ויאבק איש עמו כו׳

The maamar opens with the verse describing the mysterious man who wrestled with Yaakov through the night, understood as the angelic minister of Esav, called Samael. The Alter Rebbe states that this struggle is a war between the forces of evil and holiness itself, like the ongoing war with Amalek, and recalls a Kabbalistic teaching that the injury to Yaakov’s thigh had a lasting effect.

The thigh corresponds to the Sefirah of Netzach, the channel through which prophecy flows, so the blow damaged the source of prophecy until the prophet Shmuel restored it. The proof is Shmuel’s own phrase “the Eternal One (Netzach) of Israel,” which names that very attribute.

The Alter Rebbe raises a difficulty: the kelipos, the forces of concealment, have no life of their own and draw all their vitality from holiness, so how can they fight it. He illustrates with the Sifrei’s teaching that Yishmael came from Avraham, as an outgrowth of Avraham’s unbounded kindness, the “excess” of Chesed that holiness cannot contain.

Their dependence on holiness also shows in their future: once the sparks of holiness in them are refined out, they will simply cease to exist. The three verses describe this end, the spirit of impurity removed, the swallowed good spat back out, and death itself swallowed up.

The kelipos will end as if they had never existed, and even now their rule is only “to their own harm,” as Koheles says. The question stands: how can such a dependent and doomed force have the power to fight holiness?

The answer begins with G‑d as He transcends all worlds: to Him darkness and light are equal, so nothing, not even evil, is excluded by its unworthiness. The spider in the king’s palace is the image: something so small and insignificant that it “takes up no place” can enter even the royal chambers, and the king pays it no attention.

The kings of Edom in the Torah are, in Kabbalah, the World of Tohu, whose lights shattered. The Alter Rebbe stresses the word “before”: these kings of Edom could rule only before a king ruled in Israel, that is, before the ordered World of Tikkun was established.

Once Tikkun was established, “there was no king in Edom,” because a tzimtzum was introduced so that the inner dimension of the Infinite Light would flow only to holiness. The verse “May G‑d make His face shine with us” expresses this: the “face,” G‑d’s inner light, shines with us, Israel.

The kelipos receive only from G‑d’s “back,” as a person tosses something over his shoulder without facing the recipient, which is why they are called “other gods”: receiving from the back of the Name Elokim. This arrangement is brought about by Israel, whose bittul causes the Infinite Light to rest only where there is self-nullification.

The Alter Rebbe now traces how bittul descends through the Sefiros. It begins in the intellect, Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which is bittul itself, and from there flows into the emotions.

The emotions of love and awe arise when a person contemplates G‑d’s greatness, so they are a product of bittul, but they are no longer bittul itself as the intellect is. An emotion already involves a self that feels.

Netzach and Hod are a further step down: they turn feeling into action directed at others, such as teaching or giving charity. This is an outward extension of oneself, a greater descent from pure bittul.

Even so, bittul continues all the way down to the lowest level of holiness, Malchus of Asiyah, which still stands nullified before G‑d. Below it begins the “world of separation,” where things feel themselves to be independent existences; there G‑d is called “the G‑d of gods,” acknowledged as supreme by powers that still claim a place of their own.

Such separate existences receive their life not from the front of holiness but from “behind the skin” of Nukva (Malchus). In the language of the Arizal, this means through the gaps between the letter-combinations of G‑d’s creative speech, like pores in skin, a thin and indirect flow.

Obadiah’s prophecy against Edom, “though you soar like the eagle,” describes the arrogance of the kelipos. Above, this arrogance means they want to be nourished directly from the Infinite Light, bypassing holiness, which is the channel of bittul that Israel draws down.

Through the normal channel of holiness they get only the meager flow from “behind the skin.” So they aim instead at the Infinite Light itself, where darkness is like light and bittul makes no difference, hoping to receive there without being nullified.

The verse from Job, “if you are righteous, what do you give Him,” expresses that at G‑d’s highest level our righteousness makes no difference, so the kelipos hope to feed there like the spider in the palace. They would then escape having to receive through holiness, like hair and nails that grow through the pores, the outermost and least alive part of the body. But the verse concludes, “from there I will bring you down, says Havayah.”

The Name Havayah stands for the ordered process of descent: contraction and expansion through the stages called Akudim and Nekudim, the early phases of the world’s emanation. “From there I will bring you down” means that under this order the inner light rests only where there is bittul, so the kelipos are pushed back down.

The order in which the inner light rests only on bittul is drawn down by an arousal from below, and specifically by Yaakov. Yaakov, whose flocks were “akudim” and “nekudim” (streaked and speckled), is said to have drawn down these levels of emanation.

Yaakov’s service ensured that the contraction of the Infinite Light would flow only through holiness and bittul. That is why Samael wrestled with him: he wanted to break that order and soar like the eagle to the Infinite Light itself.

The Patriarchs are called the “Chariot” of G‑d because they were wholly given over to His will, each embodying one emotive attribute: Avraham Chesed, Yitzchak Gevurah and Yaakov Tiferes. The Alter Rebbe adds that the kelipos have no foothold in the intellect, Chochmah, Binah and Daas, which is bittul itself.

They can take hold only in the emotions, which are already a step removed from pure bittul. There, as Koheles says, G‑d made “one opposite the other,” so a masculine force of kelipah stands opposite Z’eir Anpin, the emotive attributes of holiness.

The intellect is protected because the encompassing lights (makifim), which come from Binah, drive away the external forces. The Kabbalistic teaching on the Heichalos, the seven chambers, confirms this: the other side has chambers corresponding only to the lower seven, not to the Holy of Holies, which parallels the intellect.

A familiar experience illustrates the point: the love felt during prayer fades afterwards. This is because it has become internal, held within a vessel, while the contemplation that produced it is encompassing and therefore more lasting.

While praying with closed eyes, not seeing the world, a person feels that love. Once prayer ends and he sees worldly affairs and pleasures, the internalized feeling is easily displaced.

The general rule is that only what is encompassing, not confined in a vessel, can repel the external forces. Because it is not bounded, it endures.

This is why the tefillin passage “Kadesh” speaks of “a remembrance between your eyes”: that passage corresponds to Chochmah, the mochin of Abba, where memory resides. These mochin are enclothed in Imma (Binah), the source of the encompassing lights, and so are protected.

The command regarding Amalek is “Do not forget,” because forgetting means the departure of the mochin of Abba. When those mochin withdraw from the emotions, the emotions are left with only an immature, “nursing” level of intellect.

At that immature level the opposing force can take hold. The Alter Rebbe reads vaye’avek, “he wrestled,” as related to chibbuk, embrace, since wrestlers grip each other with their arms, and in the Tikkunei Zohar the right arm is Chesed.

Samael wrapped his two arms, his own Chesed and Gevurah, around Yaakov’s body. The aim was to throw Yaakov down and draw his heart after the other side’s emotions.

In a person this is like the emotions of the animal soul wrapping around the G‑dly soul and blocking its attachment to G‑d. This can happen only when the higher intellect, the mochin of Abba, has withdrawn.

The Neilah prayer’s phrase “their knowledge is short” is read as cause and effect: when Daas contracts to the immature level, a person’s needs multiply and scatter. A strong Daas binds one to G‑d, and when it weakens, desires multiply.

The verse from Mishlei shows that separateness breeds desire, which is how Samael tries to pull Yaakov down. Yet the angel “could not prevail,” because Yaakov’s name reads as yud-eikev, a yud and a heel: the yud, Chochmah, reaching down to the heel, which is the light of Yesod of Abba, the channel of Chochmah.

Yesod of Abba is the root of Atzilus, and Yaakov drew down the lights of Akudim and Nekudim, alluded to in the streaked and speckled flocks he acquired. Those levels had first been under the control of Lavan, a figure of kelipah.

Lavan’s daughters Leah and Rachel represent levels that were in the hands of kelipah, and Yaakov raised them to holiness by marrying them. Because Yaakov’s emotions were infused with bittul from the mochin of Abba, Samael could not touch their core.

He could reach only the “hollow of the thigh,” the flow that goes outward from Yaakov to others, where bittul shines only faintly. The Alter Rebbe compares this to the kidneys that ripen the seed, the point at which what was spiritual becomes physical.

Samael’s mistake was to think Yaakov was only the Chariot for the emotive attributes, where kelipah can take hold. In truth Yaakov’s root lies in “the holy mountains,” supernal Chochmah, Yesod of Abba, the faculty of memory, where kelipah has no hold.

This battle was fought at the level of Z’eir Anpin, the male side of the attributes, with its counterpart in kelipah. The Alter Rebbe notes that there is a parallel battle at the level of Malchus, the feminine side, which the next paragraph explains.

The Zohar contrasts two Hebrew words for soil, afar (earth) and avak (dust), and the Alter Rebbe now explains the difference. Of the four classical elements, earth is the lowest, yet only earth brings forth fruit.

“All came from the earth,” as Koheles says, because earth corresponds to Malchus, the last Sefirah, which is the source of all that comes into being below. The verse about the earth from the floor of the Mishkan, used in the sotah rite, is cited as another reference to holy earth.

In holiness, the lowest is bound up with the highest, as Sefer Yetzirah says, “their beginning is wedged in their end.” So Malchus, the “last,” is rooted in Keser, the “first”: the word ani, “I,” used for Malchus, has the same letters as ayin, “nothing,” the term for Keser.

Keser is the bridge between G‑d and what He emanates, the point where something comes from nothing. Because Malchus is rooted in Keser, it shares that creative power, which shows physically in earth’s ability to make plants grow.

Spiritually too, Malchus, the lowest level, has the power to initiate: from it comes the arousal from below that calls forth the arousal from above and draws down the light of all ten Sefiros.

Avak, dust, is different: the Zohar calls it “what remains of the fire.” When wood burns, the fire takes up the elements of fire, air and water in it, leaving only the earth element.

That remnant is ash, which lacks earth’s power to grow things on its own. The parenthesis adds a halachic detail: ash can still grow what is sown in it, and for that reason it counts as soil for covering the blood of a slaughtered bird or wild animal.

The analogy: Malchus of kelipah is what is left after all refinement is done. The kelipos came into being through the Shattering of the Vessels of Tohu, and when the fallen sparks were sorted, the finest became Atzilus, the next Beriah, and so on down.

At the very bottom lies what could not be refined at all. That residue is the kelipos.

They retain only a trace of life-force, like dust that grows something only when seeded. It is far from earth, which grows things by itself and multiplies what is sown in it many times over.

Even this trace of life lasts only during exile. In the future the spirit of impurity will be removed, and the kelipos will have no life-force at all.

The Talmud says that when Yaakov and the angel wrestled “they raised dust up to the Throne of Glory,” and the Alter Rebbe reads the Throne as Malchus of Atzilus. Through Yaakov’s work of refinement, even the lowest level, dust, was lifted into holiness.

When the angel wrestled with Yaakov, Yaakov grew stronger and refined something out of his opponent. The Talmud’s plural “they raised” fits this: both took part, Yaakov as the one refining and Samael as the one refined.

The embrace worked both ways. Samael wrapped his Chesed and Gevurah around Yaakov, and Yaakov wrapped his own Chesed and Gevurah around Samael.

That is how wrestlers fight, and it is also how a person fights the evil inclination: the Talmud advises a person always to stir up the good inclination against the evil. This refinement is the essence of teshuvah, which is why its power is so great.

Baalei teshuvah stand where even the completely righteous cannot, because they draw down G‑dliness “with greater strength,” the force of transformed desire. This is the battle at the level of Z’eir Anpin, and there is a parallel battle at the level of Nukva (Malchus), in which the dust is refined.

The Zohar reads “with all your heart,” spelled levavcha with a double letter bet, as “with both your inclinations,” the good and the evil. The dust in this discussion is Malchus of kelipah.

The dust rose to the Throne of Glory, Malchus of holiness, because the dust itself has its source in Malchus: Malchus descends from world to world down to Malchus of Asiyah, and from there the realm of separation branches off. So the dust returns to its root.

The Z’eir Anpin and Nukva of kelipah mirror those of holiness, and refinement means reabsorbing each into its holy counterpart. Malchus of kelipah is included in Malchus of holiness, and Z’eir Anpin of kelipah in Z’eir Anpin of holiness.