Part Six: Singularity – Jewish History – Chabad.org – Chabad.org

One of the features of any hemshekh delivered over the course of several months is that the main topical theme, in this case hokhmah, is often combined with several different temporal themes, following the weekly Torah portion and the calendrical festival cycle. In Vakakhah this is handled with particular agility. At the beginning and end of the hemshekh, and at many points along the way, the overall temporal theme is redemption and the exodus from Egypt. But as summer draws to a close and the festive period of Tishrei begins, the Passover associations recede into the background, and questions about the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and the process of atonement and return to Gd (teshuvah) on Yom Kippur become the new frame through which to examine the same questions about being and existence, and the different categories of religious engagement.

Continuing this temporal journey, a significant segment of the hemshekh is devoted to the specific mitzvot that mark the celebration of Sukkot. Following a passage from the kabbalistic work Mishnat Hasidim, these mitzvot are specifically associated with daat, usually translated as knowledge, but often interpreted in Chabad literature to mean recognition and connection. Daat, R. Shmuel adds, is not simply the faculty whereby we consciously bind ourselves to Gd on an individual level. It is also the faculty whereby we unite hokhmah with binah, the Gdly soul with the animalistic soul, andultimatelyGd with the created world.

Daat, though usually enumerated as the third and last of the cognitive sephirot, is here described as capturing and revealing the all-encompassing singularity of Gd in a way that even hokhmah cannot. The relationship of hokhmah to the transcendence of keter has already been characterized with the words cleaving and receptivity, such that it belongs more to the realm of divine nothingness than to the realm of created somethingness. In contrast, R. Shmuel cites the Lurianic dictum that, when daat is enumerated [among the ten sephirot] keter is not enumerated, and when keter is enumerated daat is not enumerated, concluding that daat is in exchange with the place of keter. This novel formulation, which occurs in Vekakhah for the first time, sharpens the Lurianic correspondence between daat and keter to the point of synonymy. This gives new meaning to the classic dictum the ultimate degree of knowledge (daat) is to not know. Daat is the point of connection and exchange between knowledge and the unknowable.

The resulting reversal of the hierarchical relationship between hokhmah and daat is elaborated through a hermeneutical gloss to a well-known passage from Tiqunei Zohar: You are one, and not enumerable. You are one who has emanated ten faculties (tequnin). The repetition of the clause you are one, implies that two distinct articulations of divine unity are intended. Otherwise, R. Shmuel reasons, it should have read, You are one, and not enumerable, who has emanated ten faculties. The inenumerable one, he continues, refers to keter, which entirely transcends the enumeration of the ten sephirot, and it is precisely this station that is indeed enumerated when daat and keter are exchanged:

It is accordingly understood why daat brings to that which is not known, meaning even that station that one cannot connect with through the cognition of hokhmah For it is impossible for hokhmah to grasp this nothingness, for which reason [hokhmah] it[self] is called nothing Nevertheless, through daat, with complete bonding and cleaving, which is the meaning of the ultimate degree of knowledgemeaning the ultimate bond with the not knownone comes to connect even with what is impossible to connect with through the grasp of hokhmah for daat is that which is not known.

Hokhmah grasps the unbridgeable distance between the transcendent nothingness of divine being (you are one) and the concrete somethingness of creation (who emanates ten faculties). Daat is the point of connection and exchange between immanent knowledge and unknowable transcendence (you are one, and not enumerable). Daat grasps the realms of nothingness and somethingness as a singular whole, and therefore has the ability to communicate the ultimate degree of unknowable knowledge, making creation transparent to ineffable divinity.

Drawing on classical rabbinic texts that highlight the theme of unity embodied in the mitzvot of Sukkot, and on kabbalistic texts that highlight the connection of these mitzvot to daat, R. Shmuel specifically illuminates the significance of the four species (arba minim) in light of the above:

Though they are physical plants, which apparently have no advantage over other kinds of plants, nevertheless, after contemplating the manner of their growth, they are indeed different from other plants The palm branch must be tight leaved; the myrtle branch must have three leaves at one node; the willows grow in bushy solidarity; the citron has the further advantage of combining the seasons All this attests that in them the nothingness shines more, to the degree that their physical boundaries are effaced so that they can carry and tolerate opposing qualities For this reason these four species were chosen that through them, specifically, daat shall be drawn forth on the Sukkot festival and we explained above that daat is in exchange with the place of keter, that it is in the place of the one, and not enumerable etc., which is the same concept as the ultimate degree of knowledge is not to know, and it is this daat that is drawn into the souls of the Jewish people, that there should be recognition, feeling, and strong cleaving to Gd And in the future-to-come this will be revealed, as it is written no man shall teach [his fellow], for all of them shall know me In the future-to-come they shall know me through the drawing forth of daat in the present

Hokhmah is the genesis of revelation and redemption. It is the point of effacement from which everything must begin. But hokhmah itself is empty. Hokhmah faces the cosmic gap between Gd and the world, and thereby embodies a receptacle that has the potential to be filled. But the work of redemption is the work of connection and internalization, the overcoming of the cosmic gap, the expansion of the point of effacement into understanding, breadth of mind, and transformation of character. This process is orchestrated and celebrated through the mitzvot prescribed in the Torah. But R. Shmuel emphasizes that the primal locus of this work is in the heart of man, and in accord with the refinement achieved in the heart of man, in direct proportion, each individual draws divinity into the world, for each individual refines their portion in the world. Therefore, when all of them shall know me, connecting literally with me, then this,the literal self of Gdwill be drawn forth in the world as well. Knowledge (daat) resides in the heart, but it is cultivated and communicated through the practice of the mitzvot and the calendrical cycle of Jewish life.

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Part Six: Singularity - Jewish History - Chabad.org - Chabad.org