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In the previous chapter the Alter Rebbe explained why our Sages compare the performance of a mitzvah to a body, and one’s kavanah in performing the mitzvah to a soul. He stated that

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At this point the Alter Rebbe qualifies his earlier statement: Only those tzaddikim whose souls are on the level of Neshamah (i.e., the highest of the three soul-levels — Nefesh, Ruach and Neshamah

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In fact, the soul’s reward in the Garden of Eden, described before as the pleasure of “basking in the radiance of the Shechinah,” is actually the radiance of the Torah and mitzvot that the person observed while in this physical world, which have ascended to the supernal Sefirot.

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Having discussed the various “abodes” of souls — three Worlds in which the souls receive a reward commensurate with the level of their divine service during their life on earth — the Alter Rebbe now returns to the theme begun in ch. 38. There he noted that kavanah in mitzvot (which is the “soul

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וכשעוסק שלא לשמה ממש, לשום איזו פניה לכבוד עצמוHowever, when one engages in divine service explicitly not lishmah but for an ulterior motive of self-glorification,