The Sedra includes the ‘Song of the Well’, praising Hashem for the well which gave the Jewish people water in the wilderness. ‘Then Israel sang this Song..’Rise up o well..’
The Rebbe comments that this song must have a teaching for us, especially since the Talmud tells us this text was regularly included in the Temple service.
Another ‘Song’ in the Torah is the Song of the Sea. But in the Song of the Sea, Moshe led the song and the people answered, suggesting a division. In the Song of the Well, all Israel sang together.
The discourse explains that the ‘well’ means the gathering of the Souls of the Jewish people, which means the Sefirah Malchut, Kingship. Another verse also refers to the Souls as a well: ‘fountain of the gardens, well of living water, trickling from the Lebanon’. This verse is understood as describing the path of the Soul. ‘Fountain of the gardens’ means the Soul as it is above, before it descends into this world. Then ‘well of living water’ means the Soul when it has descended into this world, and is enclothed in a person’s body.
This difference is expressed in the difference between a fountain, or spring, which is formed by G-d, like the Soul above, while the ‘well’ is dug by human beings, and thus this term refers to the Soul in this world where it is actively engaged in its own special service of the Divine.
Looking at this verse more closely, the ‘fountain’ is the pure heavenly source of the Soul, as we say in the Elokay Neshamah prayer ‘My G-d, the Soul which You have given me is pure..’. It then descends through the Gardens. This term means the many different levels of the Garden of Eden, which are generally referred to simply as the Upper Garden of Eden and the Lower Garden of Eden.
In its passage towards the physical world, the Soul passes through and brings with it some aspects of these heavenly Gardens. Then, when it has travelled ‘from a high roof to a deep pit’, in its journey into our world, it becomes like a well of living water.
In constructing a physical well, one has to dig away the earth and stones so as to reach the living waters below, which have been purified by their passage through the rocks and soil of the ground. Then the water rises up as the refreshing waters of the well.
The Soul goes through a similar process. It enters the physical body and the other limiting aspects of this world, which initially conceal the soul. Then the person works to reveal the light of his or her soul in daily life, through keeping the Torah and its Mitzvot. The Soul gains through facing the various kinds of opposition it encountered, just as the water of the well gained by its passage through the rocky soil. And thus the Soul ‘rises’ becoming a well of ‘living water’, parallel to the physical water which becomes more refreshing on account of its passage through the rocks.
This level, the ‘well of living water’ is spiritually higher than the level of the ‘fountain of the gardens’. Because the process of the journey of the Soul is a ‘descent in order to rise’, and the eventual rising brings the Soul higher than its original point, when it was termed a ‘fountain of the gardens’.
The Rebbe explains that this movement upwards of the Soul is an expression of the service of the emotions, awaking love and awe in one’s heart in service of Hashem [and love is also the basis of one’s observance of the positive commandments, and awe the basis of keeping the negative commandments.]
Ultimately there will also be a higher level of service, described in the verse as ‘trickling from the Lebanon’. This is the service of the Mind, reaching the exalted state of consciousness which will be achieved in the future. For Lebanon is made of two words: Lev, with the gematria 32, meaning the 32 paths of wisdom, and Nun, the number fifty, meaning the fifty gates of understanding.
At the moment, while the mind is of course needed in the task of contemplation, in order to arouse love and awe, the main service is the service of the heart, the emotions. But in the future the intense service of the Mind will also be revealed.
The text of the Song of the Well in our Sedra speaks of ‘Princes digging the well’, and this refers to our efforts to remove different levels of negativity in our own being, and then we come to true ‘living waters’.
The Rebbe emphasises that in order to carry out this service properly, one first needs ‘the service of prayer’, in order to reach a state of selflessness, bitul. Then the Torah which one studies is also in the right mode of reverence, as if one can hear the Divine Voice at Sinai, for ‘when anyone studies Torah today, Hashem is studying with them’.
This is what is meant by the ‘Song’, for in order to dig the well one also needs the song of prayer. This is also why this Song was sung by all Israel together, for the optimum of Prayer is that it should be together with the community.
Then, after the service of the emotions, will come the service of the Mind, as the Rambam states that in the time of Moshiach people will ‘understand the Mind of their Creator’ [which we cannot imagine now].
However even now we have to make the attempt to serve Hashem on the highest level, including with our minds, as we will do in the future. And Hashem will ‘broaden our borders’ with the ultimate redemption with Moshiach, who will bring us to our Holy Land.
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