ואתה תצוה את בני ישראל ויקחו אליך כו׳

The maamar opens with the two verses on the oil for the Menorah: Moshe is to command Israel to bring pure olive oil “to you,” and Aharon is to arrange the lamp in the Mishkan, “outside the curtain that is over the Testimony,” the curtain in front of the Ark.

The question: arranging and lighting the lamps is Aharon’s task, so why must the oil be brought “to you,” to Moshe? The whole maamar builds toward the answer, that Aharon’s work draws its power from Moshe.

A second question: the first verse, which speaks of bringing the oil to Moshe, calls the lamp “continual” (tamid), while the second verse, which speaks of Aharon, says only “from evening until morning.” The answer comes at the end of the maamar (paragraph 25).

The answer begins with a Kabbalistic image: Aharon is “the groomsman (shoshvina) of the Matrona,” the Queen. The Matrona is the Shechinah, also called the Congregation of Israel, the source from which all the souls of Israel come.

The image is taken from a wedding: a groom and bride, overcome with bashfulness, cannot walk to their union on their own, and groomsmen walk with them and support them. In the Zohar (2:49b) Aharon is the groomsman of the Congregation of Israel, who prepares her house, serves her and brings her in to the King for their union.

So too, the souls cannot by their own power rise to be included in their source, the Infinite Light; Aharon, as their groomsman, gives them the support to reach that union. In Torah Ohr, Miketz (32b), the Alter Rebbe explains why: a person clothed in physical matters could not reach this love were it not for G‑d’s help, and that help is a love that comes from above.

Groomsmen are needed only at the wedding itself; once the couple is married, no one needs to escort them. The explanation (biur) of this maamar printed later in Torah Ohr (110a) asks how the image fits lamps that were raised every evening, and answers that every renewal of light brings joy, as a wedding does, and the raising of the sparks is renewed every day.

Likewise, Aharon’s role belongs to the “wedding day,” the moment of union described in the verse “on the day of his wedding and on the day of the gladness of his heart.” It is a joy from above, revealed in the souls, that gladdens them in G‑d, who dwells in their Torah and their service, and that service must be joyful, as the Torah warns, “because you did not serve with joy.”

The joy that Aharon brings is caused by the Infinite Light itself, the source of all life and all delight, which is clothed in the mitzvos.

This is hinted in the blessing said over a mitzvah, “asher kideshanu” (“Who has sanctified us with His commandments”): the Alter Rebbe reads asher as related to osher, happiness, as in Leah’s words at the birth of Asher, “In my good fortune, for daughters will call me fortunate.” The word speaks of joy and praise over abundant good.

Adam was placed in Gan Eden “to work it and to guard it,” and the Alter Rebbe reads “to work it” as the positive commandments. Through the mitzvos a person “makes” Gan Eden: he draws into it the radiance (ziv) of the Shechinah. In Likkutei Torah, Sh’lach (39c), the Alter Rebbe adds that the radiance of the lower Gan Eden is drawn from the mitzvos and that of the upper Gan Eden from the Torah.

The tzaddikim in Gan Eden enjoy that radiance, a delight without end. Its greatness is shown by what Rabbi Meir said of Acher, the Sage who left the path of Torah: better that he be judged and then come to the World to Come, for all the suffering of Gehinnom, where a soul is cleansed, is worth bearing to receive that delight.

Rabbi Akiva’s saying makes the same point: seeing a great city of idolaters at ease, he laughed, for if those who transgress G‑d’s will enjoy such good, how much more will those who do His will. In Torah Ohr, Noach (9d), the Alter Rebbe reads the saying the same way: all that flows to the worlds is only radiance next to G‑d’s essence, while “those who do His will,” Israel, the people close to Him, reach His very essence, a delight without end.

The Alter Rebbe explains the comparison: “those who transgress His will” stands for the pleasures of this world, delights that came down and became physical.

They did not come down by the orderly chain of levels, step by step, as holiness does; they fell abruptly from high levels of holiness, “from a high roof [to a deep pit].” Even so they are abundant, which shows how much greater is the delight that comes down in holiness’s proper order.

The pleasures of this world are called ovrei retzono, “those who transgress (literally, pass over) His will,” because they “bypassed the path”: they did not come down through the orderly descent of levels but fell. Their delight fell in the shattering of the vessels (sheviras hakeilim), the Kabbalistic account of how sparks of holy light fell into the lower realms.

“Those who do (osei) His will” is read as what is “made” (asui) and given by the Supernal Will in the orderly descent of holiness, into the upper and lower Gan Eden. That delight is in G‑d Himself, the source of life and of delights, and so it is wondrous and of endless kinds.

The delight of Gan Eden is drawn from the mitzvos, which is why they are compared to lamps: as a lit lamp fills a whole house with light and radiance, so doing a mitzvah fills Gan Eden with radiance.

Therefore the Torah, in the rebuke, faults those who did not serve G‑d “with joy and with gladness of heart, merov kol,” which in its plain sense means “when you had an abundance of everything.”

The Alter Rebbe reads merov kol as “more than an abundance of everything”: “an abundance of everything” is all the delights of the World to Come, and the joy in the mitzvos themselves should exceed even them. Kehot notes that this follows the Arizal’s well-known reading of the verse, which Tanya, chapter 26, mentions.

These are words of the Shabbos morning prayers, in the blessing before the Shema: G‑d’s Name is sanctified “in the heavens above and on the earth below,” and He is blessed “for all the praise of the work of Your hands.” A joy greater than all of Gan Eden comes when a person reflects on what these words mean.

“The heavens above” is the upper Gan Eden and “the earth below” the lower Gan Eden. In the prayer the words simply bless G‑d for His handiwork; the Alter Rebbe reads them as saying that whatever is praised in both Gan Edens is not praise of G‑d Himself, only of “the work of His hands.”

An analogy: praising a person for fine handwriting or a beautiful painting says nothing about his wisdom or his inner being; it praises only what his hands have made.

Likewise, the delight and praise the souls have in Gan Eden, as they grasp G‑dliness with their understanding, is praise only of what G‑d’s “hands” have drawn down to them: that drawing down alone is what they can grasp.

This radiance comes from the mitzvos, which are themselves called “the work of the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He.”

The mitzvos are G‑d’s “handiwork” because when we do them below, an arousal from below, G‑d does the same above, an arousal from above. So the Sages say that G‑d Himself puts on tefillin, and the daily prayers speak of Him healing the sick, blessing the years and sustaining the living with kindness.

From this divine “doing” the radiance of Gan Eden is drawn, and the souls delight in grasping it. The parenthesis connects this to the verse “the firmament declares the work of His hands”: Gan Eden is called “the Academy of the Firmament,” and what it reveals is only “the work of His hands.”

Within this grasp there are countless levels, each above the other, and so there are many kinds of Gan Eden, each with its own delight.

The Alter Rebbe answers an objection: the books speak of only two, a lower and an upper Gan Eden. Yet the Sages said that Torah scholars have no rest, even in the World to Come, for they “go from strength to strength,” rising level after level.

The verse “For all (kol) that is in the heavens and on the earth” is rendered by its Targum, the Aramaic translation, as “which holds onto heaven and earth”: kol is what binds the two together. This, the Alter Rebbe says, is the pillar described in the books, which stands in Gan Eden and joins the upper Gan Eden to the lower. The printed text says one ascends by it “from the upper Gan Eden to the lower,” but the Zohar, and Torah Ohr itself at 100b, describe souls rising by this pillar from the lower Gan Eden to the upper.

There are many such pillars, one for each level of tzaddikim according to his rank, and many ascents one beyond the other, like the “fifty thousand jubilees,” an expression for an immense series of ascents. Likkutei Torah, Korach (52c), explains these jubilees as an ever greater revelation of the inner light in the vessels: the lower Gan Eden receives the radiance of the Infinite Light, the upper Gan Eden a far greater delight.

All the delights of both Gan Edens are only the radiance that comes from “the work of His hands.” G‑d’s own essence is beyond all grasp: “no thought can grasp Him” at all, and the angels call Him “holy,” set apart from them.

That is why the Ofanim, a class of angels, rise “with a great noise,” asking “Where is the place of His glory?”: they cannot grasp Him. Both phrases come from the prayers: the Ofanim “with a great noise” from the blessing before the Shema, and the question from the Kedushah of Musaf. The mitzvos themselves, however, are “the light of the lamp,” of which the radiance of Gan Eden is only the glow.

The mitzvos are the source of the radiance because they are called “the limbs of the King,” as the Tikkunei Zohar says, “the 248 commandments are the 248 limbs of the King” (quoted in Tanya, chapter 23): limbs and vessels through which the Infinite Light itself acts. That is why the Torah says of the mitzvos “before Havayah”: truly before G‑d Himself.

The verse “which I (Anochi) command you today” is read literally: in the realm of “today, to do them,” the time of action, it is Anochi, “I,” G‑d’s very essence, who commands, and so the Commander Himself is present in each mitzvah. The Sages read “today, to do them” as “today to do them, and tomorrow to receive their reward” (Eruvin 22a).

Therefore the joy in the mitzvos should be “great to Elokim”: the words echo Jonah 3:3, where Nineveh is “a city great to G‑d,” that is, exceedingly great, and here “Elokim” is the Infinite Light itself, clothed and hidden in the mitzvos. That joy is far greater than “an abundance of everything,” the kol that holds heaven and earth, both Gan Edens, as the Sages said, “Better is one hour [of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come].” Likkutei Torah, Korach (52d), adds that this hour surpasses even the fifty thousand jubilees of ascent, since they are only radiance, while good deeds draw down G‑d’s very essence.

This joy is revealed in the soul through Aharon, who kindles the lamps, so that there be “light and joy.” Aharon is one of the “seven shepherds” who sustain the souls of Israel as a whole and draw G‑dliness down to them from the Infinite Light. The explanation (biur) of this maamar (Torah Ohr 110c) gives the image: a shepherd feeds his flock not from his own but by bringing them the grass of the field, and so Aharon brings light down from above to the Congregation of Israel.

Aharon, as shepherd, draws this light and joy to all the souls, and the drawing has two stages, matching two phrases of the Torah: “he shall arrange the lamps” and “when Aharon raises up the lamps.”

“Arranging” means establishing the love within a person’s heart and soul by his own effort: contemplating G‑d’s greatness deeply, with toil, as far as his soul can bear.

“Raising up” is the joy that comes from above, lifting the soul and binding it to the living G‑d, the source of all life and delight, who is far above the chain of descending worlds. It takes the soul beyond what it could reach by its own capacity.

This higher love is “with all your might” (bechol me’odecha), a love without limit, revealed in the Shema. To reach it, the Sages instituted Pesukei deZimrah, the verses of praise said before the Shema, so that “the exaltations of G‑d [are] in their throat and a two-edged sword in their hand.”

Prayer is a battle, so Pesukei deZimrah prepare the soul in advance, strengthening it against all the inner and outer obstacles that hold it back.

This is why Aharon’s lamp burns “from evening until morning”: as the Sages say, “first darkness and then light.” Light and joy in G‑d dawn in the soul gradually, out of the darkness.

Aharon lights the lamps specifically with “crushed olive oil.” The Mishnah describes how the finest oil was made: the olives were crushed and placed in a basket, and this first oil was for the Menorah, the rest for the meal-offerings.

The olive is bitter. As the Sages relate, the dove that brought Noach an olive leaf said, “Let my food be bitter as an olive [but given by Your hand].” The maamar now explains what this bitterness and its crushing mean in the soul.

The Gemara also says that olives make a person forget seventy years of learning. Forgetting belongs to the “world of forgetting,” the realm of the kelipos, the husks that conceal G‑dliness. The explanation (biur) of this maamar (Torah Ohr 110d) traces forgetting to the shattering of the vessels, which began in Daas, the faculty of knowing.

The “olive” in a person is his body and animal soul, which come from Nogah, the kelipah that mixes good and evil, also called “the serpent’s skin” (meshcha dechivya). Crushing it, subduing it, extracts its “oil,” which is Chochmah.

The Sages taught that just as the olive causes forgetting, olive oil restores seventy years of learning. The oil restores memory because Chochmah is the faculty of memory, as hinted in the tefillin passage Kadesh, which alludes to Chochmah and speaks of “a remembrance between your eyes.” The biur on this maamar (Torah Ohr 110d) adds that there was no shattering in Chochmah, and so it restores what the shattering made one forget.

The “crushing” that yields this oil is iskafya, the subjugation of the sitra achra, through the quality of “the remnant (she’eris) of His inheritance,” which the Sages read as one who makes himself like shirayim, leftovers.

This quality subdues every desire of the opposing side: such a person has no desire of his own for worldly pleasures and does not pursue them. Likkutei Torah, Eikev (17d), calls it the “sunken seal,” the bittul and awe of one who makes himself like leftovers.

Since he regards himself as superfluous, as if the world had no need of him, he feels he has nothing to do with the world and its pleasures.

Such a person wants neither this world nor the World to Come, as Asaf says to G‑d, “Whom do I have in heaven [but You]?” The prophet Michah too speaks of “the remnant of Yaakov… among the nations.”

The next verse says, “Your hand shall be raised over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off.” The maamar reads it of the remnant of Yaakov itself.

The Alter Rebbe applies it to the soul: one at the level of “the remnant,” who makes himself like leftovers, overcomes and cuts off whatever opposes his service, through “the exaltations of G‑d in their throat,” the revelation of the Infinite Light’s exaltedness upon his soul. But one who feels himself a separate “something” (yesh) cannot receive it; of such a person G‑d says, “I and he cannot dwell [together].”

The Infinite Light rests only on one who is nullified (batel). This bittul is Chochmah, the “oil” that comes from crushing the olive.

Oil, unlike the wick, is drawn up after the flame and consumed entirely in the light that holds onto the wick, leaving nothing behind, while the wick leaves some ash. The biur on this maamar (Torah Ohr 111a) adds that the flame’s brightness comes only from the oil, which is consumed and becomes fire.

So too, Chochmah is complete self-nullification: one is absorbed wholly into the light of the mitzvah, so that the Infinite Light itself is revealed upon his soul.

Through this bittul the Infinite Light drawn from the mitzvah endures in the soul. A wick without oil flares up and is gone in a moment; so too, without bittul the light of the mitzvah does not last.

Aharon’s service, arranging and raising up the lamps, is the joy of the mitzvah, and it takes place “outside the curtain of the Testimony.” To explain the curtain, the Alter Rebbe cites “For a sun and a shield is Havayah Elokim.” The biur on this maamar (Torah Ohr 110a) explains the curtain as the partition (parsa) between Atzilus and the worlds below it, which is the Name Elokim that conceals.

The Name Havayah stands for the higher unity (yichuda ila’ah): from G‑d’s perspective there is nothing besides Him, and all before Him is as nothing.

The Name Elokim conceals, so that the world appears to exist as a thing in itself; yet “the whole earth is full of His glory.” Recognizing G‑d within a world that seems to exist is the lower unity (yichuda tata’ah).

Elokim is a shield for Havayah, like a cover for the sun: the sun is too bright to look at, and the shield makes its light bearable. In Torah Ohr, Lech Lecha (12a), the Alter Rebbe adds that in the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will take the sun out of its sheath.

So the verse says, “The curtain shall separate for you between the Holy [and the Holy of Holies].” Outside the curtain, in the realm of the lower unity, are the arranging of the lamps and the joy of the mitzvah, which make “your heart run” toward the higher unity. In a discourse printed in Torah Ohr (Vayakhel, 115c), the Alter Rebbe adds that the Name Elokim, the dividing curtain, is itself drawn from the Infinite Light, like the Name Havayah.

This joy is the soul’s ratzo, its running forth toward G‑d, aroused by the revelation of the Infinite Light that is in His mitzvos. The soul yearns and pines for Him alone, “with all your might,” in joy, and this is “when Aharon raises up” the lamps.

Where does Aharon get the power to raise the soul, from outside the curtain, to this infinite love? From what the verse goes on to say: “an eternal statute for their generations, from (me’es) the children of Israel.”

Me’es is read as “from es”: alef and tav, the first and last letters, that is, the letters of the Torah. When a Jew studies and puts his heart and soul into the words he speaks with awe and love, he draws on these letters, whose root is in supernal Chochmah, “the holy mountains.” In Torah Ohr, Miketz (36c), the Alter Rebbe reads atah (“You”) in “For You light my lamp” the same way: its alef and tav are the letters of the Torah, and its hei the mitzvos.

So the Torah is the light that lights the lamp: the lamp of the mitzvah is a vessel for the Torah’s light, and the Torah is the light and life-force of the mitzvos.

The letters of the Torah give Aharon his power to serve as groomsman, drawing light and love into the soul and bringing it the light and joy of the mitzvah. Without the Chochmah of Torah this cannot happen, as the Sages said, “an unlearned person cannot be pious (a chassid).”

The Torah itself reaches Israel through the level of Moshe, as the Zohar explains on Koheles’ question, “What profit has a man in all his toil that he toils under the sun?”: the toil of Torah is different, for it is “above the sun.”

That is where Moshe stands, he who was “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.” In Torah Ohr, Vaera (56d), the Alter Rebbe explains “above the sun” as above the level of “a sun and a shield is Havayah Elokim,” and the biur on this maamar (Torah Ohr 111b) says that Moshe is the level of Chochmah of Atzilus, which is why he was “heavy of mouth.”

Torah study is not of the same mode as the joy of the mitzvah, which is the heart’s “running,” outside the curtain; it is “return to the One.”

Through the Torah G‑d’s unity is revealed below as it is above, for the Torah is G‑d’s very word. Where “running” is the soul’s yearning upward, “return” is the revelation of the higher unity here below.

Torah is G‑d’s very word, as G‑d promises, “My words that I have placed in your mouth”: truly My words. Hence the Sages’ “The Mishnah is a queen”: one who learns becomes one with “the word of Havayah,” which is halachah, as if the ruling came forth from his own mouth, like a king’s. Likkutei Torah, Pinchas (76a), explains it the same way: the learner is like a king who commands that this mitzvah be done so.

This is the level of those whose Torah study is their whole occupation, like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his colleagues. The parenthesis explains why they were exempt from prayer: prayer brings bittul, expressed in bowing, and draws down the Infinite Light, and their Torah study accomplished these same things.

Rabbi Shimon said, “With one bond I am bound [to the Holy One, blessed be He]”: complete bittul in the Infinite Light, the higher unity. That is why “Torah study is equal to them all.”

To reach this bittul one needs the “pure olive oil” brought to Moshe, which is Chochmah. The Sages define the wise man as “one who sees what is born” (hanolad), which the Alter Rebbe reads as seeing how everything is born, continually, from nothing into something.

The daily prayer says that G‑d “in His goodness renews each day, continually, the work of creation”: creation from nothing into something happens constantly, not once.

This is so because “I, Havayah, have not changed”: G‑d is the same after creation as before it, as the morning prayers say, “You were [the same] before the world was created.” What is renewed so that the world exists is only a glimmer of His light, not His essence.

Since a glimmer would cease to exist if it were not renewed, it must be renewed every moment. One who takes this to heart comes to bittul before G‑d, and since “spirit brings spirit and draws spirit,” his bittul below draws the Infinite Light itself down upon his soul in his Torah study.

Now the opening verse is explained: tetzaveh, “you shall command,” is read as tzavta, “joining” and bonding. Israel is bound to Moshe through bringing “pure olive oil,” their Chochmah and bittul, first to the level of Moshe. Likkutei Torah, Pinchas (76a), reads tzav the same way: Moshe is to be “together” with Israel, so that his level of bittul is drawn to them.

From this bond comes “an eternal statute… from (me’es) the children of Israel”: the letters of the Torah give Aharon the power to arrange the lamps, the joy of the mitzvah. The letters of the Torah come from the level of Moshe, and so the verse says, “And you shall command the children of Israel.”

This answers the second question. Aharon’s level is “your heart runs,” and of it the verse says “from evening until morning”: “first darkness and then light,” a light that dawns gradually, within time.

Moshe’s level is “return to the One,” the revelation of the higher unity, and so of him the verse says “to raise up a lamp continually”: a unity above time, before which “darkness is as light.” G‑d is “the One who is equal and makes equal,” as the High Holiday prayers say, and the Alter Rebbe leaves the rest to the understanding reader. The biur on this maamar (Torah Ohr 111b) adds that time is rooted in Malchus, the Matrona whose groomsman is Aharon, while Moshe, “the man of G‑d,” is above time.