והוא על דרך משל מחבל עב, שזור מתרי״ג חבלים דקים

This is analogous to a thick rope woven of 613 thin strands.

ככה חבל ההמשכה הנ״ל כלול מתרי״ג מצות

So, too, the “rope” of the downward flow mentioned above is comprised of the 613 mitzvot,14 each mitzvah being an individual thin strand.

וכשעובר ח״ו על אחת מהנה, נפסק חבל הדק וכו׳

When one violates one of them, G‑d forbid, a thin strand consisting of that particular commandment is severed….

Should an individual violate many commandments, G‑d forbid, then many strands are severed and the “rope” is grievously weakened. Sins punishable by excision (or death by divine agency) cause the entire “rope” to be severed, heaven forfend.

אך גם בחייב כרת ומיתה, נשאר עדיין בו הרשימו מנפשו האלקית

But even if one has incurred excision or death, there yet remains an impression within him of his Divine soul,

ועל ידי זה יכול לחיות עד נ׳ או ס׳ שנה, ולא יותר

and through this he may live until fifty (in the case of excision) or sixty years (in the case of death by divine agency), but no more.

ומה שכתוב בשם האריז״ל, שנכנסה בו בחינת המקיף וכו׳

(15As to the statement attributed to the AriZal, that the makkif, a transcendent level of life-force, enters such an individual, and so on,

Though unable to receive vitality from the internal aspect of G‑dliness, he is still able to receive vitality from this transcendent (lit., “encompassing”) level of G‑dliness. If this is indeed so, why can he not live longer than fifty or sixty years?

אינו ענין לחיי גשמיות הגוף

this is irrelevant to the life of the physical body,16 which cannot survive once there remains no vestige of the Divine soul,

ומיירי עד נ׳ שנה

and applies only until fifty years,

I.e., the transcendent level is also found within an individual only so long as he is able to remain alive by virtue of the impression of the Divine soul that is still within his body.

או בזמן הזה, וכדלקמן

or to the contemporary period, as will be noted.)

In this era, when a Jew’s vitality reaches him through becoming clothed in unholy media, it is possible for a person to live even after his soul has been sundered from its source in the Four-Letter Name of G‑d. This is why it is now possible for someone liable to excision or death by divine agency to live longer than fifty or sixty years. And during this time, the holy life-force which must be found within a Jew is received from the transcendent level, as the AriZal teaches.

Footnotes

1.Bereishit 2:7.

2.Devarim 32:9.

3.The Rebbe queries why the Alter Rebbe should have introduced the forthcoming analogy with the seemingly superfluous preamble, “The simple meaning of the words ‘He blew’ is to instruct us….”

He proposes that the Alter Rebbe added these words in order to resolve a difficulty which would otherwise be inexplicable. For according to the Alter Rebbe’s explanation, the soul is drawn down in a number of successive stages: its initial source is the internal aspect of the life-force, and thereafter the internal aspect (the “breath”) of speech. (Both these concepts are adduced from the words “He blew,” which indicates inwardness, as mentioned above.) The soul later progresses through the letters of speech (for the Utterance “Let us make man” is composed of actual letters of speech, and does not derive from “blowing”, which is an aspect of breath). Only then does it become actually enclothed within the body of man. This ultimate stage, then, the implanting of the soul “into his nostrils,” comes about from speech, not from G‑d’s having “blown”.

Now speech is heard even if there is an obstruction between speaker and listener. Accordingly, when describing the soul already situated in the body, how is it appropriate to use the image of exhaled breath, that can be prevented by an obstruction from arriving at its destination?

It is this question that the Alter Rebbe answers by saying that the “simple meaning” of the verse is to “instruct us” that even after the Utterance “Let us make man,” i.e., even when the investiture of the soul in the body takes place by means of speech, it still retains the characteristics of “blowing”.

Just as an obstacle can obstruct the passage of breath, so, too, sins can obstruct the soul’s lifeline to G‑dliness. This explains why other creatures which derive their nurture through Divine “speech” are not subject to excision, for the sound of speech can penetrate an obstruction. Souls, however, throughout their sojourn in the body, constantly depend on the nurture which is (so to speak) blown into them; they must always have an unobstructed path to their life-source.

4.The first edition of Iggeret HaTeshuvah here cited the instance of a person blowing “into the lungs of an animal.” The Rebbe once explained that this example was chosen because the Alter Rebbe wanted to draw on a source from the Torah, and according to Torah law (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De‘ah, beg. Sec. 39) an animal’s lungs are to be examined by being inflated.

5.Yirmeyahu 23:24.

6.Yeshayahu 6:3.

7.Tikkunei Zohar 51.

8.Devarim 4:39.

9.Zohar III, 255a.

10.59:2.

11.Tehillim 135:6.

12.Parentheses are in the original text.

13.Vayikra 22:3.

14.The Rebbe notes that the Alter Rebbe here offers a remarkably novel thought — that every Jew receives vitality in this world from all 613 mitzvot, even though the commandments given to Kohanim do not apply to commoners, many commandments cannot be performed simultaneously, and the like.

Possibly, continues the Rebbe, this may be understood in light of the Alter Rebbe’s explanation in Kuntreis Acharon, in the essay that begins, “To Understand the Details of the Laws…” (p. 159b.) [There the Alter Rebbe writes that even the laws that perhaps never have practical application derive from Supernal Wisdom.]

15.Parentheses are in the original text.

16.At this point the Rebbe refers the reader to Likutei Torah, Devarim 62c, where the Alter Rebbe explains that excision applies only to the level of “Yaakov” within the soul, but not to the level of “Yisrael”. He also cites Likutei Torah, Devarim 83b, where the Alter Rebbe speaks of one who has incurred excision. Though of him it is written, “For my father and mother have forsaken me,” yet the continuation of the same verse (Tehillim 27:10) also applies to him: “…but G‑d has taken me in.” The encompassing level of the soul remains intact. Though within his soul the Jew’s innate love of G‑d is not manifest (“does not shed light”), yet in him too this love is still present, though concealed.