There is yet another common characteristic [53] [shared by all the laws of the positive and prohibitory commandments, including those that have no practical application].

For [in contradistinction] all intellectually-generated fear and love experienced by the angels are created ex nihilo, and they are the [created levels of] Nefesh and Ruach [and not the G-dly level of Neshamah] of the Worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah.

[Now, if the intellectually-generated awe and love experienced by mortals can likewise not be compared to the study of the laws, why does the Alter Rebbe here choose to speak of angels?

To explain:

1. The love and fear experienced by souls is different from the souls themselves, for souls are not actual created beings;

2. the love and fear experienced by souls is, after all, a mitzvah, while that of the angels is not.

Thus the angels' love and fear better stresses their created aspect, and this enables us to understand that even with regard to souls, the essential aspect of love and fear is a created entity.

The laws, by contrast, are G-dliness.]

However, the detailed laws of the various mitzvot are drawn from the Supreme Wisdom of the Emanator, blessed be He, which is clothed in physicality, [within the physical objects to which a particular law applies, such as the law governing the case of [54] "he who exchanges a cow for a donkey," and the like.]

This investment [of Supreme Wisdom in the physical aspects of the laws] is not similar to the investment of Supreme Wisdom in intellectually-generated fear and love.

[Supreme Wisdom is actually vested in all things, as is soon to be explained.

This is especially so with regard to the love and awe which are aroused by intellectual activity, for the source of all such activity is Supreme Wisdom.

In intellectually-aroused love and awe, however, the vestiture takes on a different form] for there the garment conceals and completely obscures [the Supreme Wisdom that is vested within it], just as the material earth thoroughly conceals the Supreme Wisdom clothed within it; as it is written concerning all created beings, [55] "All of them You made with Wisdom."

[Supreme Wisdom is thus vested within all physical things as well, even the earth - which, however, completely conceals it, just as intellectually-aroused love and awe conceal the Supreme Wisdom vested in them.]

This [Supreme Wisdom] is the externality of the externality of the vessels of Malchut of Atzilut found in Asiyah, that is absolutely hidden in the Ruach-Nefesh of Asiyah.

[Malchut of Atzilut with the externality of the externality of its vessels is wholly concealed in Ruach-Nefesh of Asiyah.

Malchut of Atzilut itself, even the externality of the externality of its vessels, belongs to the realm of the Neshamah and of Divinity proper - yet it is entirely hidden within Nefesh-Ruach, which belongs to the realm of created beings.

Since Supreme Wisdom is vested in Malchut of Atzilut, and Malchut of Atzilut illumines Asiyah with its Ten Sefirot, containing as they do the element of Wisdom as well, we thus have Supreme Wisdom entirely concealed within the physical earth.]

So too in Beriah it is completely hidden in the Ruach-Nefesh [of Beriah], which are beings that are created by the concealment and hiding of the Creator from the created.

[We thus have here an element of Supreme Wisdom concealed within intellectually-aroused love and fear, the source of which is the World of Beriah, the realm of comprehension.]

   

Notes:

53. (Back to text) Note of the Rebbe Shlita: "See Or HaTorah, Parshat Shemini, p. 462ff."

54. (Back to text) Bava Metzia 100a.

55. (Back to text) Tehillim 104:24.