Chapter 35: The Lamp, the Wick and the Oil

Now to explain the words “to do it” more fully, and also to grasp, in some tiny degree, why beinonim were created at all, and why their souls come down into this world to be wrapped in an animal soul that derives from kelipah and the sitra achra. After all, they will never manage, their whole lives long, to drive it out or to dislodge it from its seat in the heart’s left chamber so that it stops sending unholy thoughts up to the brain. In them the animal soul from kelipah stays exactly as it was at birth, its essence and substance at full force and vigour; only its garments are kept from dressing themselves in the body, as said above. Then why did these souls descend here, only to labour for nothing, Heaven forbid, wrestling with the evil inclination for a lifetime and never defeating it?

Let them take comfort in this, a comfort that doubles their strength and truly works, and let it make their hearts glad in G‑d, Who makes His home with them inside their Torah and their service.

The starting point is a teaching of the Yenuka (Zohar, Parshas Balak) on the verse “The wise one has his eyes in his head” (Koheles 2:14): “Where else would a man’s eyes be? … This must be what the verse means. We were taught that one may not go four cubits bareheaded. Why? Because the Shechinah dwells over his head. And every wise person keeps his eyes and his words ‘in his head,’ that is, turned toward That which dwells and rests above his head. Once his eyes are there, he should realize that the flame burning over his head needs oil, since a man’s body is the wick and the flame is lit above it. So King Shlomo called out, ‘Let your head never go short of oil’ (Koheles 9:8): the flame over his head needs oil, and the oil is good deeds. That is why ‘the wise one has his eyes in his head.’” So far the Zohar.

The point of this parable should be plain to anyone who thinks about it. The Shechinah’s light is likened to a lamp’s flame, which will not shine or cling to the wick without oil; likewise the Shechinah rests on the body, likened to the wick, only by means of good deeds in particular, and the soul itself, a portion of G‑d above, does not suffice as oil for the wick. Why? Because a person’s soul, even a perfect tzaddik’s who serves G‑d in awe and in a love full of delight, has still not let go of its existence altogether, melting into G‑d’s own light and merging with it into one in total union. He is still someone, an entity of his own: a person who fears G‑d and loves Him. Mitzvos and good deeds are different, for they are His will. His will is what gives life to every world and creature; but it reaches them only after many contractions (tzimtzumim), with the supreme Will’s Face concealed, stepping down level after level, so that they can come into being out of nothing as distinct, self-standing things rather than vanish into Him, as was said above. The mitzvos, though, are His innermost will, where the Face is not hidden in the least. The vitality in them is no separate entity whatsoever; it is bound up with and absorbed into His will, the two being truly one in total union.

For the Shechinah to “rest” on something means that G‑d’s Divinity, the light of Ein Sof, is revealed in it. That happens when the thing is absorbed into G‑d’s light and wholly cancels its own existence before Him; then the One G‑d rests and shows Himself there. Whatever has not utterly given up its existence before Him, His light neither rests on nor appears in. Even of a perfect tzaddik bound to Him with intense love it holds true that “no thought can grasp Him at all.” For the meaning of “G‑d is truth” (Yirmiyahu 10:10) is His oneness and uniqueness: only He exists, and there is really nothing other than Him.

So this lover, being a something rather than a nothing, cannot take hold of Him in thought at all, and G‑d’s light does not rest or appear in him, except by way of the mitzvos, which are truly His will and wisdom with no concealment of the Face.

Note: This agrees with the explanation I received from my teacher [the Maggid of Mezritch], of blessed memory, regarding the explanation of the statement in Etz Chaim that the light of Ein Sof joins even with the world of Atzilus only once it has first dressed itself in the sefirah of chochmah. The reason is that Ein Sof is the truly One, the only existence, with nothing besides Him, and this corresponds to the level of chochmah, and so on.

When a person learns Torah, then, his neshamah, the G‑dly soul, along with just two of its inner garments, the faculties of thought and speech, is absorbed into the light of Ein Sof and joined with it in total union. That is the Shechinah resting on his G‑dly soul, as the Sages taught: when even a single person sits and learns Torah, the Shechinah is present with him (Berachos 6a).

To bring the Shechinah’s light and glow down onto his body and his animal soul as well, that is, the vital soul dressed in his physical body, he has to perform the active mitzvos, the ones the body itself carries out. Then the body’s own strength, as it acts, is absorbed into G‑d’s light and will and joined with it in total union. This is the G‑dly soul’s third garment.

At that point the power of the vital soul in his physical body, which derives from kelipas nogah, also turns from bad to good and is truly absorbed into holiness, exactly like the G‑dly soul. For this soul is the one that actually performs the mitzvah. The G‑dly soul could not act in the body at all without it, since the G‑dly soul is spiritual and the body is coarse matter. Between them stands the vital animal soul, which is housed in the person’s blood, in his heart and throughout his body.

True, the animal soul’s own core and substance within his heart, namely its bad traits, have not yet been absorbed into holiness. Still, they are bent to holiness and answer “Amen” in spite of themselves, going along with doing the mitzvah because the G‑dly soul in the brain, ruling over the heart, has the upper hand; and during that time they are, as said above, in a state of exile and slumber. So they do not keep the Shechinah from resting on his body at that moment.

In other words, the part of the vital soul invested in the act of the mitzvah is truly absorbed into G‑d’s light and joined with it in total union, and through this a glow is cast over the entire vital soul spread through the body, and over the physical body too, as an encircling light from above, from head to toe. This is why it says the Shechinah rests “on” his head: on, in particular. In the same way, “The Shechinah rests on any group of ten” (Sanhedrin 39a).

None of this bringing down of the Shechinah’s light, the revealing of the light of Ein Sof, counts as any change in Him, Heaven forbid, or as making Him many. So we find in Sanhedrin: a heretic challenged Rabban Gamliel, “You claim the Shechinah rests on any group of ten. So how many Shechinahs are there?” He replied with the image of sunlight streaming in through many windows, and so on. One who thinks will understand.