Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

2.3 The end of time at the end of days. 
Rashaz sees time and space as the two factors that shape the condition of 
metaphysical exile in which the world has endured since its very creation. Inevitably, 
therefore, the transformation of the world at the redemption into God’s own dwelling 
place, the overthrowing of material limitations, and the sublimation of corporeality 
will all have an impact on time. Time will not cease to exist in the future-to-come. 
Like other elements of God’s creation, time, too, appears to exist in its own right 
only from the perspective of the created beings, while in fact it is a part of the 
divine.
194
For the time being, during the exile, God reveals His infinite will to the 
world by means of the Torah and commandments, as well as by certain ritual 
objects.
195
But in the future-to-come, He will reveal Himself in His transcendent 
mode (the light of 
sovev
) throughout all the worlds, so that He will be fully perceived 
by “the sense of vision” [
bi-re’iyah hushit
], at which point both time and space, 
192
See note 183 above. 
193
See TO 69c, where Rashaz directly refers to the river Dinur as the river of oblivion: “This is like 
the level of the Lower Gan Eden, that comes after this world, which requires immersion in the River 
of Fire that separates between them, in order to forget the disposition of material memory; for as long 
as one remembers materiality, one is not able of delight in Gan Eden [Appendix 19]. 
194
See MAHZ 
‘Inyanim
, 92. 
195
See chapter 2 above. 

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163 
without being annihilated, will no longer appear to contradict the divine infinity and 
transcendence.
196
Thus the status of time in the redeemed world conforms to the pattern 
wherein mundane reality continues to exist in a manner that does not obfuscate the 
absolute unity of God. In order to understand the change that will affect time after 
the resurrection, one has to return to Rashaz’s functional definition of time as 
primarily a measure of the flow back and forth [
ratso va-shov
] of the life-giving 
energy,
197
and of history as the process of gradual purification of worlds in 
preparation for the overflow of divinity. In the future-to-come, when the process of 
purification is completed, the limitation of materiality will be overturned and there 
will be no further need for the mode of 
ratso
. Consequently, the redeemed world will 
be the world of the overflowing divine abundance in the mode of 
shov
, from above 
to below.
198
If the rhythm of time in the exile has been regulated by the constant 
pulse of the divine energy that annihilates all existence by way of 
ratso 
only to re-
create it by way of 
shov
, then in the future-to-come, due to the abundance of the 
divine life-giving energy, the world will cease to vanish, however briefly, at every 
single moment.
Without the 
ratso
mode that pushes it forward, time will effectively stop. The 
resurrection of the dead will mark the end and the fulfilment of cosmic history, and 
the world will enter “the day that is entirely Sabbath” [
yom she-kulo Shabat
] or “the 
day that is entirely long and entirely good” [
yom she-kulo arokh ve-khulo tov
]. 
The Sabbath is a rupture in the course of the week, a transcendent moment 
that is separated from mundane time.
199
It interrupts the sequence of the six working 
196
See MAHZ 
‘Inyanim
, 93-4. 
197
See section 3.2 of chapter 1 above. 
198
See TO 2b-d. 
199
See for example MAHZ