Chapter 3
Now, even after one made himself into a rinsed and cleaned vessel, able to receive the Divine, he still needs to work on himself in another (third) aspect of Divine service. This aspect is described in the verse (Shmuel I 1:10) “And Chana called ‘ע ל-upon’ Hashem ‘ו ת ִתְׁפ ל ֵּל-in prayer’ and she cried greatly.”
The verse describes Chana’s prayer to Hashem asking for children. It uses the phrase saying that she beseeched ‘עַל-upon’ Hashem, instead of the usual wording of ‘אֶל-to’ Hashem. The Alter Rebbe will explain this wording soon.
The idea is that the collective Jewish people have many aspects and names. When a Jew is in a state of spiritually ‘giving birth,’ to love and fear of Hashem, they are called by the name ‘Leah,’ the wife of Yaakov who was “The mother of (many) children.” And when a Jew is spiritually barren, that is, they do not produce feelings of love and fear of Hashem, then they are called by the name ‘Chana,’ as it is written: (Shmuel I 1:2) “and Chana did not have any children.”
The solution for this spiritual ‘infertility’ is as the verse continues to say: “And Chana beseeched ‘ע ל-upon’ Havaya (Hashem).”
The Divine Name and Creation
The meaning of this: The Divine name Havaya denotes Hashem as He creates everything in a way of something from nothing, known as creation ex-nihilo. This name of Havaya, Hashem’s creative power, is expressed in all the words of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzira, and Asiya. The differences between these worlds are only in terms of how this creative power is expressed in each world. For example, the world of Beria was created in such a way as to perceive the creative power in it, and the world of Yetzirah was formed in such a way as to allow the creation to perceive a sense of independence from their source, etc.
However, generally speaking, this creative power of Havaya gives life to all beings and creatures and brings them into existence in a manner of something from nothing. Now this Divine name, describing Hashem as the creator, is in truth only applicable to the worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzira, and Asiya and their inhabitants.
However, regarding Hashem Himself in His true essence and glory, He cannot be called by this divine name Havaya representing His creative power, since “before Hashem, everything else is completely insignificant,” and they are not considered to be in the category of true existence compared to His True Existence, as it is written (Malachi 3:6) “I Hashem have not changed” through the process of creation, and “You are the same before and after the creation of the world.”
The fact that the process of creation does not change Hashem at all means that His existence is a completely different category than the existence of His creations. Because His existence is so much higher than the category of the existence of the worlds, describing Hashem as a “Creator” does not accurately describe Hashem as He is in His Essence.
Hashem’s Name Alone
This sheds light on what is written in the Midrash of Pirkei D’Rebbe Eliezer (chap. 3): “Before the world was created, there was only He (Hashem) and His Name ‘alone’.” “His Name ‘alone’” refers to Hashem’s name as He is “alone” by Himself, beyond the category of being involved in creating and giving life to creatures.
The idea of Hashem’s “Name alone” refers to how Hashem relates to Himself when He is alone, by Himself. That “Name ‘alone’” of how He relates to Himself is above and beyond anything that has to do with worlds. This is expressed in the following verse: (Tehillim 148:13) “[Praise the name of Hashem, for] His ‘name alone’ is exalted,” which shows on the extreme distance between it and the creations, that it is exceedingly far removed from the worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzira, and Asiya.
His investment in creation is only (ibid.) “Its radiance is upon heaven and earth.” That is, He brought out only a radiance of Light from His name to give life to the heavens and earth. However, it is written in the continuation of the above verse “and He raises the glory of His people” in order to be “the nation close to Him,” to be close to Hashem Himself, i.e., to draw them close to Himself to become included in His Oneness, as we say (in the Shachris Prayer) “You (Hashem) have showed us great and abounding mercy” by choosing us to be His chosen people who proclaim His Oneness by reciting Shema.
This contrast is what we should think about: On the one hand, the power of life and existence of all the worlds, even the beings of Atzilus, is only from the radiance of His Name, whereas His essential name that is ‘alone’ with Hashem is beyond the process of creation. However, the Jewish People have a connection to Hashem beyond any name, even beyond His name that is ‘alone’ with Him, rather, with Hashem Himself. Hashem brought them close to His very Essence to be bound up in His true Oneness, that there is nothing besides for Him whatsoever. We express this when we say Shema, proclaiming His True Oneness that He brought us to experience.
This awareness should fire up a person’s soul, causing him to want to throw away one’s physical desires (i.e., his passion towards materialism), and completely give over one’s life (one’s passion and desire) for actually doing whatever it takes to reveal Hashem, coming from a great yearning for Hashem to “connect our spirit to His ‘Spirit’ (as it were).”
Meaning, that one should want to dedicate all of his thought, speech, and deed to being the thought, speech, and deed that Hashem desires, and fulfill Mitzvos with the depth of his heart, with a great passion and excitement, as it is written in the Zohar on the verse (Yeshaya 26:9) “My true ‘Soul,’ (Hashem), I yearn for you, [in the night].”
In Tanya, (chap. 44) the Alter Rebbe quotes this Zohar, which explains the verse to mean that a person should have such a great desire to connect to Hashem, as much as he loves his own life, that he should want to wake up in the middle of the night to study Torah so he can connect to Hashem.
Chana’s Prayer: Connecting to Hashem’s Essence
This is the meaning of “And Chana called ‘ע ל-upon’ Havaya ‘ו ת ִתְׁפ ל ֵּל-in prayer’”: The word ‘ת ְׁפִל ָּה-prayer’ is related to the word “הַתּוֹפֵּל-binding together,” meaning connecting, i.e., she connected herself in prayer ‘ע ל-upon’ Havaya, This means that she connected herself to Hashem the way He is above and beyond the level of the Name Havaya which refers to how Hashem creates and gives life to the worlds. Instead, she gave herself over to Hashem to become part of His Oneness with total dedication of her entire innermost being and essence.
In other words, Chana connected herself in prayer to Hashem on a level higher than He is ‘merely’ the Creator of the world. In order to connect to such a lofty level, she needed to reach inside of herself and bring out her innermost connection to Hashem from her very essence. At that level a Jew feels that there is absolutely nothing besides for Hashem and gives themselves over to Hashem completely and unconditionally, to the point of self-sacrifice. It is at that innermost level of the soul that a Jew connects to the Essence of Hashem, higher even than the Name Havaya.
From there, from Hashem’s Essence, higher than Havaya, there is drawn down abundant mercies on the ‘spark of Hashem’ in the person’s soul. This is why, as above the verse continues, “she cried greatly,” in order to awaken abundant mercies from Hashem’s Essence on the ‘spark of Hashem’ trapped in her animal soul.
This is also the meaning of our reference to Hashem in prayer as “the King who alone is elevated... and exalted from the time of the existence of the world,” meaning, He is exalted beyond the entire category of the existence of worlds.
We therefore ask of Hashem to help us “with Your great compassion;” meaning, since You are infinitely exalted above the existence of the world, therefore from Your perspective the world is so small and lowly, and in need of Your mercy, even on the Higher Worlds, and even on the Higher Gan Eden, and even higher, to the loftiest possible levels, they are still in need of mercy from Hashem’s perspective, since they are all lowly compared to Hashem’s Essence.
This is not the case from the perspective of the worlds themselves, neither from the worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, or Asiyah. The lower the level of the world, the less its inhabitants perceive the need for mercy, until in this physical world we do not perceive the need for Hashem’s mercy on us (in our spiritual matters) even as we find ourselves in the physical world, since we live in this world, and cannot perceive the contrast between our lowly spiritual state and the real truth of Hashem.
From Hashem’s perspective, He sees the real truth of reality and how far the creations are from perceiving the ultimate truth, and so He knows how much mercy is needed on the worlds in order to perceive the real truth of Hashem. However, from our perspective, since we are not aware of the ultimate truth of Hashem, we do not even know what we are missing and cannot truly perceive how much we need Hashem’s mercy to shine His truth into our reality.
For compassion comes from one who is great (like a king) upon someone of lesser status, therefore, since Hashem is infinitely exalted, so too His mercies will be boundless.
Even though “even His Name is exalted and alone,” and Hashem Himself is even more exalted from creation, nonetheless, Hashem is called “the G-d of the world,” and He lowers Himself to have compassion on the world. This is the meaning of “G-d of the world ‘in Your mercies,’” meaning the fact that Hashem is the G-d of the world and creates and gives life to the world is due to His great mercies.
This is our request to Hashem: Since our minds cannot perceive the great need for mercy upon us, You should awaken “Your great mercies upon us,” meaning the mercies that You know that we really need, which are needed to protect us from becoming sunken and submerged in materialism, and that You should be a “shield for our salvation and a stronghold on our behalf.”
A ‘מִשְׁגָּב-stronghold’ is, for example, a tall wall that encompasses those inside of it. Similarly, a ‘מָּגֵּן-shield’ is a protection that hides one from enemies. The Encompassing Light of Hashem blinds the ‘eyes of the unholy forces,’ thus acting as a shield and stronghold by blocking them from being able to harm us.
In other words, we ask Hashem that He should have mercy on us according “to His understanding of how much mercy we need,” which is infinitely more than how much we think we need. We ask Hashem to show us that mercy, which will protect us from the forces of unholiness and materialism from trying to suck us in, so that we should remain sensitive to holiness and our connection to Hashem.
