Bringing  Delight,  Building  Worlds  

Zoharic  Teachings  on  the  Commandments                                                                                    
in  the  School  of  the  Maggid  of  Mezritsh  
Jeff  Amshalem  
 
Goldstein-­‐Goren  Department  of  Jewish  Thought  
Ben-­‐Gurion  University  of  the  Negev  
20  December,  2012  
GOALS & INTRODUCTION 3

ZOHAR III, 7b: ISRAEL FEED THEIR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 6

ZOHAR I, 4b-5a: NOT I HAVE MADE, BUT I AM MAKING. 14

ZOHAR III, 232a: THE SHEKHINAH SPEAKS FROM THE THROAT OF MOSES 18

ZOHAR II, 82b: 613 COUNSELS. 21

ZOHAR I, 170b: 248 LIMBS, 365 SINEWS. 23

CONCLUSION 27

  2  
 One of the central questions in the study of Hasidism is that of its sources: which
texts served as the primary inspirations, frames, and proofs for Hasidic teachings?
Gershom Scholem analyzed Hasidism in light of Lurianic Kabbalah;1 indeed, he saw
Hasidism as a revised form of Lurianism. Some fifty years later, this understanding was
still widely accepted.2 Since Scholem’s categorization of Hasidism as “the final stage of
Jewish mysticism” and specifically “the third stage of the [Lurianic/Sabbatean]
process,”iiii3 other scholars have suggested that the “Hasidic bookshelf” included many
sources of comparable or even equal importance. Moshe Idel, especially, has argued for a
wider “panoramic approach” which “allow[s] for the widest range of possibilities before
selecting any as the most influential.” This range reflects the possibilities open to the
Hasidic masters themselves, and has grown steadily longer as Idel, Zeev Gries, and others
have worked tirelessly to establish which texts were available to whom, when, and in
what form, and which Hasidic teachings may reflect their influence.4
Compiling such lists was such a demanding task because these texts are rarely
mentioned in the homilies themselves. On the contrary, only three types of sources are
consistently named: the Pentateuch, the Aggadic teachings of the early rabbis, and the
Zohar.5 Green attributes this focus mainly to the limited knowledge base of the intended
audience, arguing that “A homiletic point made by a new and forceful stringing together
of sources familiar to the listener’s ear is potentially of greater power than one that has to
turn to proof-texts that he has never heard before.” To this I would add the following

                                                                                                               
1
See especially his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1969) which does
not so much as mention the Zohar in the chapter dedicated to Hasidism.
2
See Piekarz, Mendel, Between Ideology and Reality (Hebrew: Bein ideologiah le-metziut:
anavah, ayin, bitul memtziut udevequt bemachashavatam shel roshei hahasidut). Mosad Bialik:
Jerusalem, 1994.
3
Scholem, Major Trends, 325-7.
4
Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, State University of New York Press: Albany,
1995; Gries, The Book in the Jewish World 1700-1900, Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish
Civilization, 2007; Book, Scribe, and Story (Hebrew: Sefer, Sofer, ve-Sippur ba-Reishit ha-
Hasidut), Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meyuchad, 1992.
5
Green, Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, New York: Paulist Press, 1982, 6-7, emphasis in the
original. Green specifically contrasts these frequently-cited sources with Lurianic Kabbalah;
though the influence of Lurianic texts was “tremendous,” they are to be put in a different
category, since none of these texts was actually the object of Hasidic exegesis. Rather, references
to the Lurianic literature are almost always vague, such as the stock phrase, “It is found in the
holy writings of the Ari, of blessed memory,” which writings usually turn out to belong to Haim
Vital or Jacob Koppel, and even occasionally are not found in the Lurianic literature at all.

  3  
reasons: the three types of sources mentioned were all considered rabbinic and therefore
of a higher authority than later Kabbalistic texts, even Lurianic ones,6 and these texts all
followed the same homiletic structure that the Hasidic authors used, that is, the weekly
Torah portion. As each week’s portion arrived, the starting points for the Hasidic
preacher would be Rashi’s commentary, collections such as Midrash Rabbah and
Midrash Tanhumah, and the weekly segment of the Zohar. Green points out that “in
many of the homilies one can see that the author had prepared his words by looking into
the Zohar (or at least the opening paragraphs of it) for the particular sabbath on which he
was speaking.”7
Despite the obvious centrality of the Zohar to Hasidic homilies – Green is only
pointing out here what is plain to see on any page of a Hasidic text – little research has
been done on the specific Zohar citations and their use in Hasidic literature. (As late as
2009, Idel noted the absence of any study devoted to the Hasidic understanding of the
Zohar,8 and I am unaware of any study since then.) My goal here is to explore this
question regarding a particular topic, the classic kabbalistic genre of ta’amei ha-mitzvot,
the reasons for the commandments, and in a particular school, that of the Maggid of
Mezeritsh, especially Dov Ber himself, Levi Yitshak of Barditshev, Menahem Nahum of
Chernobil, and Ze’ev Volf of Zhytomyr.9
Choosing ta’amei ha-mitzvot as the focus offers two advantages. First, through it I
can treat those two other pillars of divine service, Torah study and prayer, which the
Hasidic authors considered the most fundamental of commandments, as we will see.
Second, by focusing on commandments, and on Torah and prayer as deeds and not
concepts, we leave the theoretical realm and enter the world of praxis. Since many

                                                                                                               
6
As evidence of the extent to which the Hasidic authors under consideration saw the Zohar as not
only the work of R. Shimon bar Yochai but as on level with other rabbinic texts, consider how the
Zohar is often introduced with the phrase, “As our sages of blessed memory (hazal) have said,”
and even with “According to the gemara” (for example, in Qedushat Levi, Toledot, 68; Ki Tissa,
249; there is no doubt that the author knew the passages at hand were from the Zohar and not the
Talmud – they are among the most frequently cited Zoharic passages in Hasidic literature.)
7
Green, Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, 9.
8
Moshe Idel, “Abraham J. Heschel on Mysticism and Hasidism,” Modern Judaism 29, 1 (2009),
92.
9
Elimelekh of Lizhensk and Shneur Zalman of Liadi were included in the initial survey of texts,
but not in this paper, for two reasons: there were significantly fewer citations from the Zohar, and
only one citation of the most frequently treated passages included in this paper.

  4  
arguments have been made that the innovation of Hasidism was not in theology but
practice,10 this seems a particularly promising area in which to start.
I chose the Maggid and his school, referred to as the hevraya qadisha or “holy
fellowship,” for the simple reason that it stands at the foundation of almost the entire
Hasidic world. With the exception of Bratslav Hasidism, there has not been a single
major dynasty since the turn of the nineteenth century that did not trace its roots back to
“the Great Maggid.” What’s more, scholarship in the last decade has argued more and
more forcefully for seeing Dov Ber as the conceptual co-founder and organizational
founder of Hasidism, as opposed to reserving these titles for Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal
Shem Tov (1700-1760).11
I have four main goals in this paper. First, to isolate those Zoharic passages most
favored in these texts and see which strata of the Zohar are most represented. If it should
turn out that the later Tiqqunei Zohar are favored or, on the contrary, texts that expressly
treat the reasons for the commandments such as Ra’aya Mehemna are ignored, that fact
in and of itself would be significant. Second, I hope to derive certain themes from among
the Zoharic passages – for example, do they stress theurgy, unity and devequt,
punishment and reward? Third, what use do these texts make of the Zoharic passages?
Are they staying true to the “original intent” of the texts (to the extent that we can
identify such intent) or are they using the texts for their own purposes? If the latter, are
the texts truly being reinterpreted, or simply serving as pegs on which to hang a new
idea? Finally, how do these uses contribute to an overall approach to the commandments
within early Hasidic ideology as a whole? In his benchmark article “Early Hasidism: Old/
New Questions,” Green suggests that “we might ask how such a religious phenomenon

                                                                                                               
10
Green, “Early Hasidism: Some Old/New Questions,” Hasidism Reappraised, edited by Ada
Rapoport-Albert, 441-446. London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997; Mendel
Piekarz, Between Ideology and Reality; Hasidic Leadership (Hebrew: Ha-hanhagah ha-hasidit)
Mosad Bialik: Jerusalem, 1999.; “Hasidism as a Socio-religious Movement on the Evidence of
‘Devequt’,” Hasidism Reappraised, 225-250.
11
See Immanuel Etkes, “The Zaddik: The Interrelationship between Religious Doctrine and
Social Organization,” Hasidism Reappraised, 159-167; Arthur Green, “Around the Maggid’s
Table: Tsaddik, Leadership, and Popularization in the Circle of Dov Ber of Miedzyrzec”
(forthcoming); Ada Rapoport-Albert, “Hasidism After 1772: Structural Continuity and Change,”
Hasidism Reappraised, 76-140. A parallel investigation of the uses of the Zohar in the writings of
Ya’aqov Yosef of Polnoye, Pinhas of Korets, Rafael of Bershad, and Nahman of Bratslav would
also be worthwhile, however, and a useful complement to the current paper.

  5  
[as Hasidism] interacted with a new selective reading of the sources of Judaism to create
a movement ideology.”12 Ultimately, I hope to take the first steps towards answering that
question within the parameters I have set.
The first task, however, is to explore each Hasidic text on its own terms – even
within the school of the Maggid there is too much variety to approach these authors as
holding one consistent ideology. Only afterwards will I attempt to answer the questions I
have set out as part of my current goals.

ZOHAR III, 7b: ISRAEL FEED THEIR FATHER IN HEAVEN.

The Zohar is cited over two-hundred times in the teachings of Dov Ber of
Mezritsch.13 Most passages are only cited once, while a few are cited a number of times;
however, by far the single most often cited phrase, appearing some twenty times, is from
III, 7b: israel mefarnesei la-avihem sheba-shamayim, “Israel feed their Father in heaven.”
Here is the complete text14:
When there is food below, there is food above; it is as though a king were to
prepare a banquet for himself and another for his servants, but were not to eat
till his servants ate. Hence the expression “sweet savour” (lit. savour of
pleasantness) – savour for the servants, pleasantness for the Lord. Hence we
have learnt that Israel feed their Father in heaven.

The Maggidic teachings offer us the advantage of always explaining the

application of the phrase in each context, so the guesswork is removed. About a third of
these citations present the phrase as meaning simply that Israel’s Torah study, prayer, and
performance of mitzvot – in sum, all their good deeds, and especially those of the

                                                                                                               
12
Green, “Early Hasidism,” 443.
13
These teachings are collected in three anthologies: Magid Devarav le-Ya’aqov (also known as
Likutei Amorim), the most important and one of the first Hasidic books to be published (Korets,
1781), Or Torah (Korets, 1804), and the much later Or ha-Emet (also known as Imrei Zadikim;
Zhytomyr, 1899). Selections from the first two anthologies were also included with those of other
teachers in Liqutim Yekarim (Lemberg, 1792), Kitvei Kodesh (1862), and Shemuah Tovah (1938).
All citations will be from Torat ha-Maggid, Bnei Brak, 2001, and from the original(s) when
possible.
14
Translation from The Zohar, translated by Maurice Simon & Dr. Paul P. Levertoff, London:
Soncino, 1973, p. 339.

  6  
zaddiqim15 – bring delight and strength to God and establish Him as king. This does not
seem to effect any qualitative change to the Zohar’s intent, simply extending the Zohar’s
discussion of the sacrifices to include all mitzvot in the broadest sense. A similar
extension is implied in the Zohar itself, having been written long after the cessation of
sacrifice and often using the sacrificial rites to represent prayer and divine service in
general. Indeed, such a synecdoche was already established by rabbinic tradition,16 which
also includes precedents to the Zohar in teaching that divine strength and kingship derive
from Israel’s deeds.17 Likewise, in the Maggid’s emphasis on not only the act of Torah
study but the resulting wisdom as the source of divine delight, he is prefigured by
rabbinic aggadot.18 So we may conclude that no particular innovation is being made here.
In the remaining citations, however, additional details are included which identify
the passage’s symbolism, adding nuance or even radicalizing its effect. For example, in a
teaching which stays the closest to the original metaphor of the “sweet savor,” Dov Ber
explains that, just as it is the spiritual element of the food which actually sustains us, so is
it the spiritual acts we perform that sustain or, as Dov Ber renders it, bring delight to God
above.19 In another homily which seems to be an elaboration on the same theme, it is
specifically the fiery fervor (hitlahavut) of the one performing the mitzvah which satisfies
God; thus the Maggid understands Deuteronomy 4:2420 as “the LORD your God eats the
fire” of your spiritual acts.21
In many of these homilies it is specifically wisdom which brings delight. In one of
the Maggid’s trademark teachings,22 this wisdom is equated with qedushah, usually
translated “holiness,” and a primary value in both Biblical and Hasidic literature. The
                                                                                                               
15
At this point the term zaddiq was still in the process of becoming the preferred title of the
Hasidic communal leader. It would be best to translate it here as “exceedingly righteous,” with
overtones of a spiritual elite but not institutionalization.
16
See, for example, Avot de-Rabbi Natan, 11a.
17
See, for example, Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 3.
18
Perhaps most famously in the story known as “Achnai’s oven” in Bavli Bava Metzia 59b.
19
Torat ha-Maggid, 99; Or Torah (unpaginated), Parshat Yitro; Or ha-Emet, fo. 77.
20
‫יי אלקיך אש אוכלה‬, usually translated as “The LORD your God is a consuming fire.”
21
Compare the similar teachings on this verse recorded in the name of the Maggid by R.
Benjamin of Salsitz, Torrei Zahav (Mohilev, 1816), Parshat Tzav, and in the collection of
teachings from R. Ya’aqov Yitzhak of Lublin entitled Zikharon Zot, Emor.
22
Torat ha-Maggid, 173; Or ha-Emet, fo. 30. Compare the teaching by Elimelekh of Lizhensk in
Noam Elimelekh, Liqutei Shoshanah, 213 [Bahar, 197]; this is that book’s only citation of any of
the Zoharic passages treated here.

  7  
midrashic phrase qedushati lema’alah mi-qedushatchem23 is not read in its plain sense, as
My holiness is above your holiness, but rather “in the manner of ‘Israel feed their Father
in heaven’ Who is called Holy,” that is, My holiness is from your holiness, “for they bring
delight and holiness to Him.” (This use of the term qedushah for wisdom and divine
insight would take root among several of the Maggid’s disciples, most notably Ze’ev
Volf of Zhytomyr.24)
In other instances Dov Ber specifies that the delight God feels is due to being able
to fulfill the divine role of giving: when Israel sufficiently clarify their minds they
become fit vessels for the divine influx, “thereby fulfilling the desire of God, whose
nature is to be good and do good.” By allowing God to act as the giver “Israel bring
delight to their Father in heaven,” but if they do not purify themselves “then He is forced
to restrict (lezamzem) His bounty and with it His delight.”25
By allowing God to fulfill the divine nature as giver and thus bringing Him
delight, Israel paradoxically reverses the standard cosmic roles. Playing with the verses
from Psalm 118, “This is from the LORD; it is wondrous in our eyes,”26 and “This is the
day the LORD has made; we will be glad and rejoice in it,”27 Dov Ber exclaims, “This is
the greatest wonder in our eyes, that God, who gives life to all creatures, should become
also a receiver…God did all this so that we should rejoice in our service from which He
receives delight. So God restricts (mezamzem)28 Himself, as it were, to become the
receiver.”29 In another homily Dov Ber calls this reversal “the very purpose of creation,

                                                                                                               
23
Vayiqra Rabbah 24:9 on Leviticus 19:2.
24
For a full discussion see Seth Brody, “‘Open to Me the Gates of Righteousness’: the Pursuit of
Holiness and Non-duality in Early Hasidic Teaching.” In The Jewish Quarterly Review 89, no. 1-
2 (July-October, 1998).
25
Torat ha-Maggid, 306; Magid Devarav le-Ya’aqov, fo. 28; Or ha-Emet, fo. 53; Cf. Torat ha-
Maggid, 316; Magid Devarav le-Ya’aqov, fo. 19, Or ha-Emet, fo. 43, s.v. Shabbat.
26
Psalms 118:23.
27
Psalms 118:24.
28
Note how in these two teachings the term lezamzem is used in almost opposite senses: in the
first it serves as divine withholding and withdrawal from the world, a decidedly negative reaction,
while in the second it signifies the self-restriction which allows the infinite divine to dwell in the
finite world – not only a positive act but the basis for creation. While the first usage is closer to
the Lurianic original, the second is much more common in the school of the Maggid (see Green,
Menaham Nahum, 14-5).
29
This teaching is brought in the Maggid’s name in Qedushat Levi, Tazria; a similar teaching
appears in Or Torah on Proverbs 15:30. In this teaching the Maggid uses the kabbalistic language
of the female (for example, zot, the feminine “this” of Ps. 118) as the receiver, and the male (for

  8  
that one should bring pleasure and satisfaction above, as our sages of blessed memory
said, ‘Israel feed…’”30
In a number of homilies the Zoharic passage is elaborated in greater sefirotic
detail, counter to the usual Hasidic tendency to minimize the technical language of
Zoharic theosophy in favor of a simplified, devotional focus.31 In one homily32 which
manages to operate forcefully on both levels, Dov Ber opens with the Zoharic passage
and exclaims, “Every person must have great faith in this…that what he performs below
arouses a great delight above, and he must not say, ‘How is it possible that I can bring
such delight above?’” He quickly shifts from simple inspiration to theosophy, however,
explaining that such lack of faith causes separation between the shekhinah and the sefirah
of hochmah, since the shekhinah is called “faith,” “and in every act one should think that
he brings all things to the world of delight [that is, hochmah], where there was never any
fracture (shevirah),33 as in ‘Wisdom enlivens its possessor.” 34
Here we see, even in one
of the most technical passages, the characteristic collapsing of the sefirotic system to two
basic elements, upper and lower, single and manifold, hochmah and shekhinah, which are
ideally revealed as one by the understanding and deeds of Israel.35
Similarly, in a homily36 on the verse37 from Isaiah, “If he holds fast to My refuge,
he makes Me complete,” the Maggid explains the dynamic tension between the ineffable
divinity of ayn sof and Its manifestation in divine attributes (or sefirot) which lies at the
heart of the Zohar and the Kabbalah as a whole:
We find that He appears in attributes, even though He is above all
attributes; but when a person does what is good, as it were, in the eyes
of the Creator, he makes for Him the attribute of shalom (wholeness,
completion, peace), which is the attribute of connection…This is the

                                                                                                               
example, “the LORD,” associated with the masculine sefirah of tiferet) as the giver. Thus he
implies that God has performed no less a feat than changing from male to female.
30
Torat ha-Maggid, 100; Or Torah, ; Or ha-Emet, 77.
31
Green, Menahem Nahum, 9-10.
32
Torat ha-Maggid, 126; Maggid Devarav le-Ya’aqov, fo. 21; Or ha-Emet, fo. 40. Cf. Torat ha-
Maggid, 293; Or Torah; Or ha-Emet, fo. 81.
33
The reference to shevirah is of course based on the Lurianic concept of shevirat ha-kelim.
34
Ecclesiasates 7:12.
35
See Green, Menahem Nahum, 13-4.
36
Torat ha-Maggid 266;
37
Isaiah 27:5; I have translated in a way fitting to its use here; JPS has “He makes Me his friend.”

  9  
 meaning of “Israel feed their Father in heaven”…for they bring to the
lower levels the connection which God has made with him.

It is good deeds which bring the hidden divine out of Its hiding and into manifestation in
this world, bringing It wholeness and delight. So our Zoharic passage is used as a source-
text for the raison d’etre of the Hasidic Jew: the ultimate ideal of devequt, cleaving to
God and so joining heaven and earth in pursuit of a divine need.
This becomes even clearer in another homily,38 which is best served by being
quoted in full:
We find that the worlds themselves are the delight, and all the worlds are
sustained by good deeds which bring delight to God, for it is all a single unity,
and this is the meaning of israel mefarnesei…for they draw out the delight for
Him. The zaddiq draws out two types of delight, one to God, and this is called
higher delight, that is, upper wisdom (hochmah ila’ah), and one to the world,
and this is called lower wisdom (hochmah tata’ah).

To this paradigm the Maggid brings his trademark motif, bittul ha-yesh be-ayin, which
might be translated as “nullification of the self in nothingness.” It is by recognizing his
nothingness before the infinite divine that the zaddiq brings delight (which is wisdom,
which is unity).
Our last homily from Dov Ber on israel mefarnesei seems to me the most radical.
In the first,39 Dov Ber offers the metaphor of a mother and her two sons – a slight but
noteworthy shift from his near ubiquitous personification of God and Israel as father and
son. One son is a baby whom the mother nurses in her mercy; the older has a different
relationship altogether, no longer needing to nurse and instead feeding his mother by the
work of his own hands. This is already a startling innovation. Suggesting that Israel the
babe brings pleasure to God “because the mother wishes to give suck more than the calf
wishes to nurse” allows for a certain reciprocity, but still maintains the traditional
hierarchy. Positing Israel as the grown son who no longer needs his mother but whose
mother certainly needs him upends this hierarchy entirely. Even the midrash, radical for
its time, that imagines God saying “When you are My witnesses, I am God, and when
you are not, I am, as it were, not God,” does not go so far, for while God relies on Israel’s
witnessing, it is in order to remain God and king; in the Maggid’s metaphor, God has
                                                                                                               
38
Torat ha-Maggid, 374; Maggid Devarav le-Ya’aqov, fo. 13; Or Torah; Or ha-Emet, fo. 29.
39
Torat ha-Maggid, 345; Or Torah; Or ha-Emet, fo. 5.

  10  
become a dependent and Israel the provider – by feeding the mother the son does not
reestablish her dominance over her, as in the midrash, but rather the opposite.
The continuation of the homily, based on a verse from Isaiah,40 could be
understood two ways. The phrase az titanag al-adonai, which might be translated as
“then you will delight in the LORD” or, even more hierarchically, “then you will seek the
favor of the LORD,”41 the Maggid reads hyperliterally as “you will delight above the
LORD.” This may be simply a proof-text to support his metaphor of the son taking the
role of provider to his mother, and not add anything content-wise. However, it is possible
to read this teaching as referring to the highest divine realms, above not only tiferet but
even hochmah. Bread is often understood as a symbol for hochmah,42 and in another text
on Zohar I, 7b the Maggid explicitly identifies simhah, “happiness,” as the realm above
ta’anug, “delight,” that is, hochmah. So the original source-text of the homily,
Ecclesiastes’ “Go, eat your bread in happiness,”43 could be rendered loosely as “Go,
partake of hochmah in the realm of keter elyon” or even, given Hasidic allowances for
creative vocalizations, “Go, feed hochmah to the world from your place in keter elyon,”
“for everything comes from the world of simhah,” Dov Ber explains, “and you shall be
on such a level that you cause the simhah.” Once again, Israel, or at least the most
righteous among them, takes the highest possible place in the hierarchy.
The passage from III, 7b was also a favorite of Levi Yitshak of Barditchev (c.
1740-1809), who cites it ten times in his Qedushat Levi [volume one 1798, volume two
1811]. Some of these citations are explicitly in the name of Dov Ber, but all of them
repeat those themes we saw above: he translates mefarnesei as “bring delight,”44 stresses
the importance of Israel’s service to God45 and its theurgic effect in uniting shekhinah
with hochmah,46 mentions the role of cleaving to ayin in this process,47 plays with the

                                                                                                               
40
Isaiah 58:14.
41
So JPS, based on Psalms 37:4; Job 22:26-7, 27:10.
42
Based on a reading of Proverbs 9:5.
43
Ecclesiastes 9:7.
44
Qedushat Levi, Vayehi, 128. All citations are from Qedushat Levi ha-Shalem, Brooklyn, 1996.
45
Ibid., Ki Tissa, 246; Eiqev, 392; Ki Tezei, 402; Purim, 532. In this last homily Levi Yitshak
claims that the delight Jews feel in performing mitzvot is knowing that God delights in them, and
goes so far as to say that denying that one’s service brings such divine delight is not humility but
heresy.
46
Ibid., Toledot, 68.

  11  
reversal of gender roles,48 and argues that by allowing God to give we allow the
fulfillment of divine nature and will.49 Levi Yitshak also brings most of the same proof-
texts, such as “A wise son is a delight to his father,”50 “Hochmah sprouts from ayin,”51
and “More than the calf desires to suck, the cow desires to give suck.”52 It is not
surprising to find such similarity between this disciple and his master: aside from being in
Dov Ber’s closest circle, Levi Yitshak was also considered the most trustworthy source
for the Maggid’s teachings, responsible for recording most of the teachings found in
Magid Devarav le-Yaakov and repeated elsewhere.
Dov Ber’s elder disciple, R. Menahem Nahum of Chernobil [1730?-1797],
similarly holds close to the teachings of his master. We hear clear echoes of Dov Ber in
R. Nahum’s claim that
the whole intent of the Creator in creating the world was so that Israel might
serve with pure service, in great cleaving to and longing for the Root, that is,
the Creator. For through this they give birth to great delight and longing in the
Creator, as it were, who delights more in the service of the lower creatures
than in that of the heavenly hosts, as it is written, Israel mefarnesei… when
they draw close in complete truth and do not separate from Him.53

The introduction of the phrase “give birth to delight” here is telling, and I believe
it can be understood in the light of a teaching of Dov Ber’s recorded by R. Nahum’s peer,
R. Ze’ev Volf of Zhytomyr (d. 1798).54 I would suggest that there is an inherent tension
in the Zoharic passage under discussion: while the productive nature of Israel is
emphasized, all of that productivity is directed heavenward; all of the delight is for God.
Hasidic leaders, though not the first to do so,55 were the most forward in demanding that
the truly righteous, even the kabbalistic sage, had to devote his energy to helping the
community, and could not withdraw completely into mystical contemplation and study.

                                                                                                               
47
Ibid., Ki Tissa, 249.
48
Ibid., Balaq, 357.
49
Ibid., Liqutim, 714.
50
Proverbs 15:20.
51
Job 28:14.
52
Bavli Pesahim, 112a.
53
Meor Einayim, Ki Tavo, 352. All citations are from the Jerusalem, 2006 edition.
54
Or ha-Meir, Vayera, 25. All citations are from Sefer Or ha-Meir ha-Shalem al ha-Torah,
Jerusalem, 1999.
55
They were heavily influenced in this, for example, by Isaiah Horowitz’s Shnei Luhot ha-Brit.

  12  
Rather, putting the kabbalistic sage at the center of the community was part of the
revolution that Hasidism effected, perhaps the essence of it.56
The exact role of the zaddiq vis-à-vis the community was a major point of
discussion in the Maggid’s hevraya qadisha (indeed, it was in this school that the
definition of the Hasidic zaddiq as we know it was formed).57 We see this discussion
reflected in the Maggid’s treatment of the midrashic teaching58 that “Sarai does not give
birth; Sarah with the letter Heh gives birth”59: “When a person gazes upon hochmah,
which is hinted at by the letter Yud,60 then he does not give birth to others, revealing the
hidden hochmah; one who gazes upon the Heh, that is, the five utterances of the mouth,61
bringing forth speech, can give birth.” Here Dov Ber specifies the productive aspect of
divine service as described by the Zohar – giving voice to the hidden divine, making the
potential actual. It is not clear whether the zaddiq’s speaking is enough, or if his speech
must be heard by another in order to be considered “birthing.” (This question will be
addressed below by one of the Maggid’s disciples in a homily on a related Zoharic
passage.)
R. Abraham Kalisker brings a similar example from the same midrash,62 and his
exegesis is at once identical to his master Dov Ber’s and its opposite. Quoting the
midrash, “Abram does not give birth; Abraham gives birth,” he explains,
Abram is expansion, and if there were only expansion [of the divine] without
contraction (zimzum), there could have been no birth; but Abraham, whose
name has the final Heh of the Name [YHVH], which is the shekhinah in the
lower worlds, gives birth in raising Her up to face the LORD.

This is, of course, the same letter Heh of which Dov Ber spoke in Ze’ev Volf’s homily;
there it is not explicit that it represents the shekhinah, but Dov Ber certainly had it in
mind that the shekhinah is the manifestation of the upper sefirot just as the voice is the
manifestation of thought. To this extent, these exegeses are the same; however, while

                                                                                                               
56
As Mendel Piekarz argues, for example, in “Hasidism as a Sociological Movement on the
Evidence of Devequt.”
57
Rapoport-Albert, “Hasidism After 1772”; Arthur Green, “Around the Maggid’s Table.”
58
Bereishit Rabbah 44:10.
59
Sarai’s name ends with a Yud, and was changed to Sarah by replacing it with a Heh.
60
Zohar III, 232a.
61
Heh is also the number five, and is frequently associated with speech in this way.
62
Bereishit Rabbah 44:12.

  13  
Dov Ber finds the key value in making manifest the hidden, Abraham Kalisker finds it in
hiding the infinite divine in the finite lower worlds. The paradox of God revealing the
divine self specifically by hiding inside the material world is not new here, but it strikes
me as noteworthy that the disciple focuses on the hiding while his master focuses on the
revealing, in two homilies which are otherwise so strikingly similar.
We will close this discussion with a homily from R. Ze’ev Volf, an
uncharacteristically simple, even Beshtian,63 call for joy.64 In a sermon for Rosh
Hashannah,65 he explains that we should not lose ourselves to sorrow, since this will only
bring sorrow to God; rather, we should bring God joy by being joyous ourselves. This is
the meaning of israel mefarnesei la-avihem sheba-shamayim.

ZOHAR I, 4b-5a: NOT I HAVE MADE, BUT I AM MAKING.

A related Zoharic passage is cited by Dov Ber and every one of his students
considered here. In the Zohar’s own introduction,66 Rabbi Shimon considers the opening
word of the Torah, bereishit, and then quotes the verse from Isaiah,67 “I have put My
words in your mouth.” He continues:
How vital it is for a human being to engage in Torah day and night! For the
blessed Holy One listens to the voice of those who occupy themselves with
Torah, and every word innovated in Torah by one engaged in Torah fashions
one heaven. We have learned: The moment a new word of Torah originates
from the mouth of a human being, that word ascends and presents herself
before the blessed Holy One, who lifts that word, kisses her, and adorns her
with seventy crowns—engraved and inscribed. But an innovated word of
wisdom ascends and settles on the head of Zaddiq, Righteous One—Vitality
of the Worlds. From there, it flies and soars through 70,000 worlds, ascending
to the Ancient of Days. All the worlds of the Ancient of Days are words of
wisdom, conveying supernal, concealed mysteries. When that secret word of
wisdom, innovated here, ascends, it joins those words of the Ancient of Days.
Along with them, it ascends and descends, entering eighteen hidden worlds,

                                                                                                               
63
Ze’ev Volf even brings one of the Baal Shem Tov’s favorite teachings on “God is your
shadow” (Psalms 121:5), though he cites it from Isaiah Horowitz’s Shnei Luhot ha-Brit
(beginning of Sha’ar ha-Gadol), not in the name of the Besht.
64
Ze’ev Volf, famous for fasting for having clapped his hands, is much more likely to berate his
audience for laziness, lightheadedness, and materialism than to enjoin them towards joy.
65
Or ha-Meir, Derush le-Rosh ha-Shannah, 258.
66
Folios 4b-5a.
67
Isaiah 51:16.

  14  
 which no eye has seen, O God, but You.68 Emerging from there, they roam
until they arrive, full and complete, presenting themselves before the Ancient
of Days. At that moment, the Ancient of Days inhales the aroma of that word
and it pleases Him more than anything. Lifting that word, He adorns her with
370,000 crowns. The word flies, ascending and descending, and is
transformed into a heaven. So each and every word of wisdom is transformed
into a heaven, existing enduringly in the presence of the Ancient of Days. He
calls them new heavens, newly created heavens, hidden mysteries of supernal
wisdom. As for all other innovated words of Torah, they stand before the
blessed Holy One, then ascend and are transformed into earths of the living.69
Then they descend, crowning themselves upon one earth, which is renewed
and transformed into a new earth through that renewed word of Torah.
Concerning this is written: As the new heavens and the new earth that I am
making endure before Me…70 The verse does not read I have made, but rather
I am making, for He makes them continually out of those innovations and
mysteries of Torah.71

In a teaching72 recorded in the manuscripts of R. Shmuel Shmelke of Nikolsburg,

the Maggid combines this passage with the myth of the cosmic fracture that occurred
with the creation of this world to redefine “the new heavens and the new earth” as a
restoration of divine unity and a renewal of the cosmos. Since the Torah pre-existed
Creation by two millennia,73 he explains, it is above that fracture and all the death and
suffering that resulted from it, and when one studies Torah properly he is able to enter
that supernal realm of infinite unity. “Properly” here means with love and awe (ahavah
and yirah) when studying the exoteric text, and with wisdom and understanding
(hochmah and binah), their higher counterparts, in the case of the esoteric Torah.
Referring here to the Zoharic passage, Dov Ber explains that such study creates or, more
accurately, re-creates the supernal worlds which were broken in Creation.
While thus far the “heavens and earth,” whether new or renewed, have been
created above, in another homily the Maggid uses this passage as a proof-text in

                                                                                                               
68
Isaiah 64:3
69
Psalms 116:9.
70
Isaiah 66:22.
71
The continuation includes perhaps the most quoted Zoharic phrase, “With Torah the blessed
Holy One created the world.” I chose not to include Hasidic treatments of this passage, since it
deals with the nature of Torah as a divine entity rather than with the commandment to study
Torah.
72
Torat ha-Maggid, Avot, 405.
73
See Midrash Tehillim, 90:12.

  15  
explaining God’s reason for creating heaven and earth below, at Creation and in every
moment since. He states,
God created the world out of his love for the righteous through whom He is
glorified. For in [the world of] azilut past and future are the same, and so
when a righteous person studies and prays this is a delight for the blessed
Holy One, and it is as if he shared in the creation with Him, as it is written in
the Zohar, “that I am making – continuously,” that is, the blessed Holy One
saw this from the beginning and because of it created the worlds.74

The Maggid explains his use of “worlds” in the plural by interpreting Psalms 25:6
hyperliterally, as “Remember Your rahamim, O LORD, and Your hesed, for they are from
the world.”75 That is, the sefirot of rahamim and hesed and, by extension, all seven lower
sefirot, are dependent on the acts of the righteous in the world below.
The homily’s opening and conclusion serve to specify that it is not the act itself
which God desires and for which He created the world, but the ahavah and yirah within
them – that is, the righteous’ love and awe or, in keeping with Dov Ber’s common usage,
their wisdom and understanding.76 Without the created world, there would be no one to
love or fear God, and without that love and fear there would be no reason for the world to
exist. Thus the homily closes with an otherwise non sequitur, a parable of two sons of the
king who fall into captivity; one longs to return to his father to enjoy the pleasures of the
palace, while the other thinks only of his father and his father’s longing for him. This is
the crucial ingredient in the cosmogenic service of Israel.
In the teaching of Levi Yitshak,77 the upper worlds of the Zohar and the lower
worlds of his master Dov Ber are combined; indeed, this is the very thrust of this homily.
The guiding principle, Levi Yitshak explains, is that one must cleave to God with all his
attributes, such as love, fear, and glory. Levi Yitshak’s use of such terms as middot,
which can mean “attributes” but also sefirot, and ahavah, yirah, and tiferet, which are the
names of individual sefirot, give this homily not only a devotional level but a
theosophical one as well. In this way we can better understand his statement that by
cleaving to God through each of the middot we create “the world of truth” or “the true
                                                                                                               
74
Torat ha-Maggid, 299; Or ha-Emet, fo. 8; Or Torah.
75
Literally, “Remember Your mercy, O LORD, and Your lovingkindness, for they are eternal.”
76
In the second usage, Dov Ber is raising the sefirot of ahavat hesed (lovingkindness) and yirah
(fear, awe) to their respective sources, chochmah (wisdom) and binah (understanding).
77
Qedushat Levi, Vayehi, 132.

  16  
world,” that is, the entire divine-cosmic spectrum embodied in the sefirot, containing
both upper and lower worlds.
Levi Yitshak concludes his homily with a statement evocative of his master’s
more radical interpretations of israel mefarnesei discussed above. If a man cleaves to all
of the middot, he not only becomes a “builder” along with God, he can stand in God’s
place. In Levi Yitshak’s words, “he is not under God, but the opposite – he is with Him in
cleaving.”
Ze’ev Volf of Zhytomyr returns the focus to the upper worlds, but with a twist. In
the Zoharic passage, an innovative word of Torah is called a new heaven or a new earth,
but even this newly created world is described as a bauble before the infinite King: “the
blessed Holy One…lifts that word, kisses her, and adorns her with seventy crowns,” or
“the Ancient of Days inhales the aroma of that word and it pleases Him more than
anything.” However much delight God may derive from it, the word is still only an
embellishment of and addition to the already existing divine infinity. Compare such an
image to the description found in Or ha-Meir:
We find in the Zohar that the Torah is called “the strolling place of the blessed
Holy One.” The Torah…is only fifty-three portions, and if it were all to be
written on a tent sheet, a man could only walk three or four steps in such a tent
– how could such a tent be the strolling place of the holy Blessed One, before
whom all the worlds are as nothing, and for whom no house can be built, and
who is the place of the world and not the opposite? Indeed, it is fitting to call
it this, for it is known that from Israel’s innovations and combinations in
Torah, new heavens and a new earth are made…

That is, the heavens and earth that Israel creates with their words of Torah are not
baubles to decorate God’s abode, but rather the very place in which God abides, strolls,
luxuriates. While not made explicit, the implication may be that, were it not for Israel’s
Torah innovations, God would, as it were, be living in “cramped quarters”; this would
match the more daring claims we have seen thus far, such as the Maggid’s comparison of
Israel to the older son who feeds his mother.
The student of the Maggid who seems to have had the greatest affinity with this
teaching of the Zohar is Menahem Nahum of Chernobil, who cites it repeatedly. In one
teaching,78 he employs it in explaining the role of the zaddiq: “If (heaven forbid) a Jew
                                                                                                               
78
Meor Einayim, Vayera, 56.

  17  
has uprooted himself from Torah…and the zaddiq merits to draw [him] close, [it is as if
God says to him,] ‘You too shall make with the words of your mouth a new heaven and a
new earth,’ as it is written in the Zohar, ‘Israel feed…’” It is not clear here whether the
Torah innovations are those of the Jew who has returned, or of the zaddiq who, “through
cleaving to God and being made one with Him,” innovates just the right words of Torah
to retrieve this lost soul. The second option seems closer to the Zohar’s original context,
while the first seems closer to the Maggid’s reading in that, by returning a Jew to Torah,
the zaddiq has fulfilled the purpose of creation, justifying God’s will to create and
allowing its continuation. Perhaps both readings are allowed for here.
In another homily based on this Zoharic passage,79 Menahem Nahum brings the
story of “the souls Abram had made in Haran,” traditionally understood as converts.
While this might be taken as support for the second reading above, which deals with
retrieving “lost souls,” R. Nahum’s kabbalistic interpretation of the term nefashot returns
the focus to the zaddiq and his Torah innovations. The souls, he explains, are actually the
“holy sparks” that fell into the “husks” after the great “breaking” or shevirah at creation,
according to the myth of the Isaac Luria. It is the role of the zaddiq to bind those sparks
to the divine portion within him through his words of Torah and prayer, and thus raise
them back to their “root.” This act of lifting up includes both elements of existence: the
divinely infused form, symbolized since medieval exegesis80 by “the heavens,” and the
physical matter, known as “the earth.” Thus, in this last homily, the creation of “new
heavens and new earths” is actually the restoration of fallen Creation to its original,
intended state, as in the first homily of the Maggid. A similar dynamic is at work in
another of R. Nahum’s teachings,81 in which, by purifying the dross from the letters
which are themselves embodiments of the shekhinah, the zaddiq restores them/Her to
their place in the upper realms.

                                                                                                               
79
Meor Einayim, Vaethanan, 339.
80
Menahem Nahum probably knew this concept from Nahmanides’ commentary on the opening
verse of Genesis, though it already existed in Medieval Jewish philosophical texts.
81
Meor Einayim, Liqutim, 417.

  18  
ZOHAR III, 232a: THE SHEKHINAH SPEAKS FROM THE THROAT OF MOSES
One of the Zoharic passages at the heart of the Hasidic revolution was the single
line, “the shekhinah speaks from Moses’ throat.” This line was used to inform the
fundamental Maggidic approaches to prayer and Torah, and to grant divine legitimacy to
these new approaches. In a homily82 very characteristic of the Maggid’s approach to
prayer, it is written:
The whole purpose of our prayer should be to bring the divine effulgence to
God’s glorious immanence, the shekhinah…Even if you pray for your own
needs, it should be with the intent that there should be no lack above, for the
soul is a part of God above, and is one of the “limbs” of the shekhinah. This is
the true essence of petitionary prayer, that Heaven should receive what it
needs and be fulfilled…(but it is not so with those who pray only for their
own needs, whom the Zohar compares to barking dogs)83…This is the
meaning of In me, my lord,84 let now your servant speak something into my
lord’s ears, for Your own voice, the World of Speech, speaks through me.85  

Here we see the tendency in the Maggid’s teaching which Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer
defined as “quietistic,”86 and which is totally in keeping with ideas about prayer
presented in the Zohar. The Maggid’s disciples would do much more with this phrase
than their master, however.
Ze’ev Volf cites this phrase, paradoxically, both to stress the singularity of Moses
and his prophecy and to legitimize the new teachings of the burgeoning Hasidic
movement. First87 he reads the word bo hyperliterally as “in him,” rendering the verse

                                                                                                               
82
Or Torah, Vayigash.
83
Tiqqunei Zohar 6, 22a.
84
A hyperliteral reading of bi, adoni which parallels the same reading of bo as “in him” seen
earlier.
85
Similar expressions are found in Tiferet Uziel, the collected writings of Uziel Meizlish of
Ostroha, a close disciple of the Maggid who has received little scholarly attention. In a homily
from his lengthy commentary on the Song of Songs (53) R. Uziel seems to condense the steps
taken by his peers across several homilies into one brief teaching: “It is known that the shekhinah
would speak from the throat of Moses, and even though ‘there never rose another like Moses,’
nevertheless there are many who merit this level, that the glorious shekhinah gives praise from
their throats.” Like Ze’ev Volf, R. Uziel allows for such a potential in every Jew. In a teaching
(25) on Judah’s plea before Joseph in Genesis 47 he writes, “When we approach God with our
praise and thanksgiving, God manifests Himself in us, as a person putting on a garment, for
‘saying’ can also mean ‘dressing.’ This is the meaning of ‘in me, my lord’ – when I pray I
become a vehicle for God who manifests within my throat.”
86
Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in 18th Century Hasidic Thought.
87
Or ha-Meir, Ki Tissa, 177a; Beha’alotecha, 77.

  19  
“God spoke in him,” and concluding that only Moses of all the prophets merited such
prophecy. Then88 he brings the Zoharic phrase89 “one with knowledge of God is called
Moses” to argue that the supernal knowledge (da’at) of Moses is found in every
generation, and so the zaddiq too can enter the “world of speech,” allowing the shekhinah
to speak from his throat so that becomes a living Tent of Meeting. Ze’ev Volf even
describes this state, apparently from personal experience, as hearing one’s voice as if it
belongs to another, and receiving the command or rebuke within it – sometimes, he
admits, the speaker does not even understand what he is saying, but it is nevertheless
beneficial for him to hear it.90 While here he seems to be speaking of the zaddiq, in
another homily91 he makes no such qualification, implying that any properly enlightened
Jew can reach this state, a claim consistent with his overall understanding of spiritual
abilities.
Levi Yitshak likewise starts by using the Zoharic phrase to establish the
supremacy of Moses, then to assign to Moses’ prophecy the unique ability of being
reinterpreted by each Jew, and also brings this phrase in his description of the ideal
prayer. In two similar homilies,92 he describes the prophecies of all other prophets as
obscure, “translated” by their own limited mind into a faulty language, while the
prophecy of Moses, that is, the Torah, is clear, because it is “translated by the holy
Blessed One.” In what seems to be a follow-up homily,93 he makes the argument that,
since the words of the lesser prophets are human, we cannot change them; the words of
Moses, on the other hand, can be reworked and reformed in each generation. While at
first this seems counterintuitive, there is a definite logic to it from Levi Yitshak’s point of
view: the Torah is divine raw material which can be shaped not only once but infinitely, a
special nature the “humanized” words of the other prophets do not share.
When Levi Yitshak shifts to speaking of prayer, he keeps Moses as his model,
enabling him to shift the concept of the shekhinah speaking from this throat from Torah
to prayer as well. Moses’ prayer, like his prophecy, was always at a uniquely high level.
                                                                                                               
88
Ibid., Hukkat, vol 2. 116.
89
Zohar II, 221a.
90
Or ha-Meir, Tezaveh, 158.
91
Ibid., Eiqev, 191.
92
Qedushat Levi, Toledot, 70; Bo, 169.
93
Ibid., Vaethanan, 380.

  20  
Thus his prayer was shegurah ve-nekubal, “fluent and accepted.” To understand the
meaning of this phrase in this context, we may turn to Levi Yitshak’s fellow disciple,
Elimelekh of Lizhensk, who explains this phrase in a homily94 on its source, a Talmudic
aggadah about R. Hanina ben Dosa:
To understand this we must understand the reason why a sick person is healed
when a zaddiq prays over him, for it seems as if there has been some change
in the Creator (which we should not even think!), who is truly of one single
and simple essence. But the fact is that all the worlds and every created thing
existed before Creation in potentia in the ayn sof, until it arose in God’s will
(so to speak) to create them, to manifest their potential. Therefore, everything
that will be already has been in the ayn sof: that this one should get sick, and
the zaddiq should beseech for him in prayer, and also that the Holy One of
Blessing should desire the prayer of the righteous, for through his prayer he
cleaves to the Creator, and this brings great delight to the Omnipresent One.
So we find that there is no change at all, only the manifestation of what
already was…And this is what Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa meant by “If my
prayer is shegurah,” not “fluent” but “well-known” – that he recognized that
this sickness and this prayer were known to him in potentia in the ayn sof, and
so he already knows of them...That is how he knows his prayer is accepted,
because it had always been, and there is no change at all.

So the merit of Moses’ prayer was that he prayed only for divine needs, not his own. Levi
Yitshak, then, reads “the shekhinah speaks from Moses’ throat” as an expression of this:
by emptying one’s prayer of one’s self, in the model of Dov Ber’s bittul ha-yesh ba-ayin,
one makes space for the shekhinah to enter and pray through him.

ZOHAR II, 82b: 613 COUNSELS.

It is striking but not surprising that, thus far, the most cited Zoharic passages deal
with the commandment of Torah study and, to a lesser extent, prayer, given the pride of
place they held in early Hasidism. The third most cited passage, found in II, 82b, is the
first to deal with the mitzvot as a whole:
Torah has given 613 counsels to a person in order for him to be complete with
his Lord, for his Lord wants to benefit him in this world and in the world that
is coming.

                                                                                                               
94
Noam Elimelekh, Vayechi.

  21  
 The Zohar’s statement is open-ended: mitzvot are counsels, but it gives no
indication of the subject of that counsel. The Maggid,95 following more closely than usual
in the footsteps of Israel Baal Shem Tov, defines this as advice in achieving the ultimate
religious value, devequt, cleaving to the divine. In a reversal of the phrase “the medium is
the message,” the mitzvot serve as not only advice but the actual vehicle for devequt.
They can do so because, quoting the Midrash Tanhuma, they are God’s emissaries and, as
in the stock rabbinic phrase, “a man’s emissary is considered like him” – that is, to a
certain extent, the mitzvot not only come from God but embody God. (Note that in
making this statement the Maggid has radicalized the midrash, transforming a mild
statement about honoring God through honoring the mitzvot to an equation of God with
the mitzvot – a foreshadowing of the Hasidic treatment of the upcoming Zoharic text.) So,
by cleaving to the mitzvot, that is, performing them with ahavah and yirah, one can
cleave to “the consuming fire” that is God.96
All of the Maggid’s students follow him in this understanding of the counsel
offered through the mitzvot, though some emphasize one aspect over another. So Levi
Yitshak, for example, explains the counsel as “how to come through the mitzvot to awe of
the Creator and love of Him,”97 while Menahem Nahum writes, “The Torah says,
‘Whoever wishes to cleave to the Creator, blessed be His name, should ask of me
counsel…and so the 613 mitzvot are called in the holy Zohar ‘counsels’.”98
Ze’ev Volf presents the most elaborate and nuanced homily based on this
passage.99 He opens with the famous question100 of why the Torah begins with Creation
and not the first mitzvah given to Israel in Exodus 12. Next he brings the midrash
mentioned above that God created the world in expectation of the good deeds of the

                                                                                                               
95
Torat ha-Maggid, Ha’azinu, 254-5; Or ha-Emet, Ha’azinu, fo. 70-1.
96
See the discussion in Sotah 14a. Here the Maggid quotes the set-up of that discussion, “Who
can cleave to God – is He not a consuming fire?” and apparently feels no compunction in
providing a completely different answer – not by cleaving to the sages as intermediaries but to the
mitzvot. This is striking, given the obvious applicability of the rabbinic answer to the Hasidic
doctrine of the zaddiq. Why the Maggid would choose to replace the traditional and hierarchical
answer with a new and democratizing one bears investigation which falls outside the parameters
of this paper.
97
Qedushat Levi, Pesah, 277.
98
Meor Einayim, Liqutim, 394. See also Pri ha-Aretz, Vayishlah, 28, Ki Tetzei, 126-7.
99
Or ha-Meir, Bereishit, 2.
100
Brought by Rashi on Genesis 1:1.

  22  
righteous. He then alludes to his master’s teaching on the phrase “The pre-eminence of
man over beast is ayin,”101 that it is only by nullifying one’s self in the divine nothingness
that one rises above his animal nature, instead cleaving to God in all one’s deeds and
restoring all of Creation to its root above, claiming that this is “the essence and the end of
the service of man in this world.” Thus in his opening paragraph R. Volf establishes as
the subject of the homily the purpose of Torah, of Creation, and of Israel’s service (all of
which turn out to be one and the same by the end of the homily).
Ze’ev Volf returns to the commandments, saying, “The entire Torah is composed
of the 613 mitzvot, through which we are sanctified to follow in God’s actions, as we say,
‘Who has sanctified us through His commandments’.” That is, performing mitzvot is a
form of imitatio dei, as R. Volf goes on to explain: “God does the commandments
Himself, and has sanctified us to resemble the Creator, and through them the enlightened
one can give counsel to his soul how to cleave to God; so the Zohar calls the 613 mitzvot
counsels.”

ZOHAR I, 170b: 248 LIMBS, 365 SINEWS.

We have already seen allusions to the idea that the commandments are somehow
an embodiment of God. A more explicit statement of this idea is found in Zohar I, 170b:
There are in a man 248 limbs paralleling the 248 commandments in the Torah
which were given to be done, and paralleling the 248 angels, in whom the
shekhinah is garbed, and they are named after their Master. And there are in
man 365 sinews, paralleling the 365 commandments which were given not to
be done, and paralleling the 365 days of the year, one of which the 9th of Av,
paralleling Samael, who is one of the 365 angels.

This is itself a treatment of a similar rabbinic correlation,102 which speaks only of 248
limbs and 365 days. The Zohar adds the idea of 365 sinews for the negative
commandments, complementing the 248 limbs for the positive ones, and, more
importantly for our purposes, the equation of the positive commandments with the
shekhinah (as well as at least one negative commandment with Samael).

                                                                                                               
101
From the morning liturgy, in the section beginning le-olam yehei adam.
102
Bavli Maqqot 23b.

  23  
 The Hasidic author who cites this passage the most, Levi Yitshak, surprisingly
does the least with it. He stays with the rabbinic correlation of the commandments with
the human body, only explicating the concept of a parallel spiritual – but not heavenly –
body which is nurtured by their performance. Even the midrashic claim103 that the earth
too has 613 limbs, which, when read in the light of the Zohar’s understanding of “earth”
(arez) as code for the shekhinah,104 begs to be used as a proof-text for building “the body
of the shekhinah” through performance of the commandments, is cited but untouched.105
Menahem Nahum of Chernobil, in a homily which also covers some of the same
themes and proof-texts seen in other sections of this paper, is willing to raise the
conversation from human to divine dimensions. “What is paralleling?” he asks, and
answers, “The commandments are, in reality, the limbs and the sinews.” This is the
meaning of the verse,106 “In the image of God did He make man” – that is, “in the image
of the Torah, for the Torah is a complete bodily form (qomah shelemah) of 248 spiritual
limbs and 365 spiritual sinews.” R. Nahum is clearly referring to the Zoharic equation107
of the Torah with the divine body. So, through divine service in general, and the
commandment of Torah study in particular, one “completes” the sefirotic anthropos. This
is how R. Nahum understands the verse108 brought above by the Maggid, “If he holds fast
to My refuge, he makes Me complete.”
An even more explicit connection is made in Tiqqunei ha-Zohar,109 in a passage
cited by both Levi Yitshak and, to much greater effect, Menahem Nahum:
Malkhut is called mitzvah because it includes all four letters [of the Four-
Lettered Name YHVH], for [the letters Mem and Tzadi] are in the at-bash110
system Yud and Heh…and it includes all the positive and negative
commandments. The negative commandments are from the side of judgment,
which is Elohim…and the positive commandments are from the right side,
which is mercy.

                                                                                                               
103
Qohelet Rabbah 1:4.
104
Zohar I, 50b.
105
Qedushat Levi, Bereishit, 6; Shelah, 337. Cf. Lech Lecha, 25; Vaethanan, 384.
106
Genesis 9:6.
107
Cf. for example, Zohar III, 73a.
108
Isaiah 27:5.
109
Tiqqun 29, fo. 73a.
110
A kabbalistic system of letter replacement in which the first and last letters of the aleph-bet are
interchanged, the next and next-to-last, etc.

  24  
I will first quote from the opening homily of Qedushat Levi111:
We join yesh and ayin through the mitzvot and Torah…This is what is written
in the Zohar,112 that the mitzvot and the Torah are hidden and revealed:
“hidden” hints at the ayin and “revealed” hints at the yesh, and both are joined
together. This is why it called mitzvah, for [the first two letters] Mem and Zadi
are in the at-bash system Yud and Heh, which is the aspect of ayin, and the
letters Vav and Heh are the aspect of yesh.

Thus far Levi Yitshak has done little more than paraphrase the Zohar in language
typical of the Maggid. Menahem Nahum113 has a nearly identical formulation, but takes
this concept to the next logical step:
Our sages said,114 “The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah,” meaning that God
gave us the commandments in order to cleave by them to Him, for mitzvah
can also mean bond.115 Thus, they said, “The reward of a mitzvah is bonding”
to God, and there is no greater reward than this…God, blessed be He, is
hidden and revealed, revealed in His actions, that is, the miracles and the
wonders that He did for us and does for us in every moment, and hidden in
His essence.
 
The same paradox of concealment and revelation – and revelation through concealment –
occurs in God and in the word mitzvah. Thus, through the performance of a
commandment one reveals that which is hidden/made manifest in the word and the act,
thereby cleaving to the divine within and above it.
It seems strange that Levi Yitshak and Menahem Nahum both choose to use the
Tiqqunim passage to identify the commandments with God, while specifically avoiding it
in the passage from the body of the Zohar; the latter actually seems more fitting, both in
its explicitness and in its use of the term shekhinah rather than the Four-Lettered Name,
identified with the higher sefirah of tiferet, since it is specifically the shekhinah and not
the higher realms which these texts so frequently identify with the commandments.116
I would suggest that both of these masters withheld from using I, 170b as a proof-
text for the idea that Israel’s performance of the commandments builds a “body” for the
shekhinah for the same reason. The problem, I believe, lay in the Zohar’s limiting of that
                                                                                                               
111
Qedushat Levi, Bereishit, 1.
112
Zohar III, 53b.
113
Meor Einayim, Beha’alotecha, 259.
114
Pirqei Avot 4:2.
115
From the Aramaic zavta, found in Bavli Moed Qatan 7b and Bava Batra 21a.
116
See, for example, Meor Einayim, Vayeizei, 110 and Liqutim, 462.

  25  
effect to the positive commandments, and in its associating at least some of the negative
commandments with the powers of evil, specifically Samael. Early Hasidism in
general,117 and Levi Yitshak and Menahem Mendel in particular, stayed away from
kabbalistic theologies which ascribed actual power and even personae to evil, preferring
instead to see evil in man as the yetzer hara,118 which can be channeled for good, and evil
in the world as a misperception on our part119 or, at most, the diminution of God’s
goodness.120 Thus the passage from the Tiqqunim, which speaks not of Samael but only
of din, judgment – which is essentially good and needs only be “sweetened” by joining it
with mercy121 – was chosen as the locus classicus.
One notable exception to this trend cites this very text, pointing out the
connection between the sinew of the thigh-socket and Samael122; this seems to me to be
the exception that proves the rule. My impression is that, in general, they wished to limit
the idea, both conceptually and textually, devoting far more ink to the positive result of
Israel’s service in general, and not dividing that service into positive and negative any
more than had already been done.123 I will speak more on this in my conclusion.
Neither Zohar I, 170b nor the passage from the Tiqqunim are to my knowledge
cited at all in Ze’ev Volf’s Or ha-Meir. This is particularly striking, since the main motif
of this text, mentioned in the vast majority of homilies as a given, is that Israel builds a
body for the shekhinah through their performance of the commandments. Here the
absence cannot be explained by Volf’s aversion to ascribing power to the forces of evil or
threatening his audience with too many warnings of the consequences of their
transgressions; on the contrary, these are mainstays in Or ha-Meir, as in this homily:

                                                                                                               
117
Green, Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, 15.
118
Meor Einayim, Yitro, 182; Vayaqhel, 211; Qedoshim, 240; Pinhas, 275; Vaethanan, 345;
Ha’azinu, 371; Liqutim, 379.
119
Meor Einayim, Bereishit, 9; Lech Lecha, 36, 37; Toledot, 89; Beshalah, 166; Pinhas, 274;
Vaethanan, 321; Liqutim, 384, 430.
120
Meor Einayim, Bereishit, 21; Vayeizei, 108; Masechet Pesahim, 537.
121
See no. 164.
122
Meor Einayim, Vayishlah,121.
123
In these texts the authors seem reluctant to even distinguish too sharply between commanded
actions and mundane actions performed in devequt, speaking without end of eating, drinking, and
sleeping as service, and using such phrases as “Torah, prayer, commandments, and other deeds.”
Art Green has dealt extensively with this approach to the commandments in his monograph,
Devotion and Commandment: Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination.

  26  
 If thought cleaves to and embraces the greatness of the Creator…how God’s
light fills and underlies all worlds, then “God is great in Zion,” that is, in the
heart, in the might of its perception…Then that individual becomes the
vehicle which plants the dimension of holiness in his midst. On the contrary,
when his thought turns to evil, then he and the entirety of his person become a
throne for the dimension of impurity…and his body becomes a graven image
for “other gods.”124

This sense of life as a high-stakes challenge with no middle-ground between victory and
defeat pervades Or haMe’ir. Perhaps instead R. Volf felt the concept too fundamental to
require any particular proof-text, choosing to tie it in to whichever text he was treating at
the time.

CONCLUSION
Now that we have seen all the texts, it’s time to address our original four
questions. First, from what strata of the Zohar are the most-cited passages taken, and
what does that suggest? We have seen that all such passages were taken from the body of
the Zohar, though one passage from the Tiqqunim is also frequently cited in close
relationship. It is slightly surprising that there is not more material from Tiqqunei ha-
Zohar, given the disproportionate number of citations of that text generally found in early
Hasidic texts, especially Or ha-Meir. Also, since all of the homilies brought above deal
with the commandments and their reasons, we might have expected to see at least one
citation from Ra’aya Mehemna. A similar exploration of Hasidic treatments of particular
commandments125 would reveal if this is a true absence due to the choices of the Hasidic
authors or an apparent one resulting from my own choice in how to approach this topic,
that is, by researching the most-cited passages, which puts explanations for individual
commandments at a disadvantage. Even at this early stage, however, I am willing to
suggest that the tendency we have seen to look at the commandments as a whole, or in
the paradigm of torah, tefillah, u-mitzvot, that is, Torah study, prayer, and [the rest of] the
commandments, reflects the greater tendency across Hasidism to view divine service as a

                                                                                                               
124
Or haMe’ir, Vaethanan, 330-1.
125
Some obvious choices would be phylacteries, lulav, matzah, and miqveh, all of which receive
individual attention and cite the Zohar.

  27  
(nearly) undifferentiated whole, which is as likely to include eating, drinking, and
business as to single out torah and tefillah.
Second, do certain themes emerge from among the Zoharic passages themselves?
The most obvious one to me, notable in most all of the passages, is the notion of
continuity – in creation, revelation, and redemption. Whether it is new heavens and earths
being made, God being fed or the body of the shekhinah being “built,” the entire process
is continuing in every moment. Likewise, revelation continues, through innovations in
Torah and the divinely animated speech of anyone with true knowledge of God. Both
bring the world closer to redemption, understood as a return to the primordial unity that
preceded the current state of the cosmos. The devequt that results for individuals in the
meantime is a hint of this ultimate unity. I also see in each of these passages the centrality
of Israel in cosmic processes and the divine need for that role. Last, only one of the
Zoharic passages (I, 4b-5a) contains a reference to any of the sefirot besides the
shekhinah and some unspecified higher entity. From a technical point of view, these are
incredibly simple passages, with none of the theosophic complexity that can be found in
the Zohar.
As for the third question, regarding the use the Hasidic texts make of the Zoharic
passages, it seems to me that all of these Zoharic themes are upheld in the Hasidic
treatments, and most of them even intensified. Israel not only feeds “the king” from his
own “banquet,” but becomes the elder son who feeds his mother by bringing the fruit of
his labors from outside the house. The parnasah which they bring, whether understood as
“delight” or “sustenance,” is the very reason for Creation; thus they bring about the
continued creation of all existence. The heavens and earth which they create with their
Torah innovations are not only embellishments of the upper realms but God’s very abode.
In the Zohar, in one text the shekhinah speaks from Moses’ throat and in another we are
told that any enlightened Jew may be called Moses; Hasidism explicitly joins these two,
and what’s more broadens the conversation from the elite circles of the mequbalim and
includes the whole community, so that indeed any Jew has the potential to hear the
shekhinah speaking from his throat. Israel can build the body of the shekhinah not only
with particular commanded rituals, but with any act properly performed. The only
element I do not see intensified here is that of redemption; the Hasidic treatments

  28  
maintain the same dynamic tension between messianic yearning and maintaining the
cosmic status quo that I sense in the Zohar.
In these homilies the Hasidic authors treat the Zoharic text, to a certain extent, as
Torah, that is, as raw material. However, they do not totally reshape the text as they
would the Pentateuch, even atomizing it until it loses all connection to its original
meaning and context. Rather, they treat it more as they do aggadic passages from the
Talmud, stretching its boundaries, integrating subtly different ideas, or radicalizing its
themes. The original passage is still recognizable in the interpretation, however, which is
usually not the case in Hasidic Biblical exegesis.
The approach we have seen to these passages parallels the Hasidic approach to
Torah in another way, as well: while any Pentateuchal or Zoharic verse is available for
interpretation and utilization, in the case of each text a small number of verses is used
again and again as staples of Hasidic exegesis. In the case of the Zohar, we have already
seen the handful of passages cited again and again to explain the commandments,
especially Torah study and prayer; when it came to other subjects, the school of the
Maggid was especially fond of citing I, 5a, “With Torah the blessed Holy One created the
world,”126 “They touched and did not touch,”127 “Torah and the blessed Holy One are
one”128 and its parallel “Torah, the blessed Holy One, and Israel are all one.”129 These are
the Zoharic parallels to the Biblical staples “The righteous one rules the fear of God,”130
“By the word of God were the heavens made,”131 “The whole earth is full of His
glory,”132 “You made all of them with wisdom,”133 “The beginning of wisdom is the fear
of God,”134 “You enliven them all,”135 and “Where is wisdom found?”136
Finally, how do these uses contribute to an overall approach to the
commandments within early Hasidic ideology as a whole? I believe I have addressed this
                                                                                                               
126
I, 5a.
127
I, 16b.
128
I, 24a.
129
III, 73a.
130
2 Samuel, 23:3.
131
Psalms 33:6.
132
Isaiah 6:3.
133
Psalms 104:24.
134
Psalms 111:10.
135
Nehemiah 9:6.
136
Job 28:12.

  29  
question repeatedly throughout the paper, so let me close by returning to the beginning,
and the question of sources. It seems clear to me after this investigation that the Zohar
was a, perhaps even the, formative text in the school of the Maggid. What we see above
is not merely Lurianism hung on Zoharic pegs. It is a genuine and probing recreation of
the Zoharic ethos. It confirms Moshe Idel’s suggestion that “the early Hasidic
masters…understood this classic of Jewish mysticism the same way they approached
other books of Judaism, namely as pointing to the values of devotion, ecstasy, and
exaltation.”137
I would like to conclude with two notes: one on the limits of this paper, and one
on possibilities for expansion. First, it is important to note what this paper has not done:
made any mention of the centuries worth of interpretation between the Zohar and the
Hasidic texts treating it. While it appears that the Hasidic masters were reading the Zohar
without the intermediation of commentaries dedicated to it, they were certainly reading
Cordoveran, Lurianic, and other Kabbalistic texts which did indeed interpret the Zohar in
particular ways. Such an attempt to trace earlier instances of the teachings we have seen
here and their possible routes of influence exceeds the scope of this paper, but would
make an excellent complement to it. This would enable us to parse out true creativity in
the exegetical realm versus the use of pre-existing interpretations in new and creative
social applications. Two other directions for further research, as already pointed out,
would be an exploration of Hasidic explanations of specific commandments and an
analysis similar to this one of non-Maggidic texts from early Hasidism, such as the
writings of Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, Pinhas of Korzec, and Nahman of Bratslav, as well
as later Hasidic texts. These would give us a much fuller picture of the understandings
and uses of the Zohar in Hasidism across communities and over time, of which this paper
is only a first step.

                                                                                                               
137
‘Heschel on Mysticism and Hasidism’, 92.

  30  
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