Chapter 4
This is the meaning of “מָּשְכֵנִי- [Hashem, please] pull me up, ךי רֲח א הָּצ ורָּ נ-and we shall run after You [Hashem]” (Shir HaShirim 1:4).
The phrase “מָּשְכֵנִי- [Hashem, please] pull me up” is written in the singular form, which refers to the “Isarusa Dele’eila” to awaken the natural love which is hidden in the Divine soul.
Through this, the Divine soul can also refine the animal soul, as described above.
This is the meaning of “ךי רֲח א הָּצ ורָּ נ-we shall run after You [Hashem]” in the plural form, meaning that we run after Hashem with both sets of ours desires, those of the Divine soul and those of the animal soul.
In other words: The first stage is that Hashem awakens the Divine soul. This is referred to as "pull me up,” with “me” referring to the Divine soul, which is “pulled up” by Hashem, from His initiative.
The second stage is that we use the awakening in our Divine soul to refine our coarse nature and awaken our animal soul to love Hashem. This is referred to as “we shall run after You [Hashem],” with “we” referring to both the Divine soul and the animal soul. After the animal soul is awakened by the Divine soul to love Hashem, then both run together to Hashem, with a yearning to connect to Him through Torah and Mitzvos.
This is the meaning of "You are beautiful, my beloved, like something truly desired” (Shir HaShirim 6:4).
In Likutay Torah on Shir HaShirim, the Alter Rebbe explains this verse (Shir HaShirim 13d) as follows:
There are two types of desires. One type is an 'intellectual' desire, meaning that a person knows in his intellectual that something is good for him, and he should really want it. This 'intellectual' desire can be enough to inspire a person to act if he decides to use the realization of what he should want and act upon it. If a person understands the greatness of Hashem, he can choose to do whatever it takes to connect to Hashem, based on his realization, even if he doesn't yet have an emotional feeling for Hashem.
The second type of desire is an emotional desire that one feels in the heart. When a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem and His love for us or a similar concept, and it breaks through into a real emotional feeling in his heart, this is an entirely different experience than the 'intellectual' desire that's only in his mind.
This second type of desire is called “רַעְיָתִי-my beloved,” since it reflects a true emotional feeling of love for Hashem. The first type of desire is called “כְּתִּרְצָה-like something truly desired,” since it is, in fact, a real desire, just not an emotional one.
The goal is to connect these two types of desire: We should have an emotion of love for Hashem in our heart - “רַעְיָתִי-my love [for Hashem]” - that corresponds to our desire for Hashem in our mind - “כְּתִּרְצָה-like something desired [in our mind].”
This is the meaning of the verse: “יָפָה אַתְּ רַעְיָתִי - you, my love for Hashem, is beautiful כְּתִּרְצָה-when it expresses my intellectual desire for Hashem.”
This concept reflects the theme explained in our maamar: From the perspective of our material life, the desire for Hashem in our Divine soul is distant. It is like an intellectual desire that has yet to penetrate into the heart. However, when we refine our coarseness and awaken our animal soul to love Hashem, then this is like the love of Hashem that is actually felt emotionally in the heart. It has the power to transform our material life fully.
After this process, the verse says: “The King has brought me into חֲדָּרָּיו-his chambers.”
It is written in the singular form since these "chambers" refer to the Six Orders of the Mishna, which are built primarily around the three aspects of Kindness, Severity, and Beauty/Fair Compromise, also known as חֶסֶד (Leniency), דִּין (Strict Justice), רַחֲמִים (Mercy/Compassion), which form the acronym “ח ד ר-Chamber,” thus the 'chamber' here is a reference to the Mishna built around these three attributes.
From these three attributes of Hashem come forth the rulings in the Mishna of Kosher or non-Kosher, pure or impure, condemned or vindicated.
The verse says “He [Hashem] has brought me [to His ‘chambers’],” using the past tense, as our Sages have said (Nidah 30b): “When a fetus is in its mother’s womb, they [souls and angels] teach it the entire Torah.”
When a Jew is born, he has already been brought into the 'chambers' of the Torah. When a Jew in this world learns Torah, he is only returning to a spiritual 'place' that he was previously in. This is why the past tense is used.
Meaning, while the Divine soul was in a state of “pregnancy” in the spiritual worlds Above it was taught the Torah.
The Alter Rebbe here is interpreting the statement of our Sages that “a fetus is in its mother’s womb” learning Torah is not taken in the physical sense. Rather, it is referring to the Divine soul in the spiritual level called “Its Mother’s Womb.” This is a level where souls develop from a completely spiritual existence that has no connection to physicality at all, to a lower level of spirituality that is able to enter a physical body. This spiritual 'gestation' process mirrors the physical gestation process of the body of the child. It is the Divine soul that learned the entire Torah during its spiritual ‘gestation’ process in the spiritual realm.
The level of "Its Mother's Womb" is an aspect of the Sefira of Malchus, which is called "the Mother," since it expresses Hashem's creative power, similar to how a mother creates a child. This process is mentioned in Tanya in Igeres Hakodesh chapter 20, pp. 130b-131a.
