שיר המעלות בשוב כו׳ היינו כחולמים

The maamar opens with the Psalm that describes the return from exile: when G‑d brings back the captives of Zion, “we were like dreamers.” The Alter Rebbe first defines a dream: it holds two contradictory things together in one picture as if they belonged together. This happens because in sleep the intellect, whose job is to tell things apart, withdraws, and only the imagination is left working.

Maimonides gives the example of imagining a ship flying through the air: the imagination can put together things that cannot exist together. When a person is awake, the intellect governs the imagination and refuses such combinations, because it clearly sees that the two things are separate and cannot be one.

The dream now becomes a picture of the soul’s exile: the spark of G‑dliness in a person is as if asleep, its intellect withdrawn. In that state a person can live with a contradiction, spending the whole day chasing his own profit, like the prophet’s “each one for his gain,” each turning to his own olive grove.

In prayer, contemplating how all things are nothing before G‑d (the higher unity) and how G‑d is present within all things (the lower unity), a person can feel a love so strong that the soul wants to shed the body’s “garments” and cleave to G‑d. Yet once prayer is over the feeling fades and he does not notice the contrast.

His daytime pursuit of gain contradicts what he felt in prayer, yet he imagines he can hold both at once, like a dreamer; in truth they are far apart. The Alter Rebbe then begins to anticipate an objection: the Torah itself commands “Six years you shall sow your field.”

The Shema, too, joins serving G‑d “with all your heart” to the promise of rain and of gathering in the grain. So the Torah itself connects everyday work with divine service.

The answer: all of this is meant as service of G‑d, since every matter of this world contains an element of serving Him. The six years of sowing and the seventh year of rest are both part of that service.

The six years of work stand for refining the physical world (the beirurim, sifting out the holy sparks within it), and the seventh year for raising what was refined back to its source. But whether work is service depends entirely on the heart’s intention.

Most people, though, work simply to earn their bread; their heart does not think of their work as refining the world for G‑d. The phrase “his heart does not so imagine” is borrowed from Isaiah.

Their heart is not directed to the proper intention: all they want is to fill their bodily needs, and those needs become the main thing in their life. This is a quiet reversal of priorities, not an open sin.

That attitude is the exact opposite of what prayer aroused: a love for G‑d alone, with nothing foreign mixed in. So holding both together is indeed like the dream that fuses opposites.

The Alter Rebbe now guards against despair. A person might conclude that if his prayer is like a dream that joins opposites, then his feelings in prayer and his contemplation were just empty fantasies.

The reasoning behind that fear: since the love for G‑d vanishes after prayer and he goes back to loving his body, he never truly set aside his self-love even while praying. So, he thinks, the love for G‑d alone that he felt was not real.

On this view, his prayer was only a dreamlike image that combined two opposites: loving G‑d while still loving his body.

Those two loves cannot really stand together, so the combination seems to come from the imagination, which produces false images. The Alter Rebbe answers that the opposite is true: this ‘dream’ level has a lofty root, founded in the heights of supernal holiness, as the next paragraphs explain.

To explain the dream’s root, the Alter Rebbe brings Zechariah’s prophecy that “on that day” G‑d’s Name will be One. The Talmud asks why this is only in the future, and answers that now the Name is not pronounced as it is written: the four-letter Name is read as Ado-nai.

He explains that G‑d’s Name itself is in exile, and so it is not read as written but is covered by another Name, like a garment or a sheath. The same concealment that affects the soul affects the Divine Name.

In exile the Divine Name is as if asleep, its intellect withdrawn, “three contained within three,” a Kabbalistic image of the intellect folded back inside the emotions. And just as the Sages say that during sleep the soul goes up and draws life from above, so in this sleep a higher life-force is drawn down.

That source above is the level of ‘circles’ (iggulim), where there is no higher and lower and everything is equal, included and unified without division. The Sages’ saying about the disputes of Hillel and Shammai, “these and these are the words of the living G‑d,” shows how opposite rulings can both be true at their root.

Division appears only when light is drawn down as ‘lines’ (the structure of right, left and middle: Chesed on the right, and so on). In the circles nothing is divided, and things that are opposites below are joined together there.

The unity of the circles can appear below only through sleep and withdrawn intellect, that is, in exile. The verse “I clothe the heavens in blackness” describes this: the ‘heavens’, the level of circles, are wrapped in darkness.

That darkness is concealment, and it is precisely then that light from the higher world of circles glimmers into the dream, the imagination that joins opposites. It can join them because at their root, in the higher world, they really are one.

Opposition appears only below, where Chochmah and Daas divide the light into lines, each with its own character. There each thing is defined against the other, and so they become separate and far apart.

Since Chochmah is where division into lines begins, the level where opposites are included together cannot be revealed through it. It can appear only in ‘sleep’, the withdrawal of intellect that is exile.

Then the higher light shines, but hidden, clothed in darkness, not openly revealed. Open revelation always comes through Chochmah and Daas, which work by lines and so divide.

Isaiah promises that in the future G‑d, the Teacher, will no longer be hidden; the word yikanef comes from kanaf, a wing or garment’s corner, so it means He will no longer be covered. That is why “on that day His Name will be One”: it will no longer be wrapped in a sheath and will be pronounced as written.

Then “they will see eye to eye,” with no covering between. At that time people will say, “we were like dreamers.”

This is the meaning of the Psalm: in the redemption the dream-level will be revealed, and everyone will recognize and understand that the life-force that sustained them throughout the exile came from this high level of the dream. What looked in exile like a mere dream will turn out to have been the circles’ hidden light.

Because the dream-level will be revealed, we will say “we were like dreamers.” This also explains the greatness of Yaakov and Yosef, whose lives turn on dreams: in one respect, rooted in the circles, Yosef is even higher than Moshe, whose prophecy was clear revelation. Nadav and Avihu, Aharon’s sons, are described as the nefesh and ruach (the two lower levels of the soul) of Yosef.

Those who said “we are impure through the soul of a man” were, according to one view in the Talmud, impure through Nadav and Avihu; the Alter Rebbe says this refers to Avihu, while Nadav, being ruach, a higher level, caused no impurity requiring sprinkling. The verse “a generous (nedivah) spirit” alludes to Nadav’s name, and “Who leads Yosef like a flock” shows that the whole people is led through Yosef.

In exile Israel is led through the level of Yosef, the dream that comes from the world of circles. Yosef is called ben poras, whose letters also spell poser, one who interprets, and tofer, one who sews two things together; that is why he could interpret dreams, joining their opposites into one meaning.