Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

particular.
19
The era of the resurrection is also associated with the reward granted to 
the righteous for their deeds, an association that seems to play down the difference 
between the exile and the messianic days.
20
This is why, in some places, Rashaz 
explains that while the righteous enjoy their reward for fulfilling the commandments 
in both eras, the reward they receive in the messianic days is material [
sakhar 
gashmi
], whereas in the resurrection they will receive a spiritual reward [
ha-sakhar 
ha-ruhani
].
21
This spiritual reward exceeds the imaginable, in line with the prophetic 
17
In 
Tanya 
Rashaz makes a distinction between worship before and during the messianic days, 
according to the different purposes it serves at each stage. Worship before the messianic days serves 
to purify the divine sparks, while in the messianic days, when all the sparks have been purified, it 
facilitates unifications both with and within the divine realm by way of the inner dimension of Torah. 
See T4, 26:145a. 
18
See for example LT 
Va-yikra 
4d. 
19
See for example LT 
Hukat
64c-d. See also 
Tsav 
15d-16a, according to which the Jews will merit 
the resurrection in the future by virtue of their labour and enslavement to money in the present. The 
resurrection is compared here to the liberation of Passover. 
20
Admittedly, Rashaz’s corpus contains some statements that suggest the opposite. See for example 
LT 
Shabat shuvah
64b, where the reward is unambiguously associated with the days of the Messiah. 
In this case, the new way in which the believers will experience the divinity is to be the main 
distinction between the exile and the redemption in the messianic days. I will elaborate on this below. 
21
LT 
Nitsavim 
50b. 

---

122 
claim that “since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by 
the ear, neither hath the eye seen, o God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him 
that waiteth for him” [Is 64:4].
22
As their spiritual reward, the righteous will be 
elevated and incorporated in the divine holiness,
23
the divine will, and the supernal 
delight [
ta’anug ‘elyon
],
24
While their material reward, as in the Talmudic statement, 
will amount to the overthrowing of the foreign nations that oppress the Jewish 
people in exile. 
The emphasis placed on the divine will and supernal delight, both of which 
are associated in the Godhead with 
Keter
, links the idea of reward with the 
resurrection of the dead by means of the divine dew.
25
According to Rashaz, this dew 
originates in 
Keter
and represents the overflow of the life-giving light of 
Ein Sof
, 
which is so intense that it revives the dead.
26
Since the light confined in the dew 
bypasses the order of concatenation and enters the world directly from the most 
22
Rashaz refers here to the statement of Rabbi Hiya bar Abba [
b
Berakhot 34b], who said in the name 
of Rabbi Yohanan that the prophets prophesized only with regard to the days of the Messiah, “but as 
for the world to come, ‘no eye hath seen, oh God, beside Thee’ [Is 64:4].”
23
LT 
Nitsavim 
50c. 
24
MAHZ 
5566
, ii, 703-4. In both the 
ma’amarim
that deal with the material versus the spiritual 
reward, Rashaz replaces the terms ‘messianic days’ and ‘resurrection of the dead’ with ‘Lower’ and 
‘Upper’ Garden of Eden respectively [