Rebbe explains that the purpose of the Torah and the mitzvos is that the view from above be revealed from below too, so that all will see that everything is as nothing before Him.

In the Song of Haazinu, which Moshe taught Israel, G‑d declares, “See now that I, I am He,” with “I” said twice. The Zohar reads “now” as a seeing of what could not be seen before.

In Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar (“In the wilderness of Sinai”), the Alter Rebbe explains that this verse speaks of the Time to Come, when G‑d will be seen with the senses, while now the soul only thirsts for that sight. The Talmud in Pesachim also reads the verse as speaking of the Time to Come.

The same verse goes on, “I put to death and I bring to life,” and the Talmud reads it as a promise of the Resurrection of the Dead: the One who puts to death brings the same person back to life.

This, says the Alter Rebbe, is the Midrash’s “when the ‘I’ of the Holy One, blessed be He, comes.” Since Ani and Ayin have the same letters, what is now utterly hidden, and known to us from below only as Ayin, “nothing,” will be drawn down in the Time to Come as a revealed “I.”

The revelation will then be below as it is above, and that is the meaning of “See now that I, I am He”: G‑d’s very “I” will be seen.

Isaiah prophesies that on that day Israel will say, “Behold, this is our G‑d,” pointing, as it were, to what they plainly see. The Talmud’s image of G‑d taking the sun out of its sheath is read to mean that the “sun,” the Name Havayah (as in “Havayah G‑d is a sun and a shield”), will shine with no cover hiding it.

Another proof: in Jeremiah G‑d says, “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?”, so the “I” that fills them is His very Essence. Yet Isaiah says that what fills the earth is “His glory,” and the Alter Rebbe goes on to explain the difference.

The “glory” that fills the earth is only ziv yekarei, “the radiance of His glory,” the light that is clothed in the worlds and gives them life. “I fill,” G‑d’s Essence, is present too, but hidden: this is sovev kol almin, which, as Tanya explains, does not mean that it surrounds the worlds from above in space, but that it is in them without being revealed.

In the Time to Come this encompassing light will shine openly, as an inner light within the worlds. That revelation of the “I” that now fills all in hiding is what the Midrash calls the coming of G‑d’s “I.”

The Alter Rebbe brings a parallel from Torah Ohr, Bereishis, on Isaiah’s “the new heavens and the new earth that I make”: it is “I,” the Supreme Emanator Himself, who makes them, and from Him new souls will be revealed. There he explains that this renewal comes from above the whole chain of descent, from the Infinite One Himself.

The doubled “I,” like “I am the first and I am the last,” means that the revelation below will be exactly as it is above. In Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, on “Your cheeks are comely with rows,” the “rows” are two rows, one from below to above and one from above to below.

In Likkutei Torah, Matos, the Alter Rebbe explains “I am the first” as G‑d before the world was created and “I am the last” as G‑d after the days of Moshiach, when there will be only He and His Name. Now he explains the Midrash on Pharaoh’s “I” and what it teaches about G‑d’s “I.”

When Pharaoh said “I am Pharaoh,” he declared his supremacy: all his people were lowly and nullified before him, his servants, and he was raised above them. His “I” stands for royal loftiness.

From that loftiness came Pharaoh’s grant to Yosef, “without you no man shall lift up his hand or his foot.” Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher, the Spanish Torah commentator, at the end of Parshas Behar brings the Midrash Tanchuma: if Pharaoh’s “I am Pharaoh” raised Yosef so high, how much more the reward of the mitzvos on which G‑d says “I am Havayah.”

So from Pharaoh’s “I” we learn about G‑d’s “I,” which is His kingship, Malchus: the worlds come into being through it, through the single thought “I will reign” alone. If a human king’s “I” is so great, the “I” of G‑d, which brings all worlds into being, is far greater.

“I am Havayah” means that from the level of “I,” G‑d’s Malchus, comes the root of all creation. If all creation comes from it, then all the more is He the true yesh, and everything before Him is as truly nothing.

This is “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?”: G‑d’s “I” fills all, though hidden. Its revelation in the Time to Come is the coming of G‑d’s “I.”

In parentheses the Alter Rebbe points to three discourses that explain Hoshea’s “I am like a fresh cypress,” another verse in which G‑d says “I.” There (Likkutei Torah, Yom Kippur and Acharei) the young cypress can be bent down to the ground and, springing back, lifts what was set on it very high: so G‑d’s “I,” His Malchus, comes down into the physical mitzvos and then rises, lifting the one who keeps them even higher than Malchus stood before it came down, to sovev kol almin.

The Song at the Sea says ga’oh ga’ah, “exalted, exalted.” The two words are two levels: sovev kol almin, which encompasses all worlds, and a level far higher than even that.

These two levels are the two times “I,” and they are drawn down through doing the mitzvos: 613 from the Torah and seven from the Rabbis make 620, the “620 pillars of light,” and 620 is twice yesh, a word whose letters add up to 310. Through them light is drawn from that doubly exalted level, “Master of wonders,” words from the Yishtabach blessing of the morning prayers.

A further reading of the Midrash: at the end of Parshas Bo the Midrash says that in the past G‑d went before Israel with His court, but in the Time to Come He alone will go before them. So the coming of G‑d’s “I” is the revelation of G‑d Himself.