Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

The Sages
, 335-336. 
97
According to Rashaz, this is hinted at in the opening words of the weekly Torah portion 
Lekh lekha
: 
“Now the Lord had said to Abram, get thee out of thy country” [Gen 12:1]”. Rashaz decodes the name 
Abram as meaning “the exalted father” [
av ram
] and associates it with the divine name of 45. God’s 
command to leave the country therefore refers to the beginning of the descent of the name 45 into the 
lower worlds and the beginning of the process of their emendation [
tikun
]; see TO 10a-b. 

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92 
Consequently, the divine will reveals itself in the mode of 
hitsoniyut
only within the 
material, exilic world, by means of ritual, and as a result of the physical labour 
performed by the Israelites during their period of enslavement in Egypt.
Paradoxically (and following the ambivalence of the concept of worship by way of 
hitsoniyut
), the revelation in the realm below the order of concatenation is of a 
higher level than the revelation within it, as it draws down the sublime aspect of the 
divinity that is located above the order of concatenation. Both these aspects are 
beyond (either above or below) the sefirotic order, and as such they lack any system 
of reference that could relate them to any hierarchy. Effectively, 
sub specie 
aeternitatis 
they are equal: for God, the lofty Wisdom and the lowly, physical 
‘Making’ [
‘asiyah
] are the same, for He made everything in (or by means of) His 
Wisdom.
98
To recap, Rashaz re-evaluates the exile in Egypt, turning it into much more 
than a precondition for the revelation of God at Sinai. On account of the humility and 
the immersion in materiality that marked the experience of the Egyptian exiles, they 
merited a revelation of the divinity that originated above the order of concatenation 
and pierced through the external, material aspect of reality. According to Rashaz: 
“The Jews merited [the Giving of the Torah] thanks to of their enslavement in Egypt 
‘in morter, and in brick’ [Ex 1:14], for by dint of this the 
sitra ahara 
was 
subjugated.”
99
In other words, the Israelites were redeemed from Egypt for the sake 
of their mundane activity. By employing the ambiguity of the Hebrew word 
homer
(meaning either mortar or matter), Rashaz suggests that the Israelites merited the 
redemption by virtue of their work (which could mean either labour or worship, as 
both are designated by the word 
‘avodah
, derived from the same root as “slavery” 
[
shi’abud
]) within materiality. 
98
Elsewhere (LT 
Ba-midbar
18c), Rashaz refers to the 28 times (
‘itim
) enumerated in Ecc 3:2-8, in 
order to express the similar idea that the external will be incorporated in the internal at the time of the 
redemption. According to this interpretation, the verse: “A time to embrace, and a time to refrain 
from embracing” [Ecc 3:5] refer, respectively, to the time of the Giving of the Torah and the time of 
exile. At the Giving of the Torah, God conversed with Israel “face to face” [
panim el panim
], which 
means that the world was united with God to the extent that “even the hind-parts [
ahorayim
] were 
included in the aspect of face [
panim
].” 
99
TO 65b [Appendix 17]. 

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93 
Having crossed the Red Sea and left Egypt, the Israelites, now liberated from 
slavery, were about to embark on a forty-year journey in the wilderness, divided 
further into forty-two stages [see Nm 33]. In Rashaz’s teachings, this journey, too, 
constitutes a part of the redemptive process, as well as being a paradigm of the future 
redemption.
100
The wilderness symbolises the domain of evil husks
101
and is 
associated with the gentile nations,
102
namely, the lowly and “external” aspect of the 
creation, sustained by the excess of life-giving energy that flows to them indirectly 
via Israel.
103
Accordingly, the purpose of Israel’s forty-two-stage journey in the 
wilderness is to cut off the external forces from the flow of divine energy. As long as 
the husks can draw on this life-giving energy, the Israelites are not entirely free but 
rather trapped within the limits and boundaries of the material world. The forty-two 
stops on their journey in the wilderness are the stages through which they set 
themselves free. 
Just as the source of entrapment within boundaries lies in the creation of the 
world, so the ability to free oneself is rooted in the creation of man. The Jew was 
created as God’s subject, a concept supported by the principle that “There is no king 
without a nation.”
104
His task is to transform the material world into God’s 
dominion. For this reason he was created as a dual entity: in God’s image and after 
100
See LT 
Mas’ei 
88c-89a. 
101
Because the Bible describes it as the place of “fiery serpents and scorpions” [Dt 8:15]. 
102
Based on Ezekiel’s reference to the wilderness as the “wilderness of the people” [Ez 20:35]. 
103
Rashaz compares the Congregation of Israel [