אני ה׳ אלקיכם אשר הוצאתי אתכם מארץ מצרים…

The maamar opens with the last verse of the section of tzitzis, which is also the last verse of the Shema. The first question: why does the verse say “I am Havayah your G‑d” twice, once at its beginning and again at its end?

A second question: why was this verse made part of the Shema? It is said there to mention the Exodus (the Talmud, Berachos 21a, notes that the Exodus is mentioned in the Shema), yet remembering the Exodus “all the days of your life” is a separate mitzvah of its own. In Tanya, chapter 47, the Alter Rebbe explains the daily Exodus as the G‑dly soul’s going out of the body’s prison into the unity of the Infinite Light, above all in the Shema; the maamar will build its own bridge between the two.

If the only aim were to mention the Exodus, the verse “So that you remember the day you went out of Egypt” would have been the obvious choice, since it speaks of remembering directly. A third question: what does this verse have to do with the mitzvah of tzitzis, whose section it closes?

The answer begins with the root of the soul. The world was created through ten divine utterances, which Psalms calls “the word of Havayah” and “the breath of His mouth,” the level of divine speech; but the Midrash says that Israel “arose in [G‑d’s] thought” before the world was made.

Thought is higher and more inward than speech, so the souls’ root is above the source of the worlds. Yet the souls came down into this world, into a body and an animal soul, through the utterance “Let us make man,” that is, through the lower level of speech. In Likkutei Torah, Tzav, the Alter Rebbe explains that at their root in that thought the souls are called “brothers and friends” of the Holy One, blessed be He, one with Him as in Atzilus.

The soul’s descent is not an end in itself but the means to a greater ascent. The question is what that ascent can be, after the years the soul spends in this world.

Before its descent the soul was already included in G‑d’s own thought, so the ascent that follows the descent must take it higher still. In Likkutei Torah, Balak, on “Who has counted the dust of Yaakov” (Numbers 23:10), the Alter Rebbe asks the same question: before its descent the soul already delighted in the radiance of the Shechinah, so what greater ascent can there be?

Yaakov received the name Yisrael after he wrestled with the angel and prevailed, “for you have striven with Elokim.” The maamar will explain this as overcoming the concealment of the Name Elokim, the Name through which the world seems to exist on its own.

Later G‑d Himself confirmed the name in a vision (Genesis 35:10). The letters of ישראל (Yisrael) can be rearranged as לי ראש, li rosh, “a head for Me”: the Jewish people become, as it were, a “head” for G‑d. For this reading Kehot points to the Arizal’s Sha’ar HaPesukim on this verse, and to the Tzemach Tzedek’s Derech Mitzvosecha, which brings it in the name of the Zohar.

Since G‑d has no body, the maamar must explain what a “head” above can mean. In Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, in the discourse on “Go out and see, O daughters of Zion” (Song of Songs 3:11), the Alter Rebbe explains it: as the head holds the brain and the skull that covers it, so Israel draw down the supernal wisdom through the Torah, clothed in physical matters.

Scripture and Kabbalah both call the will the “head” or “skull.” In the verse about the high priest’s golden plate, worn on his forehead “for goodwill (ratzon),” ratzon plainly means favor, that Israel’s offerings be accepted; the maamar hears in it “will,” so the verse ties the forehead to the will. Following “from my flesh I behold G‑d,” we learn about the divine from the human soul, where delight and intellect lie deeper than the will.

A person wants something either because it gives him pleasure or because his reason says it is right. Delight and intellect are therefore the inner causes, and the will is their outward expression.

The will shows itself openly: a person can say what he wants and can order others to carry it out.

The pleasure or reasoning behind the will stays hidden inside it, as the brain is hidden inside the skull. That is why the will is called Gulgalta, “the skull,” the bone that covers the brain.

The same holds above. The phrase “the skull that covers over the brain” means that G‑d’s revealed will covers over the hidden wisdom and delight that underlie it.

That hidden wisdom and delight have no end. The Alter Rebbe reads the words of the Amidah, “and holy ones praise You every day, Selah,” to mean that the holy ones rise every day to new comprehension, without end.

Yet all those endless ascents are only a faint glimmer of the higher Chochmah, as small as a hair compared with the brain, or a drop compared with the sea. The bracket adds that the higher Chochmah is called “Eden,” which the Talmud identifies with “no eye has seen,” a place no created eye has seen.

That Eden is itself drawn from a still higher Eden, “hidden of all hidden,” as the Zohar’s Idra Zuta says. The higher Chochmah stays sealed because the “skull,” the supernal will, covers over the “brain,” that hidden supernal Eden.

This explains the Talmud’s story in which Moshe was shown Rabbi Akiva’s cruel death and asked, “This is Torah and this its reward?”, and G‑d answered, “Be silent; so it arose in My thought.” There is a reason, but it lies in that hidden wisdom, beyond comprehension. In Likkutei Torah, Bechukosai, the Alter Rebbe explains that Moshe’s understanding came from the higher Chochmah, while the answer “so it arose in thought” comes from the hidden Chochmah (Chochmah Stima’ah) far above it.

Only G‑d’s will can be revealed, as a decree; the wisdom and reason behind it stay “hidden and not opened up,” enclosed within the “skull,” and so the answer is “Be silent.” In the Gemara these words are said to Moshe; in the parallel passage in Likkutei Torah, Vaeschanan, the Alter Rebbe adds that the reason is hidden even from the angels’ comprehension, “and therefore He said to them, Be silent.”

The same is true at a lower level: the will that comes from the Chochmah that is “opened up,” the revealed wisdom, is itself revealed, while the wisdom behind it is revealed only to souls in the higher Gan Eden, and even there only through many contractions.

This is why the will is called both “skull” and “forehead,” which closes the bracket. The Zohar (III, 129a) reads the verse of the high priest’s plate, “upon his forehead always, for goodwill,” as speaking of the supernal Forehead.

The Zohar calls this Forehead, which is “will,” the revelation of the whole head and skull. The forehead is the one part of the head that hair does not cover, so it stands for the will that shows itself openly.

Israel are li rosh, a “head” for G‑d, because they arouse and draw down the supernal will. The Talmud says that when Jews answer “May His great Name be blessed” in synagogues and houses of study, G‑d “nods His head.”

G‑d’s “head” is the supernal will, and nodding is a downward movement, so it means drawing that will down to be revealed below. The bracket sends the reader to the Idra Zuta (Zohar III, 288a–b), which says that of the Holy Ancient One (Atika Kadisha) only the “head” is revealed, while the supernal wisdom, “the hidden brain,” is concealed within its skull.

The response of Kaddish, yehei shmei rabba mevarach, is read here as a request that “His great Name” be “blessed” (mevarach) in the sense of drawn down, as one “draws down” (mavrich) a vine shoot into the ground: brought from concealment into revelation. This is the nodding of G‑d’s head just described; in Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, the Alter Rebbe also reads shmei rabba as “may the Name Y‑H become great” and, pointing back to this maamar, says both readings are true.

G‑d’s “Names” are the ways His light is expressed and revealed. Most of them belong to the chain of descending worlds: they are measured rays of the Infinite Light that enter the worlds and give each world life according to its capacity.

Even the Name Havayah works at this level: the Talmud says that the World to Come was created with its letter yud. The maamar will return to this when it explains Yaakov’s words “and Havayah will be to me as Elokim” in section 4.

“His great Name,” by contrast, is far above the whole order of descending worlds and never enters or is enclothed in them. This is what Israel ask to be revealed when they answer the Kaddish. In a gloss, the Tzemach Tzedek notes that elsewhere “His great Name” seems to be the Name Havayah itself, and suggests the two agree through the teaching of an upper and a lower Name Havayah, which this maamar brings in section 4.

Even “His great Name” is only a “name”: as a person’s name lets others call him but does not touch his essence, so this Name is not G‑d’s essence. Yet it is beyond all created comprehension, and higher even than sovev kol almin, the light that encompasses the worlds without entering them.

The Kaddish asks that His great Name be blessed le’alam ule’almei almaya, usually understood as “for ever and ever.” The Alter Rebbe reads the words literally, “to the world and to the worlds of worlds,” and takes the singular “world” to be Atzilus, the world of emanation.

Atzilus is a single “world” because there G‑d, His life-forces and His vessels are entirely one. The plural “worlds of worlds” are Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, the realm of separation, as the Torah says of the river that leaves Eden, “from there it was divided”; the prayer is that His great Name be revealed in all of them, so that their sense of separate existence dissolves into “nothing.”

The worlds feel themselves to be a separate “something” because they are made through the Name Havayah, which brings them into being (mehaveh) stage by stage through the chain of worlds. The further the light descends, the more independent the creations feel, until there are worlds that are truly separate.

When the Infinite Light that is above the whole chain is revealed, the worlds will lose that sense of independence and be nullified into “nothing.” The bracket points to the discourse on Zechariah’s vision of a golden menorah for more on this.

The bracket also points to the discourse on “There are sixty queens” in Likkutei Torah on Shir HaShirim, which deals with the prophecy that in the Time to Come “a spring shall go forth from the House of Havayah.” There the Alter Rebbe explains that the lower worlds are the realm of separation, “from there it was divided,” and that when Israel draw the Infinite Light down below just as it is above, the upper and lower worlds become wholly one.

This is why G‑d “nods His head” when Israel answer “Amen, may His great Name be blessed”: He draws down the revelation of His “head,” the supernal will. Within that will, as explained above, the supernal delight and the higher Chochmah lie hidden.

The bracket points to the discourse on “And I was beside Him as a nursling,” which speaks of the Torah as G‑d’s “delight day by day”; there, in Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar, the Alter Rebbe explains that the supernal will is only the outer “back” of the mitzvos, while their inner core is the supernal delight. The aim of the nod is that the supernal will be revealed below, so that, in Yeshayahu’s words, “the glory of Havayah will be revealed” here just as above.

Section 2 explains what causes G‑d to “nod His head”: Israel, li rosh, who are, as it were, the “head” above. They do this through “you have striven with Elokim,” which the maamar will explain as bringing about the nullification of the “something.”

This is an “arousal from below,” also called the “raising of mayin nukvin (feminine waters)”: an initiative from below that calls forth a flow from above. It happens in the Shema: in “Hear, O Israel,” “hear” means understand, and “Israel” is read as li rosh, “a head for Me.”

Because a Jew stands at the level of a “head,” the verse calls on him to understand how Havayah is One: everything before Him is as nothing, and the worlds draw their life only from His Malchus, His kingship, the level of “Blessed be the Name of the glory of His kingdom.” As a king’s essence does not spread into his provinces and only his name is over them, so only G‑d’s kingship, not His essence, gives life to the worlds.

From this understanding comes the love of “with all your might,” a love without limit. Psalms describes it as “My flesh and my heart pine away (kalah),” which plainly means that body and heart fail; the maamar hears in kalah the soul’s expiring in longing, a yearning so strong that the self is consumed.

“My flesh” (she’eri) is the body, called she’er basar, and “my heart” is the blood of the heart, on which life depends; it fills the left chamber, where, as Tanya, chapter 9, explains, the animal soul and the evil inclination dwell. The Sages read “with all your heart (levavcha),” with its doubled letter beis, as “with both your inclinations,” the good and the evil.

So even the powers of the animal soul, “from soul to flesh,” come to long and thirst to be nullified and included in the Infinite Light. This happens when a person’s heart truly grasps that “there is nothing else besides Him,” and that only His kingship gives the world life.

This going out of the self is the inner meaning of the Exodus, so its mention belongs with the Shema. It must happen every day, because even after a prayer said with self-sacrifice a person may again desire things that are not for G‑d.

This is the state of the beinoni, the “intermediate” person, of whom the Talmud says that both inclinations “judge him.” But the Sages said “judge,” not “rule.”

For the evil has no real dominion: the evil inclination is like a judge who states his opinion while the law is decided otherwise. In Tanya, chapter 13, the Alter Rebbe explains that the G‑dly soul disputes that opinion and the law follows the One who decides, the Holy One, blessed be He, who helps the good, as the verse says, He “stands at the right hand of the needy, to save him.”

The Talmud says that a person could not overcome his inclination if G‑d did not help him, and that one who comes to purify himself is helped. That help comes when he arouses himself in the Shema and prayer, which is why there must be a going out of Egypt every day.

The Exodus is not only for those who struggle with evil: even tzaddikim must go out of their own “straits” (meitzarim, a play on Mitzrayim, Egypt), the limits of the level they have reached. Kabbalah calls this going beyond oneself “raising mayin nukvin,” and the Zohar calls it an “arousal from below.”

It is precisely this effort from below that draws down the supernal will and delight. Sarah’s words at Yitzchak’s birth, “Elokim has made laughter for me,” teach that from the Name Elokim, which hides G‑d so that the world can feel itself a “something,” comes laughter, the revelation of G‑d’s delight, once that “something” is nullified.

Psalms says that G‑d formed the Leviathan “to play with,” to sport and delight in. The Alter Rebbe refers to several of his discourses in which this theme of divine “play” and delight is developed; in Torah Ohr, Vayeitzei, on “And I return in peace,” he explains that the very purpose of the worlds’ descent is that there be laughter and delight above, which comes through refining and transforming the darkness below.

Laughter comes from surprise, from something new and unexpected. Before it entered a body, the soul’s nullification before G‑d was nothing new, since all the worlds together are like a drop in the ocean before Him.

What is new is that the body and the animal soul, self-centered by nature, come to long for G‑d until “my flesh and my heart pine away,” so that even the “something” is nullified like a drop in the sea. This is the “raising of mayin nukvin” from below.

In itself, the nullification of a body and an animal soul is far less than that of the higher worlds. But it is new and unexpected, and that is what gives it its power.

The Alter Rebbe gives an analogy from a human king, whose heart, Proverbs says, “is unsearchable.” To win his attention for a commoner’s request, one brings him something new and surprising, such as a talking bird.

People speak far more wisely than any bird, but that is nothing new. A bird that talks surprises the king and wins his heart.

In the same way, the nullification of the “something,” an animal becoming a “man,” is a novelty that captures the “heart” above. The verse “Man and beast You save, Havayah” is read as speaking of this change.

This very novelty arouses the highest levels, drawing down the supernal will and delight, as the Alter Rebbe also explains on the gift Yaakov sent to Eisav. It is like an animal that carries its rider to a place he could not reach on foot: the animal soul, once refined, carries the soul higher than it could go alone.

So in Yechezkel’s vision the chayos, the “living creatures” of the divine chariot, with the faces of a lion and an ox, carry the Throne and even “the likeness as the appearance of a man” upon it: the animal forms bear up the human. Yet it is also true that the chayos themselves are carried along with the Throne.

Now the verse about Yaakov’s new name can be understood. Reaching the level of Yisrael, li rosh, a “head” above, comes through what the verse says next.

“You have striven with Elokim” means overcoming the concealment of the Name Elokim, that is, nullifying the “something.” This draws down the revelation of the supernal delight and will, the “head,” which is the nod of G‑d’s head described above.

The letters of Yisrael also spell shir El, “a song of G‑d,” as the Tikkunei Zohar reads them, and song too is a drawing down of the supernal delight. In Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, on “The Song of Songs,” song is explained as the soul’s “running and returning,” and the melodies above as a drawing down of the light that encompasses all worlds; this as well comes through “you have striven with Elokim.”

In the verse “and in the night shirah is with me,” the word is written shirah but read shiro, “His song,” G‑d’s own delight. It comes “in the night,” by turning darkness into light. The text then begins a list of sources on Yaakov’s change of name, starting with the Midrash Rabbah.

The list continues with the Midrash on Avraham’s change of name, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud at the end of the first chapter of Berachos, several passages of the Zohar, and the Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Zacuto (the Ramaz) on the name Yisrael.

Section 3 turns to the purpose. The aim of this nullification and yearning is not that the soul stay in that rapture, or that it actually leave the body in its longing for G‑d.

Before its descent the soul was already wholly nullified before G‑d, so that cannot be why it came down. The main thing is what follows the yearning: drawing G‑d’s Infinite Light down into the world below.

The verse “and he shall rule over you” and the end of chapter 50 of Tanya (Sefer Shel Beinonim) are cited in support; there the Alter Rebbe teaches that when the soul’s longing reaches the point of expiring, it must remember that “against your will you live,” in order to draw G‑dly life down through the Torah and make a dwelling for G‑d below. In the Shema, “And these words shall be upon your heart” comes right after “with all your might”: after the love that goes beyond all limits comes the Torah, through which G‑d’s light is drawn down.

Scripture is called Mikra, and learning it is “reading” (korei), a word that also means “calling”: one who learns Torah calls G‑d’s light and draws it down. The Alter Rebbe then brings the Psalm “Who shall ascend the mountain of Havayah... who has not lifted up his soul in vain,” which plainly praises one who has not set his desire on falsehood.

In that verse the written text has nafsho, “his soul,” but the traditional reading is nafshi, “My soul.” “His soul” is the human soul climbing from below, as in “Who shall ascend the mountain.”

That upward climb is prayer. If it is not followed by Torah and mitzvos that draw the Infinite Light down, the ascent is called “in vain.”

The main thing is the level of nafshi, “My soul”: G‑d’s own light drawn down and revealed below. The Alter Rebbe refers to his explanation of “The voice is the voice of Yaakov” for more on this.

The bracket points to the Zohar and its commentary Mikdash Melech on nafshi, and offers further readings of “My soul.” Following the Arizal, Arich Anpin (the “Long Countenance,” the level of the divine will) is called the nefesh of all of Atzilus, because nefesh can mean will, as in G‑d’s words in Jeremiah, “My soul (nafshi) is not toward this people,” that is, My will is not with them.

On that verse Rashi explains “My soul” as “My will,” and the Targum renders it with the Aramaic word for will. The Talmud also reads Anochi, the first word of the Ten Commandments, as the initials of “I Myself (Ana nafshi) wrote and gave,” using nafshi for G‑d’s own self.

The Alter Rebbe refers to the Arizal’s comments on Anochi and to the Kabbalistic lexicon Me’orei Or.

Rashi explains the Talmud’s ana nafshi simply as “I Myself.” The Alter Rebbe suggests a deeper sense, nafshi as G‑d’s will: in the Torah G‑d gave His very self, as the Midrash says on “And they shall take for Me an offering”: “as it were, it is Me that you are taking.”

Another link: the verse of Shabbos says that G‑d “rested and was refreshed (vayinafash),” a word from the same root as nefesh, which Onkelos renders “and rested.” The phrase joins two verses, “for on it He rested” (Genesis 2:3) and “He rested and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17), as Kehot notes; the Ramban there and the Zohar in Vayakhel read vayinafash as the added soul of Shabbos.

The Zohar in Nasso and the Alter Rebbe’s discourses on “the spirit of Havayah shall rest upon him” and on “My pleasing aroma” are cited for the same theme, since venachah (“shall rest”) and nichoach (“pleasing”) share the root of “rest.” All these readings make nafshi the drawing down of G‑d’s own will and self.

Now the verse itself: “who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your G‑d.” The Exodus, the ascent from below, has as its purpose “to be your G‑d,” the drawing down of the Infinite Light into the world below.

This is also the meaning of G‑d’s words to Moshe, “When you bring the people out of Egypt, you shall serve G‑d on this mountain”: the Exodus led to the giving of the Torah. In Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim, on “Turn your eyes away from me,” the Alter Rebbe explains that the soul’s rush toward G‑d in prayer must be followed by a “return,” drawing G‑dliness down through Torah and mitzvos, which is the purpose of creation.

The prophet Eliyahu at Mount Chorev was shown the same lesson: G‑d was not in the tumult or in the fire. In the plain sense of the verse ra’ash is an earthquake; the maamar reads it as the angels’ “great tumult,” and teaches that the purpose is the drawing down, not the upward rush.

The tumult stands for the angels called ofanim and chayos, who, as the prayers say, rise “with a great tumult” in their awe at grasping that G‑d is holy and utterly beyond them. Their excitement is an ascent from below.

The Talmud reads “Havayah Tzeva’os” as “He is a sign (os) among His host (tzava)” (our printed Talmud has “He is Lord among His host”), splitting Tzeva’os into tzava and os. Since os also means “letter,” a single letter of the Name is enough to create and sustain all the heavenly hosts, just as the World to Come was created with the yud; the next paragraph draws the conclusion that this is why the angels make their great tumult.

Because a single letter of the Name creates and sustains them, the angels are overwhelmed and make a great tumult. Yet “Havayah is not in the tumult”: the revelation of the Name does not come to rest within their excitement.

The angels’ tumult is an upward movement, their longing to be absorbed and nullified in Havayah. But an upward rush, however intense, is not a vessel in which the Name itself comes to dwell.

The fire after the tumult is the burning fervor of the seraphim, whose name means “burning ones.” A person has both as well: the tumult is the heart’s outward excitement and the fire its inner burning, as the Alter Rebbe explains on “I am black.”

G‑d is not in the fire either, for the fire too is only a reaching toward Havayah. He is in the “still, small voice”: “there the King comes,” in the words of the Tikkunei Zohar, and the Talmud tells how the blind Rav Sheshes knew the king was arriving only when silence fell.

The still, small voice is the Torah, through which the Infinite Light is drawn down from above to below, as G‑d says, “And I have put My words in your mouth.”

The Torah is called a “still, small voice” because, as Koheles says, “the words of the wise are heard in quietness”: it comes calmly, without excitement. The Alter Rebbe refers to an explanation of a passage of the Zohar on this, which Kehot identifies as the Mitteler Rebbe’s Biurei HaZohar.

Still, the tumult and the fire must come first, since the ascent of prayer prepares the drawing down through Torah. The letters of ra’ash (רעש, tumult) rearranged spell שער, read sha’ar, “gate,” when the dot of the ש is on the right (shin), and se’ar, “hair,” when it is on the left (sin); the “hair” on the left is the “hair of His head like clean wool” of Daniel’s vision, which stands for the laws of the Torah.

The “gate” on the right is “the gate to Havayah,” which stands for the mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe adds a reference to his discourse on “When you hearken to the voice”; there, in Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, he notes that the verse says “in the voice,” meaning its inner dimension, the Infinite Light drawn down so that the soul is nullified.

The references continue with the Zohar on Balak and Tzav, which speak of the “still, small voice.” The Alter Rebbe identifies it with “the inner voice” of which the Zohar speaks in Vaeschanan, the voice that was not seen at all, from which all the voices of the giving of the Torah came.

Further references: the Ramaz’s commentary on that Zohar, and the Talmud’s discussion of Eliyahu’s vision in Chagigah. The Maharsha, Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, is cited in his Chiddushei Aggados on the passage in Berachos (58a) where “the King comes” in the stillness.

The list closes with the Midrash Rabbah on Bereishis, Tazria and Koheles, the last on the verse “It goes toward the south,” and with the Zohar on Pinchas.

Now the maamar adds a point about time. All the drawings-down made through Torah and mitzvos are now hidden; they will be fully revealed only in the Time to Come, at the Resurrection, when every Jewish soul will be raised up.

No soul will be left out, for “no one banished will be banished from Him,” and the Song of Songs says, “You are all fair, my beloved.” Then the prayer “Bless us, our Father, all of us as one” will be fulfilled: the blessing comes when all are united.

Every mitzvah and every moment of Torah study in this world draws down the Infinite Light, but for now that light is not seen.

It is like “a gift in secret,” given without the receiver knowing. In the Time to Come the reward of each mitzvah will be revealed from within the mitzvah itself; in Torah Ohr, Shemos, on “Those who come, Yaakov will take root,” the Alter Rebbe explains that the soul descends into this world for the sake of the mitzvos, which become its garments.

The blessing before the Shema, “He sows righteousness and makes salvations sprout,” describes this: the mitzvos sown now will sprout later. The Alter Rebbe reads yeshuos, “salvations,” in the sense of vayisha, G‑d’s “turning” to Hevel’s offering: a revelation of the Infinite Light in bodies, higher even than the higher Gan Eden.

This is why even Avraham and Moshe, who stand at the summit of the higher Gan Eden, will return to bodies at the Resurrection: the revelation in a body will surpass even what they have there.

This world can hold a greater revelation because, as Sefer Yetzirah says, “their end is wedged in their beginning,” and, in the words of the Lecha Dodi hymn, what comes last in deed was first in G‑d’s thought. So “to be your G‑d” speaks of the future, when this revelation will be complete.

Section 4 explains the second “I am Havayah your G‑d.” In his vow Yaakov said, “and Havayah will be to me as Elokim (le’Elokim)”: plainly, “Havayah shall be my G‑d,” but the maamar reads le’Elokim as “like Elokim.”

Havayah, the Name that brings into being and gives life, will seem to him like Elokim, the Name that hides and conceals, when compared with a far higher revelation of the Infinite Light, above the Name Havayah itself. The Alter Rebbe explains this in Torah Ohr, Vayeitzei, on this verse.

The same will be true in the Time to Come, which is called “a day that is entirely long,” the Talmud’s name for the World to Come: it has no beginning or end, because the Infinite, which has no beginning and no end, will be revealed.

So the closing “I am Havayah your G‑d (Elokeichem)” means that Havayah will then be like Elokim, a concealing Name, compared with the immense light of the Infinite that will be revealed above it.

That higher light is “His great Name.” The Alter Rebbe suggests that this is why Yaakov was told twice that his name would be Yisrael: the first time, by the angel, meant the revelation of the Name Havayah, won through “you have striven with Elokim”; that is the revelation given at Sinai.

The second time, when G‑d Himself told Yaakov, “Yisrael shall be your name,” pointed to a still higher revelation.

There are two Names Havayah, as in the verse of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy that says “Havayah, Havayah” (Exodus 34:6), with a pause between them: a lower one and an upper one. The upper Havayah is “His great Name,” which the Kaddish asks to be revealed.

That upper Name is the revelation of the Time to Come. Rabbi Moshe Alshich, and some commentators on the Ein Yaakov (the collection of the Talmud’s aggados), asked why the name Yisrael was given twice, and this explanation answers their question.

“Your G‑d,” Elokeichem, is read as “your Elokim”: it is Israel who draw down the immense revelation before which Havayah is like Elokim. The verse “until Your people pass over Havayah” is read to say that Israel bring a revelation beyond the Name Havayah, through their ascent out of Egypt and the drawing down that follows.

Yet the verse says “who brought you out”: even the soul’s upward longing, its own Exodus, comes with G‑d’s help, for without His help a person could not overcome his inclination, and He “stands at the right hand of the needy.”

The Mishnah in Avos says that the world stands on three things: Torah, service (avodah) and acts of kindness. “Service” is the raising of mayin nukvin, the offering that rises from below.

Service is the nullification of the “something” that takes place in the Shema, the daily Exodus and prayer. Torah and kindness are the two ways in which G‑d’s light is then drawn down: Torah inwardly, “within my innards,” and kindness outwardly, through tzedakah.

The verse “The kindnesses of Havayah,” in which the prophet in Lamentations says that only G‑d’s kindnesses keep Israel from being consumed, uses the plural, pointing to two kinds of Chesed.

The Zohar says, “There is Chesed and there is Chesed.” The first is the supernal Chesed, which will be revealed only in the Time to Come; of it Yeshayahu says, “My kindness shall not depart from you,” and it is called “abundant in kindness.”

Yet a light from above can be revealed only if there is a vessel to receive it, “a place for His dwelling.”

That vessel is the second Chesed, of which the Tikkunei Zohar (in Patach Eliyahu) says that G‑d fashioned “bodies” for the Sefiros: “Chesed, the right arm.” This defined attribute of Chesed holds the boundless light of “abundant in kindness.”

The Alter Rebbe refers to two discourses in Likkutei Torah where the two levels of Chesed are explained at length. In Likkutei Torah, Nasso, on “Havayah, those who contend with Him,” he explains that the lower Chesed, “the kindness of the world,” is measured by people’s deeds, while the Chesed of Arich Anpin, far above it, sweetens and nullifies all judgments; in Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar, he speaks of concealed and revealed kindnesses at ever higher levels.

Below, that vessel is the practice of acts of kindness, Chesed as “the right arm.” The text adds that all the limbs of the body follow the right.

Torah too has two levels, as the verse “his desire is in the Torah of Havayah, and in his Torah he meditates” implies. “The Torah of Havayah” is the Torah above, the higher Chochmah, which will be revealed only in the Time to Come; in Or HaTorah the Tzemach Tzedek adds that this may be the “new Torah” that, as the Midrash says, “will go forth from Me.”

The vessel for the Torah above is the Torah below, the lower Chochmah, which a person studies and which is called “his Torah.” This explains the double “I am Havayah your G‑d”: the first refers to “today, to do them,” our work in this world.

That first level is the Torah below and the Chesed of the right arm, our Torah study and kindness now. They are vessels for the higher Torah and the inner Chesed, which will be revealed in the Time to Come.

The second “I am Havayah your G‑d” refers to that future revelation. This is why the Sages placed this verse in the Shema.

As explained above, the Exodus belongs with the Shema because to leave Egypt (Mitzrayim) is to leave the “straits” (meitzarim) and limits of the self, the nullification of the “something.”

This is the self-sacrifice (mesirus nefesh) at the word “One” in the Shema, an intention that, as Kehot notes, the Arizal’s Pri Etz Chaim teaches. It also corresponds to “you have striven with Elokim,” through which Israel become li rosh, a “head” above, as in “Hear, O Israel.”

All this is “service,” the raising of mayin nukvin, which must be followed by Torah and kindness, the drawings-down.

So all three pillars of the world are alluded to in this one verse: “Who brought you out of the land of Egypt” is the ascent, the “service,” and the twofold “I am Havayah” is the drawing down through Torah and kindness. That is why this verse in particular was chosen for the Shema.

This also answers the question about tzitzis. The mitzvah has two parts, the thirty-two threads and the tallis that wraps around a person, corresponding to the two drawings-down, through Torah and through kindness.

Torah is the inner drawing down, the thirty-two threads, matching the “thirty-two paths of wisdom” of Sefer Yetzirah. Kindness is the right arm that embraces, “and His right hand embraces me,” like the tallis that surrounds the body as a garment.

The tzitzis also allude to love and awe, as explained in the earlier discourse on “And it shall be for you as tzitzis”; these are the “service.” So tzitzis hold all three pillars.

The Alter Rebbe suggests why the world stands on exactly three things, citing the Zohar HaRakia, the Arizal’s commentary on the Zohar, on a passage at the end of Terumah about the Shechinah, which “receives from between the two arms.”

There it is explained that the holy world of Atzilus is completed in three levels, and that Abba and Imma, the intellectual configurations, are preceded by “three heads” above them, as the Idra Zuta speaks of three heads engraved one within another.

Corresponding to these, the world stands on three things. This also shows how Torah, service and kindness draw down G‑d’s “nod of the head,” the supernal will, and the Alter Rebbe refers to his discourse on “Your teeth are like a flock.”