ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה לכם

The maamar opens with the Torah’s verse about Shemini Atzeres, the eighth day after the seven days of Sukkos. Onkelos, the classic Aramaic translation of the Torah, renders “Atzeres” as kenishin, “a gathering,” and the Alter Rebbe reads this spiritually: on this day all Jewish souls are gathered back into their single source and root.

To explain what that gathering means, he goes back to Rosh HaShanah, where the Musaf prayer (the Zichronos blessing) calls the day “the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.” The two phrases will be interpreted: “the beginning of Your works” is a starting point within creation, and “the first day” is what precedes all of creation.

Hishtalshelus is the step-by-step descent of G‑d’s light through countless levels, from the very highest (“the Head of all levels,” a Zohar-style phrase) down to our world. The Alter Rebbe stresses that the number of these steps is beyond counting.

Why so many steps? Because G‑d is Ein Sof, literally “without end,” and His Name says what He is: unlimited. Limited, created worlds could not come straight out of the Infinite; they come to be only after a long chain of intermediate levels, each bridging the one above and the one below, and these intermediaries are themselves without number.

An example of such an intermediary is the lower Gan Eden, the paradise where souls live after this life: it stands between the purely spiritual worlds and our physical world. The Mitteler Rebbe’s transcript of this maamar (Sefer HaMaamarim 5565) adds that this is why it is not found on the surface of the physical earth: it is spiritual, and it rests at the “middle line” called the equator, as Ramban explains in Sha’ar HaGemul.

The Zohar (in its introduction) says that every “form” of above and below is found there: the lower Gan Eden can bridge the two because it contains something of each.

Nehar Dinur, the “river of fire” of Daniel’s vision, is described as separating this world from the lower Gan Eden. Even perfectly righteous souls must immerse in it on the way up; in the previous maamar (Likkutei Torah, Shemini Atzeres, 83d) the Alter Rebbe adds that after delighting in the radiance of Gan Eden, the souls rise through the river of fire from ascent to ascent without end.

The immersion makes the soul forget this world’s physicality. Any memory of material life would act as a screen that blocks the soul from the spiritual experience of Gan Eden, so it must be washed away.

An analogy from ordinary experience: a stray, unrelated thought during prayer throws a person off. In Torah Ohr, Miketz (the first “Vayehi mikeitz”), the Alter Rebbe explains that if a soul must forget this world even to enjoy the radiance of the Shechinah in Gan Eden, how much more must a person set aside this world’s affairs to cleave to G‑d in Torah and prayer.

The pattern repeats at every stage. From the lower to the higher Gan Eden the soul must again forget, because the lower Gan Eden is “physical” compared with the higher; the same discourse in Torah Ohr says that this needs another immersion, in another river of fire, to forget even what was grasped in Gan Eden. And there are countless such steps all the way up.

Two phrases from the prayers, the Shabbos morning blessing before the Shema (“All shall exalt You, Selah”) and the thanksgiving blessing of the Amidah (“All the living shall thank You, Selah”); the Talmud reads “Selah” as “without interruption.” Praise and ascent go on endlessly, as the Kabbalistic teaching of the Shemittos and Jubilees (vast cosmic cycles of ascent) also shows: the second transcript of this maamar cites the Arizal’s writings that there are ascents of fifty thousand Jubilees, up to the light of Malchus of Ein Sof.

Every level rises to a higher one, and from the higher perspective the lower level seems “physical.” The text points to a discussion in Parshas Vayeitzei on Yaakov’s vow to give a tenth.

Now the Alter Rebbe interprets the Rosh HaShanah phrase: “the beginning of Your works” is the lower Gan Eden, the beginning of the World of Asiyah. It is singled out because it is where man was meant to be: for its sake he was created.

Adam was placed in the Garden to work and guard it; there the “deed” (service through action) was complete, as it will be again in the days of Mashiach. In our physical world today it is not so; in Torah Ohr, Vayechi (“Osrei lagefen”), the Alter Rebbe explains why the service of the days of Mashiach will be the ultimate perfection, beyond the prayer of the exile.

“The beginning of Your works” (the lower Gan Eden) is reached only by drawing on “the first day,” which is before the whole chain of descent began. As Sefer Yetzirah says, the beginning is wedged in the end: the highest source is bound up with the lowest point. (The print reads זרון, a slip for זכרון, “remembrance.”)

¶14 "The first day" before hishtalshelus is unpacked in paragraph 14.

The reason is that the whole descent exists for the lowest level: G‑d desired a dwelling place among the lower realms. Since the purpose is below, the lowest point is tied directly to the highest intention.

Section 2 raises the question. It is known that the soul’s descent is for the sake of a greater ascent; but the descent is enormous, so far down that even to re-enter the lowest paradise the soul must forget everything in the river of fire.

The same forgetting is needed again between the lower and higher Gan Eden. So the ascent that justifies such a descent must be tremendous; the question is how exactly the descent into this world earns a person an ascent that great.

¶8 Hold this question: paragraph 8 answers it through teshuvah.

The answer begins with the verse “I am Havayah; that is My Name.” The Name Havayah is read as mehaveh, “bringing into being”: it is the divine power that creates the worlds through contraction, expansion and drawing-down of light.

¶7 This answers the question from paragraph 7.

But a name is only how someone is called by others, not the person himself; Havayah is compared to the sun’s radiance, not the sun. The Talmud’s description of the World to Come, where the righteous delight in the “radiance” of the Shechinah, fits this.

The Sages said “radiance” deliberately. The souls actually enjoy what they grasp, and a thinking soul can enjoy G‑d’s light only in the measure of its understanding: only in the “radiance,” which its comprehension can reach.

The Infinite Light as it is in itself cannot be grasped at all, for it is “holy,” meaning utterly set apart; rather, it is the very Source of life and of delight.

There, at the Source itself, understanding gives way to bittul: the soul is absorbed and united with its Emanator beyond anything it can comprehend. Isaiah’s promise, “Then you shall delight upon Havayah,” is read as a delight above the Name Havayah.

The word “upon” (al) is stressed, following the Zohar in Vayechi: the delight is above the Name Havayah, which is only radiance, and so higher than the “radiance of the Shechinah” enjoyed in Gan Eden. Likkutei Torah, Chukas, brings the same Zohar on this verse in connection with the mitzvah of charity.

How is this level reached? Only through a revelation of the Infinite Light in this physical world, which appears as teshuvah: a desire of the heart that goes beyond understanding, rising “from the inward part of a man and a deep heart” (Psalm 64).

The Mishnah says that one hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come. The Alter Rebbe argues that this cannot mean merely leaving sin, for then the Mishnah would not speak of “one hour.” In Torah Ohr, Beshalach, he explains that the life of the World to Come flows from a “lower” level of the Name Havayah, while teshuvah and good deeds reach a higher one.

Rather, teshuvah here is what makes the good deeds themselves shine with the Infinite Light. Without it the deeds would not carry that light.

Teshuvah in its deepest sense means returning the soul to its source and making it cleave to the Infinite Light itself. In Likkutei Torah on Shir HaShirim (“Yonasi bechagvei”), the Alter Rebbe explains that through teshuvah, the soul’s cry over its fallen G‑dly spark, the mitzvos become more beautiful: this is “teshuvah and good deeds.”

The Sages say teshuvah was created before the world. The Alter Rebbe reads “world” as everything drawn from the Name Havayah, which is only radiance; teshuvah precedes it, and so it is higher than the radiance.

Teshuvah is complete absorption in G‑d, as in the Psalm: “Whom do I have in heaven? Besides You I desire nothing on earth.” Wanting the pleasure of spiritual understanding would be serving “in order to receive a reward,” which Antigonos of Socho warns against in Avos 1:3: “Do not be like servants who serve the master in order to receive a reward.”

A wordplay: peras (reward) is read as parus, “sliced off”: the radiance is only a slice, separate from G‑d’s essence. Instead, the soul seeks “the Rock of my heart,” the next verse of the Psalm.

Tzur, “rock,” is read as a partition: a screen that separates and conceals the light and the revelation of the radiance. (Plainly, “the Rock of my heart” means that G‑d is the strength of my heart.)

Behind that screen there is no comprehension at all, only bittul and inclusion in G‑d’s essence, of which it is said that He made darkness His hiding place and that darkness and light are the same to Him. There, spiritual and physical are equal, as the High Holiday hymn says: He makes small and great alike.

“My portion is Elokim forever” refers to the Infinite Light itself, the root of the Name Havayah. Relative to G‑d’s very essence, even Havayah is like Elokim, a concealing and limiting Name.

The Zohar on “When you come to see My face” asks what “to see” means, and answers that all the King’s “faces” are hidden in the depth, in a place of darkness, as in “He made darkness His hiding place.” This supports the idea that the highest revelation is rooted in concealment.

The Alter Rebbe notes that the Mikdash Melech, a commentary on the Zohar, reads this passage differently, and refers to a discourse in Likkutei Torah, Acharei, on “the cleft of the rock.”

Another discourse, “Haazinu hashamayim,” links “teshuvah preceded the world” to the Song at the Sea (“until Your people pass over, Havayah”) and to the verse that the spirit returns “to Elokim who gave it”; there the Alter Rebbe says that this return (tashuv, the root of teshuvah) is the essence of teshuvah. This matches the reading here of “my portion is Elokim forever” as the essence above Havayah.

Further references: the Ramaz’s commentary on the Zohar’s passage about “No eye has seen, Elokim, except You,” and another discourse on teshuvah preceding the world, “To understand the meaning of the verse ‘Who is a G‑d like You.’” That discourse (Likkutei Torah, Rosh HaShanah) explains that the whole world is under time, brought into being by the twelve permutations of the Name Havayah renewed each hour.

The whole Jewish people reaches this teshuvah on Yom Kippur. At the close of Ne’ilah they declare “Havayah, He is Elokim,” through “before Havayah you shall be purified”: a purification from the level before, and above, Havayah, where even Havayah is as Elokim.

Through this Israel reaches the delight “upon Havayah” promised by Isaiah. The second transcript of this maamar adds that after the Ne’ilah of Yom Kippur, Sukkos brings a revelation of supernal kindness from above (“His right hand embraces me”), which prepares for Shemini Atzeres, Simchas Torah.

Section 3 connects the teshuvah of Yom Kippur to the festival: its power is what makes possible the Simchas Torah of Shemini Atzeres, a name that will be read as making the Torah itself rejoice. To explain it, the Alter Rebbe starts from the fact that the Torah has two parts, Written and Oral.

Proverbs speaks of “your father’s instruction” and “your mother’s teaching” (torah); the Sages (Midrash Mishlei, as the Kehot note gives it) read these as the Written and the Oral Torah. The Zohar reads the same verse as Chochmah (father) and Binah (mother), the Sefiros behind this whole analogy.

The analogy: a child’s mind comes from the father, yet the child actually grows inside the mother for nine months and then nurses from her. In Iggeres HaKodesh 29 (Tanya) the Alter Rebbe uses the same image: all the child’s limbs are contained, hidden, in the father’s drop, and the mother brings them out into a whole child; so the mitzvos, hidden in the Written Torah, are revealed in the Oral Torah.

So the mother is intimately united with the child’s growth, while the father remains a distant source. The next paragraph applies this to the two Torahs.

The analogy is applied: the Written Torah is the “father,” the source of every law of the Oral Torah. Yet the laws are actually laid out and explained only in the Oral Torah.

In the Oral Torah the laws are contained and actually “grow”; in the Written Torah a law may be hinted at only by an extra letter or word, and from that hint the Oral Torah builds a whole tractate. In Torah Ohr, Va’eira, the Alter Rebbe explains that the letters of the Written Torah are only allusions drawn from supernal Chochmah and the idea itself is not clothed in them, while in the Oral Torah it is clothed in the words of the law.

So the Oral Torah is the “mother” that holds the laws close, as a mother nurses her child, while the Written Torah is the distant “father” that gives only hints. This is because the Written Torah is rooted in Chochmah, from which, the Zohar says, the Torah comes forth.

Koheles (King Shlomo) says of his quest for wisdom: “I said, ‘I will become wise,’ but it is far from me.” The Alter Rebbe reads it as Chochmah itself shining “from afar.”

The contrast is stated: the Oral Torah corresponds to Binah, called in Kabbalah “the broad spaces of the river” because in it the point of Chochmah spreads out. At the start of Parshas Re’eh in Likkutei Torah, the Alter Rebbe explains Binah, the upper hei of the Name, as “the broad spaces of the river,” with length and breadth: contemplation of G‑d’s greatness, each according to his measure.

The two modes, Chochmah and Binah, exist not only in Torah but in a person’s service of G‑d. “Binah is the heart” (from Tikkunei Zohar): understanding produces feeling.

Binah in service means contemplating in depth how the Name Havayah creates through contraction, expansion and drawing-down of light, until the heart is set on fire.

One also contemplates how praised and glorified G‑d’s great Name is, in the words of the morning prayers (Baruch She’amar and Yishtabach).

Through this “the mother of the children is joyful”: Binah is the “mother,” and her “children” are the love and awe of G‑d born from contemplation; her “joy” is their growth, so that one serves with joy and a glad heart. A discourse in Torah Ohr (“Va’eira el Avraham”) explains this.

Growth in love and awe comes through prayer with deep contemplation, as far as the soul can grasp. The understanding becomes one with the person and settles into the heart, where it “gives birth” to love and awe: the Binah mode.

Chochmah is different. Its letters can be read koach mah (כח מה), “the power of ‘what,’” like Moshe and Aharon’s “and what are we?”: a self-nullification beyond comprehension. So Job says Chochmah is found “from ayin,” from nothingness (plainly, Job asks “where shall wisdom be found?”); the print spells the next word עין, “eye,” pronounced the same as אין, “nothing,” a pair the end of the paragraph builds on.

“Ayin” here is not emptiness but the Infinite Light itself, which, as Tikkunei Zohar says, no thought can grasp.

Because it cannot be grasped and is utterly set apart, and yet is the source of all life and delight, the soul yearns and “expires” toward it, wanting to dissolve its very existence into G‑d. The text refers to a discourse that calls Chochmah and Binah “two companions” and “the point in its palace.”

The teshuvah of Yom Kippur, which reaches “before Havayah,” lifts the souls back into their source, united with G‑d like a fetus in the womb. The Talmud says a fetus eats what its mother eats: it lives entirely from her, with no separate existence.

From that nullification comes the power to reveal Chochmah and ayin openly: ayin (“nothing”) becomes ani (“I”), the same Hebrew letters rearranged. The distant “father” then shines up close, like the “mother.”

The verse “Today I have given birth to you” uses the mother’s verb (yelidticha; both transcripts in Sefer HaMaamarim 5565 call it feminine language) rather than the father’s (“begot”): the father’s hidden level is revealed in the mother’s close mode. The text refers to an earlier discourse on “A wise son makes a father rejoice”: in Likkutei Torah, Sukkos, the Alter Rebbe explains that on Sukkos Israel draws down Chochmah to shine close and revealed like Binah.

The full “birth” happened on the seventh day of Pesach, called “an Atzeres to Havayah your G‑d,” a revelation from above, like the Splitting of the Sea. Shemini Atzeres is “an Atzeres for you,” from below to above.

¶13 The Splitting of the Sea is explained in paragraph 13.

“Atzeres” here means absorption, kelitah, the word used when a conception takes hold: the new light is taken in and held firmly, as the fetus lives from what its mother eats.

And more: the fetus eats not only what its mother eats but also “what its father eats”: the level of ayin itself becomes rooted in the Jewish people, so that they cleave to G‑d’s very essence. That is the inner meaning of Simchas Torah.

Simchas Torah means bringing joy to the Torah itself by joining its two parts, Written (father, Chochmah) and Oral (mother, Binah), through the revelation of ayin. The text refers to a later discourse on “Torah tzivah.”

The Psalm “I (ani) have made Your Torah a delight” (plainly, “I delight in Your Torah”) is read with a transitive verb: the one who says ani makes the Torah into delights. Proverbs has the Torah say, “I was [His] delights.”

After a reference to Likkutei Torah, Bamidbar (“Va’ehyeh etzlo amon”), where the delights come after the “nurturing” of knowledge and comprehension, the point is restated: this delight comes from revealing ani out of ayin, drawing the Infinite Light into Chochmah, the source of Torah.

A new reading of the Psalm “From Havayah was this”: “From Havayah” is Chochmah, since “Havayah founded the earth with Chochmah.”

Havayah here is the “father”; “this” (zos, a feminine word) is Nukva, the feminine, here the “mother” who gives birth. It happens through “it is wondrous in our eyes.”

“Wondrous” (niflas) is Pele Elyon, the Supernal Wonder, the level of ayin; “in our eyes” means it becomes visible, seen as with the eye (ayin, spelled עין, is also “eye”): ayin becomes ani. So Chochmah itself comes to shine up close, like a mother.

Section 4 applies this to the future Redemption. Isaiah says G‑d will comfort Israel “as a man whom his mother comforts”; today we have the mother’s joy (Binah), but then Anochi, “I,” G‑d’s own self, will be revealed.

A long parenthetical note begins: the “mother” who comforts is the Oral Torah, which we can understand, while the Written Torah offers only hints.

The inner dimension of the Torah is not grasped at all now; in the future it will be revealed, as G‑d Himself “comforts.” Another discourse links this to the Splitting of the Sea and to “Eden,” a level above “the river that goes out of Eden to water the garden”; in Likkutei Torah, Tzav, the Alter Rebbe explains the Splitting of the Sea as Beriah joined to Atzilus itself, with no screen between them.

Eden itself, of which it says “no eye has seen,” will shine close by, as the river does now. Joel’s “a spring shall go out from the House of Havayah” describes the same future revelation.

More references: the discourse on the heavenly academy’s debate, and the discourse “For Avraham did not know us” (Torah Ohr, Megillas Esther), which cites Pri Etz Chaim on Purim: the light of Yesod of Abba (Chochmah) shines directly into Nukva and goes down into the lower worlds; there Purim and Yom Kippur are on one level.

These help clarify how Chochmah comes to shine like a close “mother.” Moshe is an example: his soul was from supernal Chochmah, “what are we,” so he was “heavy of mouth” for the Oral Torah and “heavy of tongue” for the Written Torah.

G‑d answered, “I (Anochi) will be with your mouth”: the revelation of G‑d’s own self, Anochi, “who I am,” would bring supernal Chochmah down into Moshe’s speech.

Further references: the discourse “I will exalt You, Havayah, for You have drawn me up,” and the quail in the desert. In Likkutei Torah, Beha’aloscha, the Alter Rebbe explains that the quail’s fat is Chochmah (“oil”), the level of mah and ayin, and that “Is the hand of Havayah too short?” means that the self-nullification of supernal Chochmah can be drawn even into “flesh,” physical existence.

In Torah Ohr, Va’eira, the Alter Rebbe explains “I will be to you for Elokim” as Havayah Himself being present in the form of Elokim, and Yaakov’s prayer “Havayah will be to me for Elokim” the same way: the transcendent Name dwelling within the limited, revealed one.

This matches the reading here of “From Havayah was this”: the higher level appears in the lower. A discourse on “Remember” and “Keep,” said in one utterance at Sinai through Anochi, shows the same revelation from beyond the chain of worlds.

Now the Alter Rebbe makes the idea intuitive: Chochmah, by definition, is what lies above comprehension.

Chochmah is called “the intellect hidden from all conception.” What we understand of an idea is only a flash, like lightning from a mind we cannot see, while the power of intellect itself is never grasped.

The same holds above, in Chochmah and Binah of Atzilus: Chochmah is beyond all comprehension. An example from the Arizal follows.

Pri Etz Chaim (Sha’ar (Gate) 16, ch. 1) records that the Arizal grasped in one hour what eighty years of teaching could not explain. (The parenthesis opened in part 2 closes here, as printed.)

That is possible only because his grasp was like seeing, a direct vision of the essence of Chochmah rather than step-by-step understanding, though, as is known, what he saw was in the Chambers (Heichalos) of the World of Yetzirah.

Even so, the principle applies to Chochmah of Atzilus: for Chochmah itself to shine close and openly is a revelation from above the whole order of the worlds.

What is beyond comprehension will then shine close. That is Isaiah’s promise for the future: “eye to eye they shall see,” direct vision rather than understanding.

The Splitting of the Sea follows the same pattern: it was Atzilus revealed within Beriah, and Atzilus corresponds generally to Chochmah and Beriah to Binah.

¶11 This explains the Splitting of the Sea mentioned in paragraph 11.

So the splitting was Chochmah shining within Binah: the “sea” of Chochmah, whose depths are hidden, shone close, like Binah. The same is promised for the future, when knowledge of G‑d will fill the earth “as the waters cover the sea.”

Such a revelation comes only from the Supernal Wonder, the level of ayin; the Zohar says the splitting of the sea “depends on Atika,” the Ancient One, the innermost level of Keser.

This parallels “Today I have given birth to you,” discussed above. The text also refers to the Zohar at the start of Vayeitzei on “Your pious ones shall sing for joy,” which asks why the verse does not say “Your Levites,” since the Levites are the King’s singers.

A Zohar passage in Pinchas asks the same question; the Alter Rebbe says it too touches this theme.

Section 5 ties everything back to Yom Kippur: the whole revelation of Shemini Atzeres flows from the teshuvah of “before Havayah you shall be purified.” The Psalm “This is the day Havayah has made” will now be read in that light.

“The day” means teshuvah. In the Talmud, Mashiach tells Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi he will come “today,” and Eliyahu explains: “today, if you will listen to His voice.” The transcript in Sefer HaMaamarim 5565 adds that Mashiach’s answer was no joke: “today” hinted at the known “day.”

“The day” is also “the first day” of the Rosh HaShanah prayer, which precedes all the descent of the worlds. A work the text cites only by its abbreviation (M.A.) notes that bayom harishon, “on the first day” (2+10+6+40 + 5+200+1+300+6+50 = 620), equals Keser (20+400+200 = 620), the Crown above the Sefiros, called “the day that is entirely day.”

¶5 This explains "the first day" from paragraph 5: Keser, teshuvah.

A parenthetical reference: the explanation of Hosea’s “And the number of the children of Israel shall be,” at “For great is the day of Yizre’el.”

And the Raaya Mehemna (a section of the Zohar) in Ki Seitzei, from the law of paying a worker “on his day” to “today, if you will listen to His voice,” with the Ramaz’s commentary there.

A discourse in Likkutei Torah, Re’eh, explains that bekol, “in the voice,” means what is enclothed within the voice. So the revelation of “the day that is entirely day” comes through “listening to His voice”; a further discourse, “On that very day Avraham was circumcised,” is cited.

A further meaning of “today, im”: following the Zohar in Terumah, im (“if”) stands for the left included in the right, which the Mikdash Melech there explains as Chochmah and Binah. These two “clothe” the level of “the day,” Keser.

All this is drawn down through “listening to His voice”; another discourse (“Lehavin mipnei mah Yom Tov dePesach”) explains how Chochmah and Binah clothe Keser.

All of this is teshuvah, which preceded the world, and “the day” of which it says “This is the day Havayah has made.”

After a reference to a discourse on “the great hand,” the Alter Rebbe brings the verse “All that Havayah desired, He made” and reads it as G‑d’s desire, above everything, “making” and drawing the Name Havayah into all the worlds.

This came about through “this day,” the first day before all descent, which is the root of teshuvah.

As Sefer Yetzirah says, the beginning is wedged in the end: the Infinite Light that is above all the worlds shines precisely in this physical world. That is why only here can a person do teshuvah, turning his heart around completely.

Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya, a notorious sinner, repented so completely that he “acquired his world in one hour.” In the World to Come no such change is possible: each soul has its fixed place. In Likkutei Torah, Pinchas, the Alter Rebbe explains that in this world a person has free choice and can return even after sinning, while in the World to Come he stays as he was drawn here.

So “today I have given birth to you” means that only “today,” in this world, can ayin become ani. “It is wondrous in our eyes” is “this day,” and this day is what brings about “made Havayah”: the Psalm is read as “this day made Havayah,” drawing the Name into the worlds (part 10).

That is why “let us rejoice and be glad in it”: the joy of Simchas Torah. Zohar passages on “You are my son, today I have given birth to you” are listed; in Mishpatim the Zohar applies the verse to the day David turned thirteen and a higher soul came to rest on him.

Final references to Zohar passages on “This is the day Havayah has made,” in Emor (on the festivals one rejoices in the Holy One, blessed be He) and in Bechukosai.