The language of the "Images of Tanya"

[From the Postscript [©S. D. Cowen, 2002] “The Religious Content of Victor Majzner’s Recent Work” in L. Astbury, Earth to Sky – The Art of Victor Majzner, Melbourne: Macmillan Art Publishing , 2002]

The word "Torah" - the Hebrew Scriptures with the "oral law", its continuous tradition of commentary - signifies "instruction" for the good - sanctified - life. So also the teaching which it sets out about the nature of the creation and about the way in which G-d relates to the creation is for the purpose of fulfillment of daily precepts in life: those associated with belief in, and perception of the unity, and the love and awe, of G-d. Belief in G-d is the foundation of the observance of all the other precepts of the Bible, whether those pertaining to Jews or to Gentiles[1], and the ways and means of fulfilling this precept is to be found both in legal commentaries (such as the Code of Maimonides) and also in mystical commentaries, such as the second book of Tanya, "The Gate of Unity and Belief".

The last mentioned work, which is the text illustrated by the "Images of Tanya", explains the significance of the account at the beginning of Genesis of the ten utterances - Divine fiats - through which the world was created. These utterances, such as "Let there be light", "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters…" refer to major sections of the creation. Nevertheless, according to mystical teaching from these engendering utterances - words and letters of Divine speech - all the other entities of creation are derived. Moreover, not only through Divine speech, that set out in Torah, was the world once created, but, as elucidated in the teaching of Chassidus, starting with its founder, the Ba'al Shem Tov, is created ex nihilo continuously. Without the constant reiteration of the Divine speech, and its act of creation, all of creation would revert to absolute nothingness, as before the creation the first time.

The scriptual verse, "Know this day and take unto your heart that G-d is the L-rd in the heavens above and upon the earth below; there is no other[2]" intimates the Divine unity and the Divine creative act in the creation, the dimensions of which are to be elucidated in the course of this work. [see first Image of Tanya on Chapter One of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

Hebrew is unlike any other language. It is called the "Holy Language" since the letters and the words, which it contains, do not simply refer, in a way established by convention and usage, to objects. Rather, the letters and their combinations, words in Hebrew, encode the essence of the entities to which they refer and are the Divine instruments which have made them what they are. Just as human breath is made into the sounds of speech by the five articulatory parts of the mouth, so too the Divine breath, an analogy for the Divine engendering creative life force, is articulated by five "limiting" mechanisms to produce the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew. These in turn, through their webbing and combination are the instruments of all that exists in the creation. but the inner vitality of the entities of creation. This is symbolized in the verse "You give life to all things", the word You (Atoh), referring to the Divine essence, hints at this: the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (alef and tof) with the letter heh, which has the numerical value of five signifying the five parts of the mouth. [see second Image of Tanya on Chapter Two of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

Just as breath gives possibility and existence to any specific word which might be articulated within that breath, so also, among the powers of G-d, there is a transcendent, infinite power which engenders the existence of any entity ex nihilo. This is a power unlike anything which exists in the creation, where we see that something comes only from something. It is denoted by the tetragrammaton, the ineffable four-lettered name of G-d  (the letters of which are here [in the text] so rearranged so as to be read Havayeh) In English it has been rendered as the word "G-d", as distinct from "L-rd" in translation of the verse, "Know this day and take unto your heart that G-d is the L-rd in the heavens above and upon the earth below; there is no other". This power is the animating life force of every entity in the creation. Even though, as we shall see, the vitality which is internally or inwardly experienced within each entity is a contracted modicum or ray of this infinite "light", nevertheless the engendering power of the existence ex nihilo of everything is present in everything. Consequently, everything is absolutely nullified to - its existence dissolved within - this transcendent light. The sense of the absolute nullity and dependence of the creation upon transcendent G-dliness, is termed "the higher level of Divine unity". It is the transcendent engendering life force, which operates constantly, reiteratively, to hold every thing in existence. [see third Image of Tanya on Chapter Three of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

The way in which specific entities are brought into existence is through a power of contraction. It is this Divine power, which fashions, so to speak, vessels which "let through" and "refract" the light in such a manner as to produce from something "simple", infinite and undifferentiated, the multiplicity of differentiated, finite entities in creation. A metaphor for this is that of a coloured screen or filter, held over a light source. The "vessels" articulate within the "light" the specific entities, as hinted at in the aperture within the coat, through which the mountain, a specific created entity, appears. [see fourth Image of Tanya on Chapters Four and Five of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

The term contraction (tzimtzum) must be understood carefully. It does not mean that the infinite life force - the "light" - has actually been contracted, has become less than infinite. Rather vis-à-vis the created entity, it has been screened out, so that the entity can so to speak, experienced a reduced and articulated vitality, which is commensurate with its own finite form. Without this screening out, it would be nullified in its very existence. This is the experience of G-dliness from the perspective of the creation itself. This level of the Divine unity is called the lower level of the Divine unity, where from within the creation, from within darkened realm of vessels, one is able to appreciate the light beyond, though not seen or perceived as it actually is, as the source of creation.

The fact that both these Divine powers or attributes (of infinite engendering life force, and of contraction and limitation) can coexist and operate at one and the same time is due to the fact that both are attributes of - that is potencies, created and brought forth by - G-d Himself. Hence the limiting, contracting power does not in fact limit (other than vis-à-vis the experience of the created entity) the infinite power which animates them constantly ex nihilo. Nor does the infinitude of the power maintaining every creature in existence nullify the finite form of each entity. Both attributes are powers, ineffable as Divine powers, "contrary" and yet brought into coexistence by G-d Himself. "He and His attributes are one". [see fifth Image of Tanya on Chaptes Six and Seven of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

The s'firos are the totality of the Divine attributes, associated also with Names of G-d in scripture. Just like the names Havayeh and Elokim, representing certain Divine powers, addressed in the preceding images, so all the s'firos are united with G-d, inasmuch as, whilst themselves being creations of G-d with which to build and direct the creation, they have the ineffable quality and sublimity of the One who directs them. Above the ten s'firos is kesser, the "crown", loftier than them, and an intermediary between transcendent G-dliness and the immanent order of the ten s'firos. The s'firos are drawn in various ways into the letters of the Hebrew language to animate and give them their various qualities. The letters are thus wholly "nullified" to their proximate source, the s'firos. [see sixth Image of Tanya on Chapter Eight of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

The G-dly essence, G-d Himself, referred to as Atzmus, literally the "Itself-ness" of G-dliness, is beyond all notion of lights and vessels, beyond the s'firos, and needless to say the letters of creation. Everything, the s'firos, the letters of creation, and of course also the physical entities of creation themselves are all equally - the highest and the lowest - without all significance - in comparsion to Atzmus. All of them are creations, at different levels and forming a hierarchy, a "chain", but all are equally animated by, and so nullified to, G-d Himself. [see seventh Image of Tanya on Chapter Nine of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]

Having removed level by level from the plane of the entities of material creation to their proximate source, the letters of the Hebrew language and from the letters of Hebrew to their source, the s'firos, and from the s'firos to G-dliness Itself (Atzmus), it remains now to "return" to see or experience how Atzmus is "invested" or "enclothed" in the levels beneath It.  This occurs first by understanding how Atzmus is united with, enclothing Itself in the s'firos, so that their qualites, though created, are unknowably exalted. Atzmus has chosen to associate and express itself in and through them [see eighth Image of Tanya on Chapter Ten of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”]. In turn the G-dly powers of the s'firos are drawn into the letters and words of Divine speech, the instruments which are to articulate the concrete creation [see ninth Image of Tanya on Chapter Eleven of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”].  Finally, the concrete entities of heaven and earth, appear, their essence encoded in the letters of Divine speech. It is seen that - via the letters (encoding the essence of the concrete creations), into which are drawn the powers of the s'firos and through the s'firos which are united with the Creator, Atzmus - the concrete creations of heaven and earth are the power of Atzmus Itself [see tenth Image of Tanya on Chapter Twelve of “The Gate of Unity and Belief”].

It is significant figuring in every image is the coat of a person. Not only are the letters of Divine speech analogous to human speech, so also the s'firos relate to the form and faculties of the human soul: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, kindness, severity, compassion, victory, acknowledgment, foundation and kingship. This is not an athropomorphizing of the Divine. G-d is in no way human, but He has created a spiritual infrastructure for creation, a macrocosm which corresponds to the soul faculties of the human being, through which the human can relate to the Divine.

More significant for this work, however, is the fact that the coat symbolizes the idea of a garment. A garment relates to the specificity of its wearer: it is its measure. The act of creation, which is the province of Atzmus alone, not only animates and sustains each concrete entity in existence; it also delimits and gives the entity its specificity. Thus the power of Atzmus is the whole and specific being - the measure - of the concrete entity. This idea was captured in the heading given to an article reviewing the Tanya Image watercolours, by Rod Myer: "Picturing G-dly actions in simple things"[3]. In the language of Chassidic thought, the visual metaphor of the garment intimates "the essential truth of every created entity, in its specific character and being, [namely, as] the 'word of G-d', the specific utterance which is enclothed in it"[4].

[1] The seven laws of the descendents of Noah, comprising prohibitions upon idolatry, blasphemy, illicit sexual relations, murder, theft, cruelty to animals, and upon the failure to set up orderly processes of justice.

[2] Deuteronomy 4:39.

[3] The Age, 3 September 2001.

[4] Likkutei Sichos Vol. 29, p. 23. Emphasis added.